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VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM:
2008-09
ABOUT OUR 2008-09 VISITING RESCUE SCHOLAR:
The Center for Urban and Global Studies hosts Tyanai Masiya as a Scholar Rescue Scholar (SRF) during 2008-09. Mr. Masiya is supported jointly by the Scholar Rescue Fund of the International Institute of Education (IIE) in New York and proceeds from the Scott M. Johnson Fund at Trinity College endowed by Tom Johnson ‘62, former chairman of the Board of Trustees. Scholar Rescue Scholars are established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. The IIE SRF fellowships permit professors, researchers and other senior academics to find temporary refuge at universities and colleges anywhere in the world, enabling them to pursue their academic work and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues, and the community at large.
Tyanai Masiya is a lecturer in politics and governance at the Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. He has authored papers on democracy and elections in Southern Africa, urban governance, and smart sanctions as an instrument of international policy. He is the current chairperson of the Center for Peace Research and Development, a human rights organization based in Zimbabwe. He has previously carried out consultancies for the Kellogg Foundation, the EU and the American Friends Services Committee. Mr. Masiya is a member of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA).
At Trinity, Tyanai will teach Comparative Local Government Systems (POLS 260) and Politics and Governance in Africa (POLS 344), which will be cross-listed with International Studies and Public Policy & Law, in spring 2009. During his stay at Trinity, Tyanai will examine structural governance arrangements and patterns of governance in Zimbabwe, explaining the organizing principles and their impact on electoral outcomes. The nature of intra-party democracy in the ruling party also contributes to this pattern of electoral outcomes. Decades of single party domination seem to stem from a culture of rule by one party that put in place mechanisms that ensure electoral loses for any opposition. The current government remains in power regardless of research evidence proving that a government cannot sustain power as long as ZANUPF has done under the prevailing socio-political and economic conditions.
We wish Tyanai Masiya, a special scholar and good friend, all the best as he will leave Trinity around May 1, 2009 to pursue his doctoral studies at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.
Xiangming Chen
Dean and Director
Center for Urban and Global Studies
Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Sociology
and International Studies
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