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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Control, politics and identity in the Angolan civil war
Author:Pearce, JustinISNI
Year:2012
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 1468-2621)
Volume:111
Issue:444
Pages:442-465
Language:English
Geographic term:Angola
Subjects:MPLA
UNITA
State-society relationship
political ideologies
civil wars
attitudes
legitimacy
1950-1999
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41494511
Abstract:This article explores political mobilization, legitimacy, and identity in the Angolan Central Highlands from the anticolonial struggle of the 1960s until the end of the civil war in 2002. It examines how the rival movements, MPLA and UNITA, competed for support, and considers the nature of the relationships between political-military elites and the Angolan people. Whereas much scholarship on civil war has focused on the emergence of rebellions against the State, the article argues that such an approach to the Angolan war is inappropriate since both protagonists were founded as anticolonial movements and both organizations developed characteristics of States to different degrees. Central to each party's narrative was an ideology of the State as a complex of ideas and practices that linked together responsibilities towards the population, prerogatives of violence, and the identity of the nation. People expressed support for either or both movements in terms of common interest and identity, which in turn were shaped by the political education of the movement in control at the time. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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