SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Sabaratnam, Meera (2013) 'History repeating? Colonial, socialist and liberal statebuilding in Mozambique.' In: Chandler, David and Sisk, Timothy D., (eds.), Routledge handbook of International Statebuilding. London: Routledge.

[img]
Preview
Text - Draft Version
Download (455kB) | Preview

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.

Item Type: Book Chapters
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > Department of Politics & International Studies
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Law and Social Sciences > Department of Politics and International Studies
ISBN: 9780415677028
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203370377-17
Date Deposited: 13 Sep 2013 11:54
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/17067

Altmetric Data

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
481Downloads
6 month trend
604Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item