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This article re-examines part of the literature on Britain’s role in the December 1979 to March 1980 Zimbabwe/Rhodesia ceasefire. The ceasefire ushered in an era of peace after a protracted internal war and it was an integral part of the transition from colonial white minority rule, towards black majority independence. Scholars present Britain’s success in brokering and monitoring the Zimbabwe/Rhodesia ceasefire as the result of its judicious and accordant management of the road to peace. However, this article argues that in fact deep internal divisions plagued the British managers of the ceasefire. Internal divisions centred on authority struggles between diplomats and military actors, conflicting personalities, discordant approaches to and goals in the ceasefire, and inter-institutional rivalry between the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The article concludes that Britain only managed the ceasefire effectively because its military’s independence, political nous, and competence ultimately prevailed over the injudicious views and machinations of diplomats.

Since 2002, many scholars and Zimbabwean politicians have argued that Zimbabwe's Joint Operations Command (JOC), which comprises the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) commander and heads of the army, prisons, police, air force and intelligence, increasingly poses a threat to civilian authority. A notorious statement made by the ZDF commander Vitalis Zvinavashe in 2002 is often cited as evidence of the JOC or military elites' partisan support for President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front ZANU[PF]) party. This article argues that Zvinavashe's 2002 statement has been interpreted in selective ways, and that external factors that played a crucial part in precipitating his intervention in 2002 have been neglected. This has resulted in an impoverished understanding of the full import of Zvinavashe's 2002 statement. Using Zvinavashe as an example, the article also demonstrates that some military elites' allegiance to Mugabe and ideological commitment to ZANU(PF) rule must be seen as unstable and contradictory. Be that as it may, Mugabe retains effective control of military elites for a variety of reasons, namely power derived from his status as ZDF commander in chief and his high position in ZANU(PF)'s 1970s nationalist hierarchy; his shrewd use of prebends to maintain loyalty; and the staunch ideological commitment of sections of the military elite to ZANU(PF).

Zimbabwe staged harmonised presidential, parliamentary and local elections on 31 July 2013. I was in Zimbabwe from 2 July to late September. Throughout this period, I closely followed the political fortuna of Zimbabwe President Robert Gabriel Mugabe before and after the 31 July presidential election. I had unique access to Mugabe’s campaign managers and was allowed to observe his electioneering at close range. Thus, the following account is based on first-hand knowledge of Mugabe’s election campaign. I have interviewed Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU[PF]) and military elites frequently since 2010 as an independent researcher. Through this constant interaction I have developed a good degree of trust and understanding with some of my research subjects, which has enabled me to secure access. My account focuses on five themes: Mugabe’s state of mind and authority ahead of the election; his campaign message; political violence; the cohesion of Mugabe’s ZANU(PF)party; and campaign funding. I contend that the views of a number of academics, rival politicians and sections of local and international media during the campaign period that Mugabe was no longer the authoritative figure within his party and over the military and that he had lost much of his physical and mental powers were misleading. ‘Patriotic history’ and a narrative about the importance of peace during the campaigns, the benefits of ZANU(PF)’s Fast Track Land Reform programme, and a pledge to fully indigenise and economically empower the generality of Zimbabweans were Mugabe’s key campaign messages. Mugabe’s campaign was slick, well-funded, united and peaceful, in contrast to his 2008 presidential election campaign, which was underfunded, plagued with internal division and characterised by extreme violence in the June run-off. This article attempts to account for some of these changes and continuities, in addition to offering a perspective on his electioneering in July 2013.

This article focuses on the response of critical Zimbabwean public intellectuals to the ZANUPF government’s uses of Zimbabwe’s liberation history in national politics from 2000 to 2004. The ZANU-PF master narrative is referred to as ‘patriotic history’. This article examines the activities of the five most prominent critical public intellectuals in the Zimbabwean public sphere, namely Brian Raftopoulos, Masipula Sithole, John Makumbe, Elphas Mukonoweshuro and Lovemore Madhuku. It argues that these critical intellectuals were effective in deconstructing patriotic history’s distinction between ‘patriots’ and ‘sellouts’, and in underlining the role of land as one of several grievances causing Zimbabwe’s liberation war. But the article highlights their failure to disentangle a local struggle for human rights and democracy from appeals to alleged ‘democratic’ and ‘human rights respecting’ western countries. It concludes that critical public intellectuals’ challenge to patriotic history was largely ineffectual, and puts forward several explanations for this.

This paper draws on the recent experience of Kenya and Zimbabwe to demonstrate how power-sharing has played out in Africa. Although the two cases share some superficial similarities, variation in the strength and disposition of key veto players generated radically different contexts that shaped the feasibility and impact of unity government. Explaining the number and attitude of veto players requires a comparative analysis of the evolution of civil–military and intra-elite relations. In Zimbabwe, the exclusionary use of violence and rhetoric, together with the militarisation of politics, created far greater barriers to genuine power-sharing, resulting inthe politics of continuity. These veto players were less significant in the Kenyan case, giving rise to a more cohesive outcome in the form ofthe politics of collusion. However, we find that neither mode of power-sharing creates the conditions for effective reform, which leads to a more general conclusion: unity government serves to postpone conflict, rather than to resolve it.