Development, politics, and the centralization of state power in Lesotho, 1960-75

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Periodical article

Title:	Development, politics, and the centralization of state power in Lesotho, 1960-75
Author:	Aerni-Flessner, John
Year:	2014
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	55
Issue:	3
Pages:	401-421
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Lesotho
Subjects:	development political change development cooperation centralization 1960-1969 1970-1979
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853714000395
Abstract:	The rhetoric of development served as a language for Sotho politicians from 1960-70 to debate the meanings of political participation. The relative paucity of aid in this period gave outsized importance to small projects run in rural villages, and stood in stark contrast to the period from the mid-1970s onwards when aid became an 'anti-politics machine' that worked to undermine national sovereignty. Examination of the democratic period in Lesotho from 1966-70 helps explain the process by which newly independent states gave up some of their recently won sovereignty, and how a turn to authoritarianism helped contribute to this process. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]