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Google the Covane Community Lodge – at the banks of Lake Massingir in the province of Gaza in Mozambique – and find photos of wine glasses held against African bush sunsets, some nice scenery and r...

This article challenges the widespread view that since 1992 Mozambique has been a development success. The triple transition—to civil peace, multi-party democracy and a free market economy—is assessed from a historical-institutional perspective. Neopatrimonialism—the confusion between the public and private interests, resulting in the personalisation of power, privatisation of the state and ‘businessification’ of politics—is seen as the main logic driving the activities of the elite classes. Neopatrimonialism poses problems for inter-elite trust-building, and hence democratisation from above. Drawing on key Mozambican scholars such as Brazao Mazula and Carlos Serra as well as on their own research on democratisation and local government reform, the authors identify three trends in the recent history of a country marked by power struggles between the ruling and the opposition party (Frelimo and Renamo). These are: democratisation (dominant from 1990 to 1994), repatrimonialisation (salient from 1995)' and d...