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ABSTRACT
The article links policy adaptation in Rwanda to the wider phenomenon of authoritarian persistence. We analyse political decision-making and implementation in a variety of policy domains (agriculture, energy, and education) to argue that the reality of governance in Rwanda requires more nuance than what is commonly portrayed in the literature. Hovering through the past decade, we first reflect upon how the Rwandan government’s ambitions have been translated into concrete policies, and how these policies have evolved throughout time as policymakers have had to deal with evidence on negative policy impact. Finally, we discuss the conditions for policy adaptation, analysing whether, when, how, and from whom criticism is taken on board. We show how policy adaptation is frequent in Rwanda, despite the context of a tightly managed political space. And yet responding to policy problems is not institutionalised and is inherently fragile in an authoritarian regime, leading to the question of how sustainable the country’s trajectory can be over the longer term.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Chemouni, “Explaining the Design of the Rwandan Decentralization,” 246–62; Ansoms, “Re-Engineering Rural Society,” 289–309; Ingelaere, “What’s on a Peasant’s Mind?” 214–30.
2 Reyntjens, Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda; Lavers, Understanding Elite Commitment to Social Protection.
3 Ansoms, “Re-Engineering Rural Society”; Dye, “The Return of ‘High Modernism’?” 303–24.
4 Given that this is not the core point of this article, we won’t go into detail. However, for sources on this, see the following: Ansoms and Cioffo, “The Exemplary Citizen,” 1247–68; Nyenyezi Bisoka and Ansoms, “Resistance to the New Green Revolution”; Rollason, “Buying a path,” 46–63.
5 Ansoms, “Re-Engineering Rural Society”; Williams, “The Political Economy of Primary Education,” 550–61.
6 Behuria, “Learning from Role Models,” 422–40.
7 Behuria, “Examining Effectiveness and Learning,” 1023–43.
8 Mann and Berry, “Understanding the Political Motivations,” 139.
9 Booth and Golooba-Mutebi, “Policy for Agriculture,” 173.
10 Ibid., 192.
11 Chemouni, “The Political Path,” 87–98; Chemouni, “The Politics of Core Public Sector Reform”.
12 Clark, “Bringing the Peasants,” 193–213; Ndahinda and Muleefu, “Revisiting the Legal,” 149–73.
13 Research on authoritarian politics has recently expanded mostly around two key debates: one on the classification of authoritarian regimes (with new typologies), another on regime survival (notably the role of pseudo-democratic institutions); cf. Frantz, “Authoritarian Politics,” 87–9.
14 Heberer, “The Chinese ‘Developmental State,” 1–22.
15 Josua and Edel, “The Arab Uprisings,” 1–26.
16 Geddes, “What Do We Know,” 115–44.
17 Croissant and Wurster, “Performance and Persistence,” 3.
18 Gerschewski, “The Three Pillars,” 13–38.
19 Maerz, “The Many Faces,” 64–87.
20 Sá and Rodrigues Sanches, “The Politics of Autocratic Survival,” 78–102.
21 Dukalskis, Making the World Safe.
22 Hall and Ambrosio, “Authoritarian Learning,” 143 (our italic).
23 Huang and Liu, “Toward Just Energy Transitions,” 1–21.
24 Roller, The Performance of Democracies, 3.
25 Various contributions of Contemporary Politics special issue on “The Performance and Persistence of Autocracies”.
26 World Bank, World Development Report 2011.
27 Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Vision 2020. Kigali: Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, 2000.
28 Ibid.
29 Government of Rwanda, The Government of Rwanda Poverty Reduction Strategy. Kigali: Government of Rwanda, 2002, 69.
30 Government of Rwanda. Organic Law N° 08/2005 of 14/07/2005 Determining the Use and Management of Land in Rwanda. Kigali: Government of Rwanda, 2005.
31 Government of Rwanda and the Ministry of Agriculture. Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture in Rwanda – Phase III (PSTA III). Kigali: Government of Rwanda, 2013.
32 World Bank, World Development Report.
33 Desiere, Staelens, and D’Haese, “When the Data Source,” 1372–87.
34 Ansoms et al., “The Rwandan Agrarian and Land Sector Modernisation,” 408–31; Huggins, Agricultural Reform in Rwanda.
35 Pautrizel-Gret, Agricultural and Food Security Policies; FAO, Rwanda. Socio-Economic Context; World Bank, Rwanda: Food Smart Country.
36 Ansoms, “The Rwandan Agrarian”; Diao, Randriamamonjy and Thurlow, Urbanization and the Future; World Bank Group, Doing Business 2018.
37 Ndimira, Dynamique et problématique; Ntihinyurwa et al., “The positive Impacts,” 565–81.
38 Nyenyezi and Ansoms, “State and Local Authorities, “ 243–59. Ansoms et al., “Statistics versus Livelihoods,” 1–19; Lokuruka, “Food and Nutrition Security”.
39 Kalibata and Roy. “The Fertile Roots of Rwanda’s Green Revolution.” The Guardian, February 19, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/feb/19/rwanda-africa-green-revolution-fertiliser-mdgs
40 Ansoms, “Hunger in the Name of Development: Rwandan Farmers under Stress”, Review of African Political Economy blog series, March 8, 2018.
41 President Kagame speaking at the National Leadership Retreat 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7LeLojKpTo (32'18” - 32'35 / 38'33- 38'40”).
42 Gready, “You’re Either With us,” 637–57.
43 Ansoms, “Expanding the Space for Criticism in Rwanda,” Review of African Political Economy blog series, March 12, 2019.
44 Ibid.
45 In 2018, for example, the reported citizen satisfaction was lowest in the sector of livestock (57.75% satisfied with service delivery) and agriculture (49.41% satisfied with service delivery) in comparison to an overall satisfaction rate of 69.3% (including sectors like security, health, education, justice, etc.). By the year 2020, this had increased again to 83.2% and 65.0% respectively. Source: Rwanda Governance Board, Citizen Report Card 2018 and 2020.
46 This was confirmed in three in-depth interviews of the first author with Rwandan specialists in agrarian transformations in April 2022, of which one government employee, one independent researcher, and one civil society person.
47 Ansoms, “The End of the Green Revolution in Rwanda?,” Review of African Political Economy blog series, February 11, 2020.
48 Two in-depth interviews with civil society stakeholders in April 2022.
49 Interview, civil society organization representative, Huye, 27 January 2020.
50 Interview, farmer, Kamonyi, 15 January 2018.
51 Chemouni, “Taking Stock of Rwanda’s Decentralisation,” 767.
52 This section is mainly based on Chemouni and Dye, The Contradictions of an Aspiring Developmental State.
53 Republic of Rwanda, Rwanda Vision 2020, 19.
54 “Addressing Electricity Supply Shortages in Rwanda.” The New Times, November 15, 2010.
55 Republic of Rwanda, Rwanda Vision 2020, 5.
56 Interview with former MININFRA official, Kigali, June 2018.
57 Rwanda Energy Group (REG), Rwanda: Least Cost Power Development Plan (Lcpdp) 2020–2040. Kigali: Rwanda Energy Group, 2021.
58 Lenz et al., “Does Large-Scale Infrastructure”, 107.
59 REG, Rwanda: Least Cost, 34.
60 World Bank, Rwanda - Energy Sector Development Policy.
61 Kojima and Trimble, Making Power Affordable, 21.
62 World Bank, Rwanda - First Programmatic Energy Sector, 19.
63 Interview with a former governmental advisor, Kigali, June 2018.
64 “What Stalled Gishoma Peat Power Project?” The New Times, March 4, 2015.
65 Different interviews in Kigali, June 2018.
66 Interviews, former civil servants, Kigali, June 2018.
67 “Retreat Targets Growth.” The New Times, March 5, 2012.
68 Interviews with different donors and international consultant, Kigali, June 2018.
69 Law no.14/2016 of 02/05/2016 Governing Public Private Partnerships.
70 Republic of Rwanda, Energy Sector Strategic Plan: 2018/19-2023/24. Kigali: Ministry of Infrastructure, 2018.
71 Ibid.
72 Interview, governmental advisor, Kigali, June 2018.
73 NISR, Youth Thematic Report.
74 World Bank, The World Bank Quality Basic.
75 Williams, “The Political Economy of Primary Education,” 550–61.
76 Honeyman, Accountability Practices and Policies.
77 Williams, “The Things They Learned”.
78 Pearson, “Policy Without a Plan,” 39–56.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
81 Mwasa. “How CHOGM 2020 Pushed Gov’t To Re-embrace English As Language Of Instruction In Schools. “ The Chronicles, December 3, 2019. https://www.chronicles.rw/2019/12/03/how-chogm-2020-pushed-govt-to-re-embrace-english-as-language-of-instruction-in-schools/?sfw=pass1612093792.
82 UNESCO, Mother Tongue Matters.
83 Mott MacDonald. Rwanda Education Capacity.
84 Williams, “Oriented Towards Action”.
85 World Bank. The World Bank Quality Basic Education, 4–5.
86 Ibid.
87 Williams, “Why did Rwanda Abruptly Change the Language in Schools – Again? “ World Politics Review, February 22, 2021. (https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29440/in-rwanda-language-change-in-schools-leaves-students-and-teachers-struggling). Mwasa. “How CHOGM 2020 Pushed Gov’t to Re-embrace English as Language of Instruction in Schools.” The Chronicles, December 3, 2019. https://www.chronicles.rw/2019/12/03/how-chogm-2020-pushed-govt-to-re-embrace-english-as-language-of-instruction-in-schools/?sfw=pass1612093792.
88 Pearson, “Policy Without a Plan”.
89 Samuelson and Warshauer Freedman, “Language Policy,” 191–215.
90 After 1994, anglophone elites – often coming from Uganda – took up a major role in the key chains of the administration. As from there, English gradually replaced French at all levels of the administration. French was increasingly banned from the public policy level. In more recent years, however, there seems a renewed attention towards the value of ‘la francophonie’ in Rwanda.
91 Clover, “Jury out on Language-Switch Trend.” The Guardian, November 13, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/13/rwanda-english-language-lessons.
92 On this, see Hayman, “Rwanda: Milking the Cow, “ 156–84.
93 Curtis, “Development Assistance,” 1365–81.
94 Chemouni, “The Political Economy of the Fertilizer Subsidy,” 483–506.
95 Kimonyo, Transforming Rwanda.
96 Hall and Ambrosio, “Authoritarian Learning”.
97 As a reminder, cooptation and repression are seen by many authors as the other two mechanisms that, together with legitimacy, contribute to the persistence of authoritarianism.