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Title:The battle for Zimbabwe in 2013: from polarisation to ambivalence
Author:Gallagher, JuliaISNI
Year:2015
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies (ISSN 0022-278X)
Volume:53
Issue:1
Pages:27-49
Language:English
Geographic term:Zimbabwe
Subjects:elections
2013
ZANU-PF
Movement for Democratic Change
opposition parties
political opposition
political conditions
External link:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X14000640
Abstract:On the face of it, the triumph of Robert Mugabe and ZANU (PF) in the 2013 Zimbabwe elections came as a shock, not least to opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) activists. However, after a period of introspection, many have begun to construct a coherent and wide-ranging account of the result which explores opposition shortcomings, and the revived relationship between the electorate and Mugabe's ZANU (PF). This article, based on interviews with political activists conducted three months after the election, outlines and attempts to explain this account. It explores the way in which a politics of polarisation that dominated Zimbabwe in recent years appears to have given way to a politics of ambivalence: where Zimbabweans once viewed their political landscape as one populated by antinomies, they now see their state and its relation to themselves in more complex and ambiguous ways. As a result, Zimbabweans' conception of the state is increasingly coming to resemble Mbembe's formulation of states as contemporaneously 'organizers of public happiness' and wielders of arbitrary violence. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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