Lideranças Vitalícias na África Subsariana; Os casos do Ruanda e do Zimbabwe

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Presidents for Life in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Cases of Zimbabwe and Rwanda

Publication . Pinto, Maria Teresa Avilez Nogueira; Dias, Alexandra Magnólia

The world is going through a moment of democratic regression characterized by increasing resistance to democratization and the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism. However, even in non-democratic contexts, power legitimation remains relevant: since regimes cannot rely on repression and coercion alone, incumbents need to generate some level of consent. This research proposes a model of analysis to contribute to the understanding of the legitimation strategies developed by personalized, semi-authoritarian and resilient regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa through a comparison between two case studies: the regime led by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe (1980-2017) and the regime led by Paul Kagame in Rwanda (1994-2017). Because legitimation is a multidimensional concept, the model of analysis proposed is based on five distinct domains corresponding to sites where strategies and narratives of power justification are constructed and challenged: History and historiography; constitution, legal framework and institutional architecture; economic and developmental performance; the state-civil society relation and the regime’s positioning in the regional and international spheres. Through the application of this model of analysis to these two case studies it is possible to conclude that history was a key platform from which narratives of power legitimation were produced, to the extent that it provided for categories of belonging and shaped the constitutional and legal frameworks which, in turn, determined the rules of power competition. Economic and developmental performance also provided critical arguments for processes of both power legitimation and power delegitimation. Zimbabwe’s poor performance contributed to strengthen the opposition, both internally and internationally. In Rwanda, in turn, the regime has successfully constructed a narrative of renaissance based on economic and developmental gains. The deterioration of living conditions in Zimbabwe led to rising levels of popular mobilization, in a context where state-civil society relations were marked by contestation and confrontation. In Rwanda, in turn, state – civil society relations were characterized by cooperation and co-optation. The research also concludes that strategies of legitimation in the regional and international spheres impacted the capacity of these regimes to justify power in face of domestic audiences. In Zimbabwe, international criticism provided the opponents of the regime with strong arguments to challenge the status quo. In Rwanda, in turn, the regime managed to navigate international concerns and secure political and material support while keeping a relative degree of agency and autonomy.

2021Tese de doutoramento

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Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Programa de financiamento

OE

Número da atribuição

PD/BD/128451/2017