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Zimbabwe: Institutionalized Corruption and State Fragility

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State Fragility and State Building in Africa

Part of the book series: United Nations University Series on Regionalism ((UNSR,volume 10))

Abstract

Zimbabwe is one of the Sub-Saharan countries that have long been regarded as a success story of economic and institutional development, but has recently been plagued by various forms of state fragility, characterized by unprecedented declines in economic performance, lack of authority, legitimacy and capacity to deliver social services and security. This chapter seeks to examine the drivers, dimensions and effects of state fragility in Zimbabwe since 2000. Inspired by the Critical Discourse Analysis, it uses content analysis, interviews and the author’s own lived experiences as a citizen and resident of the country in examining the degree and intensity of fragility. Its central argument is that although there are both exogenous and endogenous factors influencing state fragility, institutionalized corruption renders it internally induced. The corruption patterns are endogenous to the political structure, systemic and planned. There is state complicity in the perpetuation of fragility in pursuit of parochial economic and political interests. The political elites are reluctant to reverse it because they are deriving spoils from its perpetuation. State fragility has been converted into an institutionalized net for harvesting national resources by the governing elites. It is concluded that state institutions that include the Central Bank and security organs have been reduced to ‘harvesting’ rods or tools of institutionalized corruption and hence incapable of providing any effective restraint on the Zimbabwe state fragility, especially lack of authority, legitimacy and capacity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

    Langtone Maunganidze

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  1. Langtone Maunganidze
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Correspondence to Langtone Maunganidze .

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  1. Global Peace Compact, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Dele Olowu

  2. OSSREA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Paulos Chanie

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Maunganidze, L. (2016). Zimbabwe: Institutionalized Corruption and State Fragility. In: Olowu, D., Chanie, P. (eds) State Fragility and State Building in Africa. United Nations University Series on Regionalism, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20642-4_3

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