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8 - Local Conditions and Metropolitan Visions: Fiscal Policies and Practices in Portuguese Africa, c. 1850–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

By
Kleoniki Alexopoulou
Edited by
Ewout Frankema  and
Anne Booth
Ewout Frankema
Affiliation:
Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands
Anne Booth
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Summary

This chapter surveys the fiscal policies and practices in the Portuguese African colonies of Mozambique and Angola from the 1850s to 1970s. It explores the fiscal implications of a long history of trade relations and cultural exchange, including early forms of colonial settlement (merchants, missionaries, prazeros), which were moulded into a relatively late and severely contested occupation wave in the late nineteenth century. It discusses the constraints to revenue centralization and fiscal unification and shows how spending policies prioritized security, administration and infrastructure over welfare services. I argue that local conditions, including this specific ‘pre-colonial’ history of Portuguese-African relations, limited possibilities of fiscal modernization, while major ruptures in metropolitan politics (e.g. the Salazar dictatorship) were key in the reorganization of imperial finances.

Keywords

Portuguese Africafiscal modernizationcolonial settlementMozambiqueAngola
Type
Chapter
Information
Fiscal Capacity and the Colonial State in Asia and Africa, c.1850–1960 , pp. 230 - 263
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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