Reckoning with Guinea-Bissau’s enduring political and economic stagnation

Lessons on postcolonial political decay in African states

I: Early postcolonial political decay in Africa

Guinea-Bissau may be a small country of just over 2 million people, but its political history offers important lessons on when the rain started beating many postcolonial African states. In less than a decade after independence, the country went from a hopeful (socialist) society with a mobilized citizenry under the leadership of one of Africa’s most celebrated liberation movements to a personalist dictatorship that systematically demobilized the citizenry and presided over successive decades of political decay. The ensuing incoherence of public affairs forced most Guinea-Bissauans to “exit” civic life, thereby creating even more room for misgovernance.

It is easy to look at Guinea-Bissau today and imagine that its current situation was ineluctable. However, that would be a gross misreading of history.

Guinea-Bissau of the early 1970s had the potential to be a more politically coherent and institutionalized polity than many African states.…