Post-colonial struggles for a democratic Southern Africa: Legacies of Liberation [Hardcover]

National liberation, one of the grand narratives of the twentieth century, has left a weighty legacy of unfulfilled dreams. This book explores the ongoing struggle for legitimate, accountable political leaders in postcolonial Southern Africa, focusing on dilemmas arising when ex-liberation movements form the governments. While the spread of multi-party democracy to most countries in the region is to be celebrated, democratic practice often has been superficial - a limited, elitist politics that relies on the symbols of the liberation struggle to legitimate de facto one-party rule and authoritarian practices. Using country cases from Tanzania, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia, the collection explores three subthemes relevant to postcolonial governance in Southern Africa: how the struggle for liberation shapes the character of political transformation, the nature of rule in one-party dominant states headed by former liberation movements, and the processes of governance and resistance in post-liberation contexts.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.

1. Legacies of liberation: postcolonial struggles for a democratic southern Africa  2. Culture and resistance in Swaziland  3. The Zimbabwean Peoples Army moment in Zimbabwean history, 1975-1977: Mugabes rise and democracys demise  4. Liberating development? Rule and liberation in post-independence Tanzania  5. From liberation movement to party machine? The ANC in South Africa  6. A parallel universe - competing interpretations of Zimbabwes crisis  7. Land resistance in Zambia: a case study of the Luana Farmers Cooperative  8. Geologies of power: blood diamonds, security politics and Zimbabwes troubled transition

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