ABSTRACT
The remainder of this book focuses primarily on the late 1980s and early 1990s when the above events and transformations were taking place. The latter stages of this period are regarded by many analysts as the highwater mark of Mozambique’s external dependence. It was also at this time that, for reasons reviewed in Chapter 1, interest in reconstituting an updated version of chieftaincy peaked within the state administration, the ruling party and the donor community. In Nampula, this period witnessed the semi-official “retraditionalization” of rural administration: that is, the informal reinstatement of chiefs qua chiefs as local agents of the state. This chapter lays out aspects of the broader context in which rural political change took place. I examine the national and local settings in turn. My discussion of the national context includes a section on post-1994 developments.
