Chipo Dendere (Wellesley College) and the ASC's Miles Tendi publish a report on democracy in Zimbabwe

Chipo Dendere (Wellesley College) and the ASC's Miles Tendi have published a report for the Brookings Institution (Washington DC) that assesses the current state of democracy in Zimbabwe and the multiple factors shaping its evolution in the last decade.

The report is part of a Brookings Institution project on “The State of Democracy in Africa: Pathways Towards Inclusion, Accountability, and Transformation.” The project focused on five country case studies (Ghana, Kenya, DRC, Mali and Zimbabwe) to better understand how distinct regime pathways emerge and why some countries—both authoritarian and democratic—remain relatively stable over time while others experience incremental improvements or deteriorations in specific political domains. The Zimbabwe case study offers a vivid example of authoritarian resilience, owing to narrow elite settlements and military power, which strengthen the ZANU-PF regime’s survival by undermining accountability rather than restoring it, especially when coupled with repression and co-optation. This case expands our understanding of resilience by showing that in autocratic contexts, windows of opportunity (and not just stressors) can test a regime's underlying configuration.