The Political Economy of Civilisation: Peasant-Workers in Zimbabwe and the Neo-Colonial World
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The Political Economy of Civilisation: Peasant-Workers in Zimbabwe and the Neo-colonial World Paris Yeros Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London UMI Number: U172056 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U172056 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TW£&£ S S097 ABSTRACT This thesis provides a global political economy of the postwar period, with special reference to Zimbabwe. The conceptual aim is to connect the agrarian question with contemporary democratic theory, by inquiring into the global sources of ‘civil society’ and relating it to the phenomenon of semi-proletarianisation. There are three basic arguments. First, civil society cannot be understood in isolation from imperialism. The onset of the Cold War produced an ultra-imperial order under US leadership, with a ‘global development’ project crafted to its needs and a mode of rule preoccupied with the definition and enforcement of ‘civil society’. Second, capital accumulation in the postwar period has continued to operate in accordance with the laws of motion of the centre-periphery relationship; the main alteration has consisted in the closer integration of central-state economies with each other, along with a small number of industrial satellites. The periphery has remained in a disarticulated pattern of accumulation, whose corollary is the reproduction of semi-proletarianisation on a grand scale. Third, under ultra-imperialism, ‘civil society’ has been defined in accordance with the requirements of disarticulated accumulation, while semi-proletarian politics have all too often been relegated to the ‘uncivil’ domain. The thesis focuses on the relationship between the civil and uncivil politics of the semi-proletariat. During ‘nation-building’, which dovetailed with the Cold War, uncivil politics comprised of ‘property unfriendly’ forces, the radical nationalist and socialist seeking to nationalise industry and redistribute land(i.e., to alter the pattern of accumulation). With the onset of ‘structural adjustment’ and the end of the Cold War, the uncivil net was cast wider to the ‘market unfriendly’, including radical trade unionisms and land occupation movements. It is argued that in the postwar period uncivil politics have occasionally obtained social revolution; or extensive agrarian reforms and capitalist development; or, most commonly, limited agrarian reforms within a persisting pattern of disarticulated accumulation (Zimbabwe being the case in point). The latter outcome owes to the systematic ‘civilisation’ of oppositional politics by means of cooptation tactics - not least within international trade unionism - and outright repression. The thesis demonstrates these arguments with a detailed account of Zimbabwe’s experience, and concludes with reflections on the prospects of a post liberal civilisation. 2 CONTENTS Preface............................................................................................................................................5 List of Acronyms............................................................................................................................ 7 Introduction Chapter 1: Of Citizens and Subjects.................................................................................... 11 1.1 What is Semi-proletarianisation?......................................................................... 13 1.2 Understanding Peasant-worker Politics...............................................................18 1.3 Imperialism and the Agrarian Question.............................................................. 21 1.4 The Centre-Periphery Structure at the Millennium.............................................25 1.5 What is Civil Society?...........................................................................................32 1.6 The Global Civilisation .........................................................................................35 Parti: Peasant-workers in the Development Dialogue Chapter 2: The Nationalist Claim in the Cold War...........................................................42 2.1 From Industrialisation to Rural Development.....................................................43 2.2 The Rise of Ultra-imperialism..............................................................................50 2.3 Revolution, Rebellion and Agrarian Reform.......................................................60 2.4 Labour Imperialism ...............................................................................................64 Chapter 3: The Liberal Claim in the Cold W ar and After............................................... 76 3.1 From the Right Prices to the Right Politics.......................................... 77 3.2 The Recasting of Ultra-imperialism.....................................................................88 3.3 Rural Violence, Rebellion and the Return of Land Reform............................. 104 3.4 Labour Solidarity or Imperialism?..................................................................... I l l Chapter 4: Zimbabwe and the LiberalRendez-Vous .......................................................120 4.1 Interpreting Zimbabwe’s Past and Present........................................................120 4.2 Settler-State Formation in a Colonial World.....................................................124 4.3 Colonial Zimbabwe in a Nationalist World.......................................................127 4.4 Nationalist Zimbabwe in a Liberalising World.................................................138 4.5 Liberalising Zimbabwe and the Nationalist Promise........................................152 3 Part II: Peasant-workers in Zimbabwe under Structural Adjustment Chapter 5: Trade Union Nationalism................................................................................. 163 5.1 Confronting Bourgeois Nationalism, 1990-95.................................................. 166 5.2 Mobilisation and Democratisation......................................................................169 5.3 Appealing for National Dialogue, 1995-97 .......................................................178 5.4 Changing Notions of Worker Participation........................................................186 5.5 Resolving for State Power, 1998-2000............................................................ 189 Chapter 6: Trade Union Internationalism....................................................................... 198 6.1 Sources of Internationalism............................................................................... 198 6.2 Between ICFTU and OATUU: The Post-Cold War Dilemma........................201 6.3 Appealing to the IMF and the World Bank......................................................203 6.4 Equivocating Over Labour Standards at the WTO..........................................204 6.5 The SATUCC Experience: A Regionalist Internationalism?..........................205 Chapter 7: Rural Peasant-worker Nationalism ...............................................................213 7.1 Land Occupations under Structural Adjustment..............................................214 7.2 The Gold-Panning Solution in Pote Valley......................................................218 7.3 Contested Settlement and Eviction in Madziwa Communal Land................226 7.4 The ZCTU’s Engagement with the Rural Peasant-worker..............................236 7.5 The Return of High Profile Land Occupations................................................239 Conclusion Chapter 8: ‘Waiting for the Barbarians9......................................................................... 248 8.1 Summary of Arguments....................................................................................248 8.2 Zimbabwe’s Future .......................................................................................... 250 8.3 On International Solidarity............................................................................... 253 8.4 Beyond Liberalism............................................................................................254 Appendix: Fieldwork Questionnaire........................................................................................ 257 Bibliography.............................................................................................................................. 259 4 PREFACE This thesis has been written under the supervision of Professor James Mayall. I have probably been his longest-tenured student, as well as the one with the most changes in thesis topic. He never lost faith and provided me with expert guidance, for which I am grateful. The bulk of the research was conducted in Zimbabwe where I was Research Associate at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Zimbabwe. I am indebted to Brian Raftopoulos (my advisor at IDS), Sam Moyo