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Post-apartheid democratic South Africa experienced the pitfalls of one-party dominance when the country's fifth democratically elected parliament (2014–2019) faced growing corruption, state capture, undermining of parliamentary oversight and the abuse of political power and state institutions. These events threatened the country's constitutional democracy and its principles of an accountable government as the ruling party undermined parliamentary oversight structures through majoritarianism to evade accountability by the Legislature and Executive. This led to the growing coexistence and cooperation of opposition parties (despite their ideological differences) in parliamentary oversight as a means of challenging the African National Congress' (ANC) one-party dominance. This process resulted in the establishment of formal and informal coalitions for governing key cities such as Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay. Against this backdrop, and building on a case study of these three metropolitan municipalities, this paper analyses the coexistence of the opposition parties in parliamentary oversight and in the governance of key cities as a means of challenging the ANC's one-party dominance. The analysis delineates the prospects and challenges of using coexistence as a strategy for challenging the ANC's one party-dominance post the 2019 general election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political Science research on the President's role in South African politics has been limited and therefore poses a research challenge. In this article, the President's election by the National Assembly is linked to a number of factors. The legislative electoral system has a direct impact on it; also, South Africa's government is a hybrid, presidential/parliamentary system; and political party electoral procedures are followed to elect party leaders. The presidential electoral system has several implications for legislative-executive relations, including presidential accountability, approval of the Presidency's budget by Parliament, and Parliament's power to remove the President from office. Special attention is paid to the 2019 party campaigns, to the extent of their co-existence with presidential campaigns, and to the parliamentary electoral procedure. Conclusions identify the implications of the fact that the President's election is primarily determined by the power balance between the main political parties. Especially since 2007, it is also determined by internal party dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current debates on citizenship and democracy highlight the salience of cooperative relations between government and its citizens. Scholars observe that governments and its institutions function better where there is cooperation and trust. However, evidence suggests that political interest is waning and trust in government, dwindling. More especially, concerns about the effects of youth disengaging from political life are increasing. This phenomenon is more worrying in young democracies, where democratic traditions and principles are still evolving. This study examines the effect of family politicisation on youth trust in government. This quantitative study used a cross-sectional correlational research design. A two-level approach was adopted. At the first level we examined the prevalence of political discussions in the home and the trust attitudes of the family (as indicators of family politicisation) and youth towards government. At a second level we conducted a regression analysis to determine relationships between parent-adolescent communication and youth trust in government; family trust in government and youth trust in government; and finally, parent-adolescent communication and family trust on youth trust in government. The results suggest that a combination of parent- adolescent communication and family trust in government in a model, significantly positively predicts youth trust in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African cities enjoy significant constitutional autonomy and financial independence, meaning that they are well-placed to assert themselves against national and provincial governments, especially in situations of political discordance between different levels of government. This article considers the first year of multi-party coalition-led opposition governance in three South African cities, in attempting to better understand the relationship between cities' constitutional powers and functions, on the one hand, and their modes of governance, on the other. It focuses on national or provincial attempts to undermine urban governance in opposition-run cities, as well as instances of 'urban assertiveness' - city governments conducting themselves in ways that depart from, or oppose, government priorities at regional or national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss how the use of violence has become a mechanism for mostly poor citizens in contemporary South Africa to contest the moral functioning of government and state institutions. More essentially, the article locates the place of violence within the broader state-society relationship. I argue that this interaction between the state and ordinary citizens in South Africa reveals the everyday appropriation of violence by the poor to foster an 'effective' social and political contract with the state. By taking cues from the everyday social struggles of the poor that manifest themselves through social protest, this article argues that the use of violence in such struggles is largely an outcome of a weakening moral order on the part of political authority. My evidence for this claim is purely qualitative and ethnographic. I engage with this evidence in this article to reflect on the agency of the figure of a 'violent citizen'. In this reflection, I show how this agency is shaped mostly by everyday moral concerns related to the normative practice of government and party politics especially at the local level. On the overall, my aim in this article is twofold. Firstly, I seek to highlight how violence is often appropriated in the moral struggles of ordinary citizens in South Africa. Lastly, I also seek to refute the narrative that violence as it is used in the popular struggles of the ordinary citizens in South Africa is largely a 'criminal' activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do Black African women from impoverished communities understand themselves as citizens? This article contributes to the theoretical and methodological development of citizenship, as well as the small body of literature on women’s participation in township community politics. The paper is based on a case analysis of women living in Zimbabwean and South African townships, who identify as members of the isiNdebele and isiZulu ethnic groups, respectively. In-depth interviews were conducted with 37 Black African women and analysed using content analysis. Results indicate that the women use a range of strategies to navigate their structural barriers and negotiate their membership and relationship with their states. The main policy implication is that there is a need for civic education in schools and women’s empowerment and community development programmes, which will encourage marginalised African women to collectively challenge, contest and improve the substance of existing citizenship rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The era of ‘people’s power’ in South Africa between 1986 and 1987 is often considered to have held the makings of a participatory form of democracy. Analysis of the traditions that shaped it, however, reveals a discourse of participation that was not altogether democratic. Through examination of historic documents and interviews with activists, participants and cadres, this paper examines the role for the demos imbued in people’s power. It challenges the notion that the form of democracy established since 1994 is somewhat inferior to that prefigured by people’s power, and rather contends that people’s power itself did not constitute an entirely democratic form of participation. While incorporating ideas of grassroots participation as a basis for popular control, it also embodied a unitary form of democracy. Through absorption of a discourse of vanguardism and a concept of participation as teleological, people’s power failed to resolve the fundamental tension between political control from above and popular initiative from below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some commentators note that much of the literature on South Africa’s foreign policy behaviour is marked by clash of concepts, arguments and normative convictions. This clash has mainly been between two dominant intellectual traditions: realism and liberalism. Works based on each of the perspectives incline towards particular preferences, values and prescriptions – a single vision or a universalising organising principle guides the framing of policy problem, interpretation of empirical observations and prescriptions. The limitation of this mode of enquiry is that it fails to take account of the complexity of the social world and that there are many ways of looking at it. The article argues that neither of the two dominant perspectives ‘comprehensively and persuasively’ explains South Africa’s foreign policy behaviour and practice. Beyond parsimony the paper advocates scholarship grounded in ‘analytic eclecticism’. It is an approach that integrates ideas and variables associated with different theoretical perspectives. This approach is preferable because it ensures that the scholarly endeavour is sufficiently close to the experience of real world actors. It leads to deeper insights into policy behaviour and how to holistically deal with the problems associated with it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the effect of South Africa’s intergovernmental fiscal relations policies on the accountability of provincial governments. Existing theory points out that if a country’s policies do not make provision for sufficient own-revenue sources like provincial taxes and levies for provincial governments, citizens may hold the national government, to whom they pay their taxes, accountable. Based on a case study in the Northern Cape Provincial Government, this article suggests that provincial governments in South Africa are unable to collect enough own-revenue, making them dependent on transfers from national government to deliver goods and services to their citizens. The results confirm the theoretical perspective that accountability is undermined, as it is not always possible for taxpayers to directly link the governing unit responsible for the service to its funding. This is relevant because provincial governments are responsible for important services, and they spend taxpayers’ money collected mainly by national government to deliver these services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

No longer simply trophy wives, First Ladies in Southern Africa in particular, are an increasingly influential political force in the inner circle of presidents and politics. Recent examples of the growing political influence of First Ladies of Southern Africa include Graça Machel and Grace Mugabe. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the political role, influence and activities of First Ladies in Southern Africa and in particular to contribute to this under-researched area related to political leadership in Africa. From peace missions to summits, First Ladies play a leadership role in the sustainable development and politics of the sub-region. In some instances, however, First Ladies have contributed to the undermining of accountable leadership on the continent. For analytical purposes, the paper addresses the political agenda, role, influence and accountability of selected First Ladies in Southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

South Africa and Lesotho have an unusual bilateral relationship. Lesotho is one of only three enclaves in the world that is completely surrounded by another state, and there is a massive size disparity between the two countries in terms of both population and GDP. This means that Lesotho is in a position of extreme dependence towards its larger neighbour, which has occasionally led to speculation that the two states might, at some point in the future, merge into a single entity. Such speculation is more prevalent in Lesotho, but it has occasionally been raised by South Africans too. However, previous arguments for or against unification have generally not taken into account the full range of political and economic consequences of such a policy. This article first situates the relationship between Lesotho and South Africa within the broader theoretical debate over postcolonial African borders. It then considers the arguments for unification on several levels: in relation to politics, the role of the military, fiscal considerations, and economic policy. The section on politics considers the quality of governance in Lesotho, the political role of its military, and the potential effects of a merger on South African national politics. The section on fiscal considerations compares the level of fiscal support that Lesotho would receive within South Africa to the level that it currently receives as a member of Southern African Customs Union. Finally, the section on economic policy weighs up the value of Lesotho’s ability to make independent economic policy decisions against the drag and inefficiency that occurs as a result of having to move goods and people across the national border with South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores why official participation mechanisms and donor induced participation programmes do not work for ordinary citizens to make their voices heard in local governance. Referring to the South African context, it is argued firstly, that, as technologies of governance, participatory mechanisms do not increase local democracy because they are not designed to do so. Where democratic participation seeks to increase citizens’ influence in decision-making and change power relations, participation as technology seeks to improve programmes’ effectiveness. The latter will not be able to dislodge the power hierarchies prevalent in the local government space. Secondly, development agencies and government work within predetermined results-based logics, where lines of accountability lead to donor countries or heads of department rather than back to the citizen. Finally, participatory technologies have persisted to inspire governing elites, as ‘participation’ serves as powerful metaphor to keep the narrative of the active citizen in local governance alive, and to maintain partnerships with international donor agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers different views on South Africa's decision to withdraw from International Criminal Court (ICC) dealing with the geopolitical implications of the ICC withdrawal, effects on soft power diplomacy, and the nation's foreign policy.

This article explores the phenomenon of self-help governance initiatives that manifest in the context of state dysfunction in South Africa. It is argued that the inability of dysfunctional states to render adequate public goods and services prompts civil society to respond in protests. Such protest may be violent and destructive, or assume a constructive ‘do-it-yourself’ character. The latter forms the focus of the article and is explored through means of a case study at local government level. It is concluded that self-help governance is one of a range of civil society responses to state dysfunction, and the phenomenon is conceptualised and integrated into an analytic framework to facilitate further scholarly investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case study of South Africa, this article examines how influential outsider states perceive the legitimacy of the UN Security Council and whether they can perform a critical role in affecting the legitimacy of the institution. The article demonstrates that South Africa’s reform diplomacy challenges the authority of the existing membership of the Council but not the legitimacy of the original mandate of the Council as the guarantor of international peace and stability. Such a reform agenda allows for promoting South Africa’s own candidacy as a new permanent member of the Council. Despite its activism in promoting such reform, South Africa’s diplomacy is undermined by its incapacity to influence the positions of the permanent five members, the lack of support by other African states, and its own ambivalent foreign policy that oscillates between support for human rights and allegiance to the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mdlalose’s [2014. “The Rise and Fall of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a South African Social Movement.”Politikon41 (3): 345–353] personal account ofAbahlali baseMjondolo(AbM) throws into stark relief the tendency among academics and intellectuals to ignore weaknesses and contradictions in social movements. It seems that many academics and intellectuals are more inclined to exaggerate the virtues of social movements, perhaps to accentuate their own theoretical and ideological commitments. It is with this in mind, I feel, that the letter of concern over the publication of Mdlalose’s article in the Politikon should be read. In this article, I intend to show that Friedman [2015. “Letter for Concern by Steven Friedman and Signatories.”Politikon42 (1): 129–131] and his co-petitioners, who have written on AbM, have a great incentive to defend the movement against Mdlalose’s criticism of its practices. The petition works to defend the celebratory social movement narrative as manifested in the writings of left-wing academics and intellectuals on the movement (predominantly white, male and middle-class), through which, as Walsh [2015. “The Philosopher and His Poor: The Poor-Black as Object for Political Desire in South Africa.”Politikon42 (1): 123–127] argues, they gained power to represent social movements in intellectual and other spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Democratic consolidation relies on a degree of political trust and support for new democratic institutions and actors. A decline in political trust threatens the legitimacy of institutions, and democracy itself. Using Ipsos Khayabus 2014 national public opinion survey data, the paper explores levels of political trust in South Africa's transitional society in late 2014. It asks whether there is a sufficient mass of ‘critical citizens’ to ensure accountable government, and trust expressed towards key objects in the political system. We find that a majority of South Africans are critical citizens, offering conditional support based on performance evaluations. However, we also find little distinction in the minds of citizens between political institutions and the actors that inhabit them. Low levels of trust in political actors tend to erode trust in institutions. In turn, political trust in democratic institutions is also linked to evaluations of the ruling party; signalling the dangers of a prolonged stay in power by a dominant party. Finally, we conclude with possible implications for democratic consolidation by arguing that if despondence with current actors and institutions increases citizens may become less satisfied with democracy and less inclined to embrace the dream of a democratic, unified nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers the South African Constitution as a living text that founds the new democratic state and asks about its politics of memory. By its very nature, a constitution looks simultaneously backwards and forwards: the promise of the constitution cannot be understood separately from its memory of the apartheid past, and vice versa. The past continuously gets rewritten and reframed as we always reinterpret it anew in light of current concerns and power distributions. It is argued that these politics do not fade away but rather intensify as we move further away from the constitutional moment in time. Focusing on the urgent problem of on-going very high levels of sexual violence in South Africa, the article tries to capture the ways in which constitutional memory and promise function and should function in this respect. Two strategies of memory, namely the memorial and the monumental, are distinguished and applied to the constitutional promise to end sexual violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent analyses of the continued dominance of the African National Congress (ANC) have centred on its organizational, electoral, governmental and popular bases of power. This paper extends this analysis by arguing that the ANC derives significant political power through its political communications, and particularly its political marketing. Through the lens of the latter, it examines the ANC's strategic political behaviour over time. It extends its analytical purview beyond election campaigns to include the process of creating the symbolic bases of the South African state through the discursive continuity of economic policy. This paper roots the ANC's political marketing within a wider historical, cultural, representational and political setting. It demonstrates the recursive practices and effects of the ANC's communications and the deep entanglement of politics with marketing. This paper makes an initial contribution to reconceptualizing the bases of the ANC's political dominance and sheds light on an understudied aspect of its political and cultural orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the demise of the National Party (NP) in post-settlement South Africa. Principally, it focuses on the party's involvement in the Government of National Unity between 1994 and 1996 and considers the impact of this on the party's electoral fortunes. From 1948 to 1994 the NP enjoyed political hegemony. It functioned as a racial party vis-à-vis the country's white electorate and also an ethnic party with deep emotional links to the Afrikaner community. It played a crucial role in the negotiations that resulted in the end of apartheid and its leader received the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace-making efforts. Yet two or three years after the momentous transfer of power in 1994 the party lost the confidence and support of both Afrikaners and English-speaking whites. This proved terminal and resulted in the party dissolving itself in 2005. The South African case draws our attention to the challenges that an ethnic party can encounter in the post-agreement period. It also alerts us to the problems which can emerge following a negotiated settlement. The article is based upon research conducted with five former senior members of the NP. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was revived in 1971 in the context of what has become known as the ‘Durban moment’. This period also witnessed the emergence of the Black Consciousness Movement and an independent trade union movement inspired by the 1973 Durban strikes. Despite a government crackdown and opposition from anti-apartheid groups that asserted that ethnic identities were a relic of the past, the NIC attracted younger activists through the 1970s and by the early 1980s, had survived the banning and detention of its leadership to become involved in civic struggles over housing and education, and in mobilizing against government-created political structures. It also played a pivotal role in the United Democratic Front formed in 1983. This did not mean that the NIC was monolithic. The 1980s spawned vibrant and often vicious debates within the NIC over participation in government-created structures, allegations of cabals and, as democracy dawned, differing opinions of the future of an organization that first came into being in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In critically interrogating this crucial period between 1980 and 1994, when mass-based struggle was renewed, two states of emergency were imposed and apartheid eventually ended, this article adds to the growing historiography of the anti-apartheid struggle by focusing on an important but neglected aspect of that story. It focuses on the internal workings of the NIC and the relationship between the NIC, the emergent Mass Democratic Movement and the African National Congress (ANC) in the context of broader political and economic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Part of determining the democratic content of relationships between citizens and governance networks revolves around understanding how ordinary citizens are able to access governance networks, either directly, or indirectly though representatives. For citizenship to have any meaningful content for ordinary people, especially those who historically have been denied political and socio-economic rights, the promise of participatory democracy must lead to perceptions of ability to influence. Through the use of a survey instrument constructed to gauge perceptions of efficacy and responsiveness of local governance institutions, this article explores how citizens in Khayelitsha, Langa and Delft experience governance and service delivery in relation to their perceived ability to exercise either a direct or indirect form of agency in relation to decision-making. The article illustrates that in relation to the ordinary person in the street, perceptions of agency are weak, with corresponding levels of dissatisfaction in democracy. This is in contrast to much stronger perceptions of agency amongst community leaders in community organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article, based on findings from 18 focus groups staged across South Africa in mid-2011, provides an overview of the key themes that emerged from the discussion—many of which receive more detailed treatment in later papers in this edition, others of which deserve close attention and further analysis even if not covered here. (The full set of transcripts is freely available at http://www.gcro.ac.za/project/non-racialism-ahmed-kathrada-foundation). It appears that non-racialism, which lacks a specific meaning, also lacks any status as a political project—it has been de-linked from the political arena, where taking control of ‘the commanding heights of the economy’ is a priority facing government. Non-racialism has been left as a social project for citizens to work out for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Africa, viewed here as the world's 'swing continent', has in the past decade started to interact with emerging market economies in more intense fashion. This represents an advancing of the continent's integration into the global economy on terms more beneficial to the continent's development. However, this phenomenon also represents one of Africa's central strategic challenges; one located within what is widely considered a new 'scramble for Africa'. In emphasising South-South cooperation and linkages of interdependence between Africa, Asia and the Americas, who is managing whom? Is Africa effectively guiding these new partnering relationships? Or is the continent, in its fragmented disunity, being strategically manipulated by emerging powers, which have well thought-through national interest agendas as they build on their unique comparative advantages in facilitating access to Africa's resources? In answering these questions, emphasis is placed more on challenges than opportunities since the manner in which Africa comes to grips with the challenges will, in many respects, determine and define the opportunities. The problem of Africa arriving at a disciplined and consistent 'common position' strategy is not simply one of colonially inherited fragmentation. It is also a problem of how the strategic space of other continents interacts with that fragmentation in a manner that intrudes on Africa's geopolitical and strategic integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the poor delivery on land reform in post-apartheid South Africa is best explained through a close analysis of the form and content of the constitution of 1996. Within this progressive legal document lies the possibility for radical land reform but also that which currently hamstrings the process. The South African constitution is self-defeating with regard to land reform because it conceives of the goals and means of land reform in the same conceptual language as is currently used to secure the private ownership of land—the language of inalienable rights. The article explains how and why this hinders the process of land reform and shows why rights-based constitutions in general are self-defeating. It ends by suggesting in outline the framework for a new conceptual language for politics and for constitutions based on a conception of human needs and an alternative (needs-based) constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of power remains critically important. South Africa provides a salient example of the relevance of soft or co-optive power. This paper investigates the South African government's use of two forms of co-optive power, namely, institutional centralisation and dispositional centralisation. The first refers to the centralising of the state apparatus as evidenced in the reformed Presidency. The second is highlighted in state-society relations as civil society is relegated to the role of implementer of state policy and its political space as an agent of accountability is severely constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a pluralist middle power, post-apartheid South Africa seeks to generate successful foreign policy initiatives at bilateral, multilateral and regional levels in order to shape international outcomes. In this endeavour, it has three important political resources — a recognition of its geo-political position and importance as a democratic yardstick and reformer; its acceptance of a transnational, neo-liberal elite alliance and finally, recognition of its leadership role from forces wishing to challenge African political establishments. However, the international and domestic political environment which in the mid-1990s was favourable towards middle-power initiative and reform has narrowed. South Africa's currently ambiguous foreign-policy responses therefore stem from a combination of the growing tendency towards unilateralism at the international level, from regional efforts to neutralize South Africa as a pluralist force — in and around NEPAD — as well as the absence of a national or domestic consensus on foreign policy. These constraints coupled with scarce foreign policy resources may, in the long term, necessitate a fundamental reorientation of South Africa's foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals have a representation of how they personally feel about issues ('actual' feelings), as well as a representation of the attitudes that they believe they should 'ideally' possess, reflecting personal values. Furthermore, existing in a social-political environment, individuals make estimations of how they believe others around them think that they 'ought' to feel. These different representations of self may conflict, especially where external constraints on political actions are present. A survey of self-discrepancies before and after the change in political system in South Africa tests whether the change in regime and possible political behaviors impacted actual, ideal, and ought attitudes about general democratic principles and their application to specific positively and negatively evaluated groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages current policies of social transformation in South Africa from a political theoretical point of view. As the transformation project purports to serve the ideal of equality, conceptions of equality that might justify or underwrite a policy of affirmative action are considered. On the basis of the political rhetoric behind South Africa's current affirmative action policy and the nature of the Employment Equity Act itself, it is argued that a very particular conception of equality lies at the heart of that policy, and that this conception is closely allied to communitarian and Rousseauean notions of the politics of the common good. It is submitted that the question of how, if at all, this communitarian understanding of equality coheres with the rest of the South African legal order, and especially the right to equality enshrined in the Constitution, cannot be satisfactorily answered. The theoretical consistency of current affirmative action policies with the Constitution must therefore be doubted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key argument in this article is that there are three good reasons to take Fanon's humanism seriously. The first is that he took it seriously; the second is that he wrote to wrest humanism from the distortions of racism and colonialism; and the third is that Fanon's humanism is a current in the movement that Michael Hart and Antonio Negri call revolutionary humanism, which they distinguish from reactionary humanism. The second and more subterranean argument is that Fanon's humanism can incite and hone a revitalisation of our thinking and practice of politics in contemporary South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a body of established theory suggesting that Courts are social constructs which mirror the societies in which they reside and that judicial outcomes frequently reflect prevailing political and other societal attitudes, the present article examines the extent to which judges can also act strategically to maximize their preferred outcomes. It does so through an empirical analysis of the behaviour of six Chief Justices who presided over South Africa's highest court—the Appelate Division—in the era of apartheid between 1950 and 1990. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa joined the 'third wave of democracy' in 1994, when the country conducted its first democratic elections. Since then, much debate about the extent of democratic consolidation has taken place. The present article analyses the possibilities for consolidation of South Africa's democracy in terms of the indicators of political culture most often associated with democratic consolidation: political tolerance and trust. The research consists of a longitudinal analysis that uses quantitative data gathered since 1994. Divergent conclusions are reached. On the one hand, political tolerance is increasingly visible among South Africans. On the other, trust in institutions—government—is decreasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy in South Africa since the demise of apartheid has resulted in significant changes in political discourse. Yet, the country's multiparty democratic system remains challenged by majoritarianism, which might not always enhance deliberation in political discourse. In the present article, I show how constitutive goods of communitarian liberalism, namely caring, conversational justice and political reasoning, can be linked to the notion of deliberative democracy. Such a form of deliberative democracy is constituted by rationality that involves: (a) the view that rational articulation of arguments is a valuable part of human agency, (b) the view that political formulations have to be consistent and without contradiction, (c) the view that most citizens should in principle be attuned with 'the order of things', and (d) the view that relevant arguments need to be advanced in unconstrained inter-subjective processes of rational deliberation. It is such a notion of communitarian deliberative democracy that restricts majoritarianism and holds the promise to advance political discourse in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyarchical forms of democracy are not about promoting democratic input into the everyday life of citizens, but rather have become a useful mechanism to soothe social and political pressures, creating a state of 'low-intensity democracy'. Struggles for popular democracy are profound threats to established elites. In many 'democratic transitions', these threats have been dissipated by the promotion of polyarchy as the new dispensation. What has occurred in contentious transitions such as South Africa, has been an attempt to construct hegemony via a reformulation of the mode of political rule: from the overtly coercive (such as apartheid) to a more consensual-based order. The result has been to pre-empt fundamental economic change. During the South African transition, various actors within civil society, characterised as the 'change industry', (such as IDASA) made important interventions in the debate on what democracy was to be in a post-apartheid dispensation. Their work helped convert the mass organisations away from popular democracy and towards more formal and procedural models of democratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to most accounts, the contentious politics of constitutionmaking in the South African transition to democracy did not end with the critical amendments to the Interim Constitution in April 1994. The argument of this article is that although the deliberations in the Constitutional Assembly (CA) were more constrained by institutional arrangements and pre-election agreements, a number of important decisions on democracy were in fact taken - decisions that are best explained by the internal logic of the CA negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nelson Mandela's May 1994 inauguration represented a clear victory for South Africa's formal transition to non-racial democracy, but, as this article demonstrates, a formal, national level transition does not simply lead to local level change. Change within South Africa's townships has been much more minimal and difficult than an elite perspective suggests. This is explained not only by the specific context of political tension and violence in many township communities but also, surprisingly, by a certain resistance to change within the very local level institutions that had long championed the democratic transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Placing the South African local government elections of 5 December 2000 in the context of institutional reform and fiscal austerity, this article reviews the party political campaigns and the results. In particular, through use of local monitoring campaign reports - undertaken through the South African Civil Society Observer Coalition - a detailed analysis of electioneering is presented. In looking at the results of the elections comparisons are drawn with the 1995/96 local government elections, and it is concluded that the dominant position of the African National Congress is not totally unassailable and that the prospects for democratic consolidation are good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explicitly disempowering rhetoric about globalization characterize the South African government's political and economic argumentation, and help African National Congress (ANC) leaders and ideologues justify many of their transparently neoliberal strategies. This article offers a critical assessment of the ruling party's divergent discourses (and the uses to which these are put), their underlying presumptions, their intellectual and practical rigour, and their correlation to material self-interest. It is argued that ultimately the perspective on globalization chosen by Pretoria is far from progressive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political analysts are ambivalent about leadership in new democracies. Such states need powerful leaders to establish fresh economic and political institutions, to deflect the demands of interest groups and activists, and to build consensus out of the inevitable conflict of transition. At the same time, however, weak constitutional forms and feeble countervailing forces make personal power dangerous. This article argues that ill-founded assumptions of inherent social instability and weak political accountability in South Africa have turned such ambivalence into an expectations trap that threatens the consolidation of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of liberal individualist and collectivist conceptions of the good in the politics of transformation in contemporary South Africa. The argument is advanced that the transformation project of the ruling party, the African National Congress, embodies a conception of the latter sort and thus exceeds the theoretical vocabulary of liberal individualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to editor is presented in response to article "The Rise and Fall of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a South African Social Movement" by Bandile Mdlalose, published in the previous issue of the magazine

Focuses on the impact of the development of the United Democratic Movement on the African National Congress (ANC) and government in Eastern Cape, South Africa. Challenges facing ANC on the traditional constituency; Pattern of national election; Association between the struggle against apartheid and nationalism.

Focuses on the spontaneous ideology of tradition in post-apartheid South Africa. Demands of traditional leaders to be incorporated into the post-apartheid structures of rural government; Conceptions of democratic representations; Legitimacy of the authorities of the chiefs by virtue of their cultural status.

Focuses on the establishment of the democratic policy determination practices within the Tripartite Alliance led by the African National Congress (ANC). Definition of democracy; Replacement of the democratic policy with the technocratic forms of decision making; Importance of the policy for the activists culture within ANC.

The article lists the issue's editors and members of the editorial board which include editor Joleen Steyn Kotze and book reviews editor Suzanne Graham.

Editorial. Focuses on significant developments in South Africa's political science community in 2001. Merger of the South African Political Science Association and the African Association of Political Science; Changes in the journal 'Politikon'.