The Developments of Late Colonialism: Order and Change in Portuguese Africa, 1940–70

The Portuguese imperial endgame was crucially characterized by a “repressive developmentalism”, in which plans of counter-insurgency and programs of socioeconomic reform and change were articulated in order to devise strategies of imperial resilience. Exploring international, transnational and interimperial connections and dynamics (e.g. the internationalization of doctrines of international development or the role of international organizations), without failing to mobilize a comparative lens, The developments of late colonialism provides an analysis of the important role played by models of social engineering and its idioms and repertoires of politico-military, economic and sociocultural control of difference in Portuguese late colonialism. Accordingly, among other aspects, this paper will identify and assess exemplary modernization and developmental schemes (for instance of resettlement, civil and military, in Angola and Mozambique) and address representative idioms of social change related to a comprehensive doctrine of welfare colonialism (e.g. the idioms and programs of “native welfare” and “native social promotion”).