The ANC is a party-movement that draws on its liberation credentials yet is conflicted by a multitude of weaknesses, factions and internal succession battles. Booysen constructs her analysis around ...the ANC’s four faces of political power – organisation, people, political parties and elections, and policy and government – and explores how, since 1994, it has acted to continuously regenerate its power.
Fees Must Fall Godsell, Gillian; Chikane, Rekgotsofetse; Mpofu-Walsh, Sizwe ...
04/2018
eBook
#FeesMustFall, the student revolt that began in October 2015, was an uprising against lack of access to, and financial exclusion from, higher education in South Africa. More broadly, it radically ...questioned the socio-political dispensation resulting from the 1994 social pact between big business, the ruling elite and the liberation movement. The 2015 revolt links to national and international youth struggles of the recent past and is informed by black consciousness politics and social movements of the international left. Yet, its objectives are more complex than those of earlier struggles. The student movement has challenged the hierarchical, top-down leadership system of university management and it’s ‘double speak’ of professing to act in workers’ and students’ interests yet entrenching a regressive system for control and governance. University managements, while on one level amenable to change, have also co-opted students into their ranks to create co-responsibility for the highly bureaucratised university financial aid that stands in the way of their social revolution. This book maps the contours of student discontent a year after the start of the #FeesMustFall revolt. Student voices dissect colonialism, improper compromises by the founders of democratic South Africa, feminism, worker rights and meaningful education. In-depth assessments by prominent scholars reflect on the complexities of student activism, its impact on national and university governance, and offer provocative analyses of the power of the revolt.
Marriages of Inconvenience: The politics of coalitions in South
Africa is a research-based volume that collates and interprets
lessons that South Africa should take to heart in managing
interparty ...coalitions. It draws from domestic experiences as well
as from case studies on the rest of the African continent and
generic instances further afield. Coalitions in various iterations
have been a part of the South African polity since the attainment
of democracy in 1994. This started, nationally, with a 'grand
coalition' in the form of a Government of National Unity as
mandated in the interim constitution. Coalitions have also found
expression in some of the country's provinces. After the
transition, multiparty governments were sustained at national and
provincial levels either as a matter of necessity due to election
outcomes or for other political considerations. At local government
level, coalitions have been relatively commonplace in South Africa
from the onset of democratically elected municipalities in 2000,
with many situations where no single party attained an absolute
majority. This gained prominence from 2016 when many metropolitan
governments and some large towns became sites of coalition
politics.
Marriages of Inconvenience: The politics of coalitions in
South Africa is a research-based volume that collates and
interprets lessons that South Africa should take to heart in
managing interparty coalitions. It draws from domestic experiences
as well as from case studies on the rest of the African continent
and generic instances further afield.
Coalitions in various iterations have been a part of the South
African polity since the attainment of democracy in 1994. This
started, nationally, with a 'grand coalition' in the form of a
Government of National Unity as mandated in the interim
constitution. Coalitions have also found expression in some of the
country's provinces. After the transition, multiparty governments
were sustained at national and provincial levels either as a matter
of necessity due to election outcomes or for other political
considerations.
At local government level, coalitions have been relatively
commonplace in South Africa from the onset of democratically
elected municipalities in 2000, with many situations where no
single party attained an absolute majority. This gained prominence
from 2016 when many metropolitan governments and some large towns
became sites of coalition politics.
As Jacob Zuma moves into the twilight years of his presidencies of both the African National Congress (ANC) and of South Africa, this book takes stock of the Zuma-led administration and its impact on ...the ANC. Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma combines hard-hitting arguments with astute analysis. Susan Booysen shows how the ANC has become centred on the personage of Zuma, and that its defence of his extremely flawed leadership undermines the party’s capacity to govern competently, and to protect its long term future. Following on from her first book, The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Power (2011), Booysen delves deeper into the four faces of power that characterise the ANC. Her principal argument is that the state is failing as the president’s interests increasingly supersede those of party and state. Organisationally, the ANC has become a hegemon riven by factions, as the internal blocs battle for core positions of power and control. Meanwhile, the Zuma-controlled ANC has witnessed the implosion of the tripartite alliance and decimation of its youth, women’s and veterans’ leagues. Electorally, the leading party has been ceding ground to increasingly assertive opposition parties. And on the policy front, it is faltering through poor implementation and a regurgitation of old ideas. As Zuma’s replacements start competing and succession politics take shape, Booysen considers whether the ANC will recover from the damage wrought under Zuma’s reign and attain its former glory. Ultimately, she believes that while the damage is irrevocable, the electorate may still reward the ANC for transcending the Zuma years. This is a must-have reference book on the development of the modern ANC. With rigour and incisiveness, Booysen offers scholars and researchers a coherent framework for considering future patterns in the ANC and its hold on political power.
What happens in the aftermath of a former liberation movement–political party losing its dominance but surviving because no opposition party is able to succeed it? The trends are established. South ...Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) is in decline, its hegemony weakened, its legitimacy diluted. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment suspended its electoral decline, but heightened internal organisational tensions between those who would deepen its acquired status as corrupt and captured, and those who would remodel it as redeemable. These are the knowns of South African politics; what will evolve is less certain. Political scientist Susan Booysen uses in-depth research and analysis to distil that which is bound to shape South Africa’s political future. She focusses on contradictory party politics; internal ANC dissent that is veiled for the sake of retaining electoral following; populist policy-making, protest politics and the use of soft law to mollify angry citizens and avoid further protests. Her analysis of the ANC’s gentle stance on captured state institutions lest the Zumaist malcontents rebel reveals a weak president wavering on a tightrope between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation. Precarious Power is the name of the political game, for the foreseeable future.What happens when a former liberation movement turned political party loses its dominance but survives because no opposition party is able to succeed it? The trends are established: South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) is in decline. Its hegemony has been weakened, its legitimacy diluted. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment suspended the ANC’s electoral decline, but it also heightened internal organisational tensions between those who would deepen its corrupt and captured status, and those who would redeem it. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened its fragility, and the state’s inability to manage the socio-economic devastation has aggravated prior faultlines. These are the undeniable knowns of South African politics; what will evolve from this is less certain. In her latest book Precarious Power Susan Booyen delves deep into this political terrain and its trajectory for South Africa’s future. She covers an expansive range of topics, from contradictory party politics and dissent that is veiled in order to retain electoral following, to populist policy-making and the use of soft law enforcement to ensure that angry citizens do not become further alienated. Booysen’s analysis reveals Ramaphosa to be a president who is weak and walking a tightrope between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation. While he rose to the challenge of being a national leader during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis has highlighted existing inequalities in South Africa and discontent has grown. The ANC’s power has indeed become exceedingly precarious, and this seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. This incisive analysis of ANC power – as party, as government, as state – will appeal not only to political scientists but to all who take a keen interest in current affairs.
The contemporary condition of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, viewed through the lens of hegemony and by means of four sets of correlates of decline and potential renewal, ...reveals an organisation that has turned away from lethal decline, yet by 2018 was battling to reconstitute a powerful, united historical bloc to underpin a new hegemony. The assessment is executed across the outward fronts of the ANC in relation to the people, the state, and elections, and on the inward side, the ANC organisationally. The ANC, up to late 2017, had undergone a process of hegemonic decline that appeared irreversible. Manifold morbid symptoms of hegemonic decline were evident. In late 2017 the ANC secured a leadership change that held the potential to reverse the decline and reinvigorate the ANC's prospects for hegemonic hold, even if at best it would be a long-term, incremental process. Yet, at the centre, the organisation remained riven with factionalism that pivoted around power and control over public resources; those entrenched in the status quo ante were fighting back, and the new order was struggling to emerge. By drawing together these symptoms (correlates) of decline and possible reversals, the article synthesises the state of ANC hegemony as the movement approaches 25 years in political power. Betrachtet man den gegenwärtige Zustand des Afrikanischen Nationalkongresses (ANC) in Südafrika im Bezug auf Hegemonie, Niedergang und potenzielle Erneuerung, zeigt sich eine Organisation, die dem tödlichen Verfall entgangen ist, aber im Jahr 2018 dafür kämpft, als vereinter Block die einstige hegemoniale Stellung wiederzuerlangen. Die Analyse umfasst die äußeren Beziehungen des ANC zur Bevölkerung, zum Staat und zu den Wahlen, aber auch seine interne Organisation. Der ANC hatte bis Ende des Jahres 2017 einen Machtverfall zu verzeichnen, der unumkehrbar schien. Vielfaltige Symptome des hegemonialen Verfalls waren offensichtlich. Ende 2017 gelang ein Führungswechsel an der Spitze des ANC, der potenziell den Niedergang aufhalten und die hegemoniale Stellung des ANC wiederbeleben kann, auch wenn dies bestenfalls ein langfristiger und inkrementeüer Prozess ist. Der Kampf verschiedener Fraktionen um Macht und Kontrolle über öffentliche Ressourcen spaltet die Partei noch immer. Die Anhänger des alten Status quo wehren sich während sich eine neue Ordnung herausschält. Der Artikel zeigt den Zustand des ANC auf, der bald 25 Jahre an der Macht ist, indem er die Symptome des Niedergangs und möglicher Umkehrungen zusammenfuhrt.
•Lesotho's single-ballot MMPP system resolved some conflicts but unstable coalition governments continued.•The All Basotho Congress grew most and had the biggest total party support, but still lost ...power.•The Democratic Congress stagnated, but secured a parliamentary majority through a seven-party coalition.•Electoral manoeuvring on the part of elites dented turnout.•Prospects for ‘parliamentary coups’ persist, aided by floor-crossing and party-aligned security forces.
A certain type of presidentialism in the heart of South Africa’s parliamentarist system characterised the period of President Jacob Zuma’s rule, 2009 ongoing at the time of writing, 2017. The ...analysis concerns the South African case of how presidentialism and parliamentarism fuse to deliver a parliamentarist-presidentialist hybrid within a constitutional state. This hybrid is termed semi-presidentialism in this analysis. It differs from the presidentialisation within parliamentary systems where the president remains accountable to the legislature yet is elected directly. South Africa’s hybrid is constituted, firstly, through the African National Congress (ANC) positioning itself as majoritarian power, obligated to uphold the will of the party’s electoral majority. The fusion of state and party amplifies party rule over parliament. Secondly, the ANC follows the dictum that the leader (president) of the ANC is an embodiment of the movement and hence entitled to loyalty. It pursues this line even if factional ANC rule prevails. Personalisation of presidential power and the reinforcement of presidentialism follow, undermining party rule in favour of the president’s individual elevation. The article assesses the establishment and the subsequent tentative decline of this powerful hybrid of parliamentarism-presidentialism.
A certain type of presidentialism in the heart of South Africa’s parliamentarist system characterised the period of President Jacob Zuma’s rule, 2009 ongoing at the time of writing, 2017. The ...analysis concerns the South African case of how presidentialism and parliamentarism fused to deliver a parliamentarist-presidentialist hybrid within a constitutional state. This hybrid is termed semi-presidentialism in this analysis. It differs from the presidentialisation within parliamentary systems where the president remains accountable to the legislature yet is elected directly. South Africa’s hybrid was constituted, firstly, through the African National Congress (ANC) positioning itself as majoritarian power, obligated to uphold the will of the party’s electoral majority. The fusion of state and party amplified party rule over parliament. Secondly, the ANC followed the dictum that the leader (president) of the ANC is an embodiment of the movement and hence entitled to loyalty. It pursued this line even if factional ANC rule prevailed. Personalisation of presidential power and the reinforcement of presidentialism follow, undermining party rule in favour of the president’s individual elevation. The article assesses the establishment and the subsequent tentative decline of this powerful hybrid of parliamentarism-presidentialism.
PDF
