2026/01/01 by Philipp Müller
Social Sciences · #Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact #Urban Planning and Governance #Urban and Rural Development Challenges
paper · doi:10.1017/s0960777326101994
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Analyses of recent forms of statehood characterise economic planning as a key victim of neoliberal reforms. This is particularly true for countries in the Global South, where a transnational form of governance is said to have ended the previous dominance of national modernisation policies that were based on economic plans. By tracing the history of the Cahora Bassa dam in Mozambique since the Portuguese colonial era, the article shows that planning projects created important preconditions for the neoliberal transformation that began in the 1980s. Instead of falling prey to demands for reform, the transnational cooperation between companies and states created by the dam construction in the late 1960s provided important resources for meeting the neoliberal expectations of international donors for new mega-projects in Mozambique. While the colonial administration’s delegation of construction to Western European companies was initially intended to generate international support for Portuguese colonial rule, the resulting connections were integrated into socialist modernisation plans in independent Mozambique after 1975. When the Mozambican government turned to international donors in the 1980s, the transnational planning of Cahora Bassa became a flagship project for attracting foreign private investment. Planning in Mozambique was not ended by neoliberalism, but rather provided important material for its implementation.