Democratic Developmental State Research Articles

An Analysis of How TVET is Playing a Significant Role in Fostering Students’ Skills and Competencies in South Africa

It is generally acceptable that the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) plays a vital role in all aspects of the economy and the society at large in that it is a viable transformative tertiary educational institution for promoting and realising the South African government's developmental strategy and agenda. Essentially, it seeks to ensure that learners who failed to secure admission to the university still have the opportunity to go to tertiary institutions where they will learn and acquire skills and competency that will make them employable, be self-employed and become employers by creating jobs. Also, this paper shows that in the quest for economic growth and development, TVET has moved to the forefront of political changes aimed at eliminating poverty, unemployment, and inequality. More importantly, TVET positioned itself to address the government's developmental challenges and difficulties through the provision of high-quality education to students to skill and empower them. Against this backdrop, TVET continues to be a reliable institution to train and educate young people to build the ideal of a democratic developmental state. Received: 5 July 2023 / Accepted: 21 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024

Xenophobia: a hindrance factor to South Africa’s ambition of becoming a developmental state

The prevalence of xenophobic violence toward foreigners has hindered South Africa’s ambition to become a developmental state since 2007, when the concept of a “democratic developmental state” was first endorsed during the African National Congress (ANC) conference in Polokwane. This ambition has also been thwarted by the inability of the post-apartheid regime to provide adequate and sustainable services to the citizens. Xenophobia has disrupted economic growth and has contributed to poor service delivery in local municipalities, thus leading to social protests. The developmental state depends mainly on a solid balance of economic growth and human development. It also leans on the capacity of the state to establish policies that address poverty and promote the expansion of solid economic opportunities. In this endeavor, migrants increase economic growth and make it sustainable, increase productivity, and promote the labor market. They also promote the labor force and human capital, economic growth, and public finance, thus enabling the realization of a developmental state. However, xenophobia has limited migrants’ contributions to economic growth and social well-being in South Africa. It has destructive effects on South Africa’s economic structure and growth, thus affecting the delivery of adequate services that would enhance its ability to achieve a developmental state. The paper recommends that there is a need for South Africa to understand that xenophobia affects economic growth and the service delivery framework. To address the prevalence of xenophobia and achieve its ambition of a developmental state, South Africa needs to hasten its responses to curb xenophobia and integrate migrants into economic opportunities. The paper adopted a qualitative research methodology and conceptual and document analysis techniques to collect data that enabled the achievement of the above assertions.

Post-apartheid state business relations in Johannesburg: a sub-national perspective on the 21st Century developmental state

ABSTRACT This article discusses prospects for the building of a developmental state in South Africa by examining relations between the local state and business. Its main aim is to assess how far the country has come in creating a state with healthy state business relations typical of successful developmental states. Using the case study method with information sourced through interviews and a review of key documents, the study utilises the democratic developmental state theoretical model that advocates the state’s extensive engagement with all actors. The model also recognises the role of subnational government. Informed by this model, it places particular focus on relations between the state and business in the city of Johannesburg since 2000 until 2016. It finds the association between the local state and business to traverse two worlds. In the one world, the city is a developmental subnational state relating well with business and building partnerships to address challenges. In another, there is compromised autonomy of the city’s administration and its collective development goals. Benefits are not widespread and there is no prevalent sense of collective developmental solidarity, casting doubt on South Africa’s progress towards building a developmental state.

South Africa’s dwindling developmental local government: a dying dream?

ABSTRACT This article brings politics and Democratic Developmental State (DDS) theory back into the debates surrounding the operationalisation of Developmental Local Government (DLG) in South Africa. It interrogates the extent to domestic political factors and actors have impacted the ability of the DLG to fulfil its constitutional and developmental mandate. It does so by adopting a theoretical case study methodology in assessing the functioning of South Africa’s DLG against three ‘micro-foundations’ of the DDS model: Developmental-Oriented Leadership, Effective Local ‘Pilot Agency’ and Meritocratic Bureaucracy, and Developmental Performance. It finds that the political imperatives and motives of the ANC at play at the onset of democracy in 1994 coupled with the local politicking ever since has crippled the ability of local government to fulfil its constitutional and developmental mandate. This article proposes the adoption of the Developmental Civil Society (DCS) model as a tool to circumvent South African local power politics and boost developmental capacity at the local level in order to fully realise a DDS. It goes beyond the objective of DLG through the self-empowerment of citizens, not only as policy formulators and passive recipients of development, but as active producers of inclusive socioeconomic development.

Malawi’s Third Republic: Towards a Democratic Developmental State?

The paper critically examines the extent to which Malawi’s economic and political developments, leading to the country’s Third Republic, have contributed to the country’s quest towards achieving the basic attributes of a democratic developmental state. An analytical framework is developed to examine this covering the post-independence political and economic regimes. The analysis reveals that despite experiencing some episodes of high growth rates, the country has been marred by autocratic tendencies, rampant corruption and nepotism. Oftentimes the political and economic system remained fragile as the performance of the different governments pre-2020 had been hardly inspiring in relation to peoples’ expectations.

Capturing South Africa's developmental state: State‐society relations and responses to state capture

AbstractUnder the leadership of the governing African National Congress, the South African government has long touted the idea of becoming a developmental state as the country's ultimate response to rising unemployment, poverty and inequality. This idea aligns with the rapid economic growth and industrialization experienced by the East Asian developmental states through directing the state's administrative capacities, resources and policies towards attaining national developmental goals. Similarly, the National Development Plan pins South Africa's developmental state ambition on creating a capable developmental state and the formation of dynamic institutions capable of utilizing the state's administrative powers, resources and policies to pursue developmental goals. However, the country's state institutions, administrative capacities and resources have been challenged by the state capture debacle that shed light on the corrupt relationship between the political elite and the business elite. This article explores civil society's response to state capture and analyzes the impact of civil society's responses on South Africa's developmental state ambition. The article reveals that the state‐society relations had a significant effect on fighting the state‐business corrupt arrangement by mobilizing nationwide protests that solidified South Africa's emerging democratic developmental state framework embedded in state‐society relations.

COVID-19 and the Making of a South African Democratic Developmental State

This article assesses the impact of untraditional security threats on the origin and institutional configuration of existing and prospective developmental states in Africa. It adopts a case study research methodological approach which interrogates the effect of internal and global security threats on the formation of 21st-century African developmental states through the presence of four developmental state features: Development-Oriented Political Leadership; Presence of a Pilot Agency; Private Sector and/or Broad-Based Developmental Coalitions; and Popular Mobilisation through a Developmentalist Ideology. The case studies under review include four existing (Botswana, Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Rwanda) and one prospective (South Africa) African developmental states. This article finds that intense ethnic rivalries and domestic development imperatives were sufficient factors triggering the construction of developmental states in Botswana, Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. Furthermore, the outbreak of COVID-19 has served as a global threat which precipitated developmental state project in South Africa.

The Status of Democratic Developmental State in Ethiopia: Is It Rolling Back or Rolling Forward?

The Democratic Developmental State (DDS) model was attempted during the tenure of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) in Ethiopia. In this paper, an effort has been made hence to explore some economic blessings and political curses incurred, cases for launching and now terminating DDS, and the reform-led changes and continuities in the political economy of Ethiopia. In doing so, the researcher has depended on a qualitative approach and in-depth content analysis of secondary data sources. The finding revealed that the ideological confrontations and lusts for power coupled with the fragile institutional and structural profiles of the EPRDF-led government have precipitated the abortion of the embryonic DDS. Indeed, in the pursuit of DDS, a trade-off between promoting democracy and achieving economic development has remained at a tolerable cost. In consequence, protracted popular grievances against the unequal distribution of benefits have been accompanied by paving the birth of a new leadership submissive to the Neo-Liberal recipes. Now, the state seems as it goes to start from scratch despite some belief that the new leadership appears to regurgitate the footsteps of its predecessor EPRDF rebranding the infamous legacy. It has been found that the reformist part of the government has been facing coordination problems to materialize the political and economic reforms. To this effect, early costs of the beginnings of the reform have been encountered. For that reason, the researcher suggests that the incumbent government should constitutionally and inclusively overcome the state-wide leadership crisis to ensure positive synergy.

Development and Democracy, Complementary or Contradictory: A Critical Reflection on Ethiopian Democratic Developmental State

Achieving economic growth and sustainable development remain the prior policy all nation states across the world. To achieve their sustainable development and economic growth goals, international communities has been fermenting and diagnosing various development models and paradigms. However, there is no one size and fit all development paradigms which obliged to be followed by nation states around the globe. This paper examines developmental state growth model and its nexus with democratization with reference to Ethiopian democratic developmental state growth model. The paper employed qualitative research approach as a research methodology. This paper is based on desk review. This paper argued that, even though EPRDF government claim the country as democratic developmental state which is unique to Asian authoritarian developmental state, the country portrayed as one of poor human right records and leading journalist jailer in the Africa despite the country has been witnessing the fastest economic growth for the last ten consecutive years. This paper also argued that Ethiopian developmental state and democratization process is contradictory since Ethiopian governments have been garnering the political legitimacy through development achievement not directly from public elections and the government has been using the economic achievement as an excuse for its democratic back sliding and democratic deconsolidation in Ethiopia.

REVISITING CHINA'S DEVELOPMENTAL STATE: LESSONS FOR AFRICA

Prominent development institutions and researchers have documented the ascendance of China in the global political economy and mainly explored how the global balance of power is affected by China's growing economic expansion. Political economists have argued that it is part of the generic economic power shift from the global north to south whilst security studies place emphasis on Chinese national geopolitical interests in several regions. This article discusses what lessons can be drawn from China's developmental state experience and how these can inform Sub-Saharan African developmental strategies. We argue that China's rise has been driven by both market and non-market institutions and show how peculiar contextual historical and socio-political factors have been integral to building the Chinese developmental state. This demonstrates the importance of building effective state institutions to support sustainable economic growth and human development. We highlight the principles shaping institutional mechanisms relating to the rapid economic growth and argue that African governments should apply these in their attempts to rebuild state capacity. However, we also point out that negative trends such as authoritarianism and persistent inequality should not be replicated. Rather, Sub-Saharan Africa should build democratic developmental states characterised by pro-poor sustainable inclusive growth.

Consolidating South Africa’s Emerging Democratic Developmental State from Below

The South African National Development Plan envisions a capable democratic developmental state as the only response to the country’s deteriorating triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. A developmental state denotes a development theory that advocates for a state-led development model to accelerate economic growth and rapid industrialisation. However, most successful developmental states were led by authoritarian regimes. The rise of democracy within emerging and developing economies invokes a different kind of developmental state model, based on democratic development and the active role of subnational governments. Despite subnational governments playing a key role in democratic development, there is limited literature on the role of subnational institutions in building and consolidating democratic developmental states. This article analyses the role and contribution of subnational institutions in strengthening South Africa’s emerging democratic developmental state through developmental local government. It argues that developmental local government is underpinned by the structural and developmental ideology of a (democratic) developmental state. The article further illustrates how critical features such as maximising social and economic development; promoting democratic development; integrating and coordinating development; and building social capital are used to consolidate South Africa’s emerging democratic developmental states from below.

Welfare attitude and economic developmentalism in new democratic developmental welfare state: an examination of the Taiwanese case

ABSTRACT Do political democratization and the worsening income inequality result in the increase in public support for redistribution in East Asian democratic developmental welfare states? This study aims to examine atypical case of new democratic developmental welfare state, Taiwan, through quantitative analysis. Our empirical findings demonstrated that the perception of income inequality will cause dissatisfaction with the performance of the democratic regime, and then, erode public support for redistribution. This study argues that the mitigation of income inequality would be helpful to increase political satisfaction and for welfare state building for new democracies.

National Health Insurance, Health Policy, and Infection Control: Insights from Taiwan

Despite its exclusion from the World Health Organization (WHO) and its geographic proximity to China, Taiwan has been doing relatively well in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. The democratic developmental and welfare state that emerged in Taiwan’s industrial transformation and democratization and the collective memory of SARS have helped the country to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. The Taiwanese case shows that a society does not need an authoritarian state to respond to a public health crisis. The Taiwanese case further demonstrates the critical importance of building a welfare state, which takes a long time, tremendous resources, and political and societal will to accomplish.

Building a Democratic Developmental State in Post-Colonial Africa: South Africa at the Glance

Abstract Failures of neo-liberalism in Africa through Structural Adjustment Program in the 1980s and 1990s compelled many post-colonial African states to seek alternative growth models to transform and grow their economies. Inspired by the economic success of Asian region, South Africa seeks to replicate the Asian developmental model to transform and industrialise its economy. Reviewing only the literature, the paper found that despite displaying so many similarities with East and South Asian developmental states, the rhetoric for the replication of the Asian developmental state model in South Africa works like a pendulum thus adopting a topsy-turvy approach. The notion of a developmental state is elevated through policy pronouncement and government commitments through the medium term and long-term strategic frameworks for the country. Despite displaying so many similarities with Asian developmental states, affixing the label of a developmental state onto the country by South Africans themselves is not going to make it one.

The Challenges of “Democratic Developmental State” in Amhara Regional State: The Case of Dessie City Administration

Since 1991 the current Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has been following a “democratic developmental” state model both at the federal, regional and local level administrations. The main objective of this study was to the main features and extent of independence of urban local governments from the influences of the private sector and identifies the critical challenges faced in the sample Urban Local Governments in Amhara National Regional State. In this study, sequential exploratory design was employed and both quantitative and qualitative (mixed) approaches were used. Data was gathered from primary and secondary sources. In the five sample town administrations, a total of 50 respondents were selected randomly and participated to solicit data through questionnaire and key informants who were purposively selected from various local government institutions. The major findings of the study showed that the local governments are not autonomous and independent from the influence of the private sector. Local government bureaucracy is not independent from the interferences of the local authorities. The capacity, commitment, and effectiveness of local authorities are not adequate. The local government employees are not ethical and lack the capacity to implement policies. The principal values and principles of democracy such as free and fair election, representation of the society in the local councils and respects of human rights are not satisfactory. A number of challenges such as lack of good governance and rule of law are identified by respondents. Based on the findings, the study recommended that local governments should build the capacity of local authorities, institutions and public employees, respect human and democratic rights, fight corruption and forge strong public private partnership.

The relationship between social welfare policy and multidimensional well-being: An analysis using the South African Child Support Grant

Socio-historical context and ideology are often overlooked in analyses of how social welfare policy is used to promote well-being. This paper uses the South African Child Support Grant (CSG) to illuminate how a policy may enhance or hinder well-being, not only for individuals but also for a society. Forged through a combination of the inherited apartheid state's architecture, the redistributive ideology of the ruling African National Congress, social development theory and the constraints of economic globalisation, the CSG has produced paradoxically positive material well-being outcomes for many poor South Africans and possibly reproduced problematic subjective and relational forms of well-being nationally. Analysing how the grant, as a social policy, is historically and ideologically situated illuminates some of the constraints imposed upon a twenty-first century democratic developmental state as it tries to find its way in a global market, redistribute wealth, satisfy different constituencies and promote individual and collective well-being. Grants are a necessary but insufficient strategy for a twenty-first century democratic developmental state like South Africa.

South Africa’s Journey towards a Democratic Developmental State

This article analyses key policies and documents, which form the basis of democratic South Africa’s desire to becoming a developmental state. In order to understand the notion of a developmental state, I provide a discussion on the theoretical foundations of the concept by drawing on examples from other countries (such as the Asian Tigers) that have embarked on a journey to become developmental states. Through a comparative analysis, and by probing the National Development Plan (NDP), as well as the work of the National Planning Commission (NPC) broadly, I examine South Africa’s prospects of becoming a developmental state. To this effect, I argue that although the foundation that was laid for South Africa to become a democratic developmental state (DDS) was relatively solid, South Africa has veered far away from becoming a developmental state any time soon. But, given the existing institutional architecture, as well as an assessment of developmental outcomes, it would seem that South Africa can still become a viable developmental state—although South Africa has lost many of the salient attributes of developmental states. It is also worth highlighting that it was always going to be difficult for South Africa to become a developmental state because of the political and economic history of the country. The article makes suggestions with regard to what could be done to ensure that South Africa becomes a viable, fully-fledged, democratic developmental state.

Ethnic Federalism and the Developmental State: The Search for Balance in Ethiopia

Contrary to most Africa states, Ethiopia since 1990s reconfigures the country along ethnic lines. Despite many hopes and expectation, the restructuring of the country under ethnic federalism doomed to consolidate ethnic peace. Besides, the political economy of ‘developmental state’ has become the state ideology following the disgraceful 2005 national election in the country. However, sporadic ethnic-based conflict and animosities become the rule of the game and pose a serious challenge to the state-building project of replicating East Asian version of developmental state ideology. The politics of identity and representation, ethnicity and language issues, secession claims, and unsettled regional boundary issues polarised the country and the aspiration of the state to build a democratic developmental state in the Horn of Africa. The state failure to balance ethnic federalism and developmental state makes the country still one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of $706 and subsistence agricultural economy. DOI : 10.7176/IAGS/76-03 Publication date :September 30 th 2019

The Dynamics of Anti-Government Protest in Ethiopia from 2015 to 2018: From Hidden to Public resistance

DOI : 10.7176/IAGS/72-01 Publication date :May 31 st 2019 Introduction The past three years, anti-government protests in Ethiopia revealed that the country is moving from rising narratives to civil unrest. The civil unrest mainly emanates from the official state discourse of ‘democratic developmental state’, revolutionary democracy and other competing narratives (Branch and Mampilly, 2015). To facilitate a systematic paradigm moves from the democratic transition to economic development, the developmental state narratives become the official ideology of the state (Abbink, 2017; Allo, 2017). Following the disgraceful 2005 election where opposition political parties won major urban areas in including the capital city of Addis Ababa (Lefort, 2007), the Ethiopia People Revolution Democratic Front (hereafter EPRDF) introduces many political and economic reforms to restore its legitimacy. For many observers, the EPRDF’s thriving development narratives, however, depoliticize society, widen social gaps, justify violent repression, and entrench ‘ritual’ power. Besides, Elites governing narratives extend, legitimize, and sustain a defacto power of the government. (Allo, 2017; Di Nunzio, 2015). Failure to comply rules creates we-they nature of relationship and above all the state politicisation of megaprojects results create an otherness of those who do not support such mega projects (Allo, 2017; Lefort, 2007). Finally, the open anti-government protest began in 2015 and continued until 24 March 2018. This paper, therefore, discusses the dynamics of power relation between the government and protesters based on Scott conceptual analysis of ‘domination and art of resistance’ which reveals how elite complex domination strategies pushed subordinate groups to develop resistance strategies. Scott has also reformulated the sources of resentment, driving us to look beyond points of open conflict to social spaces where different ideas and thoughts are created. For Scott (1990, P. 70) ‘‘[the powerful] … have a vital interest in keeping up the appearances appropriate to their form of domination. Subordinates, for their part, ordinarily have good reasons to help sustain those appearances or, at least, not openly to contradict them’’. These two social realities have implication for the study of power relations. Study protest from this perspective also helps to understand the underlying problems of power relation before the eruption of open protest. The 2015 anti-government protest perhaps discloses the rationality of conformity and elite’s strategies of domination. Therefore, analysing this social space and underlying power relation offers different perspectives of resistance to imposed domination which is the desired objective of this study.

Rwandan “home grown initiatives”: Illustrating inherent contradictions of the democratic developmental state

AbstractThe 21st‐century developmental state is envisaged as implying democratic participation. Rwanda both explicitly aspires to follow the developmental state example and eloquently ascribes to far‐reaching participatory ideals, and a number of development programmes, “home grown initiatives,” have been launched, allegedly reviving traditional participatory practices. Based on original material, this article analyzes local experiences of the participation entailed in some of these programmes. In the conclusion, the poor practice of participation reported is found to point to inherent contradiction of the idea of a democratic and participatory version of the developmental state.