Miles Tendi co-authors new report on state of democracy in Zimbabwe and factors shaping its evolution

DPIR’s Miles Tendi, Associate Professor of the Politics of Africa, and Chipo Dendere (Wellesley College) have co-authored a new report assessing the current state of democracy in Zimbabwe and multiple factors shaping its evolution in the last decade.
 

In the report – ‘Understanding the evolution and state of democracy in Zimbabwe: When a coup is not called a coup’ – Tendi and Dendere argue that, most recently, the 2017 ousting of President Robert Mugabe by military coup was a move which set the country back towards authoritarianism.
 

In particular, they claim that Western hesitance to acknowledge the coup enabled the ZANU PF party to evade international condemnation and stage a problematic election, granting the government a veneer of legitimacy.
 

Miles said: 

“The Zimbabwe case study offers a vivid example of authoritarian resilience, owing to narrow elite settlements and military power, which strengthen the ZANU-PF regime’s survival by undermining accountability rather than restoring it, especially when coupled with repression and co-optation. 
 

“This case expands our understanding of resilience by showing that in autocratic contexts, windows of opportunity (and not just stressors) can test a regime's underlying configuration.” 

The report for the Brookings Institution (Washington DC) – aimed at DC policymakers – is part of a project by the Institution on “The State of Democracy in Africa: Pathways Towards Inclusion, Accountability, and Transformation.” 
 

The project focused on five country case studies (Ghana, Kenya, DRC, Mali and Zimbabwe) to better understand how distinct regime pathways emerge and why some countries—both authoritarian and democratic—remain relatively stable over time while others experience incremental improvements or deteriorations in specific political domains