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In 1994, with the establishment of the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice as Eritrea’s sole political party, the government of Eritrea proclaimed a bold new economic policy to create a private sector-led, export-oriented, free market economy. This appeared to be a marked departure from Eritrean political elites’ prior Marxist-Leninism and commitment to isolationist, state-led development. However, we argue that this new policy, rather than evidence of ideological vacuity, was consistent with a deeper set of ideological principles. This ideology assigns a pre-eminent role to the society's political elite, valorises almost autarkic economic independence, and reproduces a specific variant of radical ‘high’ modernism through mass mobilisation and root-and-branch transformation. However, in contrast to past high modernist development ideologies, Eritrea’s particular constellation of policies is part of a new pattern of illiberal modernisation ideology visible across a number of countries in 21st Century Africa, such as Rwanda and Ethiopia. We trace Eritrea’s history of adherence to international self-reliance and societal dominance through the long years of insurgent struggle that led to the establishment of the government of liberated Eritrea. This reveals how ideology is indispensable in understanding the state and policymaking and how particular political ideas constitute key defining influences on the Eritrean state.

Modernisation in isolation: the nature and roots of Eritrea’s defining economic ideology