Many Zimbabweans experienced its 18 April 1980 independence of Zimbabwe as ushering in an era of hope. However, it is shown that events like Operations Murambatsvina and Makavhotasei, the Land Reform Program, and the Economic Structural Adjustment Program significantly and negatively impacted on the initial hope of independence. The study traces and explores the potential of Moltmann’s work on hope for the Zimbabwean context. It is concluded that Moltmann’s work can make a constructive contribution the meta-discourse on hope in Zimbabwe. This is specifically the case with reference to the way in which Moltmann’s theology of hope integrates the role of history, God’s promise in a comprehensive eschatological framework, grounded in his Christology. / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Dogmatics and Christian Ethics / unrestricted

Many scholars perceive state sovereignty as absolute, inviolable, indivisible, final, binding and stagnant. That perception emanates from inter alia political, social, cultural and environmental contexts of the modern era. Most literature converge that the doctrine of sovereignty first received official codification at the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporary international norms, particularly the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, are arguably an environment and culture of current global politics. With human rights and democracy having taken centre-stage in contemporary political discourses, sovereignty is affected and influenced by such developments in international politics. Hence the argument that globalisation, among others, has eroded, weakened and rendered the doctrine of sovereignty obsolete. This study, using Zimbabwe‟s Operation Murambatsvina as a case study, demonstrates that sovereignty is neither unitary in practice, nor sacrosanct; it is dynamic and evolves, thus, in need of constant reconfiguration. To this end, the study uses the qualitative research methodology. / Political Sciences / M.A. (International Politics)

Department of Development Studies / PhD (African Studies) / There is a political conflict in Zimbabwe between the ruling Zimbabwean African National Union-PatrioticFront (ZANU-PF) and the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Political conflict is a battle that occurs between two or more sides with different beliefs. Although Zimbabwe is a sovereign state, South Africa used a foreign policy of “quiet diplomacy” to contribute to the peaceful resolution of Zimbabwe’s political conflict. A sovereign state is a state which administers its own government and is not dependent upon or subjected to another state. Dissent in Zimbabwe centres around the land issue, land ownership, land reform, and land appropriation – problems caused as a result of parliamentary and presidential elections. Land reform led the government to introduce “Operation Murambatsvina” which was a campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country. The government depicted the operation as a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities and as an effort to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious disease in these areas. South Africa’s “quiet diplomacy” succeeded in the peaceful resolution of the Zimbabwean political conflict because the land issue was deemed legitimate; however, the methods used for land reform seem to be problematic. For a way forward, the Zimbabwean government needs to be accountable, transparent and democratic. The researcher used a qualitative research method to gather an in-depth understanding of human behaviour and the reasons that govern such behaviour. The researcher asked broad questions and collected word data from participants. The researcher used different approaches in collecting data, such as narratology, storytelling, classical ethnography and shadowing. In addition the researcher used primary and secondary sources.

On May 16 2006 the government of Zimbabwe embarked on a clean-up programme of urban centres, destroying informal human settlements and informal businesses. This operation, which the government called operation "Restore Order", resulted in the displacement of nearly one million people and left thousands of families homeless. This study is a discussion and an analysis of the coverage of the clean-up operation by two of Zimbabwe's leading Sunday newspapers, The Sunday Mail and The Standard. The Sunday Mail is owned by the Zimbabwe government and The Standard is privately owned and perceived to be oppositional to the current Zimbabwe government. The two newspapers, therefore, covered the clean-up operation from different perspectives and often presented conflicting reports explaining why the clean-up operation was carried out and the extent of its impact on the lives of millions of Zimbabweans. The chosen research approach is the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework as developed by Fairclough (1995). Using CDA, this study seeks to find out and expose the underlying ideological struggles for hegemony between different social and political groups in Zimbabwe and how the newspapers became actors in this process. This process is made possible by looking at how news reporting is organised in the two newspapers, issues of language use, sourcing and external factors that influenced the coverage of the operation.

Many scholars perceive state sovereignty as absolute, inviolable, indivisible, final, binding and stagnant. That perception emanates from inter alia political, social, cultural and environmental contexts of the modern era. Most literature converge that the doctrine of sovereignty first received official codification at the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporary international norms, particularly the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, are arguably an environment and culture of current global politics. With human rights and democracy having taken centre-stage in contemporary political discourses, sovereignty is affected and influenced by such developments in international politics. Hence the argument that globalisation, among others, has eroded, weakened and rendered the doctrine of sovereignty obsolete. This study, using Zimbabwe‟s Operation Murambatsvina as a case study, demonstrates that sovereignty is neither unitary in practice, nor sacrosanct; it is dynamic and evolves, thus, in need of constant reconfiguration. To this end, the study uses the qualitative research methodology. / Political Sciences / M.A. (International Politics)

Many scholars perceive state sovereignty as absolute, inviolable, indivisible, final, binding and stagnant. That perception emanates from inter alia political, social, cultural and environmental contexts of the modern era. Most literature converge that the doctrine of sovereignty first received official codification at the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporary international norms, particularly the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, are arguably an environment and culture of current global politics. With human rights and democracy having taken centre-stage in contemporary political discourses, sovereignty is affected and influenced by such developments in international politics. Hence the argument that globalisation, among others, has eroded, weakened and rendered the doctrine of sovereignty obsolete. This study, using Zimbabwe‟s Operation Murambatsvina as a case study, demonstrates that sovereignty is neither unitary in practice, nor sacrosanct; it is dynamic and evolves, thus, in need of constant reconfiguration. To this end, the study uses the qualitative research methodology. / Political Sciences / M. A. (International Politics)