The Transition and the Political Economy of African Socialist Countries at War (Angola and Mozambique)

Abstract

The difficulties of the economic transition of socialist countries at war in lusophone Africa — Angola and Mozambique — cannot be understood without bringing to the analysis the political economy of these two countries. In the last three decades these nations suffered both the social and economic dislocation of the later years of their colonial era and then the strains of the post-independence period. A particularly unfavourable conjuncture followed independence: along with the destruction of part of the physical infrastructure after the colonial wars, there was a massive drain of human capital associated with the exodus of the Portuguese settlers who had the accumulated skills given by centuries of running the economy, public administration and the politics of these countries. Sovereignty was bought at a high price in terms of the destruction and flight of human and physical wealth.