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Marginalization and the International Division of Labor: Mozambique's Strategy of Opening the Market*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

James H. Mittelman
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Extract

Mozambique is a country that lends itself to metaphor—of high ideals, of challenge to the world system, and of unfulfilled aspirations. There, questions that elsewhere are raised in academic forums are articulated as matters of public policy: searching questions about the structures that perpetuate international inequality, the ability of a mass movement to erode the basis of worldwide domination, and aspirations for democracy amid pervasive poverty. In an extreme form, to be sure, Mozambique has gone the way of the continent—from lofty expectations to an increasingly marginal position in the international division of labor. This article is an attempt to discern the dynamics of marginalization in the world system. Informed by theoretical debates over the emerging international division of labor, this is an effort to rethink, and draw lessons from, one concrete historical experience: the global constraints and opportunities facing Mozambique.

Stated briefly, the core argument is that the concept of the international division of labor must be stretched to account fully for the regionalization of problems and solutions. While internationalization entails increasing integration into expanding financial markets and penetration by transnational corporations, Africa has not kept pace with the global manufacturing system and the related upsurge of export activities. Although industrialization is not a magic remedy for the problems of underdevelopment, upgrading the role of manufacturing is a key component of productive economic growth. However, efforts to promote manufacturing are constrained by market-based reforms insofar as they are anti-egalitarian and erode the basis of democracy at the very time when forces at home and abroad are pushing for democratization.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , December 1991 , pp. 89 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1991

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Footnotes

*

This article is a substantially revised version of a paper presented to the Dalhousie University Workshop on Canadian Policy in Southern Africa and the Future of Angola and Namibia, held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 23-24, 1990.

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