Conclusion Democracy Governance and Neo Apartheid

2010

1997

A dissertation submitted in the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Political Studies. Johannesburg 1997.

Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2011

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2022

The paper articulates a model of urban governance, developed through emergent analysis of the rulers, methods, rules and logics evident in the practices of security governance in Hout Bay, Cape Town. Informed by the concept of hybrid governance, this grounded theorising draws on extensive fieldwork on security governance practices in a complex urban neighbourhood to present a model of multiple and sometimes contending forms of governance that include, but are not limited to, bureaucratic, market, developmental, network and informal governance. Our model emerges from a critique of top-down approaches to understanding governance that starts with the state, institutions and law, or approaches that primarily focus on formal partnerships between the state and business or other social partners. The view from above can miss important aspects of how residents are governed 'from below' and informally. Hence it is impossible to understand from the formal, and in advance of grounded research, exactly how many places in urban Africa are governed. Exposing the particular and local forms of governance in urban Africa can support improved forms of service delivery and citizen's experiences of living in their city. In addition, while our model may be relevant in other places, more important is the methodology of identifying the rulers and methods, but especially the rules and logics of practice, to surface the specific, and complex, forms of governance in an urban place.

Urban Studies, 43(2), pp.259-284. , 2006

Like other national urban policy documents, the State of the Cities Report 2004 affirms a vision of an inclusive non-racial city in which democracy is stable and development flourishes. But the 2004 report is different from preceding urban policy statements in a number of critical respects, not least that it is not a formal statement of government. In part, the relative autonomy of the Report’s sponsor, the South African Cities Network (a quango of state and non-state affiliates), explains its divergent analytical point of departure in the assessment of the state of the cities 10 years after democracy. The 2004 report is premised on the notion that changing the racial pattern of inequality hinges on systematic responses to the material forces, demographic, economic, environmental and institutional, that shaped the inherited apartheid city form. The 2004 report is also different from earlier government policy positions in that it argues that urban development is not just a site of national reconstruction and development, but that the urban question lies at the heart of achieving the national vision of a productive, democratic and non-racial society based on a vision of sustainable human settlements.

2013

The South African Freedom Charter (1955) states that “The People Shall Govern” and the African National Congress (ANC) (1991) stated in “Advance to National Democracy” that “The immediate issue on the agenda is the question of political power. To affect the transfer of power into the hands of the people as a whole is the most crucial and immediate challenge facing the national democratic movement”. Considering the aims of the liberation movement, the deployment of power in the democratic South Africa with specific reference to the local government sphere is the focus of this paper. The question now is how this power is presently exercised where the ANC is the government and represents the people. Dennis Wrong stated that “Politics includes both a struggle for power and a struggle to limit, resist and escape from power”. This implies that power is reciprocal. In South African local politics this mutuality of power relations presents different appearances. This paper explores whether ...

Isandla Institute Dark Roast

GeoJournal, 2002

2011