Power, Patronage and the Informal Sector: co-optation and coercion in state-society relations in Zimbabwe and Zambia

This project will use a multi–site comparative design to explore how ruling parties in Zambia (and Zimbabwe) extend their reach through dispensing ‘public’ goods such as market and bus stalls as well as housing developments to rule by co–optation rather than coercion in increasingly adverse political or economic climates. For most African ruling parties, urban spaces are sites of acute political contestation – urban populations are far more likely than rural citizens to engage in protest and contest the ruling party’s authority. Across the continent, cities typically give the lowest electoral returns to ruling parties while rural areas are more likely to vote for the incumbent. My project will explore the ways in which governing parties seek to ‘tame’ and deploy members of the urban informal sector to legitimate, maintain and extend their control of the state. Unpacking the relationships between party–states and urban residents will be key to any understanding of contemporary African politics, alongside a consideration of which strategies ruling parties deploy to try to ‘win’ back the loyalty of their urban base. This research builds on a growing literature on the diverse party and state strategies employed to deal with a growing urban population alongside sluggish growth in employment figures, the need to maintain power in contexts of procedural democracy and the uncertainty induced by the impact of external economic conditions on party support bases.