The Double Movement in Africa: A Nkrumah-Polanyi Analysis of Free Market Fatigue in Ghana’s Private Sector

Karl Polanyi’s double movement is a key tool for conceptualising free market fatigue in African business communities wrought by the insecurities of trade liberalisation. Synthesising Polanyi with the work of Kwame Nkrumah on neo-colonialism, the article argues that exhausted business communities in Africa can contest free market reforms and push for a return to developmentalist strategies, underscoring a double movement. In this discussion, it highlights Ghana, a donor darling in terms of historical implementation of free market reform. It builds upon the author’s engagement with 66 interviewees - business people and policy stakeholders – in relation to the condition of that country’s poultry and tomato industries. Unpacking interviewee narratives, the article points to a striking common theme, namely that business stakeholders call for the re-embedding of the economy via developmentalist strategies to move beyond neo-colonial trade systems. In this vein, the article provides an original contribution to studies of International Political Economy by demonstrating the efficacy of a Nkrumah-Polanyi ensemble for making sense of business communities’ potential role in countermovements for developmentalism in Africa.