Description
This paper explores how Samuel Doe’s government in Liberia sought to perform economic normality as the country descended into civil war. Drawing on press materials from 1989–1990, the article traces how the regime publicly announced salary increases, development schemes, and new “mechanisms for growth” even as state capacity and legitimacy were collapsing.
The paper is part of a broader effort to understand how embattled states enact authority through everyday practices rather than formal institutions. While existing accounts portray Doe’s late rule as chaotic and predatory, these archival fragments suggest a more complex repertoire of symbolic governance: moral appeals, technocratic reassurances, and selective generosity.
By reading economic policy announcements as ritualised practices of authority, the project aims to rethink how African governments signal order and legitimacy in the face of crisis. This paper aims at contributing to the discussion around the performative dimensions of governance preceding ECOWAS’s regional interventions in Liberia.
