Is Rwanda a developmental success story? This is the big question Pritish Behuria sets out to answer in his book The Political Economy of Rwanda’s Rise. As is so often the case in academia, the answer he gives is ‘it depends’. But he provides a very elaborate and nuanced argument and thereby does unravel the puzzle of the nature and degree of Rwanda’s development success.

His argument goes as follows. Rwanda faces three major, interacting constraints: a global, a geographic and a domestic one. First, geopolitical and geoeconomic structures of financialisation, global production networks and development-impeding policy prescriptions by international organisations have made it almost impossible for any poor country to undergo a sustained structural transformation (i.e. the mechanism by which low-income countries can actually catch up with their richer peers). Second, Rwanda is severely landlocked, making export-based manufacturing growth much harder. And third, the particular political setup of post-genocide Rwanda makes the leadership vulnerable to fundamental domestic challenges. Due to these constraints, Rwanda developed a services-first strategy, accompanied by efforts to also transform its agricultural sector, establish some manufacturing and diversify its exports. While this approach makes much sense given the circumstances, it also creates fundamental problems. First, it is falling short of creating enough jobs, leading to severe and sustained unemployment (and underemployment) as well as rising inequality. Second, exporting high-value services (most importantly in luxury and conference tourism, but also in sports, ICT, finance, etc.) makes the country dependent on being perceived positively by investors, visitors and the global public. This renders the Rwandan government transnationally vulnerable to attacks on its public image by international and exiled Rwandan opponents. So far, the Rwandan leadership has contained these dangers very effectively by providing social development to the general population, while simultaneously ‘re-educating’ it and repressing any political mobilisation. Furthermore, the Rwandan government has managed to stay ahead in the contest on its global public image, despite some controversies and setbacks.

However, the largest challenge to the regime of President Paul Kagame comes from substantial inner-elite frictions. Evidently, so far, they have been handled very well, too. But in the long term, the constant looming threat from within the elite leads to the most devastating consequence of the post-2000 political settlement that prevents Rwanda from accomplishing a structural transformation. And this is the failure to build up effective domestic state-business relations. The government has fallen out with many domestic entrepreneurs, either because they financed inner-elite rival networks or because the political leadership saw a threat that they might do so in the future. As a result, the government had to rely on foreign firms, which are hard to steer and discipline, and domestic party-, military-, and state-owned enterprises, which also failed to become competitive. It appears to be structurally impossible for the current government to nurture a capable, domestic capitalist sector, argues Behuria, and this alone makes its long-term development outlook quite meagre. However, given the Rwandan leadership’s ingenuity in and track record of maintaining peace and political stability as well as achieving substantial economic growth and social development, the current model could go on for decades.

The book is arguably the most comprehensive account of the politics and political economy of post-2000 Rwanda’s economic development, written by one of the most knowledgeable scholars on Rwanda and late development. It takes the reader deep into the political spheres of the very particular state-society setup of post-2000 Rwanda (Chapter 4) and its development finance infrastructure (Chapter 5) as well as on a tour across the country’s economic sectors: agriculture (Chapter 6), mining (Chapter 7), services (Chapter 8), and manufacturing (Chapter 9). While other authors’ analytical focus on, for instance, state capacity and political security is well-founded, Behuria’s comprehensive argument stands on its own. Minor weaknesses include some repetitiveness and the occasional lack of quantitative data. The book is based on many of his previous works, and it rather constitutes an updated summary than a work providing grand new insights for Rwanda experts, but it does include new evidence in each empirical chapter and subject, so the analysis is very up-to-date. The book is particularly well-suited for any newcomer to Rwanda’s economic development trajectory, as it offers an excellent, comprehensive account of the country’s political settlement and economic structure. Moreover, it is an excellent inductive single-country case study for anyone interested in the political economy of late economic development.