Abstract:
This study critically evaluates Zimbabwe's foreign policy deployment within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) between 2000 and 2017. The study further explains a dynamic interface between how the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) managed foreign policy during domestic crises and amid international pressures, on the one hand, and its survival in power during these crises, on the other. Although several accounts have been provided to unravel this complexity, few of them have attempted to nuance their explanations on the extent to which ZANU PF invoked SADC solidarity and support, couched through the rhetoric of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, sovereignty and self-reliance as well as radical corrections of the historical colonial injustices through equitable redistribution of land as the key pillars of regional support and mobilisation. By utilising the Marxist theory of the state, Gramsci's theory of hegemony and domination, and the Elite theory, the study analysed the feasibility of Zimbabwe's foreign policy effectively deployed for elite preservation purposes. In addition to the theories, qualitative research techniques utilised broadened the discussions on how ZANU PF survived many domestic crises, a subject often linked purely to its use of violence and liberation rhetoric at home. Its use of foreign policy, especially in Southern Africa, has been neglected as a critical factor to defend its regime from challengers and ensure its endurance in power. The key finding of this research is that Zimbabwe's foreign policy between 2000 and 2017 was firmly about domestic consolidation of power rather than merely pan-African progress or progressive international changes. The study recommends the re-orientation of ZANU PF's approach to foreign policy. ZANU PF needs a paradigm shift that they can still reform and remain popular without necessarily seeing reform as a threat to their continued existence in power.
