THE MINEWORKERS' RESISTANCE TO GOVERNMENTAL DECENTRALIZATION IN ZAMBIA: NATION-BUILDING AND LABOR ARISTOCRACY IN THE THIRD WORLD (POLITICAL ECONOMY, STATE BUILDING, IDEOLOGY, CENTRALIZATION AND DECENTRALIZATION)

This dissertation focuses on the Zambian mineworkers' resistance to the Local Administration Act of 1980 which proposed to integrate autonomous local administrations--the municipal and township administration, mine townships administration, and the administration of the rural areas, and United National Independence Party (UNIP)--into a new district administration in order to streamline local government and economize the government's scarce resources.;My dissertation examines the resistance of the mineworkers to the governmental decentralization from the perspective of the Zambian political economy which was determined by the production and the price of copper. The copper industry, in Zambia, had been financed and controlled by the AAC and the RST, and investments in copper production were dependent on the demand for copper by advanced capitalist countries. Since copper was the dominant export product, it was a major source of government revenue. Consequently the economic advancement of Zambia was determined by copper prices on international metal markets.;This dissertation demonstrates that because of the nature of mining and the nature of mine township administration, the mining corporations and the Zambian government contributed to the mineworkers becoming labor aristocrats. To conserve declining government revenue, caused by falling copper prices, and to control the bargaining power of the MUZ, this study argues that the Zambian government decided to integrate the mine townships administration into a new district administration.;Since the mineworkers considered MUZ the vanguard of their labor aristocratic status in the Zambian political economy, they staged industrial actions to prevent the integration of their residential areas. Because of the economic dominance of the mining industry, the government decided to preseve the status quo of the mine townships administration.;This study explores why the Mineworkers' Union of Zambia (MUZ) and the ordinary mineworkers rejected the new local administration--system that allegedly proposed to give decision-making power to local leaders--and why the mineworkers wanted to maintain autonomous mine townships administration. The Anglo American Corporation (AAC) and the Roan Selection Trust (RST) administered the miners' residential areas since the late 1920s.