The 'Rhodesian crisis' of the 1960s and 1970s, and the early-1980s crisis of independent Zimbabwe, can be understood against the background of Cold War historical transformations brought on by, among other things, African decolonization in the 1960s; the failure of American power in Vietnam and the rise of Third World political power. In this history of the diplomacy of decolonization in Zimbabwe, Timothy Scarnecchia examines the rivalry between Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, and shows how both leaders took advantage of Cold War racialized thinking about what Zimbabwe should be. Based on a wealth of archival source materials, Scarnecchia uncovers how foreign relations bureaucracies in the US, UK, and South Africa created a Cold War 'race state' notion of Zimbabwe that permitted them to rationalize Mugabe's state crimes in return for Cold War loyalty to Western powers. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Examining the role of racism within international relations bureaucracies during years of diplomacy, before and after Zimbabwe's Independence in 1980, this offers a fresh perspective on how nationalist leaders, especially Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, would use Cold War diplomacy to shape Zimbabwe's decolonization process.

"This book is about southern Africa's long walk to freedom, about the overturning of colonial rule in the northern territories and the dissolution of backs-to-the-wall white settler suzerainty first in what became Zimbabwe and then in South Africa. Chapters on the individual countries detail the stages along their sometimes complicated and tortuous struggle to attain the political New Zion. We learn how and why the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland failed, how and why apartheid eventually collapsed, and exactly how the various components of this heavily white conquered and later white oppressed domain transitioned via diverse fits and starts into today's assemblage of proud, politically-charged, and still mostly fragmented nation-states. But what did the new republics make of their hard won freedoms? That is the subject of more than half of this book. Having liberated themselves successfully, several soon dismantled democratic safeguards, established effective single-party states, closed their economies, deprived citizens of human rights and civil liberties, and exchanged economic progress for varieties of central planning experiments and stunted forms of protected economic endeavors. Only Botswana, of the new entities, embraced full democracy and good governance. The others, even South Africa, at first tightly regimented their economies and attempted severely to limit the degrees of economic freedom and social progress that citizens could enjoy. Corruption prevailed everywhere except Botswana. Today, as the chapters on contemporary southern Africa reveal, most of the southern half of the African continent is returning, if sometimes struggling, to return to the patterns probity and good governance that many countries abandoned in the decades after independence. Now there is a resurgence of high performance, which this book celebrates"--

This book takes the transnational history of southern Africa’s liberation struggles in an innovative direction. It provides one of the first targeted studies of the manner in which the wider process of African decolonisation shaped the political struggle for control of Southern Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe). It offers an in-depth survey of the repercussions of pan-African developments on national-level political thought amidst one of the most seminal moments of the continent’s history. The book draws on over a year of fieldwork in southern Africa as well as archival collections in the USA and UK to explore the seismic re-alignments that occurred in the white settler dominated territory in southern Africa as self-determination became a widely accepted international principle virtually overnight. In particular, it focuses on the impact of decolonisation struggles and/or independence in Ghana, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Malawi on Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. In so doing, it also offers new context on the roots of contemporary repression in Zimbabwe.

"This book examines the archival evidence related to the negotiations around Zimbabwe's decolonialization. The argument concerns the preoccupation with race as the primary way decolonization was negotiated. The first two chapters contextualize how the white settler states of Southern Africa, next two chapters detail the sudden shift in Cold War thinking about Rhodesia caused by the decolonization of Angola and Mozambique in 1975, including US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's negotiations with Front Line State Presidents and South Africans. The Geneva Conference in late 1976 is explored, with attention to the ability of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo to take advantage of Kissinger's diplomacy. The next chapters look at attempts by the British, Zambians, and Nigerians to negotiate a transfer of power from Ian Smith to the PF. It would take another two years for the British to oversee a transfer of power to Mugabe's ZANU party in April 1980. The final two chapters examine the fallout between Mugabe and Nkomo in the early 1980s, arguing that obsessions with race and ethnic conflict in earlier negotiations enabled the Americans and British to provide Mugabe Cold War cover for state crimes committed against Nkomo's supporters in the Matabeleland and Midland provinces"--

The National Political Science Review is the official publication of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. The Review's purpose, as described by Matthew Holden in his introduction, is to "lead to new information, insights, and findings" into the social and political status of African Americans. The volume is not exclusionist or narrow. It integrates essays that could stand alone, as they initially were written, according to the method and theory of the author in question. As presented here, however, they also lend themselves to a broader treatment of race and the political order. The present volume combines essays expressly focused on African Americans, Africa, and the African diaspora. At the same tune, it contains essays about broad generic subjects such as budgeting and interest groups, written with no explicit racial relevance. Holden integrates these essays under the theme of the changing racial regime. The integrating concept is the old word "regime," which political scientists have used in many situations before to define such more or less persistent, though not necessarily permanent, orders of precedence. If no significant benefits and no significant burdens could be forecast by knowledge of the social identity called race, then the regime could be seen as non-racial. In American experience, the regime was, at one time, purposeful and sustained white advantage. The "white race" and its preferential standing, was central to virtually all institutional practice public and private. The significant contemporary question is the degree of change hi the racial regime. Some proceed with the assumption that a large degree of change has occurred in the American political system. The view of other contributors is that the system still sustains racial stratification. In its very internal dialogue, this volume presents a panorama of current work by political scientists, African American and other, on the character of the American political system. Contributors include: Cedric Robinson, Charles Henry, Edward J. Muller, Marjorie Lewis, Katherine A. Hinckley and Bette S. Hill, Nancy Haggard-Gilson, and Vernon Johnson. The Changing Racial Regime is an essential resource for political scientists, black studies specialists, and scholars and policy analysts of race relations in the United States.

The author is from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe. He examines the paradox ensuing from the Lancaster House Settlement at Zimbabwe's independence, that whilst colonial rule was ended, the framework was provided for continued white privilege, on the basis of control of the economy by this elite - and through them, transnational capital. He analyses the responses of the ruling (including official) elite, the black petty bourgeoisie, and the group associated with the former Rhodesian Front.

This book characterizes the existing relationships among Liberia, China and the United States of America as “triangular”. The three countries sampled are known to be democratic states but run different forms of governments- both Liberia and the United States run a Republican form of government, while China runs a socialist system of government. Both United States and China have been chosen for the purpose of this study because they are stable, and are the world’s economic powers. The two countries are actively engaged with African leaders, governments and states. These two states have been selected because they depict and reflect an alteration in governance, resources and economic powers. This book presents an in-depth, insightful analysis of critical issues on the continent and beyond. These issues include Africa in International Relations, the new scramble for the continent’s richer resources, and the core causes of poverty, corruption, bad governance and counter-terrorism in Africa. The deep political “love” towards African governments and states by the two global economic powers in recent time realism argues that it is it that has made the continent the frontline competition for oil, and the two main competitors for Africa are U.S. and China. This study provides a vivid picture of Liberia, U.S. and China’s triangular relations, a detailing of the three countries long standing bilateral and multilateral relationship. It goes further to discuss few African states relations with China and the U.S. Both U.S. and China are the world’s two leading economic powers and are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with veto and are competing actors on the international stage. In recent time the two countries have been engaged in a trade war;, a situation which is having an adverse effect on global trade. The dissertation, which traces the history of Liberia, U.S. and China’s triangular relations, their engagement in Africa and foreign aid support towards African governments and states, is a unique research and stands as a “milestone”, and “result-oriented”. The book is based on proven scholarly writings. The study attempts to validate existing publications or wide-ranging perceptions about the world’s leading economic powers- China and U.S presence in Africa. The study highlights China and the U.S. presence in Africa and their engagement with African leaders, governments and nations. Chapter one is the general introduction and presents the background of the study, statement of the problem, research focus, objectives, justification, and significance of the entire research. Chapter two traces the history and examines Liberia, U.S. and China engagement and presence in Africa and the impacts of foreign aid in Africa; and chapter three provides the methods employed during the study. These methods include research strategy and design, data collection as well as data analysis, sampling method, structure review and limitations of the study. Chapter four provides a vivid picture of Liberia, U.S. and China’s triangular relations, while chapter five evaluates the successes and challenges of Liberia’s foreign relations, covering the last seven decades from one regime and to the other, from the presidency of ex-president Joseph Jenkins Roberts to present. Chapter Six provides insights of America and China’s foreign aid to Africa and also analyzed U.S. foreign assistance to African governments and states, and compares that to China’s foreign aid assistance to African government. Chapter Seven of the study emphases on the curse of rampant corruption and the scourge of bad governance by African leaders and governments and the role of corrupt African leaders, political bureaucracies, foreign capitalists and authoritarian officials. Chapter Eight assesses the role of contemporary Liberian media and its impact on democratic governance and national development. The work discusses in detail the western media’s perception of Africa and how the global media have been able to dump negative news materials and information. Chapter Nine examines the Liberian political system and democratic governance in the context of the new world order, respect for constitutionalism and looks at the uncompromising role of Liberian women in contemporary politics, and narrates how Liberia became the torch-bearer of democracy in Africa. Chapter Ten sums up the findings of the study, presents the summary and gives my recommendations and offer further opinions about future research. Bibliography and appendixes are treated separately out of these chapters. The book contains 566 pages, 3,123 paragraphs, 202, 916 words and 2, 470, 268 characters both single and double spacing while it contains 9,750 punctuation marks, 855 in-text citations. The research work also contains 590 references and 16,265 lines. The dissertation is organized into three major parts and comprises ten major chapters; it sums up with the findings of the study and gives recommendations.