The role of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the mediation of intrastate democratization conflict in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) launched regional mediation to facilitate political settlement and democratic installation in exiting the Zimbabwe crisis between the years 2007 to 2013. Zimbabwe faced multifaceted socio-economic and political crisis since 2000, which threatened to implode into regional contagion. The Zimbabwe crisis drew global attention, and criticism of the SADC for failing to resolve the conflict at a time when Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa were increasingly involved in mediation processes to end conflict and foster peaceful democratic installation. Since the 2000s, regional mediation became a norm embraced by African leaders in seeking African solutions to African problems, and fostering African agency in providing home grown solutions to pervasive continental conflicts, including in Zimbabwe. Not enough analysis has been made on the role, implications, outcomes and impacts of the SADC mediation as pan-African diplomacy in Zimbabwe. The academic and policy polarization characterizing the sweeping criticism of the SADC mediation in Zimbabwe between the Global West and Africans obfuscates the understanding of its processes, role, impacts, outcomes and implications. While the SADC and other regional organizations in Africa continue to opt for regional mediation as pan-African diplomacy, and a strategy of choice, critics suggest that the prospects and implications of regional mediation to political stability and peaceful democratic transition remain ambivalent, if not ambiguous. Based on literature view, this study examines the SADC mediation as pan-African diplomacy towards resolving the intractable violent intrastate democratization conflict and problematic democratic transition in Zimbabwe, focusing on its role, impact, outcomes and implications.