Zimbabwe’s July 2013 election brought the country’s “inclusive” power-sharing interlude to an end and installed Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF for yet another – its seventh – term. Why? What explains the resilience of authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe?
Tracing the country’s elusive search for a legitimate political settlement across the decades, Bratton offers a careful analysis of the failed power-sharing experiment, an account of its institutional origins and an explanation of its demise. In the process, he explores key challenges of political transition: constitution making, elections, security-sector reform and transitional justice.