Neither from Above nor from Below: Municipal Bureaucrats and Environmental Policy in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

Since the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of antiapartheid organizations in 1990, there has been as important opening up of political space and discourse in South Africa. Many issues which were previously not open for discussion or so heavily censured under apartheid as to make open debate an impossibility are now topics of heated controversy. Everything from homosexuality to macroeconomic policy is up for discussion, and new political discourses and policy initiatives both progressive and otherwise are rapidly emerging to make up for the censures of the past. This opening up of political space is particularly true of environmental policy. Gone are the days when black' South Africans were forcibly removed from their land to make way for game parks and white tourists. Gone, too, are the days when private and government-run companies could dump toxic wastes with impunity next to African townships or flagrantly pollute rivers and streams. The African National Congress (ANC) recently tabled policy papers on the environment (South Africa 1996, 1997ab);2 these, along with a lengthy background report, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC 1995), make it very clear that environmental policy will never again be the same in the country. Policy and practice are often two very different things, however, and implementing new policy initiatives has proven to be difficult on a wide range of policy fronts in South Africa. Part of the problem has been apartheid-era bureaucrats thousands of