Robert Mugabe resigned as Zimbabwe’s president in November 2017, following a military action called Operation Restore Legacy. This article examines the motivations and dynamics of Operation Restore Legacy, which it characterizes as a coup by military generals that had significant commonalities with historical coups in Africa. This characterization, which is informed by the accounts of coup participants and a reading of the literature, challenges interpretations of the coup as ‘a non-coup-coup’, ‘very Zimbabwean’, or ‘special’. The article argues that the coup was a vote of no confidence in Mugabe’s leadership, which succeeded because soldiers from Zimbabwe’s 1970s independence war subscribed to the coup’s stated ideal to restore liberation struggle principles in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front party as well as party members who had been sidelined. Liberation war veterans held decisive army and air force command posts when the coup occurred. The article’s emphasis on liberation struggle principles as a crucial determinant of the coup’s success is a counterpoint to game theoretic approaches to coup dynamics that disregard political beliefs as a consequential factor in the realization of coups. In respect of motivations, the article advances interrelating motives and contends that the coup’s catalyst was Mugabe’s refusal to meet his generals on 13 November 2017, for vital talks on widening differences between both parties. Sealing off dialogue catalyzed the coup.

中文翻译：

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津巴布韦 2017 年军事政变的动机和动力

罗伯特·穆加贝于 2017 年 11 月辞去津巴布韦总统职务，此前一项名为“恢复遗产行动”的军事行动。本文研究了“恢复遗产行动”的动机和动态，它将其描述为军事将领发动的政变，与非洲的历史政变具有重大共性。这种描述来自政变参与者的叙述和对文献的阅读，挑战了将政变解释为“非政变”、“非常津巴布韦”或“特殊”的解释。文章认为，政变是对穆加贝领导层的不信任投票，之所以成功，是因为津巴布韦 1970 年代独立战争的士兵赞同政变所宣称的理想，即在执政的津巴布韦非洲民族联盟爱国阵线党以及被边缘化的党员中恢复解放斗争原则。政变发生时，解放战争老兵担任决定性的陆军和空军指挥所。这篇文章强调解放斗争原则是政变成功的关键决定因素，这与政变动态的博弈论方法相反，后者忽视政治信仰作为政变实现的重要因素。在动机方面，文章提出了相互关联的动机，并认为政变的催化剂是穆加贝在 2017 年 11 月 13 日拒绝会见他的将军，就双方之间日益扩大的分歧进行重要会谈。