State Politics in ZimbabweBecause of its wide coverage and acute analysis of issues, institutions, and interest groups, State Politics in Zimbabwe provides the best single source for understanding the politics of post-independence Zimbabwe. Jeffrey Herbst avoids the grand generalizations that characterize so much theorizing about African politics. Instead, and despite the tendency to depict African politics in a deinstitutionalized setting, he poses a series of questions of interest to political scientists and policy makers which focus on state institutions and yield testable propositions about state autonomy and allocation processes: Under what circumstances are interest groups able to influence government decisions to allocate resources? When are institutions or leaders relatively immune to popular pressures? What factors determine which part of the state will prevail in allocation decisions? How do the structure and relative influence of state institutions affect allocation? These general questions are addressed through seven specific case studies of decision-making in Zimbabwe which focus on: 1) the new black government's efforts to resettle black farmers on formerly white-owned land; 2) who received that land ; 3) the setting of agricultural producer prices; 4) foreign investment policy; 5) the confrontation between the government and large mining transnationals; 6) the allocation of health care resources; and 7) the setting of wage levels. Material from the case studies informs broader analyses of the politics of racial accommodation, the interplay of ideology and pragmatism, the role of the ruling party, and the leadership of Robert Mugabe. |
Contents
Prelude to Independence The Political Inheritance | 13 |
CASE STUDIES | 37 |
Conflict over Land Communal Farmers versus Squatters | 63 |
Societal Demands and Government Choices | 82 |
Zimbabwes Policies towards Foreign Investment | 110 |
State Power versus the Multinationals | 142 |
Ethnic and Class Claims on Health Services | 166 |
National Minimum Wage Policy | 193 |
CONCLUSIONS | 221 |
Understanding State Autonomy and the Locus | 243 |
262 | |
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Common terms and phrases
able agricultural producer prices allocation areas autonomy babwe Bernard Chidzero Black government bureaucracy Cabinet cent Chidzero colonial commercial farm-workers commercial farmers communal farmers Communal Lands Corporation crop decision-making process decisions economic Economy of Zimbabwe EMCOZ employers ethnic farms Financial Gazette foreign investment government's groundnuts Gweru Harare Herald Ibid ideology important increase Independence influence instance interest groups interview investors issue issue-areas labour Lancaster House large number leaders lobbying locus of decision-making maize Manicaland Mashonaland Mashonaland Central Mashonaland West Matabeleland Matabeleland North ment Minerals Marketing minimum wage mining companies mining industry Minister Ministry of Lands MMCZ Mugabe multinational Ndebele NFAZ officials organization organizational party peasant farmers pressure problems province regime resettlement programme Robert Mugabe role Rural Councils rural health centres settlers Shona significant South Africa Southern Africa Southern Rhodesia squatters Union wage-setting process White farmers White population workers ZANU(PF ZCTU Zimbabwe's Zimbabwean