Abstract
Abstract This chapter illustrates how powerful ruling parties can sidestep strong state institutions by pursuing and enforcing their political and developmental agendas through ‘twilight institutions’ operating on the state’s margins. It discusses the rapid displacement and remaking of power and authority on white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe, following the spectacular upheavals of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in 2000. The chapter specifically explains how local ZANU-PF structures together with their allies—war veterans, youth militias, and others—constructed and established a new system of partisan authority that became the dominant mode of governing commercial farming areas from 2000 to 2002. These actors sought to use the system of partisan authority to recreate the terms of existence on occupied farms, to govern and regulate political conduct, and to control access to land and related resources.The chapter also brings into consideration farm occupiers’ experiences, responses, and adaptations of the system of partisan authority, an aspect neglected in the wider literature on FTLRP, which presents farm occupiers as accomplices and allies of ZANU-PF. Specifically, it illustrates how social categorizations and hierarchical ordering on occupied farms enabled ordinary occupiers to contest claims to authority and resources by local ZANU-PF structures, war veterans, and youth militias under the system of partisan authority.
Published Version
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