parochial sub-culture is evident when one considers the imposition of draconian laws and regulations such as banning certain food imports needed by the masses and the imposition of bond notes. There is an illusion of participation, people that insist on their right to participate and to be heard are victimised hence the risk aversion. Proponents of this view thought that the risk aversion graph would continue to rise beyond 2014.        6. Recommendations from respondents Do a study on what makes people take on the government with its repressive machinery. At what point will people say “enough is enough”? Conduct a comparative study looking at data from the region for example Zambia, Malawi and South Africa. The methodology needs to be revisited. It is difficult to measure perceptions and attitudes around risk and risk taking using the four questions used to construct the index. Realities are more complex and multifaceted than what can be captured by the four questions. There is a need to go beyond the “dash in dash out approach”. Triangulation of data collection methods is imperative. The Afrobarometer sample is not representative of the people in Zimbabwe The risk aversion/risk taking data needs to be segregated by provinces so that participants can debate from an informed view Operation Murambatsvina needs to be put in context: contextual analysis has to be more thorough because OM had different effects on people in urban and rural areas. The study is silent on issues of disabled. There is need for an analysis on that too. 7. Conclusions on civil society dissemination Participants largely concurred with the risk trends and the trajectory of the risk. Participants were also in agreement that, going beyond 2014, the risk aversion graph would continue to rise as the country moved towards elections. Electoral violence was the main trigger of inter and intra-party violence, and this manifested in people’s aversion of expressing their democratic rights through participation in protests, demonstrations and other forms of citizen expression as enshrined in the country’s constitution. The factor accepted as the key driver of citizens’ risk aversion was fear, induced by exposure to and experience of violence with perpetrators enjoying impunity and support from the State. Participants queried the completeness, integrity and appropriateness of the Afrobarometer sample from which the findings were drawn. Some questioned the accuracy of drawing conclusions based only on a quantitative index constructed using secondary data collected for a purpose different to the risk aversion study. Some suggested that qualitative questions were needed in the data collection to probe subjective views and get a clearer understanding of regional differences and variations among participants sharing the same quantitative views. Participants made wide-ranging recommendations on the methodology and on scaling up the study to include several other factors shaping risk aversion which were not included in the study including widening the scope of the analysis to compare regional trends. 22

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