Rwanda and the difficult business of capitalist development

This article argues that current schisms in the research on post-genocide Rwanda are not sui generis but symptomatic of a broader set of separations within our understanding of development. Both the research on Rwanda and the most prominent intellectual responses to the rise of neoliberalism in development research have generated separations between a concern with rights and individual agency and structural transformation. The article sets out a way to reconcile key aspects of this separation and offers three empirical themes that provide original insights into Rwanda's apparent determination and partial success in pushing ahead with a bold strategy of capitalist transformation.