However, voting is a minimalist form of citizen agency, and it was just this that sparked the interest in examining risk aversion. As was seen (Tables 3 & 4) there was a marked effect upon citizens’ Political and Community Participation. For both rural and urban citizens, their participation in social and political life was greatly reduced in 2009 from the levels in 2004. Similarly, for Political Trust, there was a significant decline in trust in the police, although more so for the urban citizens, with trust in the president and the ruling party not returning to the 2004 levels. And the decline in Political Trust must be interpreted with the changes in political party affiliation, making the results of the 2008 elections more intelligible. How might this help us in understanding the current context? Firstly, it is evident that the widespread political violence between 2000 and 2004, and the mass displacements of farmers, farm workers and MDC supporters reduced the propensity of Zimbabweans for risk taking, but the majority were not risk averse in 2004: risk taking had declined 12 percentage points from 84% to 72% (see Figure 1). OM then reduced the risk taking population to 13%, for both urban and rural citizens, a drop of 59 percentage pointsand hence it took a national scale event to cow the population, much greater in effect than the violent elections in 2000 and 2002. Secondly, while this reduced risk taking, political participation, community participation, and political trust, it also caused, with the economic hardships, a massive shift in the political affiliation of Zimbabweans, which definitely did not work to the advantage of ZANU-PF. OM, was probably at least a contributory factor in their losing the 2008 poll. Thirdly, whilst OM has had short-term effects upon Political Participation, Community Participation, and Political Trust, it is evident that risk taking has re-emerged by 2014 (see Figure 1), and currently Zimbabweans display considerably more political astuteness than they have done for many years. Protests and demonstration shave been highly visible in 2016, and, apart from these forms of participation, citizen voice through the use of social media has exploded. The two critical components of citizen agency, voice and participation, are more present than they have been for nearly a decade. Fourthly, have the two conditions that seem to have caused the 2008 electoral upset reemerged ahead of 2018: risk taking has increased from 13% in 2005 to something around 50% in 2009 (and 56% in 2014), and the economic conditions seem similar to those in 2008. Will these factors combine once again to produce an electoral upset, or will they combine into wholly new forms of political action? Time will tell, but it would seem that the government should not tempt fate by trying large-scale coercion on a national scale ahead of the elections in 2018. 13