associated with political violence than was membership in religious groups. Zimbabwean citizens were shown overall to be mostly (85%) of the view that violence was never justified.3 Zimbabwe was actually one of the countries with the highest frequencies of repudiating violence, but repudiating violence does not necessarily also mean that Zimbabweans are active citizens in other ways. For Zimbabwe then, how might this all work? Conceptual clarity is obviously crucial in trying to do research on active citizenship and social capital, and, as this brief review hopefully shows, it may depend on who is doing the looking and what he or she is looking for. For political scientists, both concepts are obviously related to political participation and to the relations between active citizenship, social capital, political participation, and democracy (or not). For those interested in development, these terms may be less useful, as Durlauf suggests. Perhaps it has to do with the distinction between civil-political rights and socio-economic rights, but even this may be an arbitrary division, and maybe top-down (vertical relations, or the state and the citizen) and bottom-up (horizontal relations, or the citizen and the community) might be more helpful. In the context of Zimbabwe, and given the marginalization of the Zimbabwean citizen and a predatory state (Mandaza. 2016; Bratton. 2014; Bratton & Masunungure. 2011), examining these issues bottom-up, or horizontally, makes the most sense, particularly if the concern is with the more marginalized members of Zimbabwe, women and the youth. For sure the expressed concerns of Zimbabweans are very fundamental; socio-economic rights and the delivery of public goods and services. They also express very clearly the enormous difficulties in dealing with their civil and political rights, where they have little voice and even less participation. Additionally, whilst political violence is obviously a very important factor affecting civic activity, and may be the major explanatory variable in determining why Zimbabweans are apparently so “risk averse” (Masunungure et al. 2017), there may be other factors that influence political and civic participation. Political violence has been greatly reduced since the 2008 elections, but it remains the case that Zimbabweans remain risk averse, and women now slightly more risk averse than men (RAU & MPOI. 2018). For women, it may easily be hypothesized that patriarchy (and poverty) also exercises a powerful inhibitory influence upon them. Thus, it is worth exploring whether the Women and Social Capital It is evident that women have wholly different sets of obligations and duties to men in most societies, and, in Zimbabwe, these are also different between rural and urban women. Whilst a very dominant patriarchy affects women differentially, it is evident that the effect of this patriarchy will be generally greater on rural women. It is also the case that women develop much more cohesive social networks and associations than men, especially around religious affiliation.4 These networks and associations are crucial for women sustaining both their work and their family obligations, as well as assisting women in many other ways , such as the prevention of HIV(Gregson et al. 2011). However, in examining social capital and women, it is the wider engagement that is of interest, the extent do women in Zimbabwe participate in civic and political affairs. There can be no doubt that women dominate the multiplicity of associational groups within communities dealing with the myriad of challenges facing rural and urban poor, and certainly women comprise the vast majority in 3 4 Bhavnani & Backer (2007), Table 5, Attitudes to Violence, p20. In the Afrobarometer Round Seven (2017 survey on Zimbabwe, 46% of women were active members or leaders of religious groups as opposed to 35% of men. Similarly, in Round Six (2014), the comparative figures were women (49%) and men (30%). 7