Liberal democratic citizenship education is used in the research to conceptualise Zimbabwe’s higher education so that it can transform the socio-economic and political situation that has triggered inequalities and conflicts in the country. The history of Zimbabwe is characterised by a series of challenges which at different turning points manifested themselves through violent conflicts (Mandaza 2009; Ndhlela 2012:16). In this regard, the use of a liberal DCE is envisioned as crucial to the understanding ofthe social ills that have driven the society into conflicts and violence.
Liberal DCE is a regime where citizens make collective decisions on the basis of reasons they can all accept, not so as to further their own individual preferences, but so as to promote the common good (Rawls 1971; Dryzek 2013:169). In this regime, citizen responsibilities are the duties that citizens need to carry out such as joining the army, tolerating differences, voting and legitimising political authority, making decisions through public engagement and exercising individual power and making judgement as a way of life. However, if citizens’ rights are curtailed so much that they fail to exercise them, conflicts will ensue. What this implies for DCE is that all citizens have the rights to belong and participate as equal citizens in their political communities. This has been the missing link in the higher education in Zimbabwe as the country encountered challenges emanating from ethnic and electoral violence. The majority of conflicts in Africa emanate from the way minority societies are sometimes mistreated (Waghid 2009).