Journal articles on the topic 'Political leadership – Zimbabwe'

This article maps the evolution of Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy (LEP) and specifically the bilateral relationship with China through the lens of Zimbabwe’s domestic politics. It argues that political elite in Zimbabwe has a vested interest in a close economic and political relationship with China at the cost of the interests of the people of Zimbabwe. The author establishes that Zimbabwe’s LEP was intended to respond to the economic sanctions imposed on it by Western nations. From the descriptive account of the LEP provided in the article, it appears that the LEP has been successful in doing that by having a broad-based economic and political relationship with China. The author further critiques the impact of Chinese investment in Zimbabwe as detrimental to the interests of the people. Foreign policy is an instrument that governs and protects the interests of governments, nationals, institutions, organisations and entities within the lenses of bilateral relations between the countries concerned. The Zimbabwe–China relations point to the fact that the latter China is politically and economically committed to engage and develop the former. However, at the heart of commitment and development in Zimbabwe lies questions of interests and the nature of the relationship which is affecting development and commitment to take place. Hence, this article argues that the failure of Zimbabwe to yield satisfying results from the bilateral relations lies mostly on the political and economic weaknesses of the Zimbabwean government and leadership. The fact that the LEP is not formally and publicly developed and disseminated to key stakeholders and the general public and that it remains largely an oral secret public policy statement affects the interests of Zimbabwean economy and interested stakeholders. This also reflects a weak foreign policy directive. As long as Zimbabwe continues to deny to engage with other superpowers and global institutions, the LEP will remain doomed as China will continue to manipulate and exploit the relationship knowingly that Zimbabwe has no other friends and partners for development and cooperation.

AbstractDuring Zimbabwe's struggle for national liberation, thousands of black African students fled Rhodesia to universities across the world on refugee scholarship schemes. To these young people, university student activism had historically provided a stable route into political relevance and nationalist leadership. But at foreign universities, many of which were vibrant centres for student mobilisations in the 1960s and 1970s and located far from Zimbabwean liberation movements’ organising structures, student refugees were confronted with the dilemma of what their role and future in the liberation struggle was. Through the concept of the ‘frontier’, this article compares the experiences of student activists at universities in Uganda, West Africa, and the UK as they figured out who they were as political agents. For these refugees, I show how political geography mattered. Campus frontiers could lead young people both to the military fronts of Mozambique and Zambia as well as to the highest circles of government in independent Zimbabwe. As such, campus frontiers were central to the history of Zimbabwe's liberation movements and the development of the postcolonial state.

Purpose: the role of China in Zimbabwe, that has been under long-term sanctions implemented by EU and US, and also experiencing serious economic difficulties. Discussion: the author analyzed the development of relations between Zimbabwe and China. The priorities of Beijing, the main trends and key areas of bilateral cooperation are shown. Results: while in isolation and in terms of Western sanctions, the leadership of Zimbabwe found a reliable ally – China, which became its one of the leading trade and economic partners and political allies, helped to overcome the negative consequences of a large-scale economic crisis. The author predicts that in the medium term, it is possible to expect a decrease in the role Beijing is playing in the economic and political life of Zimbabwe, which is due to a number of circumstances, including the removal of most of the EU sanctions, the possible abolition of US restrictive measures, the activation of Russia, India, as well as other developing countries in the Zimbabwe. However, the link between Zimbabwe and China, which emerged in the last century, the achieved level of influence on the Zimbabwean elites will allow Beijing in the foreseeable future to remain a key player in this country.

In Zimbabwe reports of abuse of public office have manifested in various forms resulting in public outcry; poor service delivery, and government losing millions of dollars. This study aims to undertake a reflective inquiry on the ethical conduct in the Zimbabwean public sector through content and process analysis in order to provide intervention mechanisms to the problem. Statistical analysis of corruption level is made to benefit the study. Results indicated some legislative gaps and an incapacitated Anti-Corruption Commission which has been unable to execute its mandate fully. Most senior public officials and politicians appear to have too much power and authority with no checks and balances in place. Practical implications of the widespread unethical practices call for the government to plug the glaring legislative gaps; take stern measures against offenders; empowering the Anti-Corruption Commission; term limits for senior public officials as well as for political appointments; and motivating political will to uphold ethical leadership. The recommendations will open a window for the Zimbabwean government and administrators to view how some advanced economies have propped up ethical behaviour in the public sector. It is the way to go for ailing economies like Zimbabwe. The paper demonstrated the importance of ethical awareness in another political and economic setting-Zimbabwe.

Human security has recently emerged as a global issue that requires international cooperation. Moreso, the concepts of political harmony and rule of law have also become a common agenda at many international conferences. Human insecurity in Zimbabwe can be dated back to its colonial past. The colonisation of Zimbabwe by Britain was widely viewed as an attempt by colonisers to introduce a type of monocracy. That marked the initial obstruction to human security for the indigenous people and general lack of cohesion amongst social groups. Currently, Zimbabwe is facing socio-economic challenges which are embedded in the political environment linked to its isolation from the international community through imposition of sanctions for top politicians. The overall objective of this research was to assess philosophical perspectives on the current political situation and rule of law in Zimbabwe and their implications on human security. The research sought to identify the political leadership challenges in addressing human security concerns. To achieve these research objectives, an interdisciplinary approach was used. The methodology for this paper was based on hermeneutics and philosophical analytical models. Results have shown that there is generally an unstable political environment marred with inherent tension due to lack of political harmony and selective application of the law. This paper recommends the need for leadership renewal besides the ideological renewal alongside dialogue and national consensus. Furthermore, the adoption of global village concept emphasizing on democratic principles and political integration could be a possible panacea in addressing the current challenges and ensure human security.

This article describes how traditional leaders play important developmental, administrative and political roles in rural areas, despite modern state structures. They regulate rural life, control access to land, and settle various disputes. They are respected leaders in their communities. The existence of traditional leaders means that both the decentralisation and the strengthening of local governance are not taking place in a vacuum. Documentary sources such as the Constitution of Zimbabwe; the Traditional Leaders Act (2000) and Chiefs and Headmen Act (1982); newspapers and unpublished non-governmental organisations (NGOs) evaluations and reports were used in this article. Traditional leaders have played a pivotal role in ensuring that the ZANU-PF government remains in power since 1980. In principle, traditional leaders should not be drawn into party politics and their role should remain one of the neutral leadership. If the traditional leader assumes a party-political role, one should appoint a substitute to handle their traditional role to avoid a conflict of interest.

ABSTRACT Robert Mugabe resigned as Zimbabwe’s president in November 2017, following a military action called Operation Restore Legacy. This article examines the motivations and dynamics of Operation Restore Legacy, which it characterizes as a coup by military generals that had significant commonalities with historical coups in Africa. This characterization, which is informed by the accounts of coup participants and a reading of the literature, challenges interpretations of the coup as ‘a non-coup-coup’, ‘very Zimbabwean’, or ‘special’. The article argues that the coup was a vote of no confidence in Mugabe’s leadership, which succeeded because soldiers from Zimbabwe’s 1970s independence war subscribed to the coup’s stated ideal to restore liberation struggle principles in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front party as well as party members who had been sidelined. Liberation war veterans held decisive army and air force command posts when the coup occurred. The article’s emphasis on liberation struggle principles as a crucial determinant of the coup’s success is a counterpoint to game theoretic approaches to coup dynamics that disregard political beliefs as a consequential factor in the realization of coups. In respect of motivations, the article advances interrelating motives and contends that the coup’s catalyst was Mugabe’s refusal to meet his generals on 13 November 2017, for vital talks on widening differences between both parties. Sealing off dialogue catalyzed the coup.

AbstractThe reigning scandal in Zimbabwe is the simultaneous growth of Christianity and political repression, begging one to wonder why increased Christian presence has not resulted in social and political transformation. The answer can be found in the Christian sacralization of human authority and the uncritical interpretation of Romans 13:1–5 common in some leading churches. The resulting uncritical submission to repressive authority of the "anointed men of God" and the fear of holding them accountable for their questionable leadership has incapacitated Christians to challenge and address this growing political repression. Furthermore, the Christian leaders who have sacralized their authority have been in the forefront of the legitimization of President Robert Mugabe's repressive rule. Robert Mugabe has been presented as the anointed leader of Zimbabwe who should be submitted to at all costs. To promote democracy and good governance, the church must shift her paradigm to be inclusive of the full counsel of Scripture. By desacralizing human authority the church will empower the Christian community to hold church and political leaders accountable for their abuse of power. This is necessary if the African Renaissance's quest for African human legitimacy is to be realised.

The problem facing most of the Third World today is no longer how to launch development, but rather how to sustain it. Consider the colossal disappointments, after 150 years of independence, of Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Peru — and the debacle of Argentina. Recall the historic leadership which set Egypt, Thailand, and Turkey on their drives to modernization fully a century ago: now, nearly stagnant. Contrast the economic promise inherited from the colonial period and the determination and unbounded elan inspired by independence with today's languor in India, Kenya, and Malaysia, the listlessness of Zimbabwe, Indonesia, The Philippines, and North Africa: indeed, the failures of Ghana and Nigeria. The issue is no longer how to assure political stability — but even with stability, how to foster steady development whose gains will accrue and whose momentum can be sustained.

We adopt a holistic—micro, meso, macro—approach to health leadership ethics to examine how low- and middle-income countries have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare delivery happens within complex settings in low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries. These settings are riddled with systemic political and economic challenges which, in some instances, make it difficult for health leaders to be ethical. These challenges, however, are not unique to low- and middle-income countries. Globally, countries can learn from ethical health leadership missteps that occurred during low- and middle-income countries’ responses to COVID-19. We discuss the implications of problematic ethics in health leadership on managing pandemics in low- and middle-income countries, using Zimbabwe as an example. We offer suggestions on what can be done to improve ethical health leadership in response to future health crises in both high-income and low- and middle-income nations.

AbstractAfrican theologies are most often classified as either theologies of inculturation, or of liberation. Canaan Banana was one of few African theologians who combine authentic indigenization and liberation in their thought. The author, who knew Rev. Banana personally, based his analysis on Banana's writings and on interpretations by other scholars. Banana's theology was influenced by his ecumenical leadership as a Methodist minister, studies in the United States, involvement in the liberation struggle, and national leadership as the first President of Zimbabwe. Banana's liberation perspective, in contrast to those of most South African black theologians, dealt with issues of class rather than of color. His political theology, articulated when he was president of Zimbabwe, focused on the relation of socialism and Christianity. For him liberation involved struggle and even armed struggle. In his last decade former President Banana began to articulate a prophetic "Combat Theology." Banana stimulated a heated discussion on biblical hermeneutics in southern Africa by proposing deletion from the Bible of passages used to justify oppression. Believing that God is revealed also through creation and African culture, he found creative myths and images of Jesus in the cultures of his own Shona and Ndebele peoples. His contribution is a theology that can help Christianity to be both indigenous and socially relevant in 21st century Africa.

Scholars have long been interested in investigating why and how ruling parties manipulate elections in Africa and elsewhere. Despite the importance of such a subject, much remains unknown about the role of incumbents in strategically manipulating electoral processes and outcomes in by-elections in particular. Debate rages on as to whether ruling parties rely exclusively on coercive methods or, in addition, make use of non-repressive methods. In seeking to contribute to addressing this matter, we draw upon a case study of two by-elections held in 2017 in rural constituencies in Zimbabwe, namely Bikita West and Mwenezi East. Our research involved evidence gleaned through personal observations, review of grey literature and personal reflections. Our study established that competitive authoritarian regimes as found in Zimbabwe combine both methods when manipulating by-elections. However, we show that there has been a shift away from heavy reliance on organised acts of naked political violence on the part of the ZANU-PF ruling party since the disputed 2008 elections and in the subsequent 2013 and post-2013 by-elections. Thus, there appears to be an inclination towards the use of subtle methods, including patronage, assisted voting, use of traditional leadership and appealing to the rendition of past violence. Nonetheless, even these methods impinge on the credibility of not only by-elections but also national elections in Zimbabwe.

Feminist scholarship is awash with literature that strives to vindicate its position that women in general have never enjoyed status and platforms equal to those of their male counterparts in the social, economic, religious and political spheres in life. The literature bemoans the invisibility of women in matters to do with economics and property ownership. The literature further posits that women neither wielded any power nor had any platforms for the generation and accumulation of wealth or the ownership of property. Leaning on Africana Womanist theory, this paper contends that such a perception is the antithesis of what actually takes place in the Shona milieu where, traditionally, women have, not just platforms to generate and accrue personal wealth, but have also authority over the use and disposal of such wealth. Avenues for the generation and accumulation of wealth and other property by Shona women range from marriage negotiations, the institution of marriage itself as well as the family, working using one’s hands and commanding positions of leadership.

Why are ‘growth coalitions’ involving business interest groups and governments so rare in Africa? How has democratisation affected the possibilities for growth coalitions? In three cases with varying degrees of democracy – Mauritius, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – we find that hypotheses about growth coalitions that place importance on the organisation of the business sector are generally borne out. Yet even when the business community is organised in an ‘ideal’ manner, growth coalitions still depend on factors within the state: leadership, ideas, and capacity. Democratisation has a mixed effect. We find that in the case of Zambia, business–state relations did not improve despite a pro-democracy stance by business and the pro-business agenda of the democratic government coming to power in 1991. In Zimbabwe, the erosion of democracy reduced business access to state elites, breaking up a growth coalition that initially showed considerable promise. In Mauritius, the strengthening of democracy has paralleled the deepening of the growth coalition, and both have been reinforced by a strong economy. Our study shows that growth coalitions are possible in Africa; the key lies in determining the conditions under which such coalitions can be sustained in Africa's fragile polities.

AbstractIn Zimbabwe after 2000, ZANU(PF) leaders’ past experiences of student activism in Rhodesia were celebrated by the state-owned media as personifications of anti-colonial, nationalist leadership in the struggle to liberate the country. This article examines the history behind this narrative by exploring the entangled realities of student activism in Rhodesia throughout the 1960s and 1970s and its role as a mechanism of elite formation in ZANU(PF). Building on the historiography of African student movements, I show how the persistence of nationalist anti-colonial organizing and liberal traditions on campus made student activism in Rhodesia distinct from that in South Africa and independent African countries to its north. The article then examines how and why three former activists, who took up elite political careers in the party that they subsequently left, contested the ruling party's anti-colonial, ‘patriotic’ rendering of these experiences. These three men's stories invoked imagined and older forms of nationalism or institutional ethic that had been abandoned by the party as it turned to more authoritarian rule. Stories of Rhodesian student activism thus provided space for justifying alternative political possibilities of nationalism, which implicitly critiqued the ruling party's ‘patriotic’ narrative, as well as for nostalgic anecdotes of life on campus, their journeys into adulthood, and the excitement of being part of a dynamic, transformational political project.

Subject area Entrepreneurship. Study level/applicability Postgraduate and undergraduate. Case overview The case study focussed on the dairy sector in the southern African country of Zimbabwe. It offered an analysis of the management and business development approaches DHL employed in the country’s dairy sector. The narrative detailed how DHL’s commercial performance progressively declined overtime. Several factors including operational inefficiencies, intensive competition, political, socio-economic issues and natural disasters were attributable to its decline. To mitigate DHL’s business development challenges, Antony and his top management’s reprised “restructure, expand and diversify” strategy only achieved inconsistent commercial results. The scale and size of these results unequivocally necessitated radical entrepreneurial methods to turnaround its fortunes. It was indeed a matter of entrepreneurial decisions! Methodology The case study used secondary analysis as its main strategy for generating relevant data. The rationale for adopting the principles of secondary analysis was to take advantage of quality archived data, public and readily available information concerning DHL’s commercial performance. Setting up to undertake secondary analysis for the purpose of DHL’s narrative was less-expensive, and it was less time-consuming when compared to structured interviews and self-administered questionnaires. Hence, it was deemed appropriate for producing a narrative on a company whose archived financial reports and publicly available research information were accessible. Relevant course levels DHL’s narrative is relevant for students studying entrepreneurship, business management and international business at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. Theoretical basis The multi-dimensional constructs of entrepreneurship and strategic management provided the theoretical basis for constructing a narrative about DHL’s business activities in Zimbabwe’s dairy sector. Particularly, the entrepreneurial decision-making paradigm offered some insight, direction and guidance in analysing the strategies Antony and his top management team applied in their planning and management at DHL. Equally, strategic management theories provided useful instructions for exploring business development issues in a rapidly changing business terrain that was presented by the dairy sector in Zimbabwe. Expected learning outcomes By the end of the lesson students will have had the opportunity to identify the features of an organisation with an entrepreneurial mind set; evaluate the importance of making entrepreneurial decisions in a rapidly changing market such as the dairy industry in Zimbabwe; explore the sort of issues faced by large enterprises in establishing an entrepreneurial architecture; develop an appreciation of the importance of practicing entrepreneurial leadership in rapidly changing business conditions; analyse the importance of developing an effective strategy while considering strategic options necessary to withstand markets such as the dairy sector in Zimbabwe that are characterised with rapid changes. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject Code: CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

"This article is an exposition of the transformation of ZANU from being, primarily, a nationalist movement into an ethnic oriented party. Since its formation in 1963, ZANU was gripped by ethnicity, resulting in factions and contestations developing among party members. These contestations developed into open conflicts along tribal lines. The paper argues that ethnicity was so acute among ZANU party members to an extent that divisions were clearly drawn along the Shona sub-ethnic groups of Manyika (easterners), Karanga (southerners), and Zezuru (northerners). The competition for leadership positions and the fighting among members of these ethnic groups resulted in the death of some members of the party and the expulsion of others from the party. It is argued in the article that the persecution of Ndabaningi Sithole and his fallout as the ZANU president was a result of the ethnicisation of ZANU and the liberation struggle. The removal of Sithole as the party president and his replacement by Robert Mugabe exhibits these contestations among the Zezuru, Karanga and Manyika ethnic groups. We argue that the deposition of Sithole from ZANU in 1975 and his castigation as a “sell-out” and “tribalist” was a ploy by Robert Mugabe and other ZANU leaders to get rid of him and to replace him along ethnic grounds. The ethnic card was deployed to serve selfish political interests. It is these ethnic contestations and fighting which also brewed conflict and enmity between Mugabe in particular and Ndabaningi Sithole, among other factors. This hatred was clearly displayed later in the struggle for supremacy between Sithole’s new party, ZANU-Ndonga and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. It is stressed in the article that this enmity also culminated in the denial of a hero status to Sithole when he died in 2000. We also argue that the deposition of Sithole from ZANU is one of the reasons why the Ndau people of Chipinge always voted for him and not Robert Mugabe in elections. Keywords: Zimbabwe, Ethnicisation, Downfall, Contestations, ZANU, Hero status."

AbstractThe article examines relations between pentecostalism and politics in post-colonial Zimbabwe through a case study of one of Africa’s largest pentecostal movements, Zimbabwe Assemblies of God, Africa (ZAOGA). The Church’s relations with the state change considerably from the colonial to the post-colonial era. The movement began as a sectarian township-based organisation which eschewed politics but used white Rhodesian and American contacts to gain resources and modernise. In the first decade of independence the leadership embraced the dominant discourses of cultural nationalism and development but fell foul of the ruling party, ZANU/PF, because of its ‘seeming’ connections with the rebel politician Ndabiningi Sithole and the American religious right. By the 1990s ZAOGA and ZANU/PF had embraced, each drawing legitimacy from the other. However, this reciprocal assimilation of elites and the authoritarianism of ZAOGA’s leadership are in tension with the democratic egalitarian culture found in local assemblies, where the excesses of leaders are challenged. These alternative pentecostal practices are in symbiosis with radical township politics and progressive sources in civil society. Thus, while pentecostalism may renew the process of politics in Zimbabwe, it may itself be renewed by the outside forces of wider Zimbabwean society.

Abstract The study is a response to the call for papers on African issues and discusses the notion of leadership in the Zimbabwean context. Based on material drawn through an interdisciplinary research process, this article argues that the phenomenon of fear emanating from a Zimbabwean religio-culture cuts across the country’s socio-political structures and affects its different forms of leadership. Therefore, by drawing on primary and secondary as well as literary and non-literary, sources, the article examines how and why religio-culture and especially its elements, such as the phenomenon of fear, continue to influence the people’s understanding of leadership. The quest for a cross-cultural perspective leads to the consideration of both African and non-African scholarly views. In order to draw on concrete data, I focus on the perceptions and experiences of ordinary citizens whether professionals or non-professionals. Furthermore, the study considers arguments and propositions from disciplines such as history, political science, religious studies, anthropology, and African philosophy, among others.

Background: Supply chain management (SCM) implementation in selected drought-stricken areas in Zimbabwe has been negatively influenced by the marginalisation of indigenous leaders and an intolerant political system.Objectives: This study examines the influence of culture and leadership attitudes, as well as the political, economic and legal framework, on the effectiveness of the humanitarian supply chain (HSC) during droughts in Zimbabwe. The effect of culture, leadership attitudes, and the political, economic and legal framework on HSC effectiveness in Zimbabwe has not been explored by researchers.Method: The study adopted a quantitative exploratory research design utilising the case study approach. The study sample consisted of 130 respondents comprising government and non-governmental organisation (NGO) officials whose primary responsibilities are drought disaster operations.Results: The study results revealed that the culture, leadership attitudes and political state did not positively influence the effectiveness of the HSC in Zimbabwe. In addition, the economic state and legal framework positively influenced the effectiveness of the HSC on drought management. Accordingly, the empirical results found that the existing legal framework positively influenced the effectiveness of the HSC. Furthermore, an association between educational background and work experience had an impact on the reduction of transport and warehouse costs, which are critical components of a humanitarian relief supply chain.Conclusion: This study is expected to significantly contribute to the crafting of effective HSC and intervention strategies. The study also adds to the body of knowledge in HSC and disaster management as there is a shortage of empirical data in this field of study.

Messianic expectations in Zimbabwe follow the biblical trends where messianic promises were intended to stimulate hope for ancient Israel during socio-economic, political and religious crises. The Zimbabwe situation during the early 2010s was characterised by socio-economic, political and religious crises. This research explores the circumstances in which Robert Mugabe was hailed as national Messiah. While it was genuine prophetic promises for a better future in ancient Israel, the messianic characterisation of Mugabe was used as political rhetoric and propaganda to legitimise the role of Mugabe as the sole liberator and candidate for leadership of the nation of Zimbabwe. This research responds to the question: What triggers messianic characterisation like that popular in Zimbabwe? This research has proved that such messianic characterisation intends to fill the gap where the nation’s expectation of a Messiah constitutes the response to socio-economic, political and religious crises.

This article is in the field of Practical theology with specific reference to pastoral care. The article is motivated by the growing number of conversions of members of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ex-combatants/war veterans), through miracle and spiritual healing Ministries under the leadership of Prophets. This article exposes the challenge of injured morals as a result of traumatic war experiences of ex-combatants during the war of liberation from colonialism in Zimbabwe. The violent acts in the political arena in Zimbabwe are linked to the military behaviour of the ex-combatants. This article also makes a critical analysis of the therapeutic narratives from ex-combatants, to conclude that violence in Zimbabwe is highly related to the injured morals of the ex-combatants. The war veterans are finding healing of moral injury from the miracles and exorcisms performed by Prophets.

Political Risk Analysis (PRA) levels are theoretically postulated to increase in a hybrid regime. This paper argues that there is a change to this hypothesis. A single case research design was employed, using Zimbabwe from 1990 to 2018. During the period, Zimbabwe showed five diverse forms of hybridity which are liberal, competitive illiberal, competitive, illiberal, and military hybrid regimes. A conceptual framework is developed to assess political risk in a hybrid regime using hybrid regime indicators and some political risk factors of most concern to developing countries. 28 key informants from six categories of respondents were interviewed. Illegitimacy, corruption, the staleness of leadership, adverse government regulation, election violence, and severed home-host state relations were confirmed to increase the perception of political risk in a hybrid regime. Investors were observed to have developed a tolerance for some “unacceptable” factors that increased political risk. Military tutelage, weak institutions, flawed elections, military generals in power, undemocratic means to retain power, minimum horizontal accountability and weak rule of law were found to not automatically increase political risk as before. The paper concludes that there is no single form of hybridity and as such different forms of hybrid regimes accrue different levels of political risk, some lower levels while others substantially higher levels. Therefore, in a hybrid regime, a differentiated PRA monitoring, assessing and mitigation strategy will be most effective for management to implement. Future studies can apply the analytical framework of assessing PRA in a hybrid to another hybrid regime to expand the theoretical propositions made by this paper

The end of British rule in Zimbabwe which happened through a protracted liberation struggle against the white regime was celebrated by many across Africa and beyond. The ascendancy of the late president Robert Gabriel Mugabe to the helm of power brought hope for the economic, religious, linguistic, and socio-political freedoms. The attainment of independence was indeed a moment of celebration after several decades of colonial suppression and brutalities against the indigenous black Zimbabweans. What is most troubling is that the euphoria that was triggered by the attainment of independence in 1980 gradually died as the realities of economic, religious, linguistic and socio-political problems resurfaced. This study seeks to interpret NoViolet Bulawayo’s depiction and thematisation of religion and politics in her debut novel We Need New Names. The study mainly focuses on how Bulawayo fictionalises and captures the sordid realities of the religious and socio-political problems that haunt the postcolonial subjects in Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s leadership. Postcolonial thoughts from Spivak and Achille Mbembe inform the readings of the text. The fictive landscape that is captured in the selected novel shows the hollowness of flag independence attained in Zimbabwe. The postcolonial period during the reign of Mugabe inscribes conditions of subjectivity and subalternity. The studied text also problematises religion and uncovers charlatanisms of the prophets and traditional healers who are portrayed as the biblical wolves in sheep’s cloth exploiting those in distress.

The need for empowering youth is gaining prominence in rural development practice. This is so because it is a viable vehicle for poverty reduction, and sustainable peace, security and improvement in people’s livelihoods. In Zimbabwe, the youth constitute 35% of the total population. This paper is a product of an exploratory case study that was designed to examine youth empowerment in mainly rural areas of the Chimanimani District in eastern Zimbabwe. A semi-structured interview guide was administered to 34 conveniently sampled male and female youth. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data gathered. The youth felt disempowered and were frustrated because their potential contribution to economic, social and political development was underestimated and not fully exploited. They lamented the fact that their inputs rarely influenced policy and development practice. The youth detested corruption and nepotism in the allocation of land and funding for businesses, especially involving ministry officials who they alleged were openly pro-ruling party. Nor did the youth find it easy to assume leadership positions in their communities where elderly men dominated decision making and development space. It was concluded that if the local society recognised and embraced youth involvement in decision making and leadership processes, the implementation of initiatives meant to stimulate rural socio-economic development would be more sustainable.

The church in Africa, like its counterparts elsewhere in the world, is called to fulfil the mission of God as expressed in the call ‘Missio Dei’ and influentially remains with the integrity of the mission of Christ (Missio Christos), which is liberative and practical. For Christ was not only concerned with the spiritual needs of the people, but also with their material well-being. The following question therefore arises: how can the church in Africa, in general, and in Zimbabwe, in particular, actively do God’s mission and remain with integrity in the midst of the reality of suffering. Furthermore, how can the church for mission and reconstruction be understood in a post-colonial Zimbabwe given the contextual realities of political crises, corruption, poverty, moral decadence, defined or censored truth, leadership crises and no freedom of expression? This article argues that, although the church is faced with these arduous realities, it remains called by God to do God’s mission. While in post-colonial Zimbabwe the socio-political, socio-economic and socio-religious situation might seem hopeless, the church has remained vibrant and alive for reconstruction theology. The transformation of society is possible given the authority and mission mandate of the church. This article argues that the church is a key player in reconstruction theology and in the transformation of society. For transformation to be possible, the church should witness to the gospel of Christ without fear of being labelled, castrated and persecuted. The article asserts that the spirit of the Bible should be revived in a time of reconstruction in Zimbabwe. The assumption in this article is that Zimbabwe is ready for reconstruction discourse. For this to happen, the researchers argue that the church as a critical relevant player in reconstruction needs to ‘be church’ in its missional mandates. Integrity is essential if a church wants to be relevantly missional and reconstructive. Integrity means that the church has to embrace the risks and opportunities associated with mission.

Subject area of the teaching case: The values-based leadership (VBL) themes lend the case to use in courses focussed on individual leadership approaches, personal-professional development, personal mastery, or individual agency in social change and social justice movements. The emerging market context adds a layer of complexity to the protagonist's journey, which may make the case especially relevant for use among students who work in this context or in courses that deal with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Student level: The primary target audience for this case is postgraduate students in a management or professional development program. Brief overview of the teaching case: This case offers a leadership profile of lawyer Fadzayi Mahere as she pursues social change at the national level by running for political office in Zimbabwe in 2018. The case recounts Mahere's professional journey through human rights law and local activism, which eventually drives her to run as an independent for a position in the national election. She does this as a response to the dire state of the country: economic crisis, social instability, and political corruption that are making life increasingly untenable for most people. In spite of running a strong grassroots campaign, Mahere loses the election and is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to forego independence and join the dominant opposition party. The case therefore centres around the role of values in leadership, the role of narrative in shaping the decision to lead, and how these things impact a leader's strategy for affecting social change and achieving social justice. Expected learning outcomes: Appreciate the systemic nature of social problems in an emerging market context and how this creates different opportunities for a leader to act on a problem Understand how a leader's identity, in terms of values and experiences, shapes their motivations and informs their strategy for leading a change effort Understand the dimensions of values-based leadership (VBL) – transformational, authentic, accountability, and ethical leadership – and how the actions of a values-driven leader reflect these Identify the mechanisms that aspiring leaders practicing VBL can use to build an authentic narrative for key stakeholders to accept and embrace them Recognise the different strategies a leader can adopt to achieve values-driven outcomes, while maintaining alignment with the different dimensions of VBL

This article juxtaposed the theological theme of incarnation with quasi-religious invasions of public power structures and institutions in southern Africa, which has been described by the term sacralisation of authority. Incarnational theology as constructed on the model of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ concerns a Divine-human border crossing from above to below or from power into powerlessness. Sacralisation of authority concerns an opposite process whereby mundane structures and people of power seek to bolster their authority even further by the acquisition of godlike attributes. This article referred to political realities in southern Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe and South Africa as illustrative of the latter, whereas the Tshwane Leadership Foundation – a non-governmental organisation (NGO) operating in Tshwane’s inner city – served as a case study in incarnational theology of the grassroots.

While the devastating vagaries of climate change are ravaging communities the world over, especially in Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular, the role of traditional authorities is being overlooked. This paper argues for a relentless push towards the unimpeded involvement of local traditional authorities (LTAs) in the mobilisation of rural communities to adopt appropriate climate change adaptation practices in Zimbabwe. Given its complexity and uniqueness, external intervention through government and non-governmental agents alone can hardly foster climate change adaptation particularly at local levels within communities. Traditional leaders, who have for a long time been useful in the governance of people in various rural communities, can play a supportive role in climate change adaptation. Traditional leaders do not only serve as governance authorities but also know the traditional strategies of combating the negative effects of climate change. Despite the pressure from political interference and the advent of western technological advancement, a lot could still be done to buttress the authority and respect vested in chiefs, headsmen and village heads in the country. LTAs have the power to manage grassroots communities; hence they can be utilised as drivers in the use of traditional climate change adaptation strategies. The paper concludes that political interference is one challenge faced by abusing traditional leadership as a means to gain political mileage. The paper recommends for extended capacity building on the part of traditional leaders to improve their knowledge base. This will enable them to appreciate the integration of indigenous and modern climate change adaptation strategies. It further recommends the revitalisation of the traditional council (Dare raMambo) to deal with environmental offenses with the scope of assisting government efforts to ensure sound ecological practices within communities.

Marriage in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe (MCZ) is under siege. This scenario was bequeathed by the British imperialists. This siege is evident because the ecclesiastical theology of marriage in the MCZ is fastened on both African culture and the civil order. Firstly, marriage is anchored on African culture because the MCZ is an African church and it grows its mission using African epistemology. Secondly, marriage in the MCZ is affixed on civil authority because adult membership in the the MCZ is defined by being ‘properly married’ for those who have spouses. The triangular net is evident because marriage starts and proceeds culturally, the government legalises marriages and the MCZ uses marriage certificates to grow its membership, whilst the clergy solemnise marriages as government agents using the civil Marriage Act Chapter 5:11. The aim of this article was to investigate how the MCZ’s mission is informed by both African culture and civil order given that it regards marriage as the canon of adult membership, blousing of women and badging of men, participation in the sacrament of Holy Communion, confirmation into full membership, leadership positions, accredited as local preachers and acceptance into ministry. In responding to this aim, the article uses a qualitative research method to interrogate the MCZ policy books and minutes of conferences that address the theology of marriage. The research will conclude by challenging the MCZ to come up with a theology of marriage that unties itself from the cultural and civil net of this rite to interpret its ecclesial mission.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is interdisciplinary in the sense that it addresses the issues of ecclesiology, missiology, theology, African culture, gender, church polity and the power of civil authority. The research calls the MCZ to define its marriage theology not contaminated by civil ideologies and African philosophy.

Zimbabwe adopted a new economic blueprint, Vision 2030, whose goal is to transform and develop the country into an upper middle-income economy by 2030. The teachers' role is to make the education system become a tool that creates industrialisation and modernisation. Teachers are to embrace the Competency-Based Curriculum as a vehicle for the attainment of this Vision. The education sector has the key to transform the country. Teachers are expected to innovate in their teaching, play a role in community and pass on government policies and political ideology. The study sought to investigate teachers' role in community engagement and transmission of government policies and political ideology in Harare Province. It employed quantitative research design. It was conducted in 145 schools which were randomly-selected from 231 schools in the Province. Using National Education Association (NPA) formula, for a population size N=5656, 360 teachers constituted a representative sample at 5% significance level. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire. Findings revealed that teachers play a role in community engagement, providing leadership and guidance; but had no role to play in the transmission of government official political ideology which they regarded as no concern of theirs. They view politics as highly partisan, but not as defined by Harold Lasswell (1936), who views politics as the process of deciding 'who gets what, when, where and how?' Given that politics is inextricably linked to education, the study recommends that government puts in place teacher in-service re-orientation programmes aimed at equipping teachers with necessary political ideological education and conscientisation.

The article shows the development of the political career of the ex-president of Botswana Ian Khama, a son of the country’s first president Seretse Khama. The article analyzes domestic and foreign policy of the government of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) headed by Mr. Ian Khama, whose first term in office coincided with difficulties of the global economic crisis that began in 2008. It is noted that during Mr. Khama’s presidency the West-oriented foreign policy of Botswana was well-balanced, pragmatic and aimed at attracting investments. It was rather bold and independent, which was largely due to the independence of Botswana, a major exporter of diamonds to the world market, as regards donors’ assistance. At the African level Mr. Khama’s image has been that of a consistent critic of authoritarian and despotic regimes, he also adhered to a consistent firm position regarding the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, calling on Robert Mugabe to transfer power. Mr. Khama is an extraordinary political leader. The style and methods of his leadership (harsh bureaucratic methods, frequent decision-making without coordination with the government, disdain of opposition’s criticism and of public opinion) led to accusations of authoritarianism. The author makes an attempt to define its nature which was somewhat different from the authoritarianism of other African leaders. The issue of corruption and nepotism in Botswana is also discussed. During the ten-year period of Mr. Khama’s rule (2008–2018), the problem of nepotism was especially often the focus of the criticism by the local opposition and media. This had a negative effect for the president’s political image and for that of the authorities in general. At the same time, Mr. Khama’s government managed to maintain stability of the economics and of the internal political situation. The properties of the situation in the Botswana Democratic Party, which has ruled the country for almost 55 years and still holds a central position in the country’s political landscape, are shown. Despite a number of mistakes in governing the country, President Ian Khama managed to preserve and strengthen the authority of Botswana in the eyes of the international community for its commitment to the international law, its respect for human rights, good governance and active foreign policy. It is pointed out that Mr. Khama, respecting the Constitution, peacefully transferred power to the country’s vice-president Mokgweetsi Masisi whom he chose as his successor. However, a conflict arose between them very soon, and their confrontation led the ex-president to supporting the opposition at the general elections in October 2019. The events of recent years in Botswana serve an important evidence of the problematic issue – insecurity of democracy in the context of a long dominance of one political party. The unexpected emergence of Khama-Masisi confrontation questioned to a certain extent the tradition of early power transfer from the head of state to the vice-president which established in the country in recent decades. However, this confrontation did not go beyond the framework of the electoral struggle and did not lead to serious tension in the internal political situation.

This article is an attempt to trace the impact of the US factor on the Russian African relations during the last years of B. Obama’s administration rule and at the initial stage of D. Trump presidency (2015–2018). The comparative assessment of Moscow and Washington African policy is made. The author demonstrates distinctions and continuity in the activities of the two US administrations in Africa. D. Trump has not included Africa in the list of his foreign policy priorities. Washington however has no intention to withdraw from the Black continent. There, as everywhere, “the American leadership” remains the invariable aim. In the 21th century, the Russia Federation policy in Africa has become much more active. Guided by the concept of multipolar world and in view of its current potential, economic in particular, Moscow has no intention to compete with the USA and other foreign actors for the overwhelming influence in Africa. Its tasks are pragmatic and realistic. In Africa, as globally, the US policy towards Russia is hostile. However the author is of the opinion that Washington does not consider Russia as a serious threaten for its positions and plans in Africa. The new National security strategy of the United States of America approved in December 2018 is full of antirussian outbursts, but in a section, dealing with the US priorities in Africa, Russia is not mentioned. The main American enemies there are international terrorists and China. Hence, no tough confrontation between the two parties – so far. Therefore rivalry there is confined to competition. The article is focused on visits in March 2018 of the Russian foreign minister S. Lavrov to Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia and of then US Secretary of State R.Tillerson to Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Chad and Nigeria. The situation around some most sensitive US-Russia points of intersection in Africa – such as Egypt, Libya and South Africa Republic – is analyzed. The development of Cairo’s bilateral relations with Washington and Moscow is reviewed. It is noted that cooperation between Russia and Egypt is of mutual benefit and that the two countries need each other. But of this cooperation has its limits as the USA remains the main foreign partner of Egypt. The conclusion is that Russia has taken a course for a gradual restoration of its positions in Libya after the overthrow of M. Kaddafi. Moscow’s contribution to the settlement of the political crisis in the country is explored. Constructive contacts have been established with all major participants of this process. Special attention is paid to the National Libyan Army Commander, Field-Marshal H. Haftar. The United States preferences the head of the Government of national accord F. Sarraj. The attempts to interfere into Russia – South Africa using the resignation of president J. Zuma who firmly stood for friendship with Moscow have failed. The new president S. Ramaphosa has confirmed the policy of strong bilateral cooperation.

Content warning: although it was kept to a minimum, this text displays instances of (anti-Semitic) hate speech. During the 2016 U.S. election and its aftermath, multiple journalistic accounts reported on “alt-right trolls” emanating from anonymous online spaces like the imageboard 4chan (e.g. Abramson; Ellis). Having gained infamy for its nihilist trolling subcultures (Phillips, This Is Why) and the loose hacktivist movement Anonymous (Coleman), 4chan now drew headlines because of the alt-right’s “genuinely new” concoction of white supremacy, ironic Internet humour, and a lack of clear leadership (Hawley 50). The alt-right “anons”, as imageboard users call themselves, were said to primarily manifest on the “Politically Incorrect” subforum of 4chan: /pol/. Gradually, a sentiment arose in the titles of several news articles that the pro-Trump “alt-right trolls” had successfully won the metapolitical battle intertwined with the elections (Phillips, Oxygen 5). For instance, articles titled that “trolls” were “The Only True Winners of this Election” (Dewey) or even “Plotting a GOP Takeover” (Stuart).The headlines were as enticing as questionable. As trolling-expert Whitney Phillips headlined herself, the alt-right did not attain political gravity solely through its own efforts but rather was “Conjured Out of Pearl Clutching and Media Attention” (“The Alt-Right”), with news outlets being provoked to criticise, debunk, or sensationalise its trolling activities (Faris et al. 131; Phillips, “Oxygen” 5-6). Even with the right intentions, attempts at denouncement through using vague, structuralist notions–from “alt-right” and “trolls” to “the basket of deplorables” (Robertson) – arguably only strengthened the coherence of those it was meant to disavow (Phillips, Oxygen; Phillips et al.; Marantz). Phillips et al. therefore lamented such generalisations, arguing attributing Trump’s win to vague notions of “4chan”, “alt-right”, or “trolls” actually bestowed an “atemporal, almost godlike power” to what was actually an “ever-reactive anonymous online collective”. Therefore, they called to refrain from making claims about opaque spaces like 4chan without first “plotting the landscape” and “safeguarding the actual record”. Indeed, “when it comes to 4chan and Anonymous”, Phillips et al. warned, “nobody steps in the same river twice”.This text answers the call to map anonymous online groups by engaging with the complexity of testing the muddy waters of the ever-changing and dissimulative 4chan-current. It first argues how anti-structuralist research outlooks can answer to many of the pitfalls arising from this complex task. Afterwards, it traces the word trump as it was used on 4chan/pol/ to problematise some of the above-mentioned media narratives. How did anons consider Trump, and how did the /pol/-current change during the build-up of the 2016 U.S. elections and afterwards?On Researching Masked and Dissimulative ExtremistsWhile potentially playing into the self-imagination of malicious actors (Phillips et al.), the frequent appearance of overblown narratives on 4chan is unsurprising considering the peculiar affordances of imageboards. Imageboards are anonymous – no user account is required to post – and ephemeral – posts are deleted after a certain amount of activity, sometimes after days, sometimes after minutes (Bernstein et al.; Hagen). These affordances complicate studying collectives on imageboards, with the primary reasons being that 1) they prevent insights into user demographics, 2) they afford particularly dissimulative, playful discourse that can rarely be taken at face value (Auerbach; de Zeeuw and Tuters), and 3) the sheer volume of auto-deleted activity means one has to stay up-to-date with a rapid waterfall of subcultural ephemera. Additionally, the person stepping into the muddy waters of the chan-river also changes their gaze over time. For instance, Phillips bravely narrates how she once saw parts of the 4chan-stream as “fun” to only later realise the blatantly racist elements present from the start (“It Wasn’t Just”).To help render legible the changing currents of imageboard activity without relying on vague understandings of the “alt-right”, “trolls”, or “Anonymous”, anti-structuralist research outlooks form a possible answer. Around 1900, sociologists like Gabriel Tarde already argued to refrain from departing from structuralist notions of society and instead let social compositions arise through iterative tracing of minute imitations (11). As described in Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social, actor-network theory (ANT) revitalises the Tardean outlook by similarly criticising the notion of the “social” and “society” as distinct, sui-generis entities. Instead, ANT advocates tracing “flat” networks of agency made up of both human and non-human actors (165-72). By tracing actors and describing the emerging network of heterogeneous mediators and intermediaries (105), one can slowly but surely get a sense of collective life. ANT thus takes a page from ethnomethodology, which advocates a similar mapping of how participants of a group produce themselves as such (Garfinkel).For multiple reasons, anti-structuralist approaches like ANT can be useful in tracing elusive anonymous online groups and their changing compositions. First, instead of grasping collectives on imageboards from the outset through structuralist notions, as networked individuals, or as “amorphous and formless entities” (see e.g. Coleman 113-5), it only derives its composition after following where its actors lead. This can result in an empirical and literally objective mapping of their collectivity while refraining from mystifications and non-existent connections–so often present in popular narratives about “trolls” and the “alt-right”. At the same time, it allows prominent self-imaginations and mythologizations – or, in ANT-parlance, “localisations of the global” (Latour 173-190) – rise to the surface whenever they form important actors, which, as we will see, tends to happen on 4chan.Second, ANT offers a useful lens with which to consider how non-human actors can uphold a sense of collectivity within anonymous imageboards. This can include digital objects as part of the infrastructure–e.g. the automatically assigned post numbers having mythical value on 4chan (Beran, It Came From 69)–but also cultural objects like words or memes. Considering 4chan’s anonymity, this focus on objects instead of individuals is partly a necessity: one cannot know the exact amount and flow of users. Still, as this text seeks to show, non-human actors like words or memes can form suitable actors to map the changing collectivity of anonymous imageboard users in the absence of demographic insights.There are a few pitfalls worth noting when conducting ANT-informed research into extremist spaces like 4chan/pol/. The aforementioned ironic and dissimulative rhetoric of anonymous forum culture (de Zeeuw and Tuters) means tracing is complicated by implicit (yet omnipresent) intertextual references undecipherable to the untrained eye. Even worse, when misread or exaggerated, such tracing efforts can play into trolling tactics. This can in turn risk what Phillips calls “giving oxygen” to bigoted narratives by amplifying their presence (“Oxygen”). Since ANT does not prescribe what sort of description is needed (Latour 149), this exposure can be limited and/or critically engaged with by the researcher. Still, it is inevitable that research on extremist collectives adds at least some garbage to already polluted information ecologies (Phillips and Milner 2020), even when “just” letting the actors speak (Venturini). Indeed, this text will unfortunately also show hate speech terms below.These complications of irony and amplification can be somewhat mitigated by mixing ethnographic involvement with computational methods. Together, they can render implicit references explicit while also mapping broad patterns in imitation and preventing singular (misleading) actors from over-dominating the description. When done well, such descriptions do not only have to amplify but can also marginalise and trivialise. An accurate mapping can thereby counter sensationalist media narratives, as long as that is where the actors lead. It because of this potentiality that anti-structuralist tracing of extremist, dissimulative online groups should not be discarded outright.Stopping Momentarily to Test the WatersTo put the above into practice, what follows is a brief case study on the term trump on 4chan/pol/. Instead of following users, here the actor trump is taken an entry point for tracing various assemblages: not only referring to Donald J. Trump as an individual and his actions, but also to how /pol/-anons imagine themselves in relation to Trump. In this way, the actor trump is a fluid one: each of its iterations contains different boundaries and variants of its environment (de Laet and Mol 252). By following these environments, can we make sense of how the delirious 2016 U.S. election cycle played out on /pol/, a space described as the “skeleton key to the rise of Trump” (Beran, 4chan)?To trace trump, I use the 4plebs.com archive, containing almost all posts made on /pol/ between late-2013 and early 2018 (the time of research). I subsequently use two text mining methods to trace various connections between trump and other actors and use this to highlight specific posts. As Latour et al. note, computational methods allow “navigations” (593) of different data points to ensure diverse empirical perspectives, preventing both structuralist “zoomed-out” views and local contexts from over-dominating. Instead of moving between micro and macro views, such a navigation should therefore be understood as a “circulation” around the data, deploying various perspectives that each assemble the actors in a different way. In following this, the case study aims to demonstrate how, instead of a lengthy ethnographic account, a brief navigation using both quali- and quantitative perspectives can quickly demystify some aspects of seemingly nebulous online groups.Tracing trump: From Meme-Wizard to Anti-Semitic TargetTo get a sense of the centrality of Trump on /pol/, I start with post frequencies of trump assembled in two ways. The first (Figure 1) shows how, soon after the announcement of Trump’s presidential bid on 16 June 2015, around 100,000 comments mention the word (2% of the total amount of posts). The frequencies spike to a staggering 8% of all comments during the build-up to Trump’s win of the Republican nomination in early 2016 and presidential election in November 2016. Figure 1: The absolute and relative amount of posts on 4chan/pol/ containing the word trump (prefixes and suffixes allowed).To follow the traces between trump and the more general discourse surrounding it, I compiled a more general “trump-dense threads” dataset. These are threads containing thirty or more posts, with at least 15% of posts mentioning trump. As Figure 2 shows, at the two peaks, 8% of any thread on /pol/ was trump-dense, accounting for approximately 15,000 monthly threads. While Trump’s presence is unsurprising, these two views show just how incredibly central the former businessman was to /pol/ at the time of the 2016 U.S. election. Figure 2: The absolute and relative amount of threads on 4chan/pol/ that are “trump-dense”, meaning they have thirty comments or more, out of which at least 15% contain the word trump (prefixes and suffixes allowed).Instead of picking a certain moment from these aggregate overviews and moving to the “micro” (Latour et al.), I “circulate” further with Figure 3, showing another perspective on the trump­-dense thread dataset. It shows a scatter plot of trump-dense threads grouped per week and plotted according to how similar their vocabulary is. First, all the words per week are weighted with tf-idf, a common information retrieval algorithm that scores units on the basis if they appear a lot in one of the datasets but not in others (Spärck-Jones). The document sets are then plotted according to the similarity of their weighted vocabulary (cosine similarity). The five highest-scoring terms for the five clusters (identified with K-means) are listed in the bottom-right corner. For legibility, the scatterplot is compressed by the MDS algorithm. To get a better sense of specific vocabulary per week, terms that appeared in all weeks are filtered out (like trump or hillary). Read counterclockwise, the nodes roughly increase in time, thus showing a clear temporal change of discourse, with the first clusters being more similar in vocabulary than the last, and the weeks before and after the primary election (orange cluster) showing a clear gap. Figure 3: A scatterplot showing cosine distances between tf-idf weighted vocabularies of trump-dense threads per week. Compressed with MDS and coloured by five K-means clusters on the underlying tf-idf matrix (excluding terms that appeared in all weeks). Legend shows the top five tf-idf terms within these clusters. ★ denotes the median week in the cluster.With this map, we can trace other words appearing around trump as significant actors in the weekly documents. For instance, Trump-supportive words like stump (referring to “Can’t Stump the Trump”) and maga (“Make America Great Again”) are highly ranked in the first two clusters. In later weeks, less clearly pro-Trump terms appear: drumpf reminds of the unattractive root of the Trump family name, while impeached and mueller show the Russia probe in 2017 and 2018 were significant in the trump-dense threads of that time. This change might thus hint at growing scepticism towards Trump after his win, but it is not shown how these terms are used. Fortunately, the scatterplot offers a rudder with which to navigate to further perspectives.In keeping with Latour’s advice to keep “aggregate structures” and “local contexts” flat (165-72), I contrast the above scatterplot with a perspective on the data that keeps sentence structures intact instead of showing abstracted keyword sets. Figure 4 uses all posts mentioning trump in the median weeks of the first and last clusters in the scatterplot (indicated with ★) and visualises word trees (Wattenberg and Viégas) of most frequent words following “trump is a”. As such, they render explicit ontological associations about Trump; what is Trump, according to /pol/-anons? The first word tree shows posts from 2-8 November 2015, when fifteen Republican competitors were still in the race. As we have seen in Figure 1, Trump was in this month still “only” mentioned in around 50,000 posts (2% of the total). This word tree suggests his eventual nomination was at this point seen as an unlikely and even undesirable scenario, showing derogatory associations like retard and failure, as well as more conspiratorial words like shill, fraud, hillary plant, and hillary clinton puppet. Notably, the most prominent association, meme, and others like joke and fucking comic relief, imply Trump was not taken too seriously (see also Figure 5). Figure 4: Word trees of words following “trump is a” in the median weeks of the first and last clusters of the scatterplot. Made with Jason Davies’s Word Tree application. Figure 5: Anons who did not take Trump seriously. Screencapture taken from archive.4plebs.org (see post 1 and post 2 in context).The first word tree contrast dramatically with the one from the last median week from 18 to 24 December 2017. Here, most associations are anti-Semitic or otherwise related to Judaism, with trump most prominently related to the hate speech term kike. This prompts several questions: did /pol/ become increasingly anti-Semitic? Did already active users radicalise, or were more anti-Semites drawn to /pol/? Or was this nefarious current always there, with Trump merely drawing anti-Semitic attention after he won the election? Although the navigation did not depart from a particular critical framework, by “just following the actors” (Venturini), it already stumbled upon important questions related to popular narratives on 4chan and the alt-right. While it is tempting to stop here and explain the change as “radicalisation”, the navigation should continue to add more empirical perspectives. When doing so, the more plausible explanation is that the unlikely success of Trump briefly attracted (relatively) more diverse and playful visitors to /pol/, obscuring the presence and steady growth of overt extremists in the process.To unpack this, I first focus on the claim that a (relatively) diverse set of users flocked to /pol/ because of the Trump campaign. /pol/’s overall posting activity rose sharply during the 2016 election, which can point to already active users becoming more active, but is likely mostly caused by new users flocking to /pol/. Indeed, this can be traced in actor language. For instance, many anons professed to be “reporting in” from other 4chan boards during crucial moments in the campaing. One of the longest threads in the trump-dense threads dataset (4,504 posts) simply announces “Cruz drops out”. In the comments below, multiple anons state they arrived from other boards to join the Trump-infused activity. For instance, Figure 6 shows an anon replying “/v/ REPORTING IN”, to which sixty other users reacted by similarly affirming themselves as representatives from other boards (e.g. “/mu/ here. Ready to MAGA”). While but another particular view, this implies Trump’s surprising nomination stimulated a crowd-like gathering of different anons jumping into the vortex of trump-related activity on /pol/. Figure 6: Replies by outside-anons “reporting in” the sticky thread announcing Ted Cruz's drop out, 4 May 2016. Screenshots taken from 4plebs.org (see post 1 and post 2 in context).Other actor-language further expresses Trump’s campaign “drew in” new and unadjusted (or: less extreme) users. Notably, many anons claimed the 2016 election led to an “invasion of Reddit users”. Figure 7 shows one such expression: an annotated timeline of /pol/’s posting activity graph (made by 4plebs), posted to /pol/ on 26 February 2016 and subsequently reposted 34 times. It interprets 2016 as a period where “Trump shit goes into overdrive, meme shit floods /pol/, /pol/ is now reddit”. Whether these claims hold any truth is difficult to establish, but the image forms an interesting case of how the entirety “/pol/” is imagined and locally articulated. Such simplistic narratives relate to what Latour calls “panoramas”: totalising notions of some imagined “whole” (188-90) that, while not to be “confused with the collective”, form crucial data since they express how actors understand their own composition (190). Especially in the volatile conditions of anonymous and ephemeral imageboards, repeated panoramic narratives can help in constructing a sense of cohesion–and thereby also form interesting actors to trace. Indeed, following the panoramic statement “/pol/ is now reddit”, other gatekeeping-efforts are not hard to find. For instance, phrases urging other anons to go “back to reddit” (occurring in 19,069 posts in the total dataset) or “back to The_Donald” (a popular pro-Trump subreddit, 1,940 posts) are also particularly popular in the dataset. Figure 7: An image circulated on /pol/ lamenting that "/pol/ is now reddit" by annotating 4plebs’s posting metrics. Screenshot taken from archive.4plebs.org (see posts).Did trump-related activity on /pol/ indeed become more “meme-y” or “Reddit-like” during the election cycle, as the above panorama articulates? The activity in the trump-dense threads seems to suggest so. Figure 8 again uses the tf-idf terms from these threads, but here with the columns denoting the weeks and the rows the top scoring tf-idf terms of their respective week. To highlight relevant actors, all terms are greyed out (see the unedited sheet here), except for several keywords that indicate particularly playful or memetic vernacular: the aforementioned stump, emperor, referring to Trump’s nickname as “God Emperor”; energy, referring to “high energy”, a common catchphrase amongst Trump supporters; magic, referring to “meme magic”, the faux-ironic belief that posting memes affects real-life events; and pepe, the infamous cartoon frog. In both the tf-idf ranking and the absolute frequencies, these keywords flourish in 2016, but disappear soon after the presidential election passes. The later weeks in 2017 and 2018 rarely contain similarly playful and memetic terms, and if they do, suggest mocking discourse regarding Trump (e.g. drumpf). This perspective thus pictures the environment around trump in the run-up to the election as a particularly memetic yet short-lived carnival. At least from this perspective, “meme shit” thus indeed seemed to have “flooded /pol/”, but only for a short while. Figure 8: tf-idf matrix of trump-dense threads, columns denoting weeks and rows denoting the top hundred most relevant terms per week. Download the full tf-idf matrix with all terms here.Despite this carnivalesque activity, further perspectives suggest it did not go at the expense of extremist activity on /pol/. Figure 9 shows the absolute and relative counts of the word "jew" and its derogatory synonym "kike". Each of these increases from 2015 onwards. As such, it seems to align with claims that Trump’s success and /pol/ becoming increasingly extremist were causally related (Thompson). However, apart from possibly confusing correlation with causation, the relative presence remains fairly stable, even slightly decreasing during the frenzy of the Trump campaign. Since we also saw Trump himself become a target for anti-Semitic activity, these trendlines rather imply /pol/’s extremist current grew proportionally to the overall increase in activity, and increased alongside but not but necessarily as a partisan contingent as a result of Trump’s campaign. Figure 9: The absolute and relative frequency of the terms "jew" and "kike" on 4chan/pol/.ConclusionCombined, the above navigation implies two main changes in 4chan/pol/’s trump-related current. First, the climaxes of the 2016 Republican primaries and presidential elections seem to have invoked crowd-like influxes of (relatively) heterogeneous users joining the Trump-delirium, marked by particularly memetic activity. Second, /pol/ additionally seemed to have formed a welcoming hotbed for anti-Semites and other extremists, as the absolute amount of (anti-Semitic) hate speech increased. However, while already-present and new users might have been energised by Trump, they were not necessarily loyal to him, as professed by the fact that Trump himself eventually became a target. Together with the fact that anti-Semitic hate speech stayed relatively consistent, instead of being “countercultural” (Nagle) or exclusively pro-Trump, /pol/ thus seems to have been composed of quite a stable anti-Semitic and Trump-critical contingent, increasing proportionally to /pol/’s general growth.Methodologically, this text sought to demonstrate how a brief navigation of trump on 4chan/pol/ can provide provisional yet valuable insights regarding continuously changing current of online anonymous collectives. As the cliché goes, however, this brief exploration has left more many questions, or rather, it did not “deploy the content with all its connections” (Latour 147). For instance, I have not touched on how many of the trump-dense threads are distinctly separated and pro-Trump “general threads” (Jokubauskaitė and Peeters). 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