Political Resistance to Neoliberalism: Cracks in the Post-apartheid Corporatist Arrangement

Abstract

Neoliberalism has generated a great deal of protest and civil resistance at the grass-roots level throughout the post-apartheid period. This chapter examines the tripartite alliance between the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP) as a corporatist arrangement that was largely designed to contain civil society challenges to neoliberal orthodoxy. It further examines the radical opposition parties (such as the EFF) that have emerged in recent years to challenge the ANC’s political hegemony. Moreover, in the last decade, numerous wild cat labour strikes have erupted to destabilize the mining industry, and the Marikana massacre in 2012, the worst state atrocity against civilians since Sharpeville, triggered new break-away unions from COSATU, additional labour unrest, and increasing dissatisfaction with the neoliberal growth regime. Yet, thus far the tripartite alliance, and hence labour corporatism, has been kept intact by the ANC through various political incentives.