European University Institute Library

Transforming Mozambique, the politics of privatization, 1975-2000, M. Anne Pitcher

eng

index present

non fiction

Transforming Mozambique

electronic resource

dictionaries

228111113

M. Anne Pitcher

African studies, 104Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

the politics of privatization, 1975-2000

Many of the economic transformations in Africa have been as dramatic as those in Eastern Europe. Yet much of the comparative literature on transitions has overlooked African countries. This 2002 study of Mozambique's shift from a command to a market economy draws on a wealth of empirical material, including archival sources, interviews, political posters and corporate advertisements, to reveal that the state is a central actor in the reform process, despite the claims of neo-liberals and their critics. Alongside the state, social forces - from World Bank officials to rural smallholders - have also accelerated, thwarted or shaped change in Mozambique. M. Anne Pitcher offers an intriguing analysis of the dynamic interaction between previous and emerging agents, ideas and institutions, to explain the erosion of socialism and the politics of privatization in a developing country. She demonstrates that Mozambique's political economy is a heterogenous blend of ideological and institutional continuities and ruptures.--, Provided by publisher

The reconfiguration of the interventionist state after independence -- Demiurge ascending: high modernism and the making of Mozambique -- State sector erosion and the turn to the market -- A privatizing state or a statist privatization? -- Continuities and discontinuities in manufacturing -- Capital and countryside after structural adjustment -- The end of Marx and the beginning of the market? Rhetorical efforts to legitimate transformative preservation