Negotiating authoritarianism in Manjacaze, Mozambique: between Frelimo's strategies and people’s tactics

This thesis considers the dynamics behind the construction and persistence of authoritarianism, a growing phenomenon in Africa and worldwide. Working within a frame of authoritarian institutionalism, it applies an ethnographic approach to the analysis of Frelimo’s rule in the historically important district of Manjacaze in its heartland region of Gaza Province in Mozambique.

The findings suggest that, even in its own heartland, Frelimo's hegemony is widely contested and negotiated, and elections are privileged moments for this negotiation and contestation. These dynamics are constitutive of the evolving hegemony and, consequently, of authoritarianism itself. Elections emerge as arenas where the dialogical and mutually constitutive relationship between the incumbent’s strategies and the people’s tactics intensifies. Within this relationship, the role of negotiation stands out, an insight that has only been touched on in the literature hitherto. I argue that understanding the negotiation process, and the dialogical relationship between the incumbent's strategies and the people’s tactics, is fundamental to capturing the dynamics of the construction and maintenance of authoritarianism in Africa and beyond.