Prof Brian Raftopoulos

Professor Brian Raftopoulos is a leading Zimbabwean scholar and activist. Formally a Professor of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe from 1990-2006, he moved to Cape Town at the end of March 2006 and was the Director of Research and Advocacy in the Solidarity Peace Trust from 2007-2024, an NGO dealing with human rights issues in Zimbabwe. He is currently a Senior Scholar with focus on Democratic Governance thematic research, at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town. He has published widely on Zimbabwean history, labour history, historiography, and politics and is a regular contributor to public debates in Zimbabwe. Raftopoulos was also Mellon Senior Research mentor at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape from 2009-2013. He was a co-chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies (JSAS) from 2021-2025.

As an activist he was a founding member of the National Constitutional Assembly in 1998, and the first elected Chair of a broad civic coalition called the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition from 2001-2003. He continues to work closely with the labour movement in Zimbabwe as a board member of the Labour and Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (Ledriz).  He was also the Chair of the Board of the Zimbabwe Institute, a research and policy institute that was closely linked to the opposition in Zimbabwe from 2002-2013.

Research Interests: Zimbabwean History and Politics; Labour History and the Struggles for Democratisation on the African Continent.

Journal Articles

• Explaining Zimbabwe’s 2023 Harmonised Elections: Voter Suppression and Voter Intimidation. Zimbabwe Review, The Journal of the Britain Zimbabwe Society, Issue 23/3 September 2023, Raftopoulos, B. and Dorman, S.

• Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS): The Early Context of Sam Mayo’s Intellectual Development. Agrarian South Journal of Political Economy, 5, 2&3, 2017, pp. 187-201.   

• Terrence Ranger’s Return to University of Zimbabwe in the late 1990’s. Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 5, 2015, pp.1122-1125.

• Zimbabwean Politics in the Post 2013 Election Period. Africa Spectrum, 49, 2, 2014, pp. 91-103.

• The 2013 Elections in Zimbabwe: the end of an era. Journal of Southern African Studies, 39 (4): 971-988, Raftopoulos, B. (2013).

  Working Paper

• Navigating Turbulence in Zimbabwe. The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, 2021, 46pp.

Book Chapters

• Education in Zimbabwe in the first two decades of Independence.  R. Pilossof (ed), Fending for Ourselves- Youth in Zimbabwe 1980-2020. Harare, Weaver Press, 2021.

• Trade Unions, Labour and Politics in Zimbabwe since the late 1990’s.  M. Tendi, J. McGregor and J. Alexander (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Zimbabwe Politics.

• Zimbabwe: Regional Politics and Dynamics.  In Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics. Oxford University Press.

  Op-eds

• The 2023 Zimbabwe elections - Zanu PF's authoritarian tactics already in play. Daily Maverick, 2022.
• The Challenges of Opposition Politics in Zimbabwe. Southern African Political Economy Series Trust, Dialogues Series, No 13,2022.