ABSTRACT
This chapter1 explores the way the Angolan, Botswana, Namibian and Tanzanian governments have expressed their power in the recent past, and in this light, raises a number of red flags about the governance agenda. Specifically, the chapter argues that if we take these states on their own terms, rather than as ideal developmental states, what is illuminated is that the governance agenda risks producing profoundly negative consequences for the distribution of political influence in these four countries. None of the evidence reviewed is necessary or sufficient to undermine optimism about the governance agenda and prove what it will yield.2 Nevertheless, it is suggested that sufficient evidence exists to suggest that interventions associated with the governance agenda carry the propensity to primarily empower the state apparatus and its elites. At the same time, they are likely to only unevenly and unpredictably contribute to the re-distribution influence across the social spectrum.
