Thinking Freedom in Africa. Michael Neocosmos

of liberal-democratic state systems in most of the continent. This form of state became both the norm and a condition for the spread of neo-liberal capitalism in Africa. South Africa is, after all, probably the most consistently politically neo-liberal of African countries, at least in the eyes of empire, which regularly sets it up (along with Botswana and Mauritius) as a model for the continent. What was optimistically named the ‘second independence’ of the continent was not born exclusively of the neo-colonial imposition of neo-liberal economic policies; it was also, and primarily in South Africa, the result of mass popular movements which, for a while at least, challenged the dominance of capitalist hegemony and its attendant state modes of rule. Given that this period is occluded today, it is imperative to provide an assessment of it, especially as it produced a number of political innovations of universal significance.