The business and politics stream of the Africa Power and Politics Programme (APPP) aimed to distinguish among more and less developmental forms of African neo-patrimonial politics. This Zimbabwe country analysis, later published in shortened form in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, finds a pattern of centralised, short-term rent utilisation, with disastrous results, suggesting that centralisation of rent-management by itself does not indicate a ‘developmental patrimonialism’.
Martin Dawson and Tim Kelsall