The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940-1964

The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe details a democratic tradition developed in the 1940s and 1950s, and a movement that would fall victim to an increasingly elitist and divisive political culture by the 1960s. Providing biographical sketches of key personalities within the genealogy of nationalist politics, Timothy Scarnecchia weaves an intricate narrative that traces the trajectories of earlier democratic traditions inZimbabwe, including women’s political movements, township organizations, and trade unions. This work suggests that intense rivalries for control of the nationalist leadership after 1960, the sell-out politics of that period, andCold War funding for rival groups contributed to a unique political impasse, ultimately resulting in the largely autocratic and violent political state today. The author further proposes that this recourse to political violence, top-down nationalism, and the abandonment of urban democratic traditions are all hallmarks of a particular type of nationalism equally unsustainable in Zimbabwe then as it is now.

Timothy Scarnecchia is assistant professor of African history at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.