Includes bibliography(80-86 p.)

'ABSTRACT Zimbabwe has been under international economic sanctions since early 2000s. The international community resorted to sanctions in response to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) regime of Robert Mugabe has been accused of human rights abuses, election violence and rigging, police brutality and arbitrary arrest of opposition party supporters, disregard of the rule of law and undermining democratic processes. The sanctions were imposed to compel the Zimbabwean government to initiate liberal political and economic reforms. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the effectiveness of these sanctions in compelling the Zimbabwean government to introduce political and economic reforms. Findings of the study show that the sanctions have to a large extent failed. In spite of fifteen years of international economic sanctions, there are no fundamental improvements in the democratic and human rights record of Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe is still in power and continues to delay political and economic reforms. There are two important theoretical factors, which can explain this failure. Firstly, international community did not act together so Mugabe has managed to circumvent the sanctions by introducing the "Look East Policy", which involves securing the support of non-Western nations such as China for diplomatic and economic support. Secondly, given the low level of democracy, and the heavy-handed policies of the regime, the Zimbabwean people could not hold the regime accountable for deteriorating socio-economic circumstances and failed to force a bottom-up change showing that international economic sanctions are likely to fail in authoritarian regimes. Keywords: Effectiveness of international economic sanctions, Democratization, Zimbabwe, Look East Policy. '