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 The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel written by Hillsborough Independent Panel and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 96 women, men and children died as a result of the disaster in Hillsborough Stadium on 15 April 1989. They were crushed due to overcrowding in the Leppings Lane terrace, penned in by the ground's fencing. Hundreds more were injured and thousands traumatised. Lord Justice Taylor led a judicial inquiry (1990, Cm. 962, ISBN 9780101096225), concluding that the main cause of the disaster was the failure of police control. The next 11 years saw a variety of investigations and proceedings, including a scrutiny of new evidence (Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, 1998, Cm. 3878, ISBN 9780101387828). Yet many bereaved families felt that the true context, circumstances and aftermath had not been adequately made public, and were particularly aggrieved that it had become widely assumed that Liverpool fans' behaviour had contributed to the disaster. The Independent Panel was established in 2010 to oversee full public disclosure of all documents relating to the disaster and to report on its work. This report is in three parts. Firstly it shows what was already known and in the public domain by 2010. Secondly, in 12 detailed chapters, it describes what the disclosed documents add to public understanding. The third part gives a review of options for providing an archive of the documents. The disclosed documents (available at http://panel.hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/) add considerably to public understanding. They show that multiple factors were responsible for the tragedy and that the fans were not the cause. The report also shows that the bereaved families met a series of obstacles in their search for justice over more than 20 years.

Download or read book Parliament the Budget and Poverty in South Africa A Shift in Power written by Len Verwey and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Effective and transparent government budgeting is vital to any democracy. In South Africa, massive poverty, inequality and unemployment remain, despite the successful political transformation, citizens and Parliament have a particularly important role to play in shaping budget policy and overseeing its implementation. South Africa reached a crossroads in fiscal governance when it passed the Money Bills Amendment Act in 2009, a law which granted Parliament strong powers to amend the budget prepared by the executive. This publication explores the content of the new law as well as the challenges and opportunities arising from it. It also discusses the role of Parliament in ensuring pro-poor budgeting. Good fiscal governance is too important for the wellbeing of South Africans to not be a part of our public conversations.

Download or read book Democratic Evaluation and Democracy written by Donna Podems and published by IAP. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic evaluation brings a way of thinking about evaluation’s role in society and in particular, its role in strengthening social justice. Yet the reality of applying it, and what happens when it is applied particularly outside the West, is unclear. Set in South Africa, a newly formed democracy in Southern Africa, the book affords an in-depth journey that immerses a reader into the realities of evaluation and its relation to democracy. The book starts with the broader introductory chapters that set the scene for more detailed ones which bring thorough insights into national government, local government, and civil societies’ experience of evaluation, democratic evaluation and their understanding of how it contributes to strengthening democracy (or not). A teaching case, the book concludes by providing guiding questions that encourage reflection, discussion and learning that ultimately aims to inform practice and theory.

Download or read book Mbeki and After written by Daryl Glaser and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly ten years – indeed more if we include his period of influence under Mandela’s presidency – Thabo Mbeki bestrode South Africa’s political stage. Despite attempts by some in the new ANC leadership to airbrush out his role, there can be little doubt that Mbeki was a seminal figure in South Africa’s new democracy, one who left a huge mark in many fields, perhaps most controversially in state and party management, economic policy, public health intervention, foreign affairs and race relations. If we wish to understand the character and fate of post-1994 South Africa, we must therefore ask: What kind of political system, economy and society has the former President bequeathed to the government of Jacob Zuma and to the citizens of South Africa generally? This question is addressed head-on here by a diverse range of analysts, commentators and participants in the political process. Amongst the specific questions they seek to answer: What is Mbeki’s legacy for patterns of inclusion and exclusion based on race, class and gender? How, if at all, did his presidency reshape relations within the state, between the state and the ruling party and between the state and society? How did he reposition South Africa on the continent and in the world? This book will be of interest to anyone wishing to understand the current political landscape in South Africa, and Mbeki’s role in shaping it.

Download or read book Public Participation in Foreign Policy written by J. Headley and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts from academia, governments, think tanks, NGOs, trade unions, and business investigate whether the public should play a greater role in foreign policy making by analysing their current role in the Iraq war (USA), Post-Apartheid (South Africa), trade relations with China (New Zealand) and other cases.

Download or read book Between Two Fires written by John Kane-Berman and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Kane-Berman is uniquely qualified to look back over the enormous political and social changes that have taken place in his lifetime in this fractious country. In his career as student leader, Rhodes Scholar, newspaperman, independent columnist, commentator, and Chief Executive, for thirty years, of the South Africa Institute of Race Relations, Kane-Berman has been at the coal face of political change in South Africa. The breadth and depth of ideas and events covered in Between Two Fires are striking: the disintegration of apartheid, the chaos of the 'people's war' and its contribution to the broader societal breakdown we see today, the liberal slideaway, the rise of an authoritarian ANC with its racial ideology and revolutionary goals, to mention only a few. It is a book of fizzing ideas. Kane-Berman's willingness to confront received wisdom is thoroughly refreshing, and he is forthright about the threats to freedom, democracy, and growth in contemporary South Africa, many of which he identified even before the ANC came to power. He is equally forthright in putting forward liberal ideas to halt the country's downward slide. Writing, debate, and reasoned argument are Kane-Berman's stock in trade, and his clarity of vision and personal insight have created a memoir of rare candour and absorbing interest.

Download or read book The D Word Perspectives on Democracy in Tumultuous Times written by Christi van der Westhuizen and published by Mandela University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This curated collection engages international debates about the current challenges facing democracy. Given the proliferation of “crisis” literature on democracy, this volume finds its distinctive niche in presenting perspectives from the global margins that bridge disciplinary, sectoral, national and conceptual divides. South Africans enter into conversation with scholars and activists from elsewhere in the Global South, including the Arab world and the rest of Africa, and from the European periphery. Insights on democracy are offered from a diversity of perspectives and voices, spanning philosophy, socio-legal and political studies, sociology, public administration, and queer and gender studies and activism. The book will be of interest to academics, activists, policymakers, development planners, and the general public. The D-Word is a timely contribution addressing burning questions: are current contestations about the relevance of democracy due to systemic flaws in how it is constituted, received, practised and even imagined, and can the democratic “project” be salvaged? The book’s unique approach brings a variety of lenses to bear on the prospects for democracy. The critical reflections it contains make for an enriching, broad canvas of ideas. - Professor Sandy Africa, University of Pretoria

Download or read book Turning and Turning written by Judith February and published by Pan Macmillan South africa. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africans often are deeply polarised in our perspectives of the present and the past. Our ‘ways of seeing’ are fraught with division, and we fail to understand the complexities when we do not see what lies beneath the surface. There is no denying that the Jacob Zuma presidency took a significant toll on South Africa, exacerbating tensions and exposing the deep fractures that already exist in our society along the lines of race, class and even ethnicity. The Zuma years were marked by cases of corruption and state capture, unprecedented in their brazenness, and increased social protests – many of which were accompanied by violence – aggressive public discourse, lack of respect for reason and an often disturbing resistance to meaningful engagement. Importantly, those years also placed enormous pressure on our democratic institutions, many of which still bear the scars, and challenged the sovereignty of the Constitution itself. As an analyst and governance specialist at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) for twelve years, February has had a unique perch. Turning and turning is a snapshot of her IDASA years and the issues tackled, which included work on the arms deal and its corrosive impact on democratic institutions, IDASA’s party-funding campaign, which February helped lead, as well as work on accountability and transparency. Combining analytical insight with personal observations and experience, February highlights the complex process of building a strong democratic society, and the difficulties of living in a constitutional democracy marked by soaring levels of inequality. There is a need to reflect on and learn from the country’s democratic journey if citizens are to shape our democracy effectively and to fulfill the promise of the Constitution for all South Africans.

Download or read book The Quest for Constitutionalism written by Hugh Corder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a timely assessment on the progress made towards the achievement of a constitutional democracy in South Africa. The chapters collectively present an in-depth analysis of the development of the legal system and of the implications of the Constitution for the social configuration of power. To what extent has the vision of constitutionalism contained in the Constitution been realised? Primarily concerned with the impact of laws and the salience of their existence and enforcement for South Africans, the work highlights the importance of placing the constitutional regime in its historical, cultural, social, economic and political context. The book further recognises the importance of the South African constitutional provisions for transnational or globalised constitutionalism more broadly. It contains contributions from South African scholars, as well as European authors, bringing in new analytical angles and adding a specific comparative dimension. Through the prism of South Africa, the authors discuss the innovative character of constitutional and legal provisions in terms of both constitution-making and law-making processes and their contents. This book provides analysis that will be relevant to scholars, students and practitioners, specifically those interested in International Relations, Law, Sociology of Law, and African Studies, as well as socio-political comparative studies.

Download or read book New South African Review 5 written by Gilbert M Khadiagala and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-11-01 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of essays explaining the impact of the events at Marikana upon the South African perspective of police and the keeping of order. This fifth volume in the New South African Review series takes as its starting point the shock wave emanating from the events at Marikana on 16 August 2012 and how it has reverberated throughout politics and society. Some of the chapters in the volume refer directly to Marikana. In others, the influence of that fateful day is pervasive if not direct. Marikana has, for instance, made us look differently at the police and at how order is imposed on society. Monique Marks and David Bruce write that the massacre 'has come to hold a central place in the analysis of policing, and broader political events since 2012...'. The chapters highlight a range of current concerns - political, economic and social. David Dickinson's chapter looks at the life of the poor in a township from within. In contrast, the chapter on foreign policy by Garth le Pere analyses South Africa's approach to international relations in the Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma eras. Anthony Turton's account, 'When gold mining ends' is a chilling forecast of an impending environmental catastrophe. Both Devan Pillay and Noor Nieftagodien focus attention on the left and, in different ways, ascribe its rise to a new politics in the wake of Marikana. The essays in NSAR 5: Beyond Marikana present a range of topics and perspectives of interest to general readers, but the book will also be a useful work of reference for students and researchers.

Download or read book Policy Politics and Poverty in South Africa written by Jeremy Seekings and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seekings and Nattrass explain why poverty persisted in South Africa after the transition to democracy in 1994. The book examines how public policies both mitigated and reproduced poverty, and explains how and why these policies were adopted. The analysis offers lessons for the study of poverty elsewhere in the world.

Download or read book Captured written by Phillip Toner and published by Sydney University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four decades ago, faced with a series of economic, political and social crises, business and government leaders in Australia and many other nations were convinced by a well organised ideological insurgency of the need for what at first was presented as a series of technical changes in economic policy. However, neoliberalism quickly became a revolutionary agenda for re-ordering the social democratic state. Captured: How neoliberalism transformed the Australian state directs attention to the central role of state power not just to remake markets, but also to remake a broad swathe of political life, social policy and citizenship. In seeking to undermine the power of organised labour and “unleash” market capitalism, neoliberalism promised a surge of competition, productivity and common prosperity. For the wealthy few, this has indeed been an historically unprecedented time of capital accumulation, but for most, the results have been profoundly disappointing. Today, neoliberalism is in crisis. We are living through an age of great instability, disillusionment and despair. Inequality of income and wealth has been rising; a majority of workers have experienced long-term declining relative living standards; corporate political and market power has reached historic levels; and younger generations are increasingly giving up the expectation of attaining the living standards of their parents. The status of prevailing neoliberal ideas and policy is in increasing disarray. But without a coherent understanding of the ideas and interests driving neoliberalism, many people have turned to incoherent populism for an explanation and salvation and, failing that, even to forms of nihilism. Disillusion and anxiety constitute the dominant mood among the economic and policy elites, within Australia and internationally. Captured presents a series of case studies from leading public policy experts, building critical new insights into the malaise that has characterised the neoliberal era. This book tells the story of how a small group of economists and lobby groups with a universalising agenda of radical change used neoliberalism to transform the state, and of the destructive effects of those policies on everyday life. Captured includes critical accounts of neoliberal policy and speculates on the likely future of neoliberalism as a form of political power and governmentality in Australia.

Download or read book Media State Relations in Emerging Democracies written by A. Hadland and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The news media and the state are locked in a battle of wills in the world's emerging democratic states. It is a struggle that will determine whether or not democracy flourishes or withers in the 21st century. Using a number of case studies, including South Africa, this book evaluates what is at stake.

Download or read book The Parliamentary Debates Hansard written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Building Representative Democracy written by Christina Murray and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Learning from Science and Technology Policy Evaluation written by Philip Shapira and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors analyse and contrast the need and demand for RIT performance measurement and evaluation within the US and European innovation and policy making systems. They assess current US and European RIT evaluation practices and methods in key areas, discuss applications of new evaluative approaches and consider strategies that could lead to improvements in RIT evaluation design and policies.