Locating the Effects of Political Transitions on Economic Policy Architecture in Zimbabwe: 2008-2018

Abstract

The study elicits the need to locate the bearing of political transitions on economic policy continuities and discontinuities in Zimbabwe. The study notes that policy continuities and discontinuities are resultant of inter and intra party ideological contestations and shifts of power. In light of the given structural inadequacy, the study interrogates how political transitions between 2008 and 2018 have incentivised the drawbacks and divergent courses to economic policy architecture in Zimbabwe. At its centre of analysis, the study is exclusively focused on the: Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Policy, Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZIM-ASSET) and the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP). The findings of this research condemn the continued culture of policy-making which is disengaged from perennial national ideological aspirations. It is anticipated that the major contribution of this research will solicit a culture of economic policy-making which is anchored on promoting inclusive national development and transcends binaries of narrow partisan power consolidation interests. Basing on a qualitative research approach and the use of the neo-patrimonialism as a theoretical point of departure, the research posits that contestations surrounding economic policy-making are a major restraint to the inclusive and long lasting national development in Zimbabwe. As result, this paradigm-shift grounded thesis negotiates an ideological regeneration for policy architecture to be pro-national interest. As such, the research instigates the need for the preservation of ideas which give room for perpetual economically set targets for national growth. Through advocating for sustainability driven policy continuities and discontinuities, the research exposes the politically underpinning challenges to economic plans of action in encumbering national development. For that reason, study advances the promotion of a policy- creation which is aligned to collective national aspirations beyond the confines of political expedience.