"The book, no doubt, is useful to not only policy makers in Zimbabwe and beyond, but to undergraduate and graduate candidates in Economics, Economic History as well as those with musings in State Fragility in Africa, Southern Africa specifically. More interesting is that, the book contributes to literature on the Zimbabwe crises beyond Mugabe centric narratives with ZANU-PF being the main focus of analysis." (Brian Maregedze, Harare 24, harare24.com, Januray 03, 2019)
1. Introduction
2. The Economics of State Fragility
3. Zimbabwe’s First Decade: Building the One-Party State and Controlling the Economy
4. Regime Interests and the Failure of Economic Reform in the 1990s
5. Regime Survival and the Fast Track Land Reform Programme
6. Regime Survival and the Attack on the Urban Poor
7. Regime Survival: Poverty Creation, Mass Migration and Elite Enrichment
8. International Isolation and the Search for New Friends
9. Economic Meltdown and Elections
10. The Challenges of Cohabitation
11. Protecting the ZANU-PF State: Safeguarding Extractive Political Structures
12. Protecting the ZANU-PF State: Safeguarding Extractive Economic Institutions
13. A Resurgent ZANU-PF
14. The Transitions That Weren’t
Mark Simpson is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study of the University of London, UK. He previously served in UN peacekeeping missions in Angola and East Timor and worked for UNDP in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Tony Hawkins is former Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business, University of Zimbabwe. He is a consultant for an international bank, and one of the two lead authors of the SADC Industrialization Strategy (2015). He served on the Board of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Monetary Policy Committee (2010–2014).
This book analyses the past and ongoing decline of Zimbabwe under the rule of ZANU-PF, with a primary focus on the period 1997 to the present. In contrast to much existing literature on post-independence Zimbabwe which has focused on the political dimensions of Zimbabwe’s fragility, this research highlights the economic aspects of Zimbabwe’s regression flowing from prolonged mismanagement of the economy which has served to consolidate the rule of the country’s political and economic elite. The Zimbabwean experience offers unique insights into the economic mensions of regime preservation. This book situates the Zimbabwe experience within the context of wider debates within the field of development studies, and the international community’s response to such situations.