Search

This article takes a summary look at Africa as a whole to ask how has the Covid-19 pandemic played out in the context of a continent that, in the last decade, has considered culture as a key aspect of its modernisation and development. While drawing from a number of national examples, much of the focus is placed here on South Africa which has the most robust system of governance for culture and strongest support for the cultural industries. Where has the C-19 crisis left South Africa and what policy responses are in evidence, and how do these compare with other African nations? The paper reflects on the opportunities C-19 has provided to steer the course of the African cultural economy and offers a set of recommendations for public authorities to consider in supporting a just transition for an inclusive and transformed cultural economy on the African continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the potential for cultural and creative industries to drive growth and job creation is increasingly recognised, developing countries like South Africa are examining their cultural goods and services trade in a new light. This article investigates the pattern of South Africa's cultural trade, with a focus on the strategically important BRICS trading bloc. Results show that, like many small, open developing countries, South Africa has a significant cultural goods trade imbalance, especially with China and India. While cultural trade policy is still somewhat fragmented, there are indications that where policies have been put in place, such as in the crafts and audio-visual sectors, progress in reducing significant deficits has been made. At the same time, the pattern of CCI trade preferences currently favours SADC, the EU and EFTA over BRICS partners. Finally, South Africa performs well in a number of services sectors for which cultural trade is important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the labour market linkages between the informal and formal sectors, using the first four waves of the National Income Dynamics Study data. The main focus is on three groups of employed: worked in the formal sector in all waves; worked in the informal sector in all waves; moved between the two sectors across the waves. Only 27% of informal sector workers in wave 1 transitioned to the formal sector in wave 4; 38% remained in the informal sector while 33% had their status changed to either inactive or unemployed. The econometric analysis indicates that older and more educated individuals living in urban areas and coming from households with fewer old-age grant recipients are significantly more likely to work in the formal sector, whereas more educated white males are associated with a significantly greater likelihood of transitioning from informal to formal sector employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation for inclusive development (IID) is widely promoted as a policy objective in the global South, but the challenge is that there is little design and implementation of context-appropriate instruments and incentives. One critical foundation is network alignment – that innovation policy should be aligned with the goals and strategies of government departments responsible for promoting inclusive development (Von Tunzelmann, N, 2007. Approaching network alignment. Draft Paper for the U-Know Consortium: Understanding the relationship between knowledge and competitiveness in the enlarging European Union). The paper contributes by using qualitative analysis software to analyse the nature of shared policy goals and instruments in South Africa, and assess how these can be aligned with each other and with the goals of IID. Three main spaces for policy intervention are identified, to promote IID in a way that goes beyond the aspirational and the rhetorical. Such analysis of formal policy does not take into account the political will, capabilities and resources for implementation, but it does provide a systematic evidence base to effect strategic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether individual workers' time-invariant unobservable characteristics influence estimates of the South African union wage premium across the length of the conditional wage distribution. It employs the 2001–7 South African Labour Force survey and a fixed effects quantile regression estimator. Results show a relatively large (small) wage premium at the bottom (top) of the conditional wage distribution when workers' time-invariant unobserved characteristics are ignored. Accounting for this set of factors substantially reduces the wage premium at all points of the distribution. In fact, the wage premium becomes somewhat constant across the conditional wage distribution, suggesting that unions in South Africa have little wage compressionary effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When South Africa’s credit/debt landscape expanded during the 1990s, this was justified by some as a new form of inclusion but alleged by others to have intensified the power and profit of capitalism and acted to the detriment of householders, thus perpetuating ‘credit apartheid’. Yet, blame cannot be so easily assigned. Forces of state and market have intertwined to create a redistributive neoliberalism, enabling brokers - who have played a key role in establishing the current credit/debt landscape - to insert themselves into the interstices of the system, making money by adding interest at every point in the value chain. Apartheid’s spatial separations meant that traders - and later informal moneylenders - relied on agents to bridge the gap between themselves and the rural/township world of economic informality. Even attempts at credit reform have been complicated, and stalled, by the ongoing presence of intermediaries. The paper explores these dynamics, illustrating how difficult it is to separate bad from good protagonists or perpetrators from victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) were persuaded by mainstream economists and South African businesses to pursue neoliberal policies. The ANC implemented policies that made South Africa more open to international trade and financial flows along with privatization and austerity, other than a modest increase in social expenditures. After twenty-three years of such policies, we can judge their effectiveness. Unfortunately, neoliberalism worsened the inequality created under apartheid and failed to stimulate significant growth and development. This article documents the extent to which the maintenance of key apartheid-era institutions, under the guise of “market friendly policies,” undermined the prospects for long-term economic and human development in South Africa. This post-apartheid development debacle should go down in history as one of the great failures of mainstream economics and its neoliberal policy recommendations. Breaking the cycle of uneven development in South Africa will require fundamental changes in institutions, including changes in democracy, ownership structures, and the very nature of the economic system. This article offers some ideas for how an adjusted institutional structure might reconfigure the social provisioning process in South Africa to address racial divisions and lingering inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the role of market sentiment and foreign policy uncertainty in explaining rand price fluctuations using monthly data from 1995M2 to 2017M8. Empirical results from the pair copula analysis indicate no dependence between foreign policy uncertainties and rand returns when market sentiment is controlled for. Furthermore, change in market sentiment seems to drive fluctuations in rand exchange rate suggesting that exchange rate behavior is indeed unpredictable as market sentiment captures both risk and uncertainty. These results are robust across pre- and post-recent financial crisis periods; hence confirming the ability of pair copula to model extreme events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the information content of South African inflation survey data by determining the directional accuracy of both short-term and long-term forecasts. We use relative operating characteristic (ROC) curves, which have been applied in a variety of fields including weather forecasting and radiology, to ascertain the directional accuracy of the forecasts. A ROC curve summarizes the directional accuracy of forecasts by comparing the rate of true signals (sensitivity) with the rate of false signals (one minus specifity). A ROC curve goes beyond market-timing tests widely studied in earlier research as this comparison is carried out for many alternative values of a decision criterion that discriminates between signals (of a rising inflation rate) and nonsignals (of an unchanged or a falling inflation rate). We find consistent evidence that forecasts contain information with respect to the subsequent direction of change of the inflation rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that the South African economy is highly diversified, the sustainability of its economic growth depends on the availability of two critical resources: water and energy. The national energy grid is mostly based on coal combustion, with very few viable alternative resources. Large amounts of water are needed to produce energy from coal and, in most places where coal reserves are located, there is evidence of water scarcity. The sustainable management of both sectors is essential, since research has shown that access to potable water and energy will lead to a better quality of life for people and help alleviate poverty. This paper will focus on the interlinkages and understanding of the trade-offs between water and energy and its implications for sustainable development in South Africa. The simultaneous implementation of selected Sustainable Development Goals targets could help reduce the trade-off between the two sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth unemployment continues to be a burden and concern for the South African government. Being economically insecure, the situation is dire with the government needing to provide resources to a population who should be economically independent. There is a need to look at the social determinants of economic insecurity among youth in South Africa. Family formations could either promote or inhibit economic well-being. This article aims to assess whether economic security improves as youth enter into unions and/or have children. The South African National Income Dynamics Study is used. Unmarried youth with no children are measured at baseline (2008) and followed up over time to examine whether economic security status changes as union status changes. Results show that while economic security, employment (from 7.61% to 25.67%) and net income per month (from 19.48% to 32.79%) increase over time, youth who marry but have no children have the lowest risk of economic insecurity (relative risk ratio = 0.02, p < 0.05) compared with those who remain unmarried but have children. Special attention needs to be given to youth who have children and are unmarried and among those who marry and have children soon after. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines income dynamics and the existence of poverty traps in South Africa between 2010 and 2012 using panel data from the first three waves of the National Income Dynamics Study. In order to separate structural trends in income from stochastic shocks and measurement error, the paper makes use of an asset-based approach to estimate the shape of structural income dynamics in order to test for the existence of one or more dynamic equilibrium points. Contrary to earlier findings on South African data from 1993 and 1998, the results do not provide evidence for the existence of an asset-based poverty trap. Instead, the results seem to indicate the existence of a low-level equilibrium beyond which structural income remains very persistent. The robustness of the results is confirmed by making use of control functions in order to correct for any measurement error which may exist in the data on assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most powerfully visible ways in which public space in inner city Johannesburg is ordered is through the material presence of apparently idle young men – a context profoundly linked to the precarious position of young and immigrant men in the post-apartheid economy. For the most part, these young men are regarded with disdain, the objects of fear and anxiety. In the following discussion, based on two years of field research with a group of unemployed young men (between the ages of 15 and 30 years old) who attend a weekly bible study and soup kitchen at a church in the inner city, I demonstrate ways in which these young men structure their daily lives in response to the over-abundance of time. I consider how the act of loitering in public space serves to reassemble the relationship between time and value at the peripheries of the urban economy, extracting value from the apparently idle activity of waiting in the present, but uncoupled from a sense of control over the past and future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Much of the existing scholarship on Niq Mhlongo’s works has engaged with the author’s portrayal of township life and his use of humour and deceit to address pressing contemporary socio-economic issues. This article examines the constructions and contestations of belonging in his novelAfter Tearswith particular focus on the trope of the family and its reconstruction through multiple engagements with migrants from other parts of Africa. Reading the novel against the background of the study of family fictions in the South African transition, I argue that Mhlongo’s employment of the trope is indicative of the novel’s disillusionment with the democratic promise. For spectacular forms of deception and trickery, rather than affective bonds of care and love, hold the family together and become essential characteristics of postapartheid subject formation and versatile forms of kinship.After Tears, I suggest, assesses the possibilities and failures of trans-African family formations, but also (and notwithstanding the author’s appeal for continental solidarity) writes into being more conservative, citizenship-bound notions of family that are tightly interwoven with the characters’ experience of postcolonial disillusionment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Years after being launched, the Maputo Development Corridor (MDC) is still facing a number of socio-economic challenges. Prominent amongst these are its failure to create adequate employment opportunities; a top-down functional approach which excludes ordinary citizens; and an unfocused management approach. The MDC also suffers from a lack of clarity on key conceptual issues such as the economic influence exerted by its nodes along the corridor and the width of its economic influence away from the spine of the corridor. This study empirically establishes the influence of nodes along the MDC and ascertains the statistical significance of the impact of the corridor over distance away from its spine. ArcGIS, standard statistical analyses and multivariate regression analysis are used to determine the relative impact of nodes on subsets of the corridor along that corridor as well as the width of its impact at various distances away from the N4 spine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 7 of the NDP 2030 articulates a foreign policy vision for South Africa over two decades. While the NDP acknowledges the place of ‘soft power’ in realising this vision, it remains doubtful whether South Africa will indeed take advantage of the enormous gains offered by soft power as a foreign policy lever. This paper examines the role of soft power in achieving the foreign policy mandates prescribed in the Plan. It argues that, like other regional powers such as China, South Africa needs to pay more attention to its soft power attributes if it is to fast-track the successful implementation of its foreign policy ambitions for 2030. We conclude that sustaining South Africa’s rising position and influence in the international system and in Africa, will largely depend on its ability to consciously adjust its foreign policy trajectories – in the long term – in tandem with its soft power resources and competences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Unemployment in South Africa has multiple causes. This article uses a district pseudo-panel to estimate the elasticity of labour demand, labour supply and unemployment with respect to wages. We assess whether hiring decisions are more sensitive to increases in wages of low-paid workers than high-paid workers, and whether wage growth prompts entry into the labour market. These channels combine to result in the positive causal effect of wage growth on unemployment. The research investigates whether these effects are dominated by districts in which unionisation rates are high and employment is concentrated in large firms. Wage growth of middle-paid to highly paid workers – as opposed to low-paid workers – reduces local labour demand and raises local unemployment. Bargaining arrangements correspond closely to the spatial wage distribution; in turn, a large part of the impact that wage growth has on labour market outcomes is determined by these wage-setting institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of value-added tax (VAT) zero-rating has become widely accepted internationally to mitigate the regressivity of the tax. From an economic perspective, it remains contestable whether VAT zero-rating is the most cost-effective way of targeting the poor. This article addresses some topical issues on VAT zero-rating in South Africa. We first ask whether (conceptually) zero-rating should be a consideration within the context of tax theory literature, and then quantify the impact on the poor if zero-rating was to be removed, as well as the tax revenue implications thereof. We compare the cost of VAT zero-rating with the benefit, using data sourced from the Income and Expenditure Survey 2010/11 and the Estimates of National Expenditure. Our findings show that VAT zero-rating (compared with existing social transfer programmes) is not cost-effective when targeting the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey since 2008, a newly derived variable, namely underemployed, has become available. It is derived according to the ‘time-related’ approach (i.e. those who are employed, but would like to work longer hours and are available to work longer hours in the near future). However, underemployment could also be derived according to the ‘inadequate employment situations’ approach (e.g. under-utilisation of skills, over-qualification). Because underemployment is a seriously under-researched topic in South Africa, this article investigates the extent of underemployment according to these two definitions, before examining whether the characteristics of the two groups of underemployed are significantly different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa has high youth unemployment. This article examines the predictors of youth employment in rural Agincourt, Mpumalanga Province. A survey of 187 out-of-school 18 to 24 year olds found that only 12% of women and 38% of men were currently employed. Men with skills/training were significantly more likely to report employment, mostly physical labour (adjusted odds ratio: 4.5; confidence interval: 1.3, 15.3). In-depth interviews with 14 of the youth revealed that women are perceived more suitable for formal employment, which is scarce, informing why women were more likely to pursue further education and yet less likely to be employed. Ten key informants from local organisations highlighted numerous local youth employment resources while, in contrast, all youth in the sample said no resources were available, highlighting a need for the organisations to extend their services into rural areas. Because these services are focused on entrepreneurship, programmes to increase financial literacy and formal employment opportunities are also needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including violence of labour systems in South Africa, economic insecurity, and South Africa's history of extreme inequality.

In this paper, we analyze the economy-wide impact of an increase in property tax in South Africa by disaggregating the real property sector into three subcomponents: property-owning, subletting of fixed property, and other activities of estate agencies. Use is made of the computable general equilibrium model for this end. The results of the simulation show that increasing taxation in the property sector reduces demand for all types of labor in South Africa. Moreover, the results of the simulations show that a tax increase in the property sector reduces economic activity in the country and offsets a possible increase in government revenue. We suggest that the South African government should be cautious about resorting to an increase in tax in the property sector to raise revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the extent to which South Africa utilises positive economic statecraft to promote human rights in the region – that is, the degree to which it mobilises its economic engagement to affect a desirable political outcome in its foreign engagements in Southern Africa. The country's reaction to crises in Zimbabwe and Swaziland over the past 20 years is a strong indicator of the limits of South Africa's statecraft in this regard. These engagements highlight the inevitable clash between the country's principled preference for ‘non-interference’ in the affairs of sovereign states and its constitutional mandate to respect and promote human rights. Despite eschewing the role of ‘regional hegemon’, there is an expectation that South Africa will play an integral role in securing regional stability. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that the country chooses to approach resolving regional challenges with a co-ordinated political and economic approach. This paper argues that, to be more effective in spreading a progressive regional agenda that encourages democracy, governance and human rights, South Africa needs to incorporate a stronger element of positive economic statecraft in its foreign policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modern South Africa has become a major recipient of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. The safe integration and protection of refugees and asylum seekers in the country is undermined, however, by the presence of widespread xenophobia in the country. Such animosity has motivated anti-immigrant riots, violence, and prejudice which has negatively impacted refugee protection. Despite the seriousness of the problem, scholars have not effectively mapped the attitudes of the South African population towards granting refugees protection. The determinants of such attitudes have not been adequately explored at the national level. This paper will provide a quantitative analysis of public attitudes towards granting refugees protection in South Africa. I will use nationally representative data collected during the fifth round of Afrobarometer Survey, and employ multivariate techniques for the analysis. Using this data, I will assess the predictive power of economic competition and conflict over important symbols of the nation in determining attitudes. The political alienation hypothesis, which suggests that the politically isolated are more predisposed towards restrictive immigration attitudes, will also be tested. The findings of this study will allow us to better understand what interventions can be put in place to improve attitudes towards refugee protection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on migrant livelihoods in South Africa reveals links between social exclusion and migrant ‘cosmopolitan tactics’, including multi-sited socialities, diverse spatial business strategies and orientations precluding integration into a ‘xenophobic’ host society. Drawing on 10 months of ethnographic research, this study explores how Somali migrants’ business practices and tactics of mobility within and beyond Gauteng Province, South Africa (which encompasses Johannesburg and Pretoria) articulate with both broader transnational flows and investments in the local economy. Since the end of apartheid, Somalis and other migrants from the Horn of Africa have carved out an economic niche in peri-urban townships where high risk and frequent movement characterise workers’ lives. The Somali enclave in the neighbourhood of Mayfair, Johannesburg, links local and national circulations of people, goods and money to international circuits of the Somali ethnic economy—an economy that also involves non-Somali groups, mainly from Kenya and Ethiopia. These diverse dynamics of human mobility and financial circulation complicate bounded conceptualisations of transnationalism and also illustrate how tactical cosmopolitanisms may be grounded in spatial and social arrangements. The convergence of migrant mobility and financial flows produces distinctive patterns of livelihood embedded in a multi-scalar geography of movement, remittance, investment, risk and opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The formulation of grand economic policy strategies to promote growth, job creation, and industrial development has been a regular feature in South Africa's democratic transformation. The National Development Plan (NDP) is the latest in a line of such strategies dating back to the Reconstruction and Development Programme in 1994. While the creation of these strategies at various points in the country's transition has been indicative of the state's commitment to economic progress, implementing this commitment has been severely tested by the locus of authority, cohesion among and capacity of state institutions. In this paper, we critically examine the institutional arrangements behind the implementation of grand economic policy strategies in South Africa, observe how these produced variable implementation effectiveness across these initiatives, and consider the lessons for the implementation of the NDP. We will specifically focus on how ‘co-ordination’ was configured through the institutional arrangements, and look at how this shaped implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is a theoretical one, namely to make the case for a critical-reflectivist approach to the study of regionalism in Africa and beyond. We argue that contemporary changes in the global political economy require political economists to reconsider how we study regional processes and actors. The article provides insights into the sociology of the field of study by recounting its evolution, reviewing key debates and tracing the dominance of rationalist theories on regional integration and regionalism. Subsequently, the article questions the ontological premises of state-centrism and market logics in conventional regional theorization that does not take account of the complexities and multidimensionality of regions and regional processes. Traditional approaches to regionalism fail to do justice to regional manifestations and the repercussions of Africa's changing transnational relations as well as to crucial dynamics within regional civil societies. In this respect, the analytical value of both Robert W. Cox's World Order Approach (WOA) and the New Regionalism(s) Approach (NRA) for challenging the theoretical hegemony in the field of study is elaborated on. The theoretical framework proposed in this article points to neglected dimensions of regionalization and stresses both structural factors as well as the myriad of regional actors and their respective regional strategies as drivers of the changing nature of developing regionalisms in Africa. The authors' claim that regionalism is everything but a ‘states only’ domain is substantiated by the proposed conceptualization of regional civil society, a persistent analytical ‘blind spot’ in the study of regionalism. Drawing eclectically on the WOA and the NRA, the article provides a theoretical ‘entry-point’ for the analytical incorporation of regional civil societies into the political economy of African regionalisms. The article concludes by arguing that analytical and theoretical sensitivity to potentially transformative societal actors and processes at the regional level becomes increasingly relevant in the context of shared experiences of neoliberal globalization/regionalization as well as of Africa's new ‘partnerships’ with emerging powers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The South African organized labour movement is one of the most powerful on the African continent. A central actor in the democratic struggle, the movement continues to play a crucial role in the post-apartheid period. However, public opinion data collected by the South African Social Attitudes Survey for the period 2011–2013 suggest that only a minority of the public currently trust the organized labour movement. No cleavage in individual trust in trade unions was noted between age cohorts and labour market status. Distrust among the lower and working class has expanded significantly between 2011 and 2013. Findings suggest that trade unions in the country are increasingly associated with the unpopular political establishment. More research on public attitudes towards unions is required. There is a need for trade unions to intensify their engagement with working-class communities in order to build greater levels of individual trust. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article critiques the increasing claims in scholarly and diplomatic circles of a putative South African hegemony in Africa. On the backdrop of the recalibration of Nigeria's GDP making it Africa's largest economy, there have been counter arguments that South Africa's regional influence is dwindling as a result of its staggering economy among other domestic impediments. In this paper, I take the position that although South Africa's capacity to fulfil a hegemonic role may be hindered by internal and external ambivalences, these factors do not in any way disqualify the country from playing a hegemonic role. I conclude by making the assertion that our regional understanding of hegemony in the African context must be one that operates beyond the realm of the preponderant material capabilities of a state into reasonable measures of ideational characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dominant corporate structure of South Africa's agro-food system has led many to suggest there is limited value in redistributing land as a scarce economic resource, or in providing support to black small-scale farmers when large agribusinesses are capable of meeting food needs. Agrarian reform (land reform plus black small-scale farmer support) is not a necessary component of the existing economic system in South Africa. Yet it has tremendous political importance, especially in the context of a stagnant or declining job market. After considering the development of the corporate agro-food system in South Africa, and its impact on agrarian reform, this paper concludes that agrarian reform as a political project and a vision retains the potential to contribute not only to a more just society, but also to progressive economic transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper adopts a Nigerian perspective to South Africa's position in global economic governance, particularly in relation to its role in the BRICS and G20. It is informed by the challenge of transforming Africa's current marginal role in global economic governance, and the kind(s) of regional partnerships that Africa's largest economies can strategically develop and use to place the continent on a higher economic pedestal globally. The paper places challenges confronting Africa in context, exploring how South Africa, by negotiating a strategic partnership with other continental economic powers outside of the BRICS, such as Nigeria, stands to leverage Africa's role and global position on a ‘win–win’ basis. It concludes by noting the costs and potential benefits of such a partnership, and offers some suggestions on the way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's foreign policy has evolved through various presidents, from Nelson Mandela to Jacob Zuma. One characteristic lacuna through the various administrations has been the weak linkage between foreign economic strategies and domestic economic objectives. There is a gap between what is expressed in rhetoric and the actual execution of foreign policy. Further, since the dawn of democracy there has also been a gradual shift from a foreign policy that exhibited strong normative expressions, inclined to the West, to a more pragmatic foreign policy that is aligned with the new rising powers. Yet, beyond the tilt, there seems to be a lack of clarity of ideas that inform the various decisions and activities associated with foreign policy activities. This paper takes a closer look at these changes in South Africa's foreign policy, with particular focus on foreign economic strategies as played out in the country's role in multilateral economic processes such as the World Trade Organisation, the G20 and the BRICS, which comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socio-economic well-being of South Africa is largely dependent on reservoir lakes. Contrastingly, the country lacks reservoir management skills and training, with a generation having passed since there was limited activity in this field. This review introduces two new, independent analyses which, using in-lake total phosphorus or satellite-measured chlorophyll-a, respectively, reveal that between 41% and 76% of total storage is eutrophic or hypertrophic. This is in stark contrast to a claimed 5% made by the responsible government agency (Department of Water and Sanitation). Data and information on the incidence and toxicity of cyanobacterial blooms are sparse, yet severe problems exist. There is a concentration of focus on water quantity, with absent parallel consideration of the additional limitations posed by poor water quality. The most seriously impacted reservoirs are located in the economic heartland of South Africa, which has an extant regional water quality crisis. The reasons behind the startling lack of attention to reservoir limnology, despite clear and long-standing warnings, are examined and placed in the perspective of an acknowledged and impending water crisis. It will take considerable time to up-skill South African limnologists to meet the needs highlighted by worsening reservoir water quality, and to offset the social and economic impacts that will transpire, if not timeously ameliorated. The responsible agency urgently needs to establish a reservoir-management programme that embraces remaining individual and institutional memory, integrates all available relevant knowledge and scientific findings, prioritises needs and acquires those skills and resources necessary to meet what is likely to become a crippling legacy of inaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The trajectory of South African economic development starts in the colonial economies. No systematic data exists on the Gross Domestic Product of the territories that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910. A comprehensive project to reconstruct nineteenth-century Gross Domestic Project (GDP) for the different territories can now report for the first time on actual Cape Colony GDP data. This paper presents the findings of reconstructed Cape Colony GDP according to the SNA. It confirms earlier estimates, refines very tentative projections of Cape Colony GDP during the nineteenth century and offers new insights into the nature and direction of the settler economy in the nineteenth century. It also pioneers data on the Cape Colony GDP and is the first in a series outlining nineteenth-century GDP of the territories that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional values, especially those regarding ancestral graves, crafts, beliefs, songs, dances and languages, are part of Africa's oldest heritage. These existed prior to knowledge of sustainable development or any legal framework to enforce conservation. Development was, in the past, community-centred without constraints to these antiquities. Current legislation acknowledges the necessity of stakeholders’ consent, that is, the consent of community residents. This was the case with the development of a photovoltaic solar energy project in the Mogogelo community in the North West province in South Africa, where environmental practitioners were required as legislated to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Among these specialist studies was the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA). This article is based on the interest shown by the community and the standoff that arose over the allocation of the project site and the conservation of traditional values. Using a public participation process as a social forum, this report highlights the degree of traditional knowledge and legislative awareness within the community about its right to protect heritage resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the Native Land Act [Act 27 of 1913] and the Native Trust and Land Act [Act 18 of 1936] dispossessed black South Africans of their land physically, the insidious Group Areas Act [Act 41 of 1950] and the Population Registration Act [Act 30 of 1950] reified perceptions of race and ethnicity in the context of phenotype, culture, language and even religion. Although these Acts were repealed the legacy remains part of the South African psyche still. Such perceptions are evident in the Coloured communities where the Population Registration Act classified and defined the group as a singular unit while the Group Areas Act segregated and confined them, and restricted their association within the group almost exclusively. This meant that education, access to information, socialising, and religious assembly and to a limited extent employment were restricted mostly to these designated segregated areas. Limited interaction between various legislated groups, even within the Coloured group itself reinforced the socio-economic racial hierarchy and the prejudices linked to economics. The combination of these Acts created an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ hostility further (re)enforcing notions of separateness and difference. The article seeks to examine social and racial interpretation (based on income and spatial realities) of the Coloured population in the Eastern Cape and how the group perceives its primary identity and allegiance in terms of ethnicity or national identity as salient in the current socio-political environment. The objectives are first to assert that legislated segregation created rigid jingoist structures of ethnic and racial identities that will take longer to dismantle than the Acts of separation had and secondly that national identity can be salient amongst a minority group irrespective of socio-economic position. The conclusion highlights that the social and identity Acts, spatial acts, regarded once as a legislated absolute, reduced the Coloured communities specifically, to regard themselves as different yet the same, inferior and superior, marginalised yet included, but that this is not incompatible with nation building. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the novels,Scatter the ashes and go(Ravan 2002) andRumours(Jacana Media 2013), Mongane Wally Serote depicts post-apartheid through a leitmotif central to which the soldier of the African National Congress military wing, ‘Umkhonto We Sizwe’ (MK), is ostensibly caught in an interrupted odyssey. InScatter the Ashes and go, this soldier has returned from exile in various Southern African countries to a South Africa that is on the threshold of the post-apartheid era. By contrast, inRumours, the soldier, having arrived from exile in 1990, then goes away to Mali in search of a solution for his post-traumatic stress disorder. The article imputes these disruptions on to the failure to ‘properly’ mourn the victims of apartheid's extra-judicial killing squads, and goes on to note that, as a result of Serote's attention to the subsequent angst, post-apartheid appears as a continuum of trauma. The discussion then proceeds to posit that the resolutions to these diversions are hinted at in these novels’ elaborate motifs of fire, and proposes that the depictions of this pattern recall how Batswana suture the spiritual, psychological and social fractures consequent upon death – especially the death that occurs unnaturally, and upon the breadwinner's return home from a long absence. The bulk of the exploration pays attention to the nuances of this symbol of fire, recognising it as an integral component of a social rite populated by a dynamic interplay between poetry and music. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines a likely South African hegemony in Africa between 1999 and 2008. Hegemony is admittedly difficult to define in African regionalism studies, as it is counter intuitive to Pan-Africanism discourse. However, this article aims to show that hegemony can be a credible argument in explaining the South African driven changes that occurred in African regionalism between 1999 and 2008. The article locates key characteristics which underpin arguments of South African hegemony during the study timeline. It argues that Thabo Mbeki's governance philosophy of African renaissance was the central piece of South African Africa foreign policy that distinguishes this period from any other before or after it. By establishing hegemonic credibility in South Africa's interaction with Africa in this period, the article demonstrates how South Africa was able to contribute to transformational governance changes in Africa. This also holds lessons for South African regional ascendancy in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past decade, in the face of volatile economic conditions at home, there has been an influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa looking for work and a better life. Many of these jobseekers have moved into the day labourer market, offering their services on street corners and other pickup points in the main metropolitan areas. While their working and living conditions leave much to be desired and their pay is very uncertain, Zimbabwean day labourers – with better education – often are the preferred candidates for the limited jobs on offer and earn more than their counterparts in South Africa. Not surprisingly, South African day labourers often resent Zimbabwean workers in the country. This study is the first of its kind in that it delves into the hopes, fears and daily routines of Zimbabwean day labourers, and offers new perspectives on this important economic segment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates some accounts of conspicuous consumption in South Africa, tracing their variously linear, circular and disjunctive paths, identifying and explaining some methodological impasses, and concluding with reflections on the interrelation between distinct armatures of value and exchange. The first kind of trajectory that impinges in looking at accounts of conspicuous consumption post-apartheid is a linear one, indicating the direction ‘up from’ and ‘out of’ racially based discrimination and oppression structuring sumptuary regulations. With regard to this trajectory, I will show that this is not as linear as it may initially appear, proceeding from apartheid to its ‘post-’, but that it is indicated both in the liberation movement's programmatics and in the aspirationalism mobilised by advertising and marketing strategies at an earlier stage. In considering the association of freedom with de-regulated consumption, a circularity emerges, in relation to which I would like to posit, for purposes of critical analysis, distinct forms of exchange implicit in the contexts described for the emergence of a new ‘middle class’ at a specific conjuncture, to then spell out some of their complex interrelations and dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Half of the 20 million credit-active consumers in South Africa (out of 53 million residents) were, by the 2010s, experiencing over-indebtedness. ‘Impaired credit’ ratings soared to the point that ratings agencies were compelled to restore the borrowing capacity of 2.3 million (albeit without forgiving outstanding loans). The increase in the rate of unsecured credit extensions by a variety of lenders hit extreme levels and led to demands for a ban on garnishee orders. Underlying the surface explosion of consumer credit and resulting increase in social tension was the overall economic downturn since 2008. This reflected not only the prior five years of dramatic over-borrowing, but a generalised condition of ‘financialisation’ that emerged during capitalist crisis management in the context of political democratisation. The retail financial sector witnessed an unprecedented degree of liberalisation, especially higher interest rates and new credit products. Moreover, theNational Credit Actof 2005 stressed the role of debt counsellors rather than shared liability for debt workouts. The growing contradictions in consumer credit have in the past generated fierce resistance. A quarter century earlier, a more aggressive collective default strategy characterised a similar era: the ‘bond boycott’. Whether the contradictions generate a similar collective reaction depends upon political agency, and the emergence of a 'United Front' can potentially relink labour and community self-interests in a decisive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study seeks to gain a better understanding of how a group of women refugees perceives their emotional well-being and how they make sense of their emotions. The discussion is based on a comparative qualitative study done in South Africa among Congolese, Burundian and Zimbabwean refugees. Attention is paid to intrapersonal emotional ambivalence and how the emotional well-being of refugees relates to their socio-economic context and more specifically their challenging life experiences. Reference is made to the role children and religion play in respondents’ perceived emotional well-being and hope for the future. In addition, all the respondents had to manage emotions related to transnational familial ties. On the one hand, an acute sense of family separation was experienced. On the other, respondents felt a sense of financial responsibility towards their kin who were left behind. Yet, few respondents had the means to provide family members with any form of financial assistance. This in turn had repercussions for their emotional well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to the issue of the journal that discusses topics such as market economics in the developing world, the role of stock exchanges in emerging economies, and economic conditions in South Africa.

Until recently, the deepening of financial markets in developing countries has been widely seen as growth-enhancing. A well-developed capital market – so the argument goes – provides a source of finance for productive investment, thus fostering growth. South Africa possesses one of the oldest stock exchanges among emerging economies, making the country a good case study to scrutinise such growth-enhancing effects. Employing a detailed – and original – analysis of company annual reports and financial statements, this article questions the validity of the growth-enhancing claims made for financial deepening. Although the South African equity market is a source of substantial funds for mining companies, the consequences of their activity do not appear to enhance growth but rather to induce financial fragility. New evidence will show that listed mining companies use financial markets to support their speculation in mining assets. As a consequence, financial funds are channelled into few productive activities with limited impact on job creation. Crucially, detrimental effects on monetary policy and domestic credit growth can be expected, since external finance is not flowing towards productive investment but ends up as cash holdings on corporate balance sheets. This trend in turn encourages rapid credit expansion, which recently favoured unsustainable consumption-driven growth in South Africa,1 leaving the country with heavy job losses and high household debt in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A strong underlying structure in the economic, demographic, and entrepreneurial domains of local authorities (municipalities) in the Free State, South Africa was detected through cluster and other analyses. The structure is indicative of a system in which economic value addition, population size, employment creation, and entrepreneurial domains are dynamically linked. The agriculture, mining, and fuel and chemicals sectors dominate the economic value addition in some municipalities, whereas others are without a single dominating economic sector (i.e. they have wellbalanced economies). The agriculture and households sectors are significant sources of employment in all municipalities. Cluster sequence analyses of the municipalities revealed statistically significant recurring patterns of value addition, employment, and entrepreneurship, further strengthening the detection of orderliness, which can promote mutual learning. The Metsimaholo municipality with a significant manufacturing base is an atypical Free State municipality and provides an outstanding example of the economic, demographic, and entrepreneurial impacts of value addition to local or external primary products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies the sequential panel selection method (SPSM) to investigate the time-series properties of provincial house prices for entire, large, medium and small middle-segments of South Africa. Quarterly time-series data were collected from nine provinces in South Africa for different house-size categories over the period of 1978.Q1 to 2012.Q4. Whereas other panel-based unit-root tests are joint tests of a unit root for all members of a panel and are incapable of determining the mix of integrated of order zero (I(0)) series and integrated of order one (I(1)) series in a panel setting, the SPSM proposed by Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009) can clearly identify how many and which series in the panel are stationary processes by classifying a whole panel into a group of stationary and nonstationary series. The empirical results from several panel-based, as well as standard pure time-series, unit-root tests, indicate that house prices for the nine provinces studied here are either stationary or nonstationary. However, results from the SPSM using the panel version of the Kapetanios et al. (KSS, 2003) test with a Fourier function unequivocally indicate that house prices are stationary for the nine provinces under study. Our test results have important economic and policy implications for South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the political economy of energy transition in South Africa. An economic model based around a powerful ‘minerals-energy complex’ that has previously been able to provide domestic and foreign capital with cheap and plentiful coal-generated electricity is no longer economically or environmentally sustainable. The paper analyses the struggle over competing energy visions, infrastructures and political agendas in order to generate insights into the governance and financing of clean energy transitions in South Africa. It provides both a rich empirical account of key policy developments aimed at enabling such a transition and provides reflections on how best to theorise the contested politics of energy transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We apply John R. Commons’s negotiational psychology, specifically his principle of sovereignty, to the development of a discordant regulatory culture and its likely impact on the economic potential of recreational fishing. Using South African environmental judicial precedents and other documentation, we formulate six plausible hypotheses. We argue that regulatory incoherence, entitlement insecurity, corporate-dominated social valuation, strategic power coalitions, lack of procedural fairness, and the extent of judicial enforcement of environmental rights help explain the economic potential and isolation of the freshwater recreational fisheries sector. We find a consistent pattern of extraction and monopolization of sovereign power by the Department of Mineral Resources from propertied parties. Thus, regulatory domination is a major mechanism affecting the economic potential of recreational fisheries in the Trout Triangle. While Commons postulated that private property is a sufficient condition for participation in the determination and use of sovereign power, we argue that private/public property is only a necessary condition. The conjunctive sufficient condition is the existence of both regulatory coherence between spheres of government and property. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conventional wisdom is that food price shocks are temporary and hence do not usually warrant specific attention in policy formulation. However, more recently, empirical evidence has shown that food price shocks are persistent and have a strong bearing on inflation outcomes. This paper shows that this is indeed the case for South Africa. South African food prices are volatile and the price shocks are persistent. Food inflation is an important determinant of underlying inflationary pressures in the South African economy. Thus, policy should give particular attention to food price movements if inflation is to be kept in check. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In South Africa, local economic development has become the focus to overcome obstacles such as low skills, low entrepreneurial culture, weak support mechanisms, and spatial marginalisation, which lead to high unemployment and poverty. With conventional approaches having little effect, local communities are looking for innovative approaches to their economic challenges. PACA methodology prepares an action-oriented diagnostic of the local economy to initiate economic development initiatives. It mobilises local stakeholders to take an active role through fast analysis and action learning. This article assesses how the PACA approach implemented by George Municipality was applied, and what advantages and limitations were experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]