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The establishment of representative democracy in South Africa was an important victory for people who had been suppressed from the first days of white conquest and who had experienced the seizure of land of African and other indigenous people. With some still cherishing ideas of popular democracy as experienced in the 1980s, electoralism may not have met every person's expectations. But in the context of the history of South Africa with its multiple forms of oppression and exploitation, the vote represented an important advance. It created the possibility of engaging with issues that had not previously been on the agenda. The transition took place within a framework establishing a constitutional democracy, where all organs of government would be bound to act in conformity with the constitution. Regrettably, constitutionalism is currently in crisis and extensive lawlessness undermines democratic gains. The article argues for the formation of a united, non-sectarian organisation behind broadly agreed goals, including defence of the constitution, clean government, and an end to violence., 1. Constitutional democracy and its tensions The advent of universal suffrage occurred within the framework of the establishment of a rights-based, constitutional democracy where all organs of government including parliament [...]

For almost two decades, the survival prospects and authenticity of new democracies has been assessed through the democratic consolidation paradigm which seeks to assess whether democracies are 'consolidated'. But an examination of the paradigm shows that it is vague, teleological and ethnocentric and measures new democracies against an idealised understanding of Northern liberal democracies rather than offering a plausible means of assessing longevity or democratic progress. Its inadequacy is further demonstrated by applying it to the South African case. The article thus argues for a new approach which rejects the consolidation paradigm's assumption that some democracies (those of the North) are a 'finished product' and acknowledges both that all democracies are incomplete and that each will show uneven progress, so that older democracies will lag behind newer ones in some areas of democratic quality while surpassing them in others. Keywords: democracy, consolidation, teleology, critique, quality, alternative., The emergence of a host of new democracies in Africa and elsewhere has stimulated understandable interest in testing whether societies which call themselves democracies really are democratic and whether they [...]

How social movement leaders and activists responded to the increasing relevance of poverty reduction in development debates, discourses and programs is investigated. The study is done by mapping social movement organizations in Peru and South Africa. How leaders and activists secure resources and influence without becoming themselves subject to government practices is also discussed.

Desmond Tutu's gift for a finely turned phrase hasn't dimmed with time. At the beginning of Connie Field's recent seven-part documentary on the global struggle against apartheid, Have You Heard [...]

In recent times South African politics has come to exhibit features typical of many post-colonial contexts, not least the rise of acrimonious and confrontational politics based around personalities and forms of populism. In such contexts rational dialogue and democratic deliberation become increasingly difficult to get going and to sustain. Drawing on Richard Turner's The Eye of the Needle, first published some forty years ago, the paper examines the role religion, and religious organisations, could play in returning such acrimonious public debate to more democratic and visionary grounds. The key point is that religion offers a form of transcendence from the divisive and bitter particularities that animate contemporary political conflicts. It does this through the spiritual affirmation of our shared human worth due to the love of God(s). From this recognition, achieved through spiritual appeals, the conditions for more rational and democratic debate can be retrieved. In addition, religious transcendence redeems the value of utopian thinking, and thus could help re-orientate public debate from a politics of blame for past wrongs to a politics of imagining of future rights. Keywords: common human worth: faith-based organisations: post-colonial, post-apartheid politics; religious transcendence; Richard Turner., Introduction It seems that Tutu pulled the Commission out of its agonies by resorting to means beyond the limitations of discursive logic. I wondered to what extent his management style [...]

Theory on environmental governance and water governance emphasises decentralised, devolved forms of interaction between stakeholders. As previously excluded actors are empowered to take part in governance, new forms of cooperation are created. This paper examines how the cooperative principle has influenced stakeholder interaction at the local and international scales of water governance in South Africa. Water policies and initiatives have been set up to promote multi-level governance that emphasises cooperation between various stakeholders. The emphasis on cooperation and inclusiveness is particularly pertinent to the South African context because of its apartheid past. The paper asks whether there have been new forms of cooperation between a wider array of actors, as the theory proposes. By using the case studies of the Sabie catchment and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to examine local and international level governance, the paper finds challenges related to power disparity and interdependence of actors, and risk perceptions of Inclusive decision-making. It is found that at both the local and international level, the stale, which is a 'traditional' actor, still plays an influential role in decision-making. 'New' actors such as businesses, civil society, and regional institutions are more visible but have limited decision-making power. Non-linear, time-consuming forms of cooperation occur in water governance. KEY WORDS: water governance, cooperation, empowerment, South Africa

This article explores the question of how well South African defense policies and investments during the apartheid and postapartheid era have supported the country's overall political objectives. Perhaps not surprisingly, the single-mindedness of mission during apartheid contributed, in many ways, to a defense strategy that was more cohesive than that of the postapartheid era. In the postapartheid era, opportunities for using the country's defense assets to achieve political objectives and overall national priorities have not been fully exploited.

Abstract After its first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa was often seen as an example of a peaceful democratic transition on the African continent, in which democratic institutions like [...]

Abstract The violent attacks on African immigrants and refugees in marginal settlements surrounding South Africa's largest cities in May 2008 occasioned a rush of mostly well-intentioned attempts by journalists, public [...]

The study discusses the political instability measures for investment formulation in South Africa. Factors that influence investment uncertainty include crime rates and property rights. Findings show that rising income and property rights are inversely related to political instability, while high crime rates are positively related to political instability.

Abstract The process of democratic transition in South Africa has brought many changes to the national political economic context within which media companies operate. These changes have also brought challenges [...]

With less than a year before South Africa's fourth democratic elections, the country finds itself gripped in a vice of political uncertainty, internal dissention and leadership transition. The end of [...]

The article explores the politics emerging from shantytowns in Africa which has large numbers of its urban population living in shack settlements having no access to basic amenities such as water, sanitation and electricity. The emergence of a new movement by the Durban shack dwellers called Abahlali baseMjondolo, which aims at bringing about a revolution, and the creation of a society where the poor will be treated as human beings with minds of their own is described.

A study explores the roles of knowledge in constructions of democracy, through an examination of the Western conceptions of democracy and democratic citizenship as well as those held by teachers in two democratic African nations, namely South Africa and Kenya.

South Africa's opposition political parties don't have it easy. In each of the country's three democratic elections since 1994, their share of the total vote has declined. Similarly, no opposition [...]

South Africa may support a proposal to establish an L-20 because the concept recognizes the value of informal clubs in moving forward processes of global governance. However, the devil is [...]

The article highlights the democratic stability of South Africa that can be best explained by a combination of institutional and political culture factors. It further states that civil society is identified as an important factor that is conducive to democratic vitality in South Africa.

Careful attention to social demographics can be valuable in understanding how patterns of interethnic competition vary between countries, but social demographics can also vary across different levels of social aggregation within the same polity. It may be improper to draw conclusions about the political importance of a particular cleavage based on data from only one level of social aggregation. In South Africa, race is considered to be the primary cleavage around which political competition is organized; intraracial ethnolinguistic cleavages are often dismissed as unimportant, especially at the national level. By focusing the analysis on the local level, this article demonstrates that ethnolinguistic identities are in fact broadly salient in South Africa. These subracial identities appear to influence aggregate political outcomes and individual vote choices. The article thereby offers substantive lessons for students of South African politics and methodological lessons for students of ethnic politics more generally. Keywords: African National Congress; elections; ethnicity; political party; South Africa