petitions, demonstrations and voting to “going round in circles with no development”. The overarching view was that no form of citizen action would succeed due to the State’s violent response or rigging of elections. In essence, participants were of the view that their time would be better spent if they focused on their families, livelihoods than clashing with the police and the army rather than exposing themselves to the risk of abduction, violence and arrest. 3.4 Questions over Citizen Activists/Movements Closely tied to the issue of the continued failure of citizen action to produce the desired results is the notion of “paid citizen activists”. Most discussants expressed an uncertainty over the sincerity of most leading figures in the current wave of citizen action (from April 2016 into 2017). Respondents expressed suspicion over the motivations of most of the leading figures in the citizen movements such as #This Flag and Tajamuka/Sesjikile, and some put forward the hypothesis that these movements are not genuine citizen movements. Rather, they suggest that the leading figures, such as Stan Zvorwadza, Evan Mawarire, and Linda Masarira, are only after making names for themselves and creating activism careers for themselves by mobilising the youth to protest and demonstrate against the government, but are not in activism for the long run. Several respondents questioned Evan Mawarire’s (of #This Flag) decision to leave the country at the height of the This Flag’s influence. For some of the demos, people are paid to participate, and thus if a demo comes that has no incentives, people will not participate Others respondents questioned why such movements did not develop clear cut structures to ensure sustainability of their efforts once the leading figures were arrested by the government. It has now become expected that the government silences dissenting voices by accusing them of causing violence and destruction of private property, among the host of criminal allegations that can be levelled against leading pro-democracy activists. Some respondents had more extreme views, going further to say these leading activists were not serious about ameliorating conditions in the country, but were only focused on getting paid by “donors outside the country” after each demonstration or protest. The high levels of animation during the discussions around the citizen movements indicates the wide range of views on the issues and the deep extent to which people subscribe to the views they hold over the sincerity of the citizen movements. However, the merits of such hypotheses might be, as it was discernible that, for several people, the lack of clarity on who was driving the #ThisFlag and Tajamuka/Sesjikile movements caused uncertainties amongst the people and this played a part in shaping their risk perception. It is debatable whether these movements caused people to have less fear or to be more circumspect in expressing their political views or joining demonstrations and protests. 3.5 Employment, education and risk aversion Education is another factor shaping risk perception. Those who are educated feel that some forms of expression are unnecessarily risky; for example, protests are not for the educated. For some people, their risk perception is influenced by the need to be secure financially and this is dependent on one’s employer. The participants indicated that civil servants cannot express themselves in ways done by others who are not civil servants because the ruling party dominates government. A civil servant who expresses views that are against the ruling will be placing their job security in jeopardy. 7