Towards A Renaissance in African Studies: Bridging Divides and Advancing Collaboration

Despite honestly conducted elections and wide choices for voters, Lesotho's democratisation has yet to produce effective government. As Francis Makoa notes in his opening chapter, most Basotho citizens remain among the poorest people in the world, many malnourished and without livelihoods. Successive administrations since 1993 have undone the meagre developmental achievements of the Basotho National Party regime, in government from 1966 to 1986. Privatisation of national financial institutions as well as the corrupt degeneration of agricultural extension services have led to the virtual collapse of farming. Dependence on income from migrant labour remains acute and migrants themselves contend with South Africa's increasingly restrictive border controls. Meanwhile Lesotho exports water to the Witwatersrand at prices fixed in 1986 and not renegotiated since. Democratic political routines have been interrupted by bouts of militarised conflict, eight such eruptions since the re-establishment of electoral politics in 1996. How do we explain these failures?