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This dissertation considers the impact of voter exit on the survival of incumbent regimes. I argue that voters exit the political process as a result of emigration or political violence. Using the example of Zimbabwe, I argue that ZANU-PF benefited from the exit of nearly four million Zimbabweans who emigrated outside the country in response to declining economic conditions and who exited the political system as a result of violence.

This study examines how the former president, Robert Mugabe and the ruling party, ZANU-PF, have designed and manipulated the political system in Zimbabwe to remain in power. The study begins with a comprise background and then analyzes which political system the country possesses. Finally, the analysis discusses how Robert Mugabe have used the constituencies, legal threshold, form of the state and exclusion of other parties to remain in power.

Living as a white Zimbabwean in the 1990s meant a near-perfect life: your clothes were always clean and ironed, there was always tea in the silver teapot, gins and tonics were served on the verandah, and, in theory at least, black and white lived in harmony. As Mugabe’s presidency turned sour, however, this idyllic and privileged world began to crumble into anarchy. My family and I left to escape the political violence in 2002, and moved to New Zealand. My novel Ngozi draws on these experiences to tell the story of one troubled white family who struggle to stay afloat in the collapsing economy and escalating horror of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The story is told through the eyes of a young white girl, who is partly based on myself. When the farm invasions begin, the violence threatens to destroy the family’s way of life forever. They eventually leave Zimbabwe, but escaping the vengeful ghosts (‘ngozi’) of their past still seems impossible.

This thesis examines the reasons for the survival of Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe over more than thirty years. Approaching this question from comparative politics perspective the author examines the type of regime, its capacity (including capacity of the state and of other institutions) and strategy of survival that can be found in Zimbabwe, in the context of relevant historical events before and after Mugabe's seizing of power. Thereby the author devaluate those aspects taking into account all the broader context of sub-Saharan African regimes.

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.

During the month of November 2017, the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe was taken into custody by Zimbabwe’s military. This was a move in order to shift the governmental power after which Mugabe after almost 40 years as President of Zimbabwe resigned from his post.   The thesis contains a Ccritical Ddiscourse Aanalysis of articles published by one of the world’s great newspapers during this shift of power. The newspaper analysed is the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’. The analysis studied which characters and major topics are represented in the articles and how they are represented to see what fits inside The Guardian’s news reporting on the final events in the shift of power in Zimbabwe. In order to find these discursive attributes, pictures linked to the articles were analysed, the context in which the events happened as well as the discourse used in the articles from a perspective of orientalism, post-colonialism and ideology. Other theoretical aspects used are framing, representation and critical Critical Ddiscourse Sstudies.   The empirical case in this research project involves three articles collected from T‘the Guardian ’ reaching from the reporting of Mugabe’s firing of his vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa to the reporting of Robert Mugabe resigning as President of Zimbabwe.   The interest in this study is springing from the normative approach of news media to provide an objective story to the readers while providing the whole picture. With this mission many different challenges come along of orientalist and post-colonial character, as ‘the Guardian’The Guardian is a British newspaper and Zimbabwe being a former British colony.   The results concluded an absence of post-colonial and orientalist representations in the news frames regarding Zimbabwe and its population, the most ideologically charged instances rather revolved around Robert and Grace Mugabe.

To learn how international actors use their discourse as a power tool in an international debate can it help us to understand how they use it to gain leverage and influence the international debate. The international debate this thesis will focus on is the debate around Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe, a heavily debated leader. The three chosen actors who view Robert Mugabe very differently and have interest in Zimbabwe are; China, United Kingdom and South Africa. The analytical framework that is used to understand how the actors influence the debate is based on Steven Lukes theory on the Three-dimensional view of Power, to see how issues are included or excluded from the public debate. Steven Lukes concept of Power as Domination will also be used to analyze the discourse the actors are conducting. The thesis methodological framework will be a Critical Discourse Analysis, where the focus is on the relation between the social contexts and the linguistic. When talking about Robert Mugabe the actors have used different discourses describing him very differently. The discourse that the chosen actors have been using have had its foundation in a specific moments or incidents to which he is described very differently. This thesis will also show how the chosen actors try to dominate the international debate regarding Robert Mugabe by describing him each in their specific way.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyze the economic and political development of Botswana and Zimbabwe in the last 50 years. Emphasis is placed mainly on the contradictory development in both countries, as the previously flourishing economy of Zimbabwe almost collapsed in the last decade, while the once poor Botswana gradually became Africa's miracle and role model for the optimal development policy. This thesis also seeks to propose measures that would help the distressed Zimbabwean economy to overcome this crisis and return on the growth path once again.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: Ezekiel Walker. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-83).