Policy as Performance: Indigenisation and Resource Nationalism in Zimbabwe in the 2000s

In 2008, in the midst of a deepening political-economic crisis, Zimbabwe’s ZANU(PF) government introduced ‘Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment’ as a policy framework to guide the domestication of foreign firms then dominating the formal economy. At the same time, debates around resource nationalism were emerging in the country’s extractives sector, which was booming in the wake of a global surge in minerals prices. The intersection of indigenisation and resource nationalism as two powerful poles of policy-making established the terrain for key extractives-sector reforms in the 2000s under the banner of indigenisation. Drawing on case study evidence from the indigenisation of a large foreign-owned mine and the experiences of community trusts set up to manage mining assets, the paper argues that indigenisation was primarily tailored to accommodate the needs of local elites and foreign-owned mining companies. While indigenisation offered opportunities for elite participation and enhanced ruling party legitimacy, it abjectly failed to transform ownership stakes in the large-scale mining sector. In contrast, local mining communities for whom indigenisation promised a stronger decision-making role were largely marginalised from participation in local mining. Five years after the 2018 scrapping of its enabling laws, indigenisation is seen as having fulfilled a performative political function benefiting the ruling ZANU(PF) at a time of political crisis. The paper concludes that any alternative, inclusive resource nationalist strategy will need to look beyond indigenisation’s narrow framing to be transformational and sustainable.