State capitalisms in Southern Africa: colonial rule, capitalist development, and class formation in Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, 1880s-2020s

Lucien van der Walt is Professor of Industrial and Economic Sociology, and Director of the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), at Rhodes University, South Africa. Widely published, his books include the co-edited Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Post-Colonial World, 1880-1940, with Steve Hirsch (Brill, 2010), Politics at a Distance from the State: Radical and African Perspectives, with Kirk Helliker (Routledge, 2018), and Labour Struggles in Southern Africa, 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, with David Johnson and Noor Nieftagodien (2023, HSRC Press). A prize-winning scholar, his research areas are anarchism and syndicalism, labour history and radicalisms, and the political economy of neo-liberalism. He is involved in union and worker education.

Gilton Klerck is Professor of Industrial and Economic Sociology at Rhodes University, South Africa. In addition to numerous peer-reviewed papers in journals and book chapters, his books include Labour Relations: Law and Conflict in the Workplace (Van Schaik, 2007), Regulation and Flexibility: Industrial Restructuring and Labour Market Segmentation in Namibia, 1990-2000 (VDM, 2009), and Employment Relations: A Critical and International Perspective, co-authored with Pauline Dibben and Geoff Wood (CIPD, 2011). His research areas are labour relations, agri-food value chains, regulatory restructuring, labour law, and non-standard employment.

Kirk Helliker is Emeritus Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Industrial Sociology at Rhodes University in South Africa, where he also heads the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies. He has published widely on the history and politics of Zimbabwean society, including peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and numerous co-edited books and journal specials. His most recent co-edited book is Civil Society in Zimbabwe: Insights from Matabeleland, with Mandlenkosi Mpofu and Dion Nkomo (Routledge, 2025). His current research, in southern Africa broadly, focuses on agro-ecology and just agrarian transitions.

Gorden Moyo, of Lupane State University, Zimbabwe, is Director of the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe, an Associate Member of the International Society for Development and Sustainability, Member of the Southern African Development Community (SADCC) Parliamentary Forum Technical Group on Public Financial Management, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (FHISER) at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. He served as Zimbabwe’s Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals for the Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai. His research focuses on global finance, international economic relations, developmental states, public leadership, military commercialism, Africa-China relations, and African agency. His latest book is Global Storms and Africa in World Politics: Contemporary Challenges and Decolonial Recoveries, co-edited with Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Springer Nature, 2025).