Post-Settler State-Society Relations in Zimbabwe: The Rise of Civil Society and the Decline of Authoritarianism

Despite the Zimbabwean state’s continued efforts to muzzle civil society from the time of independence in 1980, civil society organizations have emerged in the 1990s with some degree of independence—symbolized by the belated establishment of an opposition party in the violent mid-2000 general election. Indeed, from the late 1980s onwards, Zimbabwe has witnessed an historic awakening of new forms of social creativity and resistance in virtually all components of civil society. It is these ‘new’ forms of political mobilization which this paper will address.