Mozambique: destabilization, state, society and space

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how the strategy of neighbouring South Africa has interacted with the post-independence policy of the Mozambican regime to produce a situation whereby the Mozambican state has been unable to exert its sovereignty throughout its territory. The jurisdiction of the state is confined to towns and a few main arteries. This situation has come about through a complex combination of external destabilization and internal resistance to Frelimo's policy of social and political transformation. These policies and the reactions to them are regarded as socio-spatial process given that they involve state power and transformation throughout Mozambican territory. Although Frelimo's regime has remained strong and united, the state is beleaguered and weak. Because the state apparatus has disintegrated in many parts of Mozambique the regime is unable to project itself. Recent economic and political reforms in Mozambique associated with the collapse of Marxism-Leninism as a state ideology have so far not been accompanied by a significant improvement in the ability of the regime to assert its power throughout the country. When combined with Frelimo's inability to end the severe assault on the Mozambican state, the reforms have generated questions regarding the future prospects of the hitherto stable Frelimo regime.