SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This chapter looks briefly at three successive attempts at statebuilding in Mozambique and draws out interesting elements of continuity between them in terms of political authority, political economy, and public administration practices. These are the colonial New State from 1930 to 1974, the socialist post-independence state from 1975 to 1989, and the liberal post-conflict restructuring from 1990 onwards. Mozambique has counted among one of the major early ‘success stories’ of post-conflict peacebuilding in that it brought formerly warring parties into a generally peaceful and regular electoral cycle, its central government has expanded its provision of public services, and it has had high year-on-year economic growth since the end of the war in the early 1990s. Yet it is also the case that the attempted ‘liberal’ statebuilding practices have tended to have distinctively ‘conservative’ effects in terms of state-society relations, often reproducing rather than transforming power and authority. The chapter will focus on three central themes: political authority, political economy, and public administration. These are dimensions of statebuilding that overlap and have tended to mutually reinforce one another. The discussion will trace approaches to statebuilding in each period before analyzing them together.