In The Political Life of an Epidemic, Simukai Chigudu aims to go beyond the ‘rewarding routine of treating the sick’ to examine context, power and structural violence, combining his expertise as a medical doctor and political scientist. Two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the implications of socio-political context for epidemic management are quite apparent. However, prior to the current global pandemic, Chigudu joined just a handful of social scientists investigating social and political life around epidemics. Chigudu illustrates how access to public services – especially water and sanitation – mediates citizenship and how emergencies are no longer viewed as interruptions to progress but as management opportunities.

The major contribution of The Political Life of an Epidemic is its investigation into the political dynamics around the existence and management of the epidemic, especially in terms of the contentious politics of urban governance. Political corruption led to the mismanagement of waste and healthcare systems, catalysing the spread of a preventable disease in a country where the state previously had strong capacity to manage and deliver services. As Chigudu points out in his thorough discussion of the long-term structural factors that led to the cholera epidemic, capital investment and technical expertise were displaced once the ruling party came to power. This political economy discussion echoes much existing work. For instance, Abdullah and Rashid make very similar arguments in tracing the preconditions for the West Africa Ebola epidemic in colonial practices and, more recently, neoliberalism.Footnote ¹ Chigudu’s discussion of how colonial policy shaped the physical landscape of Harare is also very similar to the history of the construction of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during French colonialism, and how this led to increased vulnerability during the earthquake. The paradox, however, in the Zimbabwean case – which remains slightly buried in the analysis – is that the cholera epidemic occurred in a context where the state previously had greater capacity.

Conclusions about the politics of the cholera epidemic are also slightly limited, as Chigudu points out, because the interviewee sample was not entirely representative. More discussion as to how this may have influenced the book’s findings would have been useful, particularly as in certain contexts ethnicity may be a strong determinant of political affiliation. In addition, while Chigudu indicates that the outbreak created an opportunity for citizens to express outrage at the government and make demands for better service delivery, he does not discuss to what extent citizens were able to exercise such strategies prior to the epidemic.

Transcending disciplinary boundaries, Chigudu draws on the sociology of disasters in addition to critical medical anthropology and anthropological scholarship on citizenship. Although The Political Life of an Epidemic asks how different organizational entities, communities and individuals acted in response to the cholera epidemic, it shows communities and individuals more as passive recipients of response efforts (and, of course, as victims of cholera) and has very limited discussion of voluntarism. Yet most first responders during a disaster are typically local individuals and community organizations.Footnote ² Moreover, there is a need to focus on the agency of Africans rather than presenting the continent as entirely determined by structure.Footnote ³ The book could be strengthened by discussing community-led initiatives. It does, however, provide a fascinating discussion of faith-based organizations, such as a Pentecostal megachurch. Relatedly, faith-based organizations were also influential in response efforts during Ebola and Zika, in part due to their ability to withstand time (in contrast to politicians, who come and go), as Chigudu correctly indicates.Footnote ⁴

Ultimately, The Political Life of an Epidemic would greatly benefit from more comparative work with other epidemics, and in terms of political and social context. Additionally, the book has a limited discussion of existing work on humanitarian management, as many similar critiques exist regarding, for example, the West Africa Ebola epidemic and the 2010 Haiti earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak. Consequently, it is hard to discern what is novel about this particular case study and what is generalizable. For instance, Chigudu draws on classic critiques of the humanitarian–development gap. As he notes, the short-term goals of humanitarian response often do not aspire towards long-term goals of disaster resilience (such as investment in infrastructure). This, however, is a question of mandates and resources, and the discussion of whether humanitarian aid should necessarily expand into development is contentious: for instance, is it the responsibility of humanitarian organizations to build back the state? If they had not intervened, would the state have been able to manage the crisis, and would it have displayed the same weaknesses? In addition, two main contrasts between Ebola and cholera could have been discussed in more depth: the preventability and pathology of cholera compared with Ebola; and epidemic management – the strong state in Zimbabwe as opposed to commonly classified ‘weak states’ such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and even Haiti. In relation to the two points above, The Political Life of an Epidemic does not provide discussion of the presence of international aid organizations prior to the pandemic in the historically strong Zimbabwean state.

Overall, The Political Life of an Epidemic powerfully illustrates how the transformation of the bureaucratic state, in addition to the contentious politics of urban government, led to a public health disaster. However, the book could have made a greater contribution to the burgeoning field of pandemic politics by engaging in further comparisons with other epidemics as well as through a more thorough discussion of the role of international and local organizations.