The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union – ... more The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) at the end of July 2013 incorporated elements ranging from coercion, cheating, and regional connivance (with opposition's hapless performance) so seamlessly that many scholars and political practitioners have prophesised the near death of democracy there and elsewhere on the continent. This article reviews the process of and the discourse on the election. Historical reflections based on recent archival research offer comparative perspectives. Democratic progress in Zimbabwe must be reassessed soberly and without illusions.
... as opposed to social science) concerns attention to European ideas that link Africa with dise... more ... as opposed to social science) concerns attention to European ideas that link Africa with disease (2000, 1346). Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Joseph ... that he give them a huge pension settlement and that he rectify the long-simmering land question (see Kinsey 1998; Moyo 2000 ...
After an attempt at a theoretical and contextual introduction to Mugabe’s Legacy, I dug into the ... more After an attempt at a theoretical and contextual introduction to Mugabe’s Legacy, I dug into the main menu with something akin to the mainstay of Joost Fontein’s nearly simultaneously published book on the politics of death in Zimbabwe: a death. I am sure Joostwould agree that such a denouement hardly means ‘the end’. My end-that-is-a-new-beginning entailed the somewhat magical way I discovered that Robert Mugabe had indeed reached the final point of his mortal coil, and my recounting of Stephen Groote’s hastily rallied Zimbabwean éminence activistes grises’ epitaphs on SAFM’s Sunrise. Surprisingly (to me), none of them mentioned in other than laudatory mode Mugabe’s learning many of his trade’s tricks during Zimbabwe’s liberation war. I tried to remedy some of such lacunae at the end of the interviews on that September 6, 2019 morning, but when writing the book discovered writer Percy Zvomuya’s historical delving reflected my interests. Zvomuya zeroed in on the mid-1970s moment Mug...
The bourgeoisie ... compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of pr... more The bourgeoisie ... compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production ... to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. 1
It has taken longer than usual to write these words because the reviewers' colleagues, ranging fr... more It has taken longer than usual to write these words because the reviewers' colleagues, ranging from academics to activists, kept borrowing Timothy Scarnecchia's pathbreaking book. They would, however, inevitably read it in a sitting of little more than a day and report back with an enthusiasm more than justifying the loan. An activist who had opposed Robert Mugabe (now among the most reviled presidents in the world even though in a 'government of national unity' with his party's opposition; and a major subject of this book) since the days of guerrilla warfare emerged from his immersion shaking his head: 'So,' he said, 'Mugabe was like this in the sixties too! He's never changed!' An academic who had buried himself in it exclaimed: 'the book is a revelation: if only every member of ZANU-PF (the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980) could read it; they'd see their reality.' Scarnnechia pulls apart Zimbabwean nationalism and its articulators with a meticulously researched, archive-grounded, analysis: scrupulous work in especially in the American historical repositories exposes the hypocrisy of the 'anti-imperialists' in a way that will make any reader laugh when she hears the contemporary Zimbabwean ruling party accuse its opposition of puppetry to the British and Americans. Urban Roots charts the conflicts and strategies of Zimbabwe's urban petit-bourgeois-cum-political class from the days of unionist, restaurateur and political hopeful Charles Mzengeli to the political split in the early sixties that engendered vicious violence alongside hypocritical accusations of 'imperialist stooge' against those too openly courting international capital. These allegations were rooted in similar ones over the foreign funding of the ever-more-politicised trade union movement of the fifties, centring mostly on the trials of union leader Reuben Jamela. The separation of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and Ndanbaningi Sithole's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) is uncovered through assiduous -and very amusing -recounting of the protagonists' pleading and preening conversations with various interested parties proximate to the American state. Robert Mugabe, who a decade after the closing of Urban Roots time period took the ZANU away from Sithole, emerges as the cleverest -and most calculating, or even chameleon-like and cynical -of the lot. Reading Urban Roots is almost like a forewarning: 'be careful of this man'! But Scarnecchia's research buttresses this reviewer's interviews: Mugabe impressed both British and American diplomats with his coolly intellectual pretences. Most now ask 'how could such a well educated man lead Zimbabwe to this ruin?'; while only one, no longer living, opined that Mugabewith all his degrees never amounting to a doctorate -might be an 'intellectual manque´.' The doddering dictator's cardboard version of 'Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Thought' was taken seriously only by the crudest of anti-communists, while the more sophisticated knew he had wiped out his left opposition in the seventies: they must
Contrary to many claims, the World Bank's 1997 Development Report The State in a Changing Wor... more Contrary to many claims, the World Bank's 1997 Development Report The State in a Changing World is no radical departure from neo‐liberal development principles. Rather, it marks the culmination of the Bank's gradual move away from crude anti‐statism to its ‘good governance’ discursive efforts to ‘get the state right’ in its quest for a solution to the post‐1970s development crisis. This article examines The State in a Changing World from within the Bank's discourse on the role of the state and its managers, and current academic discussions of the ‘third world’ state and globalisation. It is difficult for these realms of discourse to construct a hegemonic vision of ‘development’ in the current conjuncture — particularly while the Bank remains hostage to private capital markets. Perspectives on the role of the state with deeper than Hayekian neo‐liberal roots must go beyond the contradictory melange of anti‐statism and managerialism which make up the current discourse of ‘neo‐statism’. However, such alterat...
... Sithole, M. and Makumbe, J. 1997. Elections in Zimbabwe: The ZANU (PF) hegemony and its incip... more ... Sithole, M. and Makumbe, J. 1997. Elections in Zimbabwe: The ZANU (PF) hegemony and its incipient decline. African Journal of Political Science , 2(1): 122–39. ... [CrossRef] View all references; cf. Howard-Hassmann 20107. Howard-Hassmann, R. 2010. ...
Marx’s much uttered epigram about men making history but not in the conditions they choose can ei... more Marx’s much uttered epigram about men making history but not in the conditions they choose can either be a fetter to progressive political and economic action or a corrective to false steps in the direction of futile and faulty utopias. Materialist historians are thus among the best equipped of social scientists for the task of discerning what can be done at a certain time for a certain project, not only what must be done from the point of view of social justice. Their history can provide part of the answer – the conditioning preliminary – to Lenin’s question: “what is to be done?” When they transcend their disciplinary borders into political economy, and become students or even practitioners of “development”, they move into the normative side of Marx’s quest to go beyond historical structure into contemporary agency. Few historians take this step. When they do, their work becomes part of much more than a record of history. It influences its making. Their understanding becomes part of history’s changes, even if they declare disinterest.
5-10 on state theories in Zimbabwe. 3 Statistics on the 'new farmers' are unclear; tenure relatio... more 5-10 on state theories in Zimbabwe. 3 Statistics on the 'new farmers' are unclear; tenure relations are even more so. In 2002, Yeros estimated 160,000 households had gained land in 'fast-tracked' reforms. However, by 2004, state commissions advised by Sam Moyo estimated 127,192
Thinking about war and its aftermath through the lenses of some classical political economy and p... more Thinking about war and its aftermath through the lenses of some classical political economy and political ‘science’ may cast fresh light on the protracted relationship of war and development. Karl Marx’s idea of primitive accumulation warns us that ‘becoming capitalist’ is inherently violent. Max Weber’s notion of states’ monopoly over force is worth contemplation even as these organisations simultaneously emerge and fade away. Antonio Gramsci helps us grapple with the dialectic of coercion and consent whilst these processes unfold amidst universal desires for deepening democracy – while its dreams fade into nightmares in a new conjuncture of fear. This paper, prepared for Colombo’s Centre for Policy Analysis and the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium’s conference ‘Challenges of Post-War Development in Asia and Africa’ of 1 to 3 September 2014, also takes brief forays into some southern African empirical referents to these formulations to further illustrate their complexities and the complications of implementing productive peace in the interstices of the drawn out crises of capitalism’s initial stages in the ‘third world.’
Reflections on South African diplomacy regarding Zimbabwe, inspired by hopes that Nelson Mandela'... more Reflections on South African diplomacy regarding Zimbabwe, inspired by hopes that Nelson Mandela's discourse of cross-border support for liberal human rights would continue after his departure, are pervaded by disquiet. They suggest that Thabo Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' during the decade of his incumbency indicated either cynical realpolitik or enthusiastic support for a dictator, under the guise of supporting Zimbabwean sovereignty and pan-Africanism. This more nuanced article takes ideas seriously by closely examining a long Mbeki text on the question of Zimbabwe, underpinned by the Soviet-inspired 'national democratic revolution' ideology. This 'NDR' discourse illustrates much about the contradictions of 'marxists' in power in a world far from approaching the ideology's progenitors' expectations, regarding both foreign policy and further realms of 'democracy'. Examination of the text thus illustrates the petards upon which many African rulers rest, pointing to even more disquiet for advocates of liberal (or socialist) democracy -abroad and at home.
The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union -Patri... more The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union -Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) at the end of July 2013 incorporated elements ranging from coercion, cheating, and regional connivance (with opposition's hapless performance) so seamlessly that many scholars and political practitioners have prophesised the near death of democracy there -and elsewhere on the continent. This article reviews the process of and the discourse on the election. Historical reflections based on recent archival research offer comparative perspectives. Democratic progress in Zimbabwe must be reassessed soberly and without illusions.
The academic sub-discipline of development studies is too often shorn of politics, but that field... more The academic sub-discipline of development studies is too often shorn of politics, but that field too is usually divorced from its material dimension: the unity of political economy (which constitutes the essence of 'development') has been sundered. Concentration on the relationship between consent and coercionbetween freedom and force -perhaps the core element of the politics behind the pursuit of power and the formulation and execution of accumulation strategies, could reopen analysis of the construction of capitalism in Africa. All societies' transitions to capitalism have been accompanied by a large degree of violence; Africa's history has been especially so and the transition is far from complete now -if indeed it can be fulfilled. Yet the 'legitimacy' of ruling classes in the making -the consent to their rule that builds hegemony for them and the new socio-economic system they are constructing -is important too. This contribution's main question is: how can one understand the relationship between coercion and consent while Africa 'develops', unevenly and haltingly, towards capitalist democracy? The query ranges theoretically and empirically; its tentative conclusion emphasises the necessity for the deepening of democracy at time when it seems to be diminishing.
The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union – ... more The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) at the end of July 2013 incorporated elements ranging from coercion, cheating, and regional connivance (with opposition's hapless performance) so seamlessly that many scholars and political practitioners have prophesised the near death of democracy there and elsewhere on the continent. This article reviews the process of and the discourse on the election. Historical reflections based on recent archival research offer comparative perspectives. Democratic progress in Zimbabwe must be reassessed soberly and without illusions.
... as opposed to social science) concerns attention to European ideas that link Africa with dise... more ... as opposed to social science) concerns attention to European ideas that link Africa with disease (2000, 1346). Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Joseph ... that he give them a huge pension settlement and that he rectify the long-simmering land question (see Kinsey 1998; Moyo 2000 ...
After an attempt at a theoretical and contextual introduction to Mugabe’s Legacy, I dug into the ... more After an attempt at a theoretical and contextual introduction to Mugabe’s Legacy, I dug into the main menu with something akin to the mainstay of Joost Fontein’s nearly simultaneously published book on the politics of death in Zimbabwe: a death. I am sure Joostwould agree that such a denouement hardly means ‘the end’. My end-that-is-a-new-beginning entailed the somewhat magical way I discovered that Robert Mugabe had indeed reached the final point of his mortal coil, and my recounting of Stephen Groote’s hastily rallied Zimbabwean éminence activistes grises’ epitaphs on SAFM’s Sunrise. Surprisingly (to me), none of them mentioned in other than laudatory mode Mugabe’s learning many of his trade’s tricks during Zimbabwe’s liberation war. I tried to remedy some of such lacunae at the end of the interviews on that September 6, 2019 morning, but when writing the book discovered writer Percy Zvomuya’s historical delving reflected my interests. Zvomuya zeroed in on the mid-1970s moment Mug...
The bourgeoisie ... compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of pr... more The bourgeoisie ... compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production ... to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. 1
It has taken longer than usual to write these words because the reviewers' colleagues, ranging fr... more It has taken longer than usual to write these words because the reviewers' colleagues, ranging from academics to activists, kept borrowing Timothy Scarnecchia's pathbreaking book. They would, however, inevitably read it in a sitting of little more than a day and report back with an enthusiasm more than justifying the loan. An activist who had opposed Robert Mugabe (now among the most reviled presidents in the world even though in a 'government of national unity' with his party's opposition; and a major subject of this book) since the days of guerrilla warfare emerged from his immersion shaking his head: 'So,' he said, 'Mugabe was like this in the sixties too! He's never changed!' An academic who had buried himself in it exclaimed: 'the book is a revelation: if only every member of ZANU-PF (the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980) could read it; they'd see their reality.' Scarnnechia pulls apart Zimbabwean nationalism and its articulators with a meticulously researched, archive-grounded, analysis: scrupulous work in especially in the American historical repositories exposes the hypocrisy of the 'anti-imperialists' in a way that will make any reader laugh when she hears the contemporary Zimbabwean ruling party accuse its opposition of puppetry to the British and Americans. Urban Roots charts the conflicts and strategies of Zimbabwe's urban petit-bourgeois-cum-political class from the days of unionist, restaurateur and political hopeful Charles Mzengeli to the political split in the early sixties that engendered vicious violence alongside hypocritical accusations of 'imperialist stooge' against those too openly courting international capital. These allegations were rooted in similar ones over the foreign funding of the ever-more-politicised trade union movement of the fifties, centring mostly on the trials of union leader Reuben Jamela. The separation of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and Ndanbaningi Sithole's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) is uncovered through assiduous -and very amusing -recounting of the protagonists' pleading and preening conversations with various interested parties proximate to the American state. Robert Mugabe, who a decade after the closing of Urban Roots time period took the ZANU away from Sithole, emerges as the cleverest -and most calculating, or even chameleon-like and cynical -of the lot. Reading Urban Roots is almost like a forewarning: 'be careful of this man'! But Scarnecchia's research buttresses this reviewer's interviews: Mugabe impressed both British and American diplomats with his coolly intellectual pretences. Most now ask 'how could such a well educated man lead Zimbabwe to this ruin?'; while only one, no longer living, opined that Mugabewith all his degrees never amounting to a doctorate -might be an 'intellectual manque´.' The doddering dictator's cardboard version of 'Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Thought' was taken seriously only by the crudest of anti-communists, while the more sophisticated knew he had wiped out his left opposition in the seventies: they must
Contrary to many claims, the World Bank's 1997 Development Report The State in a Changing Wor... more Contrary to many claims, the World Bank's 1997 Development Report The State in a Changing World is no radical departure from neo‐liberal development principles. Rather, it marks the culmination of the Bank's gradual move away from crude anti‐statism to its ‘good governance’ discursive efforts to ‘get the state right’ in its quest for a solution to the post‐1970s development crisis. This article examines The State in a Changing World from within the Bank's discourse on the role of the state and its managers, and current academic discussions of the ‘third world’ state and globalisation. It is difficult for these realms of discourse to construct a hegemonic vision of ‘development’ in the current conjuncture — particularly while the Bank remains hostage to private capital markets. Perspectives on the role of the state with deeper than Hayekian neo‐liberal roots must go beyond the contradictory melange of anti‐statism and managerialism which make up the current discourse of ‘neo‐statism’. However, such alterat...
... Sithole, M. and Makumbe, J. 1997. Elections in Zimbabwe: The ZANU (PF) hegemony and its incip... more ... Sithole, M. and Makumbe, J. 1997. Elections in Zimbabwe: The ZANU (PF) hegemony and its incipient decline. African Journal of Political Science , 2(1): 122–39. ... [CrossRef] View all references; cf. Howard-Hassmann 20107. Howard-Hassmann, R. 2010. ...
Marx’s much uttered epigram about men making history but not in the conditions they choose can ei... more Marx’s much uttered epigram about men making history but not in the conditions they choose can either be a fetter to progressive political and economic action or a corrective to false steps in the direction of futile and faulty utopias. Materialist historians are thus among the best equipped of social scientists for the task of discerning what can be done at a certain time for a certain project, not only what must be done from the point of view of social justice. Their history can provide part of the answer – the conditioning preliminary – to Lenin’s question: “what is to be done?” When they transcend their disciplinary borders into political economy, and become students or even practitioners of “development”, they move into the normative side of Marx’s quest to go beyond historical structure into contemporary agency. Few historians take this step. When they do, their work becomes part of much more than a record of history. It influences its making. Their understanding becomes part of history’s changes, even if they declare disinterest.
5-10 on state theories in Zimbabwe. 3 Statistics on the 'new farmers' are unclear; tenure relatio... more 5-10 on state theories in Zimbabwe. 3 Statistics on the 'new farmers' are unclear; tenure relations are even more so. In 2002, Yeros estimated 160,000 households had gained land in 'fast-tracked' reforms. However, by 2004, state commissions advised by Sam Moyo estimated 127,192
Thinking about war and its aftermath through the lenses of some classical political economy and p... more Thinking about war and its aftermath through the lenses of some classical political economy and political ‘science’ may cast fresh light on the protracted relationship of war and development. Karl Marx’s idea of primitive accumulation warns us that ‘becoming capitalist’ is inherently violent. Max Weber’s notion of states’ monopoly over force is worth contemplation even as these organisations simultaneously emerge and fade away. Antonio Gramsci helps us grapple with the dialectic of coercion and consent whilst these processes unfold amidst universal desires for deepening democracy – while its dreams fade into nightmares in a new conjuncture of fear. This paper, prepared for Colombo’s Centre for Policy Analysis and the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium’s conference ‘Challenges of Post-War Development in Asia and Africa’ of 1 to 3 September 2014, also takes brief forays into some southern African empirical referents to these formulations to further illustrate their complexities and the complications of implementing productive peace in the interstices of the drawn out crises of capitalism’s initial stages in the ‘third world.’
Reflections on South African diplomacy regarding Zimbabwe, inspired by hopes that Nelson Mandela'... more Reflections on South African diplomacy regarding Zimbabwe, inspired by hopes that Nelson Mandela's discourse of cross-border support for liberal human rights would continue after his departure, are pervaded by disquiet. They suggest that Thabo Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' during the decade of his incumbency indicated either cynical realpolitik or enthusiastic support for a dictator, under the guise of supporting Zimbabwean sovereignty and pan-Africanism. This more nuanced article takes ideas seriously by closely examining a long Mbeki text on the question of Zimbabwe, underpinned by the Soviet-inspired 'national democratic revolution' ideology. This 'NDR' discourse illustrates much about the contradictions of 'marxists' in power in a world far from approaching the ideology's progenitors' expectations, regarding both foreign policy and further realms of 'democracy'. Examination of the text thus illustrates the petards upon which many African rulers rest, pointing to even more disquiet for advocates of liberal (or socialist) democracy -abroad and at home.
The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union -Patri... more The startlingly definitive election victory for Zimbabwe's Zimbabwe African National Union -Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) at the end of July 2013 incorporated elements ranging from coercion, cheating, and regional connivance (with opposition's hapless performance) so seamlessly that many scholars and political practitioners have prophesised the near death of democracy there -and elsewhere on the continent. This article reviews the process of and the discourse on the election. Historical reflections based on recent archival research offer comparative perspectives. Democratic progress in Zimbabwe must be reassessed soberly and without illusions.
The academic sub-discipline of development studies is too often shorn of politics, but that field... more The academic sub-discipline of development studies is too often shorn of politics, but that field too is usually divorced from its material dimension: the unity of political economy (which constitutes the essence of 'development') has been sundered. Concentration on the relationship between consent and coercionbetween freedom and force -perhaps the core element of the politics behind the pursuit of power and the formulation and execution of accumulation strategies, could reopen analysis of the construction of capitalism in Africa. All societies' transitions to capitalism have been accompanied by a large degree of violence; Africa's history has been especially so and the transition is far from complete now -if indeed it can be fulfilled. Yet the 'legitimacy' of ruling classes in the making -the consent to their rule that builds hegemony for them and the new socio-economic system they are constructing -is important too. This contribution's main question is: how can one understand the relationship between coercion and consent while Africa 'develops', unevenly and haltingly, towards capitalist democracy? The query ranges theoretically and empirically; its tentative conclusion emphasises the necessity for the deepening of democracy at time when it seems to be diminishing.
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