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Swaziland After Sobhuza: Stability or Crisis?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Jackie Vieceli
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Extract

In their study of personal rule in black Africa, Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg maintain that the most important factors shaping contemporary African politics are the political skills, orientations, and leadership styles of African heads of state. They assert that African nations as yet lack well-developed political institutions and hold that in the absence of such institutions, the politics of personal rule are much more decisive in shaping the character and continuity of African regimes than any economic, social, or cultural factors. As a logical outcome of these contentions, Jackson and Rosberg assert that, far from being aberrations, succession crises are an integral feature of personalistic politics. Because of the decisive influence of the leader’s abilities and orientations, his death or removal may very well bring about fundamental changes in the regime over which he presided.

Type
Insight
Information
African Issues , Volume 12 , Issue 3-4 , Fall/Winter 1982 , pp. 56 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1982 

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References

Notes

1. Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Vilakazi, Absolom, “From Traditionalism to Modernity,” Southern Africa in Crisis, Carter, Gwendolen M. and O’Meara, Patrick, eds. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

3. The term “Swazi rulers” is a residual concept commonly used by analysts of Swazi politics to designate the King, the Queen Mother, commoners holding key offices, and all chiefs, whether of the royal house or of common lineages. In other words, it refers to the traditional aristocracy.

4. Kuper, Hilda, An African Aristocracy: Rank Among the Swazi (London: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar. Also, see chapter 2 of Fransman, Martin, The State and Development in Swaziland, 1900-1977 (University of Sussex, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1978)Google Scholar.

5. Booth, Alan, “The Development of the Swazi Labour Market, 1900-1968,” South African Labour Bulletin 7:6/7 (June 1982), pp. 36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Booth, pp. 8-39. See also Daniel, John, Simelane, Gladys, and Simelane, Vusani, eds., Politics and Society in Swaziland, UBLS Readings, Volume 3, 1975, pp. 312-13Google Scholar.

7. Booth, p. 41.

8. Booth, pp. 40-41.

9. This assertion is somewhat less true of Swaziland than of South Africa, since settler farmers, local industries, and the South African mines competed with each other to attract labor. However, since migrants were not accompanied by their families and the latter continued to work their garden plots, employers derived the same advantages from the out-migration of Swazi labor as were derived from migrancy within South Africa.

10. Matsebula, J. S. M., A History of Swaziland (Cape Town: Longmans Penguin Southern Africa, 1976)Google Scholar.

11. Burgess, S. F., The Political Development of Swaziland (The Hague: unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, undated)Google Scholar. See also Danile, John, “The Political Economy of Colonial and Post-Colonial Swaziland,” South Africa Labour Bulletin 7:6/7 (June 1982), p. 98 Google Scholar.

12. Booth, p. 41.

13. Booth, p. 41.

14. Mashasha, F. J., “The Swazi and Land Partition,” Politics and Society in Swaziland, Daniel et al., eds., pp. 30–31 Google Scholar.

15. Ibid.

16. Daniel, p. 98.

17. Fransman, , “Labour, Capital, and the State in Swaziland, 1962-1977,” South African Labour Bulletin 7:6/7 (June 1982)Google Scholar.

18. Fransman, , “Labour, Capital, and the State,” p. 324 Google Scholar.

19. Potholm, pp. 143-44.

20. See Swaziland Government Gazette 587, 1973, Decree 2.

21. This was the popular term to describe the revocation of the independence constitution.

22. Daniel, p. 107.

23. Fransman, “The State and Development,” pp. 214, 218.

24. Daniel, p. 102.

25. Daniel, p. 102.

26. Daniel, p. 101.

27. Daniel, p. 99.

28. Daniel, pp. 100, 108.

29. Africa Contemporary Record, 1981-82, p. 8832. See also Daniel, pp. 100-101.

30. Daniel, p. 101.

31. Barclays Bank of Swaziland, An Economic Survey and Businessman’s Guide (Mbabane, 1981), pp. 45–49 Google Scholar.

32. International Labor Office, Jobs and Skills Program for Africa, Reducing Dependence: A Strategy for Productive Employment and Development in Swaziland (Addis Ababa: 1977), p. 18 Google Scholar.

33. Barclays Bank of Swaziland, pp. 36-39.

34. Daniel, pp. 102-103.

35. Daniel, p. 103.

36. Daniel, p. 104.

37. Daniel, p. 105.

38. Daniel, p. 104.

39. Potholm, p. 143.

40. Dlamini, Prince Makhosini, The Philosophy, Policies, and Objectives of the Imbokodvo National Movement (Mbabane, 1972)Google Scholar.

41. Africa Contemporary Record, 1981-82, p. B828.

42. Rand Daily Mail, 22 March 1983. See also Africa News, 31 August 1981.

43. International Labor Office, Jobs and Skills Program for Africa, pp. 41-63, 138-39.