Review: Zimbabwe
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200105600316 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Author | P.L.E. Idahosa |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
ZIMBABWE
The
political
economy
of
transformation
Hevina
Dashwood
Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
2000,
xii, 252
pp,
$65.00
cloth
(ISBN
0-8020-4423-9),
$24.95
paper
(ISBN
0-8020-8226-2).
D
ashwood's
book
provides
a
systematic
and
well-presented
account
of
the
political
and
economic
shifts
within
Zimbabwe
from
independence
up
to
1997
in
six
thematic,
temporally
framed
chapters,
an
introduction
which
sets
out
the author's
class-based
polit-
ical
economy
approach to
Zimbabwe's
decline,
and
a
synthetic
conclu-
sion
that
reiterates
the
main
themes.
Dashwood's
purpose
is
to
account
for
the economic
decline
that
is
part
of
the
foundation
for
the
current
malaise
and
for
the
splintering
of
class
alliances,
which
would
presage
the
current
political realignments
and
descent
into
political
violence.
Her
central
argument
is
that
Zimbabwe's
economic
failures
and
polit-
ical
realignments
lie
in economic
policies
enacted
by
the
black
'petit
bourgeoisie'
that
resulted
in
growing
unemployment and
the
impover-
ishment
of
millions,
both
rural
and urban,
who
the
ruling
political
class
depended
upon.
Although
the
diminished
commitment
was
not
a
direct
consequence
of
the various
phases
of
shock therapies
that
char-
acterized
the
principal
adjustment
programmes
from
the
mid-'eighties
on,
it
was
certainly coincident
with
them.
The
removal
of
subsidies,
increased
food
prices
at
a
time
when
wages
remained
stable
or
fell,
and
the
reduction
in
access
to
basic
welfare
provisions such
as
health
care,
all
made
political
alliances
that
much
more
fragile.
When
coupled
with
the
use
of
both
authoritarian and
illegal
methods
to
stay
in
power,
it
is
little
wonder
that
opposition
to
the
government
increased,
even
in
the
rural
areas
where
Robert
Mugabe's
ruling
ZANU-PF
has
its
main
politi-
cal
base.
Today,
when
many political
scientists
have
abandoned
political
economy,
Dashwood's
book
is
refreshingly
old fashioned.
Her
argu-
ment
is
convincing,
and
the
virtue
of
her
book
lies
in showing
how
these
political
realignments
work
in
conjunction with
economic
poli-
cy,
and
how adjustment
as
an
economic
strategy
is
linked
in
so
many
fundamental
ways
to
the
post-colonial evolution
of
class
relations
in
Zimbabwe.
The
centrality
of
class
analysis
goes
a
long
way
in
account-
ing
for
current
political re-alignments
among
trade
unionists
and
white
farmers,
urban
workers
and
civil
society
groups,
and
thus
to
the
540
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer
2001
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