Abstract
This thesis explores why despite the cyclical violence and instability of the state in Guinea-Bissau, society at large remains relatively peaceful. The central argument is that the absence of a workable relationship between the Bissau-Guinean state and society has produced two main leadership process outcomes: (1) a failed leadership process between the ruling elite and society and (2) collective leadership takes place within society. The thesis deploys ‘process-based’ leadership as an analytical tool with which to systematically demonstrate how these two contradictory processes work to produce relatively peaceful social outcomes in the wider Bissauan society.The leadership approach, sheds light on the relationship between leader, followers and their common situation, which is arguably more useful to debates around state-building and peacebuilding strategies. The Leadership approach provides the analytical tools that are used to interrogate the nature of state and society’s exchanges or “conversations’’ during the country’s state-building trajectory. The leadership framework allows one to interrogate the moments where binding or unbinding mutuality between Leaders and followers have been conducive to successful state-building and peacebuilding. This thesis finds that process-based leadership allows for a more holistic understanding of the state-building and peacebuilding process in Guinea-Bissau.This thesis highlights the critical intersections of leadership, state-building and peacebuilding.
Leadership as an analytical tool is also used to investigate the social structures that have allowed for other competing centres of influence to emerge which account for society’s relative peace and stability. The analysis traces Guinea-Bissau’s pre-colonial history of social and political formations, colonisation and decolonisation. Three episodes of leadership change and failure are explored through a process-based leadership lens. It shows that the origins of Guinea-Bissau’s state-building trajectory, the foundations of a stable society were established through an interactive and dynamic exchange of “conversations” between leaders and followers which has allowed Bissau-Guinean society to remain relatively peaceful for more than forty years. This thesis recognizes the failures of leadership at state level but also recognizes how this is then replaced by everyday leadership and how this translates to two distinct zones of (ins)stability. In this way, the Leadership process is a facilitator of society’s stability.
| Date of Award | 1 Nov 2020 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Funmi Olonisakin (Supervisor) & Olaf Bachmann (Supervisor) |