For the rural group, there is little change in attending a community meeting over the three surveys, but this must be treated with caution: this may not represent voluntarism but rather the compulsion that affects many rural residents for attending meetings called by traditional leaders or political parties (Matyszak. 2010; ZPP. 2017).5 This notion seems bolstered, in the aftermath of the 2008 violence, by the reduction, from 2004 to 2009, in the frequencies of discussing politics and joining others to raise an issue. Overall, it seems fair to conclude that OM had a sustained effect upon participation generally, more marked for the urban than the rural, but, of course, the effects of the violent election in 2008 and the massive decline in the economy cannot be eliminated as other contributory factors inhibiting citizen agency. The travails of daily living may well have diminished interest in participating in any but survival activities. Of course, it cannot be discounted that this too was an intended effect of OM: making people poor might be a strategy for inhibiting political participation, but clearly a risky strategy (see Political Affiliation below). Political Trust When a government undertakes an action such as OM, it might be expected that this would make the government highly unpopular with the citizenry, and certainly those affected by the policy. Overall, there are appreciable drops in political trust from 2004 to 2005, and, interestingly, greater drops for rural than urban respondents. There is rebound in 2009 for both groups, but not uniformly. For the urban group, there is a big jump, of 22% from 2004 and 18% from 2005, in trust in parliament – presumably because of the GPA – but no other form of trust returns to the 2004 level, again suggesting a long-term consequence of OM. Figure 5: Trust in the police and the courts 60 50 40 30 Trust the police Trust courts of law 20 10 0 Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural 2004 5 2005 2009 There are, however, some interesting differences in various forms of trust. As can be seen in Figure 5, Trust in the courts of law seems to have been unaffected, and consistently over 50% of respondents, rural and urban, trust this institution. Trust in the police fluctuates over the three periods. It drops in 2005 for both groups, but not hugely; still nearly 40% of both groups report trusting the police. See Formal Structures of Power in Rural Zimbabwe cfor a detailed analysis of the considerable powers of rural authorities over citizens and reports of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) for reports of forced attendance at meetings. 10