The book Understanding Zimbabwe: From Liberation to Authoritarianism
by Sara Rich Dorman can be accessed on [ Ссылка ]

This book seeks to understand the state, nation and political identities that are being forged in modern Zimbabwe, and the nature of control that Robert Mugabe’s ZANU exercises over those political institutions. Focusing on the perspective and experiences of societal groups including NGOs, churches, trade unions, students and academics the book explores how the construction of consent, threat of coercion and material resources are used to integrate social groups into the ruling nationalist coalition, but also how they resist and frame competing discourses and institutions. Taking seriously the discursive and institutional legacies of the nationalist struggle and the liberation war in shaping politics, it explores how independent Zimbabwe’s politics were molded by discursive claims to foster national unity that delegitimize autonomous political action outside the ruling party. Building a new societal coalition entailed the "demobilization" of ZANU(PF)’s original nationalist constituency which had backed it during the liberation war, and the "inclusion" of new groups including donors, white farmers and business interests. It also shows how legal practices and institution-building defused and constrained opportunities for contestation, even while the regime used the security forces to suppress those who challenged its political monopoly or who otherwise resisted incorporation. It thus presents a complex picture of how individuals and groups became bound up in the project of state- and nation-building, despite contesting or even rejecting aspects of it.

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