| Summary/Abstract |
HORTLY AFTER THE GOVERNMENT’S2002 victory against UNITA rebels in the country’s long civil war, Angola became the fastest growing economy in the world. Oil production shot up from one million to just under two million barrels a day between 2002 and 2008, with the price of oil jumping from around $20 to $147 in the same period. GDP increased tenfold between 2002 and 2013, making Angola sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy at $121 billion. Armed with unprecedented oil revenues that paid for infrastructure expenditure and the hiring of hundreds of thousands of expatriates, a strategic alliance with China, and hegemonic control of post-war Angola, the ruling MPLA proceeded to enact a self-styled national reconstruction agenda and assertive foreign policy.
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