This analysis of the changing forms of state authority accords with McGregor’s excellent analysis of the reconfiguration of the state on the Zambezi frontier during the period of the Zimbabwe crisis. McGregor describes how the changes in livelihood on this frontier blurred the boundaries between legal and illegal activities, with unregulated activities becoming enmeshed with bureaucratic controls and the implication of state agents.52 The long term results of this artisanal and small scale mining is not yet clear but in the short term its developmental potential appears to be very fragile, and where mining was once a driver of urbanization in the Zimbabwean economy, in the post 2000 period, mining towns became ‘havens for internally displaced persons.’53 In addition to mobilizing amongst the informal sector miners and controlling the revenues from the diamond mines in Chiadzwa,54 ZANU PF also stepped up their mobilisation efforts within the increasingly informalised urban sector. The latter displaced manufacturing to become the second largest employer in the economy by 2011, with the largest number of informal sector employees working in the wholesale and retail trade, and repair of motor vehicles and motor cycles.55 In Zimbabwe, as in other post‐colonial states, what Denning has called the ‘specter of wageless life’ is no longer viewed as a temporary condition, but increasingly as the ‘main mode of existence in a separate, almost autonomous economy.’56 With the shrinking of formal sector employment in the economy generally, and in manufacturing in the urban areas in particular, the rate of unionization also declined from 200,000 in 1990, to 197,000 in 1997, and 162,000 in 2013. Thus the rate of unionization to estimated total employment in the formal sector has ranged from around 13‐16% between the years 1990‐2013.57 The low levels of unionisation and the growing informalisation of the economy have undermined the effectiveness of tripartite industrial relations structures and increased the avenues for dealing with labour issues through more informalised structures with greater vulnerability to the political influences of ZANU PF. Thus, just as the forms of rule have changed in the rural governance structures, so have they been affected in the governance and administration of urban labour relations. The trade unions, which were the most effective mobilisation base for the MDC‐T in the late 1990’s have been severely weakened by a combination of shrinking formal employment, state coercion, weakening organizational capacity, splits in the central labour federation,                                                              52 J.McGregor, Crossing the Zambezi: The Politics of Landscape on a Central African Frontier, James Currey, Suffolk, Weaver Press, Harare, 2009. 53 A.Kamete, ‘Of prosperity, ghost towns and havens: mining and urbanization in Zimbabwe.’ Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 30, 4, 2012, pp. 589‐609. 54 Global Witness, ‘Return of the Blood Diamond: The deadly race to control Zimbabwe’s new‐found diamond wealth.’ London, 2010. 55 Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, 2011 Labour Force Survey, Government of Zimbabwe, May 2012, p103. 56 M.Denning, ‘Wageless Life,’ New Left Review, 66, Nov/Dec 2010, p.86. 57 Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions data base 2013.   19