Download or read book Civil Society and the Zuma Government written by Yvette Geyer and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2009 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A healthy democracy needs a government that understands that it has to share some of its power with civil society, the realm in which citizens acquire a voice, enabling them to ensure that government responds to their needs and is accountable to them in an ongoing representative manner beyond the ballot box. The public debate on whether there are centralist impulses evident in the ANC as the dominant electoral force raises questions about the nature of democracy and the state of South Africa. Is there a danger of government distinguishing between development and democracy and acting as if they are mutually exclusive? African democracy institute Idasa and the International Development Research Centre held a roundtable discussion, of which this publication is the result, on the role of civil society, the areas of involvement for civil society, the policy recommendations to be made and areas of research need to be explored.
Download or read book From Revolution to Rights in South Africa written by Steven L. Robins and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2010-11-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author argues for the continued importance of NGOs, social movements and other 'civil society' actors in creating new forms of citizenship and democracy in South Africa. Critics of liberalism in Europe and North America argue that a stress on 'rights talk' and identity politics has led to fragmentation, individualisation and depoliticisation. But are these developments really signs of 'the end ofpolitics'? In the post-colonial, post-apartheid, neo-liberal new South Africa poor and marginalised citizens continue to struggle for land, housing and health care. They must respond to uncertainty and radical contingencies on a daily basis. This requires multiple strategies, an engaged, practised citizenship, one that links the daily struggle to well organised mobilisation around claiming rights. Robins argues for the continued importance of NGOs, socialmovements and other 'civil society' actors in creating new forms of citizenship and democracy. He goes beyond the sanitised prescriptions of 'good governance' so often touted by development agencies. Instead he argues for a complex, hybrid and ambiguous relationship between civil society and the state, where new negotiations around citizenship emerge. Steven L. Robins is Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Stellenbosch and editorof Limits to Liberation after Apartheid (James Currey). Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland): University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (PB)
Download or read book Enemy of the People written by Adriaan Basson and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enemy of the People is the first definitive account of Zuma's catastrophic misrule, offering eyewitness descriptions and cogent analysis of how South Africa was brought to its knees – and how a people fought back. When Jacob Zuma took over the leadership of the ANC one muggy Polokwane evening in December 2007, he inherited a country where GDP was growing by more than 6% per annum, a party enjoying the support of two-thirds of the electorate, and a unified tripartite alliance. Today, South Africa is caught in the grip of a patronage network, the economy is floundering and the ANC is staring down the barrel of a defeat at the 2019 general elections. How did we get here? Zuma first brought to heel his party, Africa's oldest and most revered liberation movement, subduing and isolating dissidents associated with his predecessor Thabo Mbeki. Then saw the emergence of the tenderpreneur and those attempting to capture the state, as well as a network of family, friends and business associates that has become so deeply embedded that it has, in effect, replaced many parts of government. Zuma opened up the state to industrial-scale levels of corruption, causing irreparable damage to state enterprises, institutions of democracy, and the ANC itself. But it hasn't all gone Zuma's way. Former allies have peeled away. A new era of activism has arisen and outspoken civil servants have stepped forward to join a cross-section of civil society and a robust media. As a divided ANC square off for the elective conference in December, where there is everything to gain or to lose, award-winning journalists Adriaan Basson and Pieter du Toit offer a brilliant and up-to-date account of the Zuma era.
Download or read book The Role of Civil Society in Democracy Consolidation Rethinking State Civil Society Relations in South Africa written by Joseph Nangombe Tobias and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-07 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Academic Paper from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 67.5, University of Namibia, course: State and Civil Society, language: English, abstract: This essay appraises civil society's relations with the state in south africa in recent times. It focuses on democratic consideration and argues that despite relative weaknesses in civil societies in Africa recently, they continue to play a major role in maintaining and protecting democratic standards and Human Rights in South Africa. Recent events involving former president Jacob Zuma are a case in point of this article. It is argued that civil society is and will continue to be crucial in democratic consolidation and will therefore ensure its survival despite its uphill battle. The paper concludes that civil society's action inSouth Africa should set an example for other African nations on the powers and activism of civil society organisations and their roles in holding government accountable.
Download or read book Testing Democracy written by Neeta Misra-Dexter and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book interrogates the relationship between democracy and development and how underdevelopment prevents citizens from participating in democracy. Section One is a collection of experts writing on key issues such as the single-party state; development policy; poverty, inequality and growth; the institutions of governance; the public service; and the role of civil society. Section Two, Idasas Democracy Index 2010, releases Idasas findings on Participation, Elections, Accountability, Political Freedom, Human Dignity and Democracy. The third in Idasas Democracy Index series, this book argues that democracy needs economic development along with an embedded system of institutions, supported by active citizens and a vibrant political culture.
Download or read book Kingdom State and Civil Society in Africa Conceptual and Political Collisions written by Nelson Kasfir and published by BASLER AFRIKA BIBLIOGRAPHIEN. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civil society is one of several Western political and social concepts that have not traveled successfully to Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, regarding them as an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new civil society organizations had little in common with African associational activity. Focusing on the characteristics and behavior of longstand-ing African organizations would appear a better starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda Kingdom Government. This organization violates most distinctions central to Western notions of civil society. Yet it continues to behave like a civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and understanding Ugandan politics.
Download or read book Civil Society Organisations and State Owned Enterprises in South Africa Promoting Accountability and Corporate Governance written by Gudo, Julieth and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-09 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the important role which civil society organisations in South Africa play in challenging poor corporate governance in state-owned enterprises and demanding better government accountability, transparency and citizen participation. The book provides a powerful examination of the shortcomings in corporate governance in South Africa's state-owned enterprises, highlighting how civil society organisations, as citizen representatives, can push for change. It examines the legal provisions used by civil society organisations in South Africa to advance good corporate governance and accountability in state-owned enterprises. The book demonstrates the need for an enabling legal environment for civil society organisations to challenge poor governance in state-owned enterprises. Also critical is enforcing laws, so those responsible for poor corporate governance in SOEs are held accountable. The book will be useful to policy advisors, public servants and social justice activists, as well as to postgraduate students and researchers who are interested in African governance and accountability.
Download or read book New South African Review 2 written by Devan Pillay and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An explanation of the New Growth Plan and alternatives to neo-liberal and capitalist development in South Africa In this second volume of the New South African Review, the New Growth Path adopted by the South African government in 2010 provides the basis for a dialogue about whether 'decent work' is the best solution to South Africa's problems of low economic growth and high unemployment. There are investigations into rising inequality against the backdrop of the failings of Black Economic Empowerment; 'greening the economy', with emphasis on biofuels; the crisis of acid mine drainage on the Witwatersrand; possibilities for participatory forms of government; civil society activism; transformation of the print media and the SABC; the crisis in child care in public hospitals; the relationship between the police and a township community; the problems related to the absence of legislation to govern the powers of traditional authorities over land allocation; and assessments of the state of opposition political parties and the ANC Alliance. Asking whether the New Growth Plan reflects a set of new policies or an attempt to re-dress old (com)promises in new clothes, this volume brings together different voices in debate about possibilities for alternatives to neo-liberal and capitalist development in South Africa.
Download or read book The State of the People written by Bert Klandermans and published by HSRC Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The period 1994 to 2000 saw the implementation of fundamental social and political change in South Africa. Social science literature suggests that such fundamental change increases the probability of civil conflict and strife, as some sectors of the population expect significant improvements in their position following the removal of economic and political barriers that previously inhibited their upward mobility. Other sectors are concerned about a possible decrease in their living standards as a result of the erosion of their privileged position. Still others experience increased uncertainty, which in itself is associated with significant social change.
Download or read book Civic Agency in Africa written by Ebenezer Obadare and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2014 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the variety of mostly unorganized and informal ways in which Africans exercise agency and resist state power in the 21st century, through citizen action and popular culture, and how the relationship between ruler and ruled is being reframed.
Download or read book After Apartheid written by Ian Shapiro and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy came to South Africa in April 1994, when the African National Congress won a landslide victory in the first free national election in the country’s history. That definitive and peaceful transition from apartheid is often cited as a model for others to follow. The new order has since survived several transitions of ANC leadership, and it averted a potentially destabilizing constitutional crisis in 2008. Yet enormous challenges remain. Poverty and inequality are among the highest in the world. Staggering unemployment has fueled xenophobia, resulting in deadly aggression directed at refugees and migrant workers from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Violent crime rates, particularly murder and rape, remain grotesquely high. The HIV/AIDS pandemic was shockingly mishandled at the highest levels of government, and infection rates continue to be overwhelming. Despite the country’s uplifting success of hosting Africa’s first World Cup in 2010, inefficiency and corruption remain rife, infrastructure and basic services are often semifunctional, and political opposition and a free media are under pressure. In this volume, major scholars chronicle South Africa’s achievements and challenges since the transition. The contributions, all previously unpublished, represent the state of the art in the study of South African politics, economics, law, and social policy.
Download or read book State Civil Society and the Reconfiguration of Power in Post apartheid South Africa written by Ran Greenstein and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Who Rules South Africa written by Paul Holden and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa: success story or basket-case? This year marks the centenary of the ANC. It is also the year when Jacob Zuma will fight for his political life, seeking to fend off opposition from within the Tripartite Alliance and retain his presidency. Now, more than ever, to the victor the spoils. With the country's politics poorly understood in the world, Paul Holden and Martin Plaut present the true story of post-apartheid South Africa. They depict a nation fighting against appalling unemployment, poor education, widespread corruption and organised crime. In a country where poverty is rampant and institutions are weak, the battle for power is set to intensify. Plaut and Holden seek to answer the burning question: is South Africa destined to become another African tragedy or is there still the promise of growth and a stable democracy?
Download or read book How to Steal a Country written by Robin Renwick and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Role of Civil Society in Africa s Quest for Democratization written by Abadir M. Ibrahim and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tests many of the assumptions, hypotheses, and conclusions connected with the presumed role of civil society organizations in the democratization of African countries. Taking a comparative approach, it looks at countries that have successfully democratized, those that are stuck between progress and regression, those that have regressed into dictatorship, and those that are currently in transitional flux and evaluates what role, if any, civil society has played in each instance. The countries discussed—South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Tunisia—represent a diverse set of social and political circumstances and different levels of democratic achievement, providing a rich set of case studies. Each sample state also offers an internal comparison, as each has historically experienced different stages of democratization. Along the course of each case study, the book also considers the effect that other traditionally studied factors, such as culture, colonization, economic development and foreign aid, may have had on individual attempts at democratization. The first extensive work on civil society and democratization in Africa, the book adds new insights to the applicability of democratization theory in a non-Western context, both filling a gap in and adding to the existing universal scholarship. This book will be useful for scholars of political science, economics, sociology and African studies, as well as human rights activists and policy makers in the relevant geographical areas.
Download or read book Eight Days In September written by Frank Chikane and published by Pan Macmillan South africa. This book was released on 2012-03-09 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight Days in September is a riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the turbulent eight-day period in September 2008 that led to the removal of Thabo Mbeki as president of South Africa. As secretary of the cabinet and head (director-general) of the presidency at the time, Frank Chikane was directly responsible for managing the transition from Mbeki to Kgalema Motlanthe, and then on to Jacob Zuma, and was one of only a few who had a front-row seat to the unfolding drama. Eight Days in September builds substantially on the so-called Chikane Files, a series of controversial articles Chikane published with Independent Newspapers in July 2010, to provide an insider’s perspective on this key period in South Africa’s recent history, and to explore Thabo Mbeki’s legacy.
Download or read book Socio Economic Rights in South Africa written by Malcolm Langford and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets out to assess the role and impact of socio-economic strategies used by civil society actors in South Africa. Focusing on a range of socio-economic rights and national trends in law and political economy, the book's authors show how socio-economic rights have influenced the development of civil society discourse and action.
