Jobs, Votes and Legitimacy: The Political Economy of the Mozambican Cashew Processing Industry's Revival

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the revival of the Mozambican cashew processing industry after it was virtually wiped out by liberalisation policies at the turn of the millennium. Over the last decade state, private and external actors have cooperated to rehabilitate cashew processing with a concerted industrial policy and rents generated by protection. It is argued that such rent creation is a political process and that theories of 'good governance' and 'developmental neopatrimonialism' are unable to explain political support to the cashew sector in Mozambique. The 'developmental state' literature is a more useful guide not only to how the industry was rehabilitated, but also to where the political 'will to develop' originated in other contexts. Following from this discussion, it is argued that in Mozambique an elite ideology of nationalism, modernisation and anti-imperialism paved the way for protection of the cashew industry, while more active support was a result of more immediate concerns around finely balanced elections, inadequate employment generation in the broader economy and the faltering legitimacy of the ruling party.

Assaults on capitalism and democratic backsliding: Evidence from Asia

“…Peou, for example, notes only briefly that "by allowing [business] supporters to enrich themselves, the CPP hoped to count on their loyalty and financial contributions during election campaigns" (Peou, 2019: 55). Cambodia's special status within the international garment trade from both the EU and US legitimated the regime's role as provider of special trade access, which made capitalists dependent on continuous good relations with the ruling party (Boys, 2014). The country's economic freedoms worsened in comparison to the rest of the world between 2000 and 2019 (see Figure 2).…”