Interpreting the Exceptionality of Botswana

The Journal of Modern African Studies

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 69-95

  Good, Kenneth ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA   (Botswana)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACCUMULATION; CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT; DEMOCRACY; DEVELOPING COUNTRY; ECONOMIC GROWTH; ELITE POLITICS; GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION; INCOME INEQUALITY; NATIONAL ECONOMY; RESOURCES EXPLOITATION; STATE INTERVENTION;

BOTSWANA;

EID: 0026447314     PISSN: 0022278X     EISSN: 14697777     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X00007734     Document Type: Article

References (139)

1. Neil Parsons, ‘The Economic History of Khama's Country in Botswana, 1844-1930’, in Robin Palmer and Parsons (eds.), The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (London, 1977)> PP- 119–20.
2. Malcolm J. Odell describes the kgotlas as ‘an authentic and centuries old voice of the Batswana in the rural areas’; ‘Local Government: traditional and modern roles of the village kgotla’, in Picard (ed.), op. cit. p. 83
3. According to Adam Kuper, kgotlas (with ‘chiefs of the people’) and Tswana law have formed the basis for Botswana's stable democracy since independence; interviewed in programme on ‘Democracy’, B.B.C. World Service 14 April 1991.
4. Jack Parson, Botswana liberal democracy and the labour reserve in Southern Africa (Boulder, 1984), p. 16.
5. P. T. Mgadla, and A. C. Campbell, ‘Dikgotla, Dikgosi and the Protectorate Administration’, in John D. Holm and Patrick Molutsi (eds.j, Democracy in Botswana (Gaborone, 1989), p. 49.
6. Adam Kuper, Kalahari Village Politics: an African democracy (Cambridge, 1970), p. 17.
7. Peters, loc. cit. pp. 44–5.
8. Wilmsen, op. cit. p. 98.
9. Hitchcock, loc. cit. pp. 100–1
10. Ibid. pp. 103–4.
11. Cf. Louis A. Picard and E. Philip Morgan, ‘Policy Implementation and Local Institutions in Botswana in Picard (ed.), op. cit. p. 130.
12. Peters, loc. cit. p. 33.
13. Christopher Colclough and Stephen McCarthy, The Political Economy of Botswana: a study of growth and distribution (Oxford, 1980), pp. 33 and 113.
14. N. S. Mudzinganyama ‘The Articulation of the Modes of Production and the Development of a Labour Reservoir in Southern Africa, 1885-1944: the case of Bechuanaland’, inx Botswana Notes and Records (Gaborone), 15, 1983, p. 53. No dates are given for the annual incomes mentioned.
15. Louis A. Picard, ‘From Bechuanaland to Botswana; an overview’, in Picard (ed.), op, cit. P. 14.
16. Hitchcock, loc. cit. pp. 108-9.
17. Peters, loc. cit. pp. 38–40
18. She quotes Isaac Schapera's findings in 1932 that ‘nearly one-quarter of all the cattle in the tribe were then owned by five men’ the chief had about 5, 500, and his uncle Isang 2, 500. Ibid. p. 46
19. Hitchcock, loc. cit. pp. 112–13.
20. Louis A. Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana: a model for success? (Boulder and London, 1987) pp. 138–42.
21. Robin Palmer notes in ‘The Agricultural History of Rhodesia’, in Palmer and Parsons (eds.), op. cit. p. 250
22. Idi Amin's Uganda, Ignatius Acheampong's Ghana, and Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire are oft-quoted examples of predatory regimes, while Kenneh Kaunda's one-party state in Zambia would typify the larger group of consumptionist, urban-biased political elites which have been uninterested in agricultural production.
23. Botswana experienced ‘ the most rapid rate of growth of GNP per capita (8. 3percent) of any country in the world, from 1965 to 1985.
24. Botswana experienced ‘ the most rapid rate of growth of GNP per capita (8.3percent) of any country in the world, from 1965 to 1985, according to Charles Harvey and Stephen R. Lewis, Jr., Policy Choice and Development Performance in Botswana (London, 1) p. 1990.
25. Policy Choice and Development Performance in Botswana p. 40.
26. K. Jefferies, ‘The Economy in 1990 in Barclays Botswana, Economic Review (Gaborone), 2, I, 1991 p. 4.
27. Harvey and Lewis, op. cit. pp. 41–42.
28. Ravi Gulhati, The Making of Economic Policy in Africa (Washington, D.C., 1990), pp. 33–35.
29. Harvey and Lewis, op. cit. p. 9.
30. Pauline Peters, ‘ Cattlemen, Borehole Syndicates and Privatization in the Kgatkng District of Botswana an anthropological history of the transformation of a commons Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 1983, p. 31.
31. Gulhati, op. cit. p, 35.
32. Kenneth Good, ‘Zambia: back into the future’, in Third World Quarterly (London), 10, 1, January 1988, pp. 37–53.
33. and ‘Debt and the One-Party State in Zambia’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 27, 2, June 1989, pp. 297–313.
34. Harvey and Lewis, op. cit. p. 7.
35. Catherine B. Hill and D. Nelson Mokgethi, ‘ Botswana: macroeconomic management of commodity booms, 1975-86’, in World Bank, Successful Development in Africa (Washington, D.C., 1989), p. 174.
36. Harvey and Lewis, op. cit. p. 8.
37. Jack Parson, ‘The Trajectory of Class and State in Dependent Development: the consequences of new wealth for Botswana’, in Nelson Kasfir (ed.), State and Class in Africa (London, 1984), pp. 46 and 52.
38. Harvey and Lewis, op. cit. pp. 6 and 8–9
39. Golclough and McCarthy, op. cit. p. 242.
40. Gulhati, op. cit p. 35.
41. Kenneth Good, ‘Systemic Agricultural Mismanagement: the 1985 “bumper’” harvest in Zambia’ in The Journal of Modem African Studies, 24, I, March 1986, pp. 257–284.
42. Gulhati, op. cit. p. 35.
43. Larry Diamond, ‘Introduction: roots of failure, seeds of hope’, in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset (eds.), op. cit. p. 20.
44. Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana, p. 236.
45. Christopher Golclough and Peter Fallon, ‘Rural Poverty in Botswana: dimensions, causes and constraints’, in Dharam Ghai and Samir Radwan (eds.), Agrarian Policies and Rural Poverty in Africa (Geneva, 1983), p. 150.
46. Colclough and McCarthy, op. cit., p. 107.
47. Gulhati, op. cit. p. 35.
48. Colclough and Fallon, loc. cit. p. 151.
49. Muhammad N. Bhuiyan, ‘Public Finance in Botswana: a historical overview’, in Bhuiyan (ed.), Selected Papers on the Botswana Economy (Gaborone, 1987), pp. 97–98 and 137.
50. Muhammad N. Bhuiyan, ‘The Economy of Botswana: an overview’, in ibid. p. 37.
51. Honourable F. G. Mogae, Budget Speech, 1991 (Gaborone, 1991), p. 15.
52. Jan Hesselberg, The Third World in Transition: the case of the peasantry in Botswana (Uppsala, 1985), p.182.
53. Colclough and Fallon, loc. cit. pp. 133–134.
54. Margo Russell, ‘ Slaves or Workers ? Relations Between Bushmen, Tswana, and Boers in the Kalahari in Journal of Southern African Studies (Oxford), 2, 2, 1976, p, 195. The Pula replaced the Rand as Botswana's national currency in 1976.
55. Robert K. Hitchcock, ‘ Sandveld Agriculture in Botswana in Botswana Notes and Records, 18, 1986, p. 93.
56. Colclough and McCarthy, op. cit. p. 112.
57. Michael Hubbard, Agricultural Exports and Economic Growth: a study of the Botswana beef industry (London, 1986), p. 197.
58. Hesselberg, op. cit. p. 102.
59. Colclough and McCarthy, op. cit. pp. 127–128, 135–137, and 195.
60. Colclough and Fallon, loc. cit. pp. 133–134.
61. Liz Wily, Land Allocation and Hunter-Gatherer Land Rights in Botswana the impact of the tribal grazing land policy (London, Anti-Slavery Society, 1980), p. 107.
62. Colclough and Fallon, loc. cit. p. 135.
63. Bank of Botswana, Report of the Rural Economic Survey, 1986 (Gaborone, 1987), pp.1–3 and 33.
64. Republic of Botswana, Report of the Presidential Commission on the Review of the Incomes Policy (Gaborone, 10 March 1990), pp. 22–23 and 142.
65. Republic of Botswana, Report of the Presidential Commission on the Review of the Incomes Policy (Gaborone, 10 March 1990), p. 29.
66. Edwin N. Wilmsen, ‘The Real Bushman is the Male One: labour and power in the creation of Basarwa ethnicity’, in Botswana Notes and Records, 22, 1990, pp. 21–35.
67. Kuper, op. cit. pp. 19, 45, and 47.
68. Mabunga Nlshwa Gadibolae, ‘Serfdom (Bolata) in the Nata Area, 1926-1960’, in Botswana Notes and Records, 17, 1985, p. 26.
69. Robert K. Hitchcock, Kalahari Cattle Posts (Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Gaborone, October 1978), pp. 103 and 317.
70. Gary W. Childers, Report of the Survey/Investigation of the Ghanzi Farm Basarwa Situation (Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Gaborone, September 1976), pp. 2, 45–47, and 92.
71. Gary W. Childers, Report of the Survey/Investigation of the Ghanzi Farm Basarwa Situation (Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Gaborone, September 1976), pp. 50–51 and 86.
72. Gary W. Childers, Report of the Survey/Investigation of the Ghanzi Farm Basarwa Situation (Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Gaborone, September 1976), pp. 103–104.
73. Hitchcock, Kalahari Cattle Posts, pp. 319–320.
74. Kuper, op. cit. p. 47.
75. Kalahari Cattle Posts, p. 122.
76. Kalahari Cattle Posts, p. 318.
77. For example, Burchell [1824] found Bushmen ‘possessed of large herds of cattle’ Wilmsen, loc. cit. p. 83.
78. Gadibolae, loc. cit. p. 26.
79. Wilmsen, loc. cit. p. 31.
80. Childers, op. cit. pp. 58 and 61.
81. Wilmsen, loc. cit. p. 30.
82. Kuper, op. cit. p. 45.
83. Wilmsen, loc. cit. p. 22.
84. Wily says, in op. cit. p. 76, that this judgement ‘implied that according to a strict reading of the Tribal Land Act and its regulations, hunting and gathering were not specified as customary rights, and that as a result of their nomadism, San could have no reasonable claim to customary rights within a Tribal Area’.
85. Childers, op. cit. p. 14.
86. Claimed in Hitchcock, Kalahari Cattle Posts, p. 104.
87. Report of the Remote Area Development Workshop (Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Gaborone, April 1982), pp. 147–148.
88. David Inger, ‘Botswana Has No Human Rights Problem — Or Do We?‘, in Gazette (Gaborone), 24 April 1991.
89. Childers reported, in op. cit. pp. 75–6, that Basarwa were ‘often assaulted by Bangologa for no particular reason'.
90. Robert K. Hitchcock and T. Nkwe, ‘Progress and Problems in Tribal Grazing Land Policy Implementation, With Special Reference to Remote Area Dwellers’, in Report of the Remote Area Development Workshop, p. 109.
91. Hubbard, op. cit. p. 192.
92. In the robust words of the Central District Commissioner in 1977: ‘All this discussion and planning is getting in the way of development. Bushmen, if they are in the way, should simply be gotten out of the way, so we can put up our fences.’ Quoted in Wily, op. cit. p. 83.
93. Hitchcock and Nkwe, loc. cit. pp. in and 115.
94. Inger, loc. cit.
95. Pelonomi Venson, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government and Lands, in ibid. 19 April 1991.
96. Picard and Morgan, loc. cit. p. 130.
97. Athaliah Molokomme, ‘Political Rights in Botswana regression or development, in Holm and Molutsi (eds.), op. cit. pp. 167–170.
98. Samu Zulu, a freelance reporter, was deported in October 1990.
99. City Press (Johannesburg), 9 December 1990.
100. See, for example, the interchange between John Holm and Ray Molomo of the B.D.P., in Holm and Molutsi (eds.), op. cit. pp. 154–155.
101. Molokomme, loc. cit. pp. 165–166.
102. Molokomme, loc. cit. p. 166.
103. Nelson Mayo The Application of Incomes Policy in the Private Sector, with Reference to the Strike of Bank Employees in 1974’, in Charles Harvey (ed.), Papers in the Economy of Botswana (London, 1981), pp. 196–208.
104. David Cooper, ‘The State, Mineworkers and Multinationals: the Selebi Phikwe strike, Botswana, 1975’, in Peter C. W. Gutkind et al. (eds.), African Labor History (Beverly Hills and London, 1978), pp. 244–277.
105. Picard and Morgan, loc. cit. p. 130.
106. C. B. Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy (Oxford, 1966), pp. 9–10.
107. The Real World of Democracy (Oxford, 1966), p. 46.
108. Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford, 1984), p. 87.
109. Macpherson op. cit. p. 11.
110. Report to the Minister of Presidential Affairs and Public Administration on the General Election, ig8g (Gaborone, 1989), pp. 8 and 76.
111. Louis A. Picard, ‘Bureaucrats, Elections and Political Control’, in Picard (ed.), Evolution of Modern Botswana, pp. 189–190 and 203.
112. Christopher Stevens and John Speed, ‘Multi-partyism in Africa: the case of Botswana revisited’, in African Affairs (London), 76, 304, July 1977, p. 387.
113. Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana, p. 146. Two pages later (p. 148) Botswana is referred to as a “‘liberal democracy” in the usual sense of that term.
114. Hubbard, op. cit. p. 172.
115. Economic Review, 1, 2, June 1990, pp. 12–13.
116. Jefferies, loc. cit. pp. 2 and 7–8.
117. Jefferies, loc. cit., pp. 3–4 and 7.
118. Report of the Presidential Commission on the Review of the Incomes Policy, p. 153.
119. Mmegi, 26 October 1990.
120. John D. Holm, ‘The State, Social Class and Rural Development in Botswana, in Picard (ed.), op. cit. p. 162.
121. Derek J. Hudson, ‘The Taxation of Income from Cattle Farming’, in Harvey (ed.), op. cit. p. 68.
122. Hubbard, op. cit. pp. 79 and 180–181.
123. Hudson, loc. cit. p. 76.
124. Hudson, loc. cit. pp. 79–80.
125. Hubbard, op. cit. pp. 186–187.
126. Also Hitchcock and Nkwe, loc. cit. pp. 110–111.
127. Bhuiyan, loc. cit. p. 141.
128. Report of the Presidential Commission on the Review of the Incomes Policy, and Botswana, Draft White Paper, The Revised National Policy on Incomes, Employment, Prices and Profits (Gaborone, 1990), p. 26.
129. Draft White Paper, p. 39.
130. Gazette, 5 September 1990.
131. Gazette, 24 October 1990.
132. Draft White Paper, pp. 16 and 36.
133. Q. N. (Neil) Parsons, ‘The Evolution of Modern Botswana: historical revisions’, in Picard (ed.), op. cit. p. 36. According to this author, it was' the most progressive chiefs' under colonialism who faced ‘mass resistance’.
134. Peters, ‘Struggles Over Water’, pp. 41 and 44.
135. Hubbard, op. cit. p. 188.
136. Colclough and McCarthy, op. cit. p. 46.
137. Picard op. cit. pp. 171–172.
138. Patrick P. Molutsi and John D. Holm, ‘Developing Democracy When Civil Society Is Weak: the case of Botswana ‘, in African Affairs, 89, 356, July 1990, p. 333.
139. Economic Review, June 1990, p. 24.