How Do Elite Political Networks Respond to Shocks? Network Evolution after the Death of a Zimbabwean Faction Leader

Power, wealth and even physical safety are deeply dependent on who you know in political elite networks. But how do they evolve when there is a sudden shock to the network? We examine the case of the 2011 death of Solomon Mujuru, a key faction leader within Zimbabwean politics, and what its impact was on the subsequent evolution of the elite network. We construct this dataset from open sources such as the media and validate the data against the eventual outcomes elite actors experienced (promotions or purging) after the 2017 coup that removed Robert Mugabe from power. We also propose an approach to assessing network missingness using capture-recapture approaches adapted from ecology. We review network science literature from fields including friendship networks, computer networks, operations research, and neuroscience to generate a series of hypotheses about how we might expect a network to evolve in response to a shock. We find that 1) the predictors of network evolution significantly change after the shock takes place, and 2) we observe a faster rate of tie change. We do not find evidence that the associates of Solomon Mujuru form ties, with each other or in general, at a faster rate after the shock, and we find little evidence for the theories that preferential attachment increases or that degree assortativity falls. We do, however, find evidence for two responses not previously discussed in the literature. Transitivity increases and homophily on clan affiliation decreases. We argue that these are best understood as reflecting the social meaning of the Mujuru faction as a vehicle for the dominant Zezuru clan. This shows that political elite responses to shocks are likely to respond to the specific social meaning of the particular shock and context, and will not be simple mechanical or emotional responses