Abstract
This study investigated the relationship between the transitions to democracy and the extant natural resource governance models in the mineral-rich post-liberation war countries of South Africa and Zimbabwe. While natural resources provide a unique opportunity for Africa to foster human and economic development, countries with extensive natural resources continue to experience widespread poverty, conflict, and less economic growth. On attaining independence, post-liberation war South Africa and Zimbabwe hastened to create natural resource governance institutions that were expected to transform and empower the lives of the historically disadvantaged African majority. This study established that resource redistribution in extractive resources favours party loyalists, which undermines transparency, accountability, and participation in the governance of extractive resources. Dominant literature on the management of natural resources in Africa has depicted many African states as neo-patrimonial, as illustrated through the continued denunciation of corrupt political elites who enjoy personalised rule. Less emphasised, however, are the circumstances under which these states came to be neo-patrimonial. The main research question guiding this study was: How and why did negotiated transitions to democracy determine the concurrent policies and practices applied to post-colonial natural resource governance in South Africa and Zimbabwe?
The study argued that the liberation movement's political culture influenced the design of natural resource governance systems in South Africa and Zimbabwe. It demonstrated this by presenting evidence that the negotiation process for democracy was a critical juncture which established a new institutional pathway. The study adopted a historical sociological and combinatorial causation approach to Zimbabwe and South Africa’s negotiated transitions and illustrated how elite choices allowed certain institutional practices to continue. Through an analysis of the institutional practices, the study found that continuities between ANC led government and Apartheid and ZANU PF and Rhodesian governments' extractive resource governance practices demonstrated that institutional developments in the governance of extractive resources were path dependent. Furthermore, liberation movement political culture values were infused with postcolonial extractive resources governance practices. Therefore, the governance of the extraction industries is hard-wired into the compromises and class power relations inherited from the colonial period. The concept ‘liberation movement governance culture’ was introduced to understand accumulation patterns in the extractive industry in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The areas of interest were how it skews resource redistribution favouring its elites, undermining due process and transparency, accountability, and participation in the governance of extractive resources.
The outcome of the thesis was a framework connecting the nature of transitions to democracy and their influences on natural resource governance models that emerged post-liberation. The main observations were inclusivity is essential in deliberative democracy, especially where redistribution of resources is essential for transformation. It also confirmed that political changes affect the governance of extractive resources and stability in a country. The two case studies demonstrated that lack of inclusivity in a political settlement negatively affected patterns of inclusion, as shown by the personal and class enrichment of ANC and ZANU PF. The thesis concludes by proposing how political settlements can result in institutional frameworks that address the question of redistribution and contribute to creating a socio-economic safety net using extractive resources to develop the viable skills base to transform Africa’s human capital.