Roger Southall

The ANC & black capitalism in South Africa

The emphasis initially laid by the African National Congress (ANC) on national reconciliation after 1994 meant that its ideas about Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) were non-threatening to white interests. However, the governments recent strategy is more assertive, having the aim of creating a black capitalist class, which is both ‘patriotic’ and productive, as laid down in the ANCs guiding theory of the ‘National Democratic Revolution’. Corporate capital is responding with recognition of the inevitability and potential advantages of BEE. However, given the centrality of the state to the deliberate task of creating black capitalism, there are considerable dangers of the latters lapse into Asian-style cronyism. The ‘patriotic’ nature of black capitalism is therefore in sharp contestation with its ‘parasitism’.

Ten Propositions about Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has become one of the most high profile strategies of African National Congress (ANC) government. Yet BEE has also become highly controversial, critics arguing variously that it serves as a block to foreign investment, encourages a re-racialisation of the political economy, and promotes the growth of a small but remarkably wealthy politicallyconnected ‘empowerment’ elite. There is considerable substance to such analyses. However, they miss the point that BEE policies constitute a logical unfolding of strategy which is dictated by the ANCs own history, the nature of the democratic settlement of 1994 and the structure of the white-dominated economy. This paper seeks to unravel that logic through the pursuit of ten propositions. An overall conclusion is that while there is a strong case for arguing that BEE (or some similar programme to correct racial imbalances) is a political necessity, the ANC needs to do more to combine its empowerment strategies with delivery of ‘a better life for all’.

The South African Elections of 1994: the Remaking of a Dominant-Party State

The South African elections of 1994 constituted one of those rare historical moments when humankind made a significant step forward. The peaceful culmination of a liberation struggle, which for years many had feared would end in a bloodbath, registered not only a triumph for the democratic ideal but the resounding defeat of racism as an organising principle of government. If its more recent reference point was the collapse of dictatorial regimes throughout Eastern Europe during 1989–90, it can more distantly be identified as following in the grand tradition of 1789, confirming and extending and elaborating the ‘rights of man’. Yet historical ‘progress’ rarely unfolds in an uncomplicated way, and — however momentous and however much the external world may be willing it to succeed — South Africas new democracy, by fairly general agreement, faces daunting tasks.

Legacies of power : leadership change and former presidents in African politics

It was a widely dominant perception until the early 1990s that African rulers do not vacate their office alive. But even in the brutal reality of African politics, transition takes place and diffe ...

Opposition in South Africa: Issues and Problems

Democratization, Vol.7, No.1 (Spring 2000), pp.1–00 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON Opposition in South Africa: Issues and Problems ROGER SOUTHALL Contemporary debate in South Africa is not just about whether democracy will survive, but about the quality of that democracy if it does. The role, functions, legitimacy and capacity of political opposition, in a situation where it is highly fragmented, constitutes a key aspect of this debate, most notably because of status of the African National Congress (ANC) as a dominant party since its assumption of power in 1994. Following discussion of the meanings of ‘opposition’, this essay examines issues and problems for the idea and practice of opposition posed by the challenges of democratic consolidation and by the ANC’s dominance. It is proposed that if opposition parties are to be perpetual electoral losers, then progress must be made towards entrenching the notion of opposition as accountability. It is concluded that the way forward for democracy and opposition in South Africa lies in efforts to overcome historic social cleavages in favour of an issue-oriented politics in which racial and ethnic affinities play a backstage role. The Electoral System and Opposition Parties in South Africa DAVID POTTIE Prior to 1994 debate about the electoral system in a post-apartheid South African frequently centred on the notion of how best to achieve ethnic and racial accommodation through elections. The adoption of a system of proportional representation was eventually regarded as one means of encouraging political parties to build cross-racial and national appeal. Despite the dominance of the African National Congress in South Africa’s first two democratic elections, the adoption of proportional representation also appears to have contributed to numerous and diverse opposition parties. But there are additional signs that opposition politics may be equally characterized by a growing racial polarization despite the arguments that favour proportional representation as the best means to encourage ‘moderation’ and parties with national appeal. Opposition in the New South African Parliament LIA NIJZINK In order to explore the possibilities for parliamentary opposition in South Africa’s new democracy, this investigation first of all classifies the country in terms of presidential/parliamentary and electoral systems in order to assess the institutional context. It subsequently looks at the role of parties in parliament and argues that in the 81demjen2.qxd 23/04/2001 15:47 Page 318

Democracy in Southern Africa: Moving Beyond a Difficult Legacy

The peace dividend in southern Africa may serve to underpin NEPADs bid for economic growth and development. However, it is by no means so clear that the region is embarked upon an unambiguous progression towards the consolidation of democracy. Indeed, there are deeply worrying indications that the democratic wave which broke upon the regions shores in the 1990s is now moving into reverse. Most particularly, it can be argued that a developing crisis of democracy in southern Africa is characterised by first, an increasingly explicit clash between an authoritarian culture of national liberation and participatory democracy; and second, by a closely related model of state power which, even if obscured under democratic garb, entrenches elites and promotes highly unequal patterns of accumulation and anti-development. It is therefore necessary to move forward to a more advanced conception of democracy which links liberal democratic rights to conditions which combine increased political participation with greater social and economic equality.

The Beneficiaries of Transkeian Independence

In a recent article, Heribert Adam argued that the ‘prevalent view of South Africa combines conceptual errors with false methodological emphasis and, often, wishful thinking’, and that the ‘popular perspective represents a gross over-simplification of a far more complex situation.’ 1 The analysis to which he was objecting views South Africa as an outdated colonial society, in which white settlers enforce a racially defined domination upon an exploited mass of the black population, which is reduced to serving primarily as a source of cheap labour for white capital by an immense battery of totalitarian controls. Linked to this view - and now fuelled by the widespread riots during mid-1976 throughout African urban areas - is the assumption that substantive political change will necessarily come about by violent revolution, motivated by the growing determination of a burgeoning black population to force a redistribution of power and wealth. However, as Adam further pointed out, analysis of South Africa purely in terms of racial conflict leaves important questions unanswered, for there is need to explore how the differential distribution of wealth and resources - political and economic - originated, and how they are maintained.

Popular attitudes toward the South African electoral system

This article is based on a survey of popular attitudes towards the pure list system that is South Africas proportional representation electoral system. While the reported findings are broadly positive there are some notable exceptions, located disproportionately among racial minorities and also among sizable numbers of black respondents. Pure proportional representation is unlikely to produce the values that the respondents say they most want from a voting system. The significance of the surveys findings is analysed and reasons are advanced for making changes to the electoral system. The government has opted to retain the status quo for the time being but in the longer term this could be negative for South Africas democracy

Conclusion: Emergent Perspectives on Opposition in South Africa

The introduction to this collection raised a series of questions around the project of political opposition in South Africa given the challenges posed by consolidating democracy given the emergence of the African National Congress (ANC) as a ‘dominant party’. In many ways, the different contributors may be interpreted as having grappled with the issue of how South Africa’s new democracy is coping with the twin dilemmas of representation and accountability. Who and what groups of citizens are to be represented and how? How should representation be translated into behaviour that simultaneously extends political participation by all South Africa’s people without threatening the very existence of still fragile democratic structures? How is the government to be rendered accountable to the people if the ANC is not sufficiently responsive to the demands of various ‘racial’ or other minorities who feel excluded or alienated by the new political arrangements, or to major constituencies within its own ranks who feel adversely affected by the policies it is pursuing? These questions are all so central to the vitality, quality and functioning of South African democracy that it is scarcely surprising that the concept of opposition has been interpreted extremely generously. Well-established concepts such as ‘constitutional’ and ‘responsible’ opposition still hold up well and relevantly, even if there is contestation about what those terms mean in the South African context. But opposition as behaviour has been portrayed as extensive, operative within the ruling party and throughout wider society as well as between the government itself and the political parties that define themselves as ‘in opposition’. Beyond that, opposition has been promoted as a product of both structure and agency. At the most basic level, the particular shape of, and constraints upon, the parliamentary opposition have been projected as in significant part an outcome of the party list proportional representation electoral system, itself a key mechanism of the transition agreement that

Negotiations and Social Democracy in South Africa

Whilst the so-called ‘new right’ shrilly proclaims victory for capitalism and liberal democracy in the cold war, quieter voices see in the death agonies of European Stalinism the seeds of socialism more as it was meant to be. I refer not any triumphal Trotskyist depiction of the popular overthrow of bureaucratised ruling classes, but rather to wide-spread searchings throughout Eastern Europe for ‘a third – and better – way’. From this perspective, however much the electoral thaw may give rise to stridently anti-communist, anti-central planning, pro free-market parties, the dynamics of the new situation will virtually require pursuit of a mixed economy featuring selective state intervention.