Resumen

NASCIMENTO, Augusto. Four decades of independence, from ‘changes' to the uncertainty of lives in Sao Tome and Principe. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos [online]. 2018, n.35, pp.64-87. ISSN 1645-3794.  https://doi.org/10.4000/cea.2605.

This text reviews the four decades of Sao Tome and Principe's independence, trying to highlight the continuities under the apparent political change and the unthinking changes that made the country so diverse, if not antagonistic, to the idealizations of independence in 1975 and democracy in 1990. The growing institutional deliquescence and the emptying of ideologies due to the growing personalization of political power, for the time being contained in the institutional framework and supported by the parties, which, however, gain clientelistic characteristics. The polarization of such political identifications turns out to be averse to social cohesion, harming economic development. This political climate undermines social trust and rarefies nationalism sedimented by four decades of institutionalization of the feeling of attachment to the land.

Palabras clave : Sao Tome and Principe; single-party regime; democracy.

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