Politics In South Africa Research Articles

From Marikana to #feesmustfall: The Praxis of Popular Politics in South Africa

This article explores the forms of popular politics that rose out of massive student protests in South Africa at the end of 2015. By delving deeper into the way higher education has been structured in post-apartheid South Africa, the author explains the ways in which race and class privilege have been reified in South African universities. The spatial location of the university within South Africa and the place of the university within the African continent is not reflected in institutional culture of higher education but is deeply embedded in the student protests. By exploring the collective decision making structures of students the author explores students growing lack of faith in higher education institutions to effect any transformational change.

L'atlantique Révolutionnaire: Une Perspective Ibéro-Américain

L'atlantique Révolutionnaire: Une Perspective Ibéro-Américain

The New Black Middle Class in South Africa by Roger Southall

Reviewed by: The New Black Middle Class in South Africa by Roger Southall Kwaku Nti Southall, Roger. The New Black Middle Class in South Africa. Suffolk: United Kingdom: James Currey, 2016. Social Scientist Roger Southall veers from contemporary tangents in The New Black Middle Class in South Africa. In his estimation, doing so constitutes a much needed new focal point from which to discuss South Africa's black middle class, correcting previous one-dimensional approaches and ensuring a complex and comprehensive picture of a powerful and significant segment of this post-Apartheid nation. Southall grounds his work in that of Leo Kuper's An African Bourgeoisie: Race, Class and Politics in South Africa, but applies an entirely different mode of analysis in viewing the drastically altered history of the nation, which, once in an overwhelmingly pathetic situation of systematic racial discrimination under an Apartheid regime, presently boasts limitless opportunities amidst power and access to resources. This discussion of the entrenched category of South African Africans within "the middle range of hierarchies of income, wealth, property ownership, and occupation" is set against a backdrop of a wider body of theories including, but not limited to, Marxist and Weberian, in order to enhance the understanding of its origins, motivations, and dynamics as well as relations with other strata in the country (p. 1). The book's nine well-written chapters are amply supported with statistical tables. [End Page 91] Southall avers that the origins of South Africa's African middle class is traceable to the very limited educational opportunities provided by the Western Christian missionaries "of a variety of nationalities and denominations which became increasingly active from the nineteenth century onwards" (p. 25). Unfortunately, its growth suffered inhibition by a predominant settler capitalism "save in so far as the white minority regime required … subaltern black allies, and from the 1970s, began to address shortage of white skilled labor by increasing the provision of black education and housing" (p. 24). Although educated Africans were left in no doubt regarding their subordinate status in the colonial social hierarchy, among their own people their education accorded them significant material rewards and social prestige. Their homogeneity as a visibly privileged social group was fostered by bonds of friendship, marriage, and formation of professional associations. The 1980s saw the emergence of a small but growing number of African managers referred to as the "new black middle class" that often suffered racial obstacles in the work place. Much as the middle class were instrumental in the formation of the SAANC or later ANC, they pushed for systematic development of a distinct African political culture with the creation of a constituency that included workers and propertied strata, and succeeded in etching that organization within the gaze and memory of Africans in South Africa. Although the ANC developed formidable relations with the black trade union movement, it was by and large the sprawling township support as well as elements of the middle class that provided the main source of strength, [End Page 92] thus establishing the latter's political hegemony as the "ANC party vanguard" (p. 40). With the fall of the Apartheid regime, the new African middle class expanded rapidly. Southall highlights the intriguing paradox of the contemporary interest in the extent and consequences of the upward bound black segment, and the simultaneous disinterest in the middle class in general across the spectrum of the South African population. Southall argues that although there are contending facts regarding size, shape, and structure against a background of diverse definitional, conceptual, and methodological frameworks, scholarly research is unanimous on the significant growth of the post-Apartheid middle class since the democratic transition, especially because the ANC carefully supervised the scrapping of the hitherto official racial barriers that inhibited black upward social mobility. Among other things, legally improved educational options, deployment, affirmative action, as well as the Black Economic Empowerment have ensured increased job opportunities for Africans at middle and managerial levels mainly within the public sector. In essence, and as everywhere in Africa, South Africa's middle class is presented as medially young, highly educated, urbanized, some self-employed, with salaried jobs, high aspirations and expectations regarding standard of living for...

The Sociology of Crisis and the Crisis of Sociology: Academic Marxism and the Absence of a Thought of Politics in South Africa

The Sociology of Crisis and the Crisis of Sociology: Academic Marxism and the Absence of a Thought of Politics in South Africa

From protest to challenge: A documentary history of African politics in South Africa 1882-1990, Vol. 1, Protest and hope, 1882-1934

No abstract available.

JASON HICKEL , Democracy as Death: the moral order of anti-liberal politics in South Africa. Oakland CA: University of California Press (pb US$34.95 – 978 0 520 28423 4). 2015, 280 pp.

JASON HICKEL , Democracy as Death: the moral order of anti-liberal politics in South Africa. Oakland CA: University of California Press (pb US$34.95 – 978 0 520 28423 4). 2015, 280 pp.

From the shop floor to the kitchen table: the shifting centre of precarious workers’ politics in South Africa

This article argues that, as wage work has become more precarious, the importance of the household in the livelihood strategies of precarious South African workers has increased. The shifting importance of the household in relation to the workplace in the economic lives of workers has implications for the political strategies that these workers adopt. The article draws on data from a national household survey combined with insights from the author's fieldwork across rural and urban sites in South Africa. It contributes to the growing literature on the politics of precarious work in the global South.

A Brief History of Factionalism and New Party Formation and Decline in South Africa: The Case of Cope

There is little analytical literature on the theory and empirical analysis of party factionalism that leads to splits and the formation of new political entities. The existing theoretical literature identifies factors and processes that are split-enabling. When coupled to the dynamics of organisational change, these conceptual tools provide a unique framework for analysing party-political dynamics in South Africa from an historically comparative perspective. This analysis identifies key trends in party splits in both 'white' and 'black' politics, which serves to illuminate more recent developments with regard to the realignment of opposition politics in South Africa. A conceptual framework combining organisational theory with the literature on party factionalism and party splits has facilitated our case-study focus on the formation, electoral performance and decline of the Congress of the People (Cope) as an opposition party in South Africa. We argue that Cope emerged from factional disputes within the ANC and has subsequently largely been shaped by the dynamics of its split and formation from the ANC, despite its attempt to break ties with the parent party. Existing analyses of Cope examine its performance in terms of policy, electoral and oppositional performance, while the approach this article adopts is to argue that the process of Cope's formation significantly shaped the conditions of its future internal dynamics and political performance.

The Democratic Alliance and the Role of Opposition Parties in South Africa

In the 2014 election the Democratic Alliance (DA) strengthened its electoral support nationally as well as in the Western Cape province, where it governs. It gained over a million new national votes, increasing its total from 2 945 829 in 2009 to 4 091 548 in 2014. It also unseated the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) as official opposition in KwaZulu-Natal and became the official opposition in the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and Free State, while strengthening its opposition status in Gauteng from 21.86% of the vote in 2009 to 30.78% in 2014. In the Western Cape it gained 59.38% of the vote, an increase from 51.46% in 2009. This article considers whether the DA's 2014 electoral gains suggest a strengthening of opposition politics in South Africa. It focuses on whether the DA meets the obligations of an opposition party with regard to providing an institutional space for counter-political elites to organise and providing a viable alternative to the ruling party together with facilitating debate over political issues and public policy while also performing an oversight role.

Sounding the Cape : Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa

Sounding the Cape : Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa

Racial Politics and Campaign Strategy in South Africa's 2009 Election

South Africa's 2009 election featured competition between the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the steadily improving Democratic Alliance (DA), and the newly formed ANC splinter party, the Congress of the People (COPE). In 2009, national-level parties faced the same strategic imperative as in previous elections: to gain support among the Black majority. But the emergence of COPE had potentially important implications for election strategy. Competition was no longer only between the liberation party (the ANC) and the successor of an apartheid-era party (the DA). COPE had its own set of liberation-linked leaders that presented a new challenge to both the ANC and the DA. This paper examines the main parties' use of candidate lists, voter outreach, and campaign rhetoric to target the Black majority in 2009. It updates and expands previous studies of racial politics in South Africa, providing novel empirical data on the campaign tactics of the ANC, DA, and COPE.

Between Old and New: Struggles in Contemporary South Africa

This essay presents an analysis of recent protests in South Africa, providing historical context for the current cycle of mobilization, including the longest strike in the country’s history and the growing struggle among poor residents for free access to basic utilities. Taking the state-sanctioned massacre of striking mineworkers at Marikana in 2012 as a significant marker for this current phase of protests, the essay explores some of the subsequent political shifts, including challenges to the hegemony of the ruling political party—the African National Congress—and to the trade union in its traditional form. It argues that although experiences of collective action in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre hold the potential for a radical reconfiguration of politics in South Africa, there is also the danger that they will be unable to escape the old frameworks and sutures of the existing political landscape.

Power, patronage, and gatekeeper politics in South Africa

This article examines the rise of gatekeeper politics within the ANC, drawing on an analysis of ANC discussion documents, key informant interviews with senior party officials, and interviews and observations from the ANC's centenary policy conference. On the basis of this material, I identify the symptoms and consequences of gatekeeper politics, including the growth of patronage networks, crony capitalism, and bitter factional struggles within the party. Rather than resembling some uniquely “African” form of political aberration and breakdown, gatekeeper politics should be viewed within a broader spectrum of patronage politics evident elsewhere in the world, because it is intrinsically bound up with the development of capitalism. Political leaders who occupy positions of authority in the party or public service act as gatekeepers by regulating access to the resources and opportunities that they control. A volatile politics of inclusion and exclusion emerges and provokes bitter factional struggles within the ANC as rival elites compete for power. The rise of gatekeeper politics undermines both the organizational integrity of the ANC and its capacity to deliver on its electoral mandate. It can also depoliticize social injustice in post-apartheid South Africa by co-opting popular struggles over access to resources that might otherwise challenge the political status quo.

Timothy Gibbs. Mandela's Kinsmen: Nationalist Elites and Apartheid's First Bantustan.

In this compelling study of Nelson Mandela's kinsmen, Timothy Gibbs brings to life the powerful role that the Transkei, a former South African homeland skirting the country's eastern coast, had played in the nation's liberation struggle. Arguing that the Transkei was a training ground for many of South Africa's elite leaders, Gibbs writes, “[a]lthough it was hundreds of miles away from the cities and the histories of trade union and township protest that played a central role in South Africa's politics, it was the birthplace of many prominent African leaders” (p. 1). Gibbs makes this important connection and goes beyond traditional narratives that focus on the co-opted homeland and instead concentrates on the collaborative one. Instead of the Transkei seen as doing the white minority's bidding, Gibbs restores its agency by illustrating how this homeland, one of ten operating during the apartheid era, served as an important pipeline for the African elite.

The Social Crisis of Labour and the Crisis of Labour Politics in South Africa

La crise actuelle que traverse la Confédération des syndicats sud-africains (Cosatu), la fédération syndicale la plus importante d'Afrique, provient de l'exclusion de ses rangs de l'Union nationale des travailleurs de la métallurgie d'Afrique du Sud en novembre 2014. La fragmentation de la Cosatu reflète une fragmentation plus large, celle du travail, après vingt ans de néolibéralisme. La « nouvelle » Afrique du Sud n'est pas née pendant les Trentes Glorieuses mais dans un monde ayant déjà subi ce que l'on associe à la période néolibérale : la financialisation, les privatisations et la restructuration de la production. Si la crise économique et sociale que nous connaissons aujourd'hui peut être analysée sous plusieurs angles, elle s'est incontestablement intensifée ces vingt dernières années. Le travail organisé a été affaibli par le courtage et la sous-traitance. Outre la fragmentation et la précarisation, de graves crises internes touchent certains membres de la Cosatu, qu'ils soient classés à droite ou à gauche. La crise économique et sociale du travail n'a pas seulement entraîné une crise du syndicalisme et une crise au sein de l'Alliance, elle a engendré une remise en cause de l'idée de Révolution démocratique nationale, provoquant de profondes ruptures et tensions.

Africa’s Last Colony

Africa’s Last Colony

Environmental Movements, Climate Change, and Consumption in South Africa

The environmental movement in South Africa is plural and diverse, but lacks a strong centre or unified framing. How can we explain and understand this, and what consequences does it have for ecological politics in South Africa? There are many environmental grievances, extensive resources available to potential social movements, and a broadly favourable political opportunity structure. On the other hand, prominent environmental organisations have faced a number of limits, obstacles and challenges that have prevented the formation of a strong, unified and popular ‘green’ movement. Movements on land, housing, and service delivery, however, have thrived in comparison, and, while they tend not to self-identify as environmental movements, they should be regarded as important elements of broader progressive environmental struggles in South Africa. Consumption may also become a powerful framing issue for environmental justice movements, and its relevance to contemporary South Africa is illustrated through a controversial township youth phenomenon known as ‘pexing’. While it is important to ensure that South African environmentalism does not become inward-looking and nationalistic, a strong environmental movement is essential for driving a political transformation on to a more environmentally sustainable development path.

The Commodification of Political Advertising on Television during the 2009 General Elections in South Africa

The research on which this article is based reports the extent to which political advertising on television commodifies politics in South Africa. Thus, this paper illustrates the commodification process of political advertising on television during the 2009 general elections. A critical political economy of political advertising and an inductive thematic content analysis were used to interpret the data collected. Altogether, the data were collected through document analysis and a self-administered questionnaire. A sample was employed and the findings showed that the issue of commodification in politics was prominent in the political advertisements on television during the 2009 election period. The conclusion made is that political advertising on television commodifies politics to a large extent. This is evident in the financial demands related to the production, access, as well as the distribution of the advertisements.

RICHARD ELPHICK , The Equality of Believers: Protestant missionaries and the racial politics of South Africa. Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia Press (hb $40 – 978 0 8139 3273 6). 2012, 437 pp.

RICHARD ELPHICK , The Equality of Believers: Protestant missionaries and the racial politics of South Africa. Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia Press (hb $40 – 978 0 8139 3273 6). 2012, 437 pp.

Nelson Mandela and the politics of South Africa's unfinished liberation

The death of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela on 5 December 2013 provoked unprecedented emotional outpourings: newspaper columns swelled with obituaries, politicians lined up to praise this iconic figure,...