'Zimbabwe - The Political Economy of Decline' by Suzanne Dansereau & Mario Zamponi
Zimbabwean society is for obvious reasons under the current circumstances looked upon mainly from a political perspective. But as relevant is the socio-economic framework, which as a result of the recent policies has resulted in a steady decline of the economic productivity and a deterioration of the population's living standards. To illustrate the challenges for any government in Zimbabwe, these two articles highlight some of the current socio-economic aspects. By doing so, they raise relevant issues, yet ones that have tended to be neglected given the almost exclusive concentration on political events. While this is understandable, the articles fill the gap in our knowledge and add insights into important sectors of society. These include information on the Zimbabwean economy and the present constraints of the decline, which together help us to understand the structural legacy that any future government will have to deal with. What is more, the elections in Zimbabwe in 2005 provide an ideal moment to discuss such matters. This Discussion Paper thereby makes a substantive contribution to the analysis of the overall picture in Zimbabwe. It is one of the results of a Conference at The Nordic Africa Institute, which was co-organised by the project on "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA).
New Publication by The Nordic Africa Institute
Suzanne Dansereau & Mario Zamponi
Zimbabwe - The Political Economy of Decline
43 pp, March 2005 (NAI Discussion Paper; 27)
ISBN: 91-7106-541-5
Zimbabwean society is for obvious reasons under the current circumstances looked upon mainly from a political perspective. But as relevant is the socio-economic framework, which as a result of the recent policies has resulted in a steady decline of the economic productivity and a deterioration of the population's living standards. To illustrate the challenges for any government in Zimbabwe, the two articles highlight some of the current socio-economic aspects. By doing so, they raise relevant issues, yet ones that have tended to be neglected given the almost exclusive concentration on political events. While this is understandable, the articles fill the gap in our knowledge and add insights into important sectors of society. These include information on the Zimbabwean economy and the present constraints of the decline, which together help us to understand the structural legacy that any future government will have to deal with. What is more, the elections in Zimbabwe in 2005 provide an ideal moment to discuss such matters. This Discussion Paper thereby makes a substantive contribution to the analysis of the overall picture in Zimbabwe. It is one of the results of a Conference at The Nordic Africa Institute, which was co-organised by the project on "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA).
* Suzanne Dansereau is Assistant Professor, International Development Studies at St Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada). She has published extensively on Zimbabwe, also within the LiDeSA network at NAI.
* Mario Zamponi is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Bologna (Italy). He has worked and published on Zimbabwe for an extensive period of time and is the editor of the Italian scholarly journal "afriche e orienti".
Contents
- Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Zimbabwe's Development Impasse
Suzanne Dansereau
- From Social Justice, to Neo-liberalism, to Authoritarian Nationalism - Where is the Zimbabwean State going?
Mario Zamponi
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