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- Title
Civic Space Constraints and Crowdsourced Governance in Zimbabwe's Second Republic.
- Authors
Zvoushe, Hardlife
- Abstract
Following the wave of democratisation some decades ago, related practices have emerged not only to ride on that wave but also to foster and enhance its movement. One such practice has been collaboration in governance, whereby governments have been creating collective forums with non-state actors and citizens to generate consensus on decisions affecting them. Against this background, the objective of this paper is to assess the extent of preparedness of the Zimbabwean civic space for a mode of governance that openly calls for public participation in decision-making. This comes in the wake of the Government of Zimbabwe’s publicised adoption of participatory decision-making as one of its core values. The paper makes use of a qualitative research methodology that takes the form of extensive documentary reviews of literature focusing on the theme of governance politics in Zimbabwe. The study findings reveal the deep-seated constraints in the current Zimbabwean civic space that are practically serving as a barrier to the take-off of collaborative governance in its real sense. Key challenges observed include the government’s long-standing track record of exclusionary governance, mainly made possible by an array of repressive and restrictive laws that collectively produce the effect of constricting participation space for citizens and civics. These aspects further validate scholarly narratives characterising the Zimbabwean state as authoritarian and predatory. Considering these findings, the paper concludes that collaborative governance will not take off without the necessary reforms of repressive laws governing conduct in the public sphere and a genuine return to constitutionalism.
- Subjects
ZIMBABWE; LITERATURE reviews; LAW reform; NON-state actors (International relations); POLITICAL participation; PUBLIC sphere
- Publication
African Journal of Development Studies, 2023, Vol 13, Issue 4, p309
- ISSN
2634-3630
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.31920/2634-3649/2023/v13n4a15