Dr Gift Mwonzora

gift.mwonzora@uni-erfurt.de

Dr Gift Mwonzora

Research Area

Development and Socio-Economic Policies 

Short Biography

Gift is a scientific Coordinator/Post-doctoral Researcher to the Gerhard Haniel Professor of Public Policy and International Development, Prof. Achim Kemmerling. He is interested in development policy, governance, political economy, peace and conflict, environmental sustainability, urban safety, cities, the future of work and digitalisation in Africa. He holds a PhD in Sociology (specialising in Political Sociology) from Rhodes University in South Africa, B.A Honours in History and Development studies from the Midlands State University (MSU) - Zimbabwe, Certificate in Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) from University of Zimbabwe (UZ).

He studied for an M.A in Development studies majoring in Human Rights, Development & Social Justice from Erasmus Universitiet Rotterdam (ISS) in the Netherlands. He previously held several academic positions in South African universities.  He worked as a Research Fellow in the Unit for Zimbabwean Studies – Department of Sociology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He also worked under the South African Research Chair in Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability (CLES) in the Faculty of Law at Northwest University in Potchefstroom. He then worked as a post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Institute of Social Justice and Institutional Change at the University of Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein. In 2014 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the (VU) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Before joining the Brandt School, Gift worked as a Rapporteur in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe and as a trade-unionist for the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ). He also worked as a Researcher and Lecturer in Zimbabwe. He has published extensively on transitional justice, elections, comparative politics, democracy, (urban) governance and informality.

Publications

Mwonzora, G. (2023). Traditional Leaders as Vote Brokers and 'Kingmakers' in Zimbabwe's Elections." Electoral Politics in Zimbabwe, Vol II: The 2023 Election and Beyond, pp. 289-307. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-33796-3_16

Mwonzora, G. (2023). ‘Shifting the Voting Burden to Others’: Abstainers and Turn Outers in Zimbabwean Elections. In Electoral Politics in Zimbabwe, Volume I: The 2023 Election and Beyond (pp. 111-128). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-27140-3_6 

Mwonzora, G. (2022). Righting the Future from the Past: Four Decades of Human Rights (Illusions) in Zimbabwe. In The Palgrave Handbook of Democracy, Governance and Justice in Africa (pp. 235-258). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-74014-6_13

Helliker, K., Chiweshe, M. K., Bhatasara, S., & Mwonzora, G. (2021). Everyday crisis-living in Zimbabwe. In Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe (pp. 1-20). Routledge.

Electoral reform is not a panacea to Zimbabwe’s democratic deficit available at: https://theloop.ecpr.eu/electoral-reform-is-not-a-panacea-to-zimbabwes-democratic-deficit/

Zimbabwe’s experience of contested elections and elusive electoral reform holds lessons for Africa available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2023/04/14/zimbabwes-experience-of-contested-elections-and-elusive-electoral-reform-holds-lessons-for-africa/

Locking Down Democracy: The Banning of By-elections in Zimbabwe in the COVID-19 Era available at: https://deliberativehub.wordpress.com/2021/10/07/locking-down-democracy-the-banning-of-by-elections-in-zimbabwe-in-the-covid-19-era/

Political Will or Not? The Right to Health in Zimbabwe in the Era of SDGs available at: https://impakter.com/the-right-to-health-in-zimbabwe/

Why Zimbabwe’s first elections after the Mugabe ouster are so significant available at: https://theconversation.com/why-zimbabwes-first-elections-after-the-mugabe-ouster-are-so-significant-100505

Scene is set for interesting contest in Zimbabwe’s upcoming poll available at: https://theconversation.com/scene-is-set-for-interesting-contest-in-zimbabwes-upcoming-poll-98867

The lack of a succession plan has left Morgan Tsvangirai’s party in disarray available at: https://theconversation.com/the-lack-of-a-succession-plan-has-left-morgan-tsvangirais-party-in-disarray-91714

The politics of reconciliation in Zimbabwe available at: http://www.transconflict.com/2013/11/framing-politics-reconciliation-new-constitutional-epoch-zimbabwe-211/