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Once the breadbasket of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe has undergone a radical transformation presently characterized by ever increasing rates of HIV and AIDS, low population growth, acute food shortages, radically decreasing life expectancy, hyperinflation, and insecurity of life and property. Additionally, the growing brutality of political and electoral oppression has engendered significant domestic, regional, and international condemnation of the Zimbabwean government. News media, human rights organizations, and foreign governments have all voiced their concern for the rapid deterioration of Zimbabwe. This thesis analyzes the course of Zimbabwe's economic, political, and social decline between its independence in 1980 and 2005. While popular interpretations place blame predominantly upon President Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African Union-Patriotic Front, this thesis offers a more nuanced explanation for Zimbabwe's current crisis. This view contends that the structural adjustment policies of the Bretton Woods institutions, in concert with the breakdown of democratic institutions and the implementation of radical land reform policies led to Zimbabwe's current economic, political, and social decline.

This study is centred on the challenges of land tenure reforms in South Africa taking a case study of the labour tenants in KwaZulu-Natal between 1996 and 2009. The study uses narrative policy analysis as a framework for understanding these challenges. Of course, the challenges around the tenure reforms cannot be discussed in isolation from the land owners and the government. Voices of the labour tenants, farmers, government and civil society are heard in this study. This study shows how policy change comes about and how instrumental stories are in bringing about change. It also specifically looked at the factors that lead to policy change. The measures put in place to bring about the needed policy change and finally the procedures and condition advanced to secure this new change in policy were examined. The study focuses on a redistributive policy, as it looks at policy transition from one regime, in which a certain group of people was disadvantaged in terms of ownership, to the next, where the previously disadvantaged are being uplifted. Stories in this study are used to show how and why change occurs in policy arenas. The study used qualitative methodology to obtain the information that was needed to answer the research question. Documents were used to source this information, which was in the form of workshop minutes, reported complaints, government legislation and policy documents such as the Labour Tenant Act No.3 of 1996, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the Green Paper and the White Paper on South African Land Policy. Other documents included a report on independent research done on the relationships between farmers and labour tenants on farms in KwaZulu-Natal and the various land and agrarian reports. This study unearths the challenges of land tenure reforms in South Africa, through a narrative policy analysis technique. The study used the narratives to gain a better understanding of the policy; the story of the government in the form of the legislation enacted relating to land and the story of the people as recipients of the policy. The Labour Tenant Act No.3 of 1996 is used as the main document of reference and Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) as the voice of civil society, not only as a source of information. In this study the voices of AFRA, labour tenants and farmers are collectively referred to as the people‟s voice. KwaZulu-Natal was used as a case study due to the high rate of labour tenants in the province as well as its history of the land conflict. The study in its final chapter refers to the difficulty of managing redistributive policies such as land reform. Despite the challenges of the redistributive policies, the study shows how narrative policy analysis helps understand complex policies, as well as help understand difficult problems. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Pontíficia Univ. Católica, Diss.--São Paulo, 2001.

Thesis (Master of Science)--University of Wisconsin. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: p. 145-151.

Thesis (Ph. D. (Law))--Rhodes University, 2005.

PhDGEO / Department of Geography and Geo-Information Sciences / See the attached abstract below

MA (History) / Department of Development Studies / The research investigated the nexus between land reform and human security in Ratombo community. The central argument was that land reform should address human security and development of the community. The security-development nexus was applied to explicate the link between human security and human development. The human security concerns discussed in the research included food security, economic security, individual security, community security, and environmental security. These security matters were discussed within the backdrop of a myriad of challenges facing Ratombo Communal Property Association (CPA) regarding improving production at the farm. The problem under investigation was informed by the failure of the CPA to ensure food security and to create employment for the community members. Within that background, the study sought to explore the feelings of the farm workers, management and members of the CPA. Qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were used to establish the attitudes and feelings of stakeholders on Ratombo CPA’s performance, regarding meeting human security concerns of the community. The outcome of the research was that, as land reforms have dominated the discourse of rural development, there is needed to closely link rural development to human security issues because development and well-being are inseparable to the human security of a community. / NRF

The introduction of the first democratic Constitution and the land reform programme in South ' Africa provided the impetus for the development of a new perception of property. In terms of the traditional private law perception property rights are reduced to abstract, scientific concepts which form part of a hierarchical system of rationally and logically related concepts and definitions, the relationships between which remain largely unaffected by social and political realities. In this view the constitutional property clause is interpreted as a guarantee of existing individual property rights against unwarranted state interference. Proponents of the traditional private law view argue that this perception of property need not be replaced by a new constitutional perception of property, because the traditional private law perception is legitimated by the fact that it developed in an uninterrupted, linear line from Roman law. It is regarded as flexible enough to adapt to new and different social and political circumstances. However, the truth is that the development of property rights was disrupted by a number of discontinuities or fundamental breaks in different periods of its development. It is argued in this thesis that the introduction of the new constitutional order in South Africa can be regarded as another of these discontinuities, and that the strict adherence to the private law perception of property may be abandoned in favour of a new debate on property where the social and political function of property is emphasised more strongly. Land reform promotes the public interest in that it ensures the equitable use, distribution and exploitation of property. In most cases the implementation of land reform necessitates the limitation of property rights. A conservative judiciary's adherence to the traditional private law perception of property may lead to a constitutional conflict between the judiciary (that aims to afford existing property rights strong constitutional protection) and the legislature (that aims to promote the public interest by implementing land reform). Such a constitutional conflict can be avoided if the South African courts adopt an approach in terms of which the social and political role and function of property in society is recognised. / Private Law / LL.D.

The study critically explored the language of reportage of the Zimbabwe Land Reform programme as presented in selected Shona and English newspapers in Zimbabwe. The study focused on Kwayedza, The Herald, The Daily News and The Daily Mirror. The objective was to find out whether or not the verbal and visual languages used in reporting the Land Reform programme left readers more knowledgeable about the programme, and then adopt a critical attitude towards the Land Reform exercise. The study used qualitative textual analysis to unpack the language frames used in representing Land Reform in the selected newspapers. Some relevant critical voices from readers were also enlisted in order to support or complicate interpretations of how Land Reform was portrayed in the selected stories. Kwayedza and The Herald unequivocally supported the Land Reform. This official stance was contested in Chapter Four in which The Daily News adopted an ideological position opposed to both the idea of the Land Reform and the confiscatory way the land was repossessed. The Daily News’ extremely negative criticism of the Land Reform was challenged and then modified in The Daily Mirror. The Daily Mirror criticised both the government’s extremely supportive view of the Land Reform. The Daily Mirror also openly criticised The Daily News for refusing to acknowledge the historical inevitability and necessity of the Land Reform. The Daily Mirror advanced a perspective that suggested that Land Reform programme should benefit the masses more than the elites. It was argued that in contexts of political change such as that of Zimbabwe, newspapers take a stance and support particular ideological interests. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)