Power, conflict, and citizenship: Mozambique’s contemporary struggles

The paper analyzes Mozambique’s political trajectory through the prism of the relationship between state and society. It argues that a political culture deeply rooted in millennial thinking – based on the eschatological belief that political intervention settles societal problems once and for all – has fostered a deep hostility towards citizenship rights and, for this reason, has regularly brought democracy to the brink of collapse. Thus, the paper is an attempt at identifying a conceptual framework on the basis of which empirically grounded descriptions of Mozambique’s recent political history can be conducted.