Conclusion
What are we to make of all of this? It appears that even in areas where “Marxist” economic thought appears to provide explanatory power there are equally good alternatives to explain what happened in Angolan and Mozambican economic policy.
To declare one's party to be “Marxist” may well have been more of an artifact of shifting alliances and supporters than it was of any real ideological convictions. Another indicator that this might well be the case is the fact that both the MPLA in Angola and FRELIMO in Mozambique have now stated that they no longer consider themselves bound by the tenets of Marxist economic thought and are pursuing market-based approaches to economic development (see World Bank, 1996 or Republic of Mozambique, 1997/98). In Angola this development was somewhat later (see MINPLAN, 2006). This is no doubt at least partly due to the fact that major potential donors wanted them to make such a change — but this is yet another indicator that claims of adherence to particular economic doctrines are, in parts of Africa at least, more situational than ideological in origin.