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New Special Issue on Politics, Patronage and Violence in Zimbabwe Co-edited by Jocelyn Alexander and Miles Tendi

Jocelyn Alexander and Miles Tendi of ODID have co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies with JoAnn McGregor of the University of Sussex on Politics, Patronage and Violence in Zimbabwe.

The articles in the issue, Journal of Southern African Studies 39 (4), use the dramatic political and economic upheavals in Zimbabwe from 2000 to revisit debates in African studies over three key themes: the character of the post-colonial state, the politics of opposition, and the functioning of patronage-based economies.

They offer a critical reassessment of some of the dominant approaches to understanding these phenomena in political science and engage with new methods and theories emerging largely from anthropology and history.

The articles are grounded in rich empirical research, attuned to material and normative questions, and insistent on the importance of history.

They offer a riposte to prevalent assumptions of, and explanations for, state ‘weakness’ and social and political ‘disorder’ in Africa, and contribute to the development of new approaches.

Read the articles.