Vigilantism and the Contradictions of Democratic State Formation

2019 ◽  
pp. 18-37
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rush Smith
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Young Men ◽  
The State ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Men Of Color ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Procedural Rights

This chapter argues that vigilantism is a response to processes of democratic state formation—particularly the extension of procedural rights—and is enabled by dense civic ties. It also shows how vigilantism is a metaphor for processes of democratic state formation, which unsettles common theoretical assumptions that democratic states are directed toward protecting citizens. By seeing states as inherently protective, the chapter argues that scholars overlook the ways in which that protection may be premised on vigilante-like procedureless police violence against groups of citizens deemed dangerous—in South Africa predominantly young men of color. Rather than protective, these men often experience the state as terrorizing.

Contradictions of Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rush Smith
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Latin America ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Gang Violence ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Democratic State

Despite being one of the world’s most vibrant democracies, vigilantism is regularly practiced in South Africa. In any given year, police estimate between 5 percent and 10 percent of the country’s murders result from vigilante violence—four to five times the percentage from gang violence. Vigilantism is also frequent in other democracies across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. High rates of vigilantism are particularly puzzling in South Africa, though, given that it underwent a celebrated transition to democracy, has a lauded constitution, and enacted massive reforms of the state’s legal institutions following democratization. Contradictions of Democracy asks why vigilantism is prevalent in South Africa, asks what South Africa reveals about vigilantism in other emerging democracies, and uses vigilantism to explore contradictions of democratic state formation generally. Where most scholars explain vigilantism as the result of state or civic failure, the book argues the opposite. Based on nearly twenty months of ethnographic and archival research, it shows vigilantism is a response to processes of democratic state formation—specifically the extension of rights—and thrives in dense civic networks.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rush Smith
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Democratic State

The brief introductory chapter lays out the questions for the book, connects vigilantism to broad questions about democratic state formation, and suggests the power of understanding vigilantism in South Africa as a means to understanding politics in emerging democracies generally. It shows how existing explanations are inadequate for understanding vigilantism in varying parts of South Africa. The chapter also sets up the narrative that follows in subsequent chapters, which tracks vigilante violence from the late apartheid era, through the early democratic state’s attempts to monopolize violence, citizens’ resistance to these efforts, and ultimately to the state’s mimicking of vigilantism today.

“Legal” Land Appropriation as Sanctioned by the Vested Property Act(s)

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 724-748
Author(s):  
Shelley Feldman
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
State Formation ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Ownership Rights ◽  
The Way

In this chapter, I interrogate the Vested Property Act (VPA) to explore one aspect of the uneven and contradictory project of democratic state formation in Bangladesh. The Act, initially sanctioned by the state of the then-East Pakistan, and continued in independent Bangladesh through various military regimes and democratically-elected governments, paved the way for the displacement of millions of Hindus from both ownership rights and their security as citizens. By drawing attention to the Act’s institutionalisation and struggles over its legitimacy, I show how the promise of democracy, as well as of secularism, reveals the violences that are entailed in actually existing democratic practice, including in the construction of the Hindu citizen as unworthy and a threat to national security. This construction of the minority as “other” and the making of majoritarian rule reveal the violence that attends to a democratic politics that includes everyday inaction and omission, rather than one which focuses solely on acts of force that usually involve physical harm or injury.

Lawmaking and State-Making as Vigilantism

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-212
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rush Smith
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Control Strategy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
African State ◽  
The State ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
The World

As apartheid collapsed, South Africa set out on one of the most ambitious police reform projects the world had ever seen. However, in 2008, senior state officials began calling for restrictions on police violence to be lifted with the effect that high rates of police violence have become a primary crime control strategy. This chapter examines this shift in the context of the South African state’s failure to bring the country’s persistent vigilante violence under control. It does so in two ways. First, the chapter examines the contradictory ways in which South African state officials navigate the tensions between advocating for the post-apartheid rights regime while arguing that such rights may inhibit the state’s ability to fight crime. Second, it examines how young men in Durban’s underworld experience the state, showing how rumors of procedureless police violence creates an image for them of the state as a large-scale vigilante organization.

scholarly journals A theoretical exposition of State Capture as a means of state formation: The case of South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petrus Croucamp
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Research Result ◽  
The State ◽  
Fragile States ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
State Capture ◽  
Political Economies

This theoretical exposition aims to add to existing theory on state design and the durability of the liberal democratic experiment. This paper is written on the case of South Africa and the rise of contending regime narratives on the interaction between the state and the economy. The notion of the state being ‘captured’ may well be a nomenclature typical of a great number of states in developing political economies. While the scholarly analysis of weak or fragile states is, to a significant extent, embedded in South African political theory, the notion of a captured state is often conflated with the conceptual confines of the corrupt or criminalized state. The research result – or theoretical contribution this article makes – is to substantiate the postulation that state capture as a feature of state formation also reflects the emergence of a contending or alternative regime preference with a distinct moral justification supplementing liberal democratic experiments. Experimental liberal democracies are more prone to such constitutional or regime challenges. While systemic patronage is a regime preference, which often co-exists with liberal regime imperatives within the constitutional domain of liberal regimes, this paper reviews the state capture as the manifestation of sectarian interests in the formal economy encroaching on the domain of the constitutional state to gain a competitive advantage within the market/economy.

When the State Speaks, What Should It Say?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Brettschneider
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The State ◽  
Hate Groups ◽  
New Approach ◽  
State Action ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
The Right ◽  
Equal Citizenship ◽  
The Ideal

How should a liberal democracy respond to hate groups and others that oppose the ideal of free and equal citizenship? The democratic state faces the hard choice of either protecting the rights of hate groups and allowing their views to spread, or banning their views and violating citizens' rights to freedoms of expression, association, and religion. Avoiding the familiar yet problematic responses to these issues, this book proposes a new approach called value democracy. The theory of value democracy argues that the state should protect the right to express illiberal beliefs, but the state should also engage in democratic persuasion when it speaks through its various expressive capacities: publicly criticizing, and giving reasons to reject, hate-based or other discriminatory viewpoints. Distinguishing between two kinds of state action—expressive and coercive—the book contends that public criticism of viewpoints advocating discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual orientation should be pursued through the state's expressive capacities as speaker, educator, and spender. When the state uses its expressive capacities to promote the values of free and equal citizenship, it engages in democratic persuasion. By using democratic persuasion, the state can both respect rights and counter hateful or discriminatory viewpoints. The book extends this analysis from freedom of expression to the freedoms of religion and association, and shows that value democracy can uphold the protection of these freedoms while promoting equality for all citizens.

Foreigners' Rights to Work and Fair Labour Practices in South Africa: A Review of the South African Labour Legislation and Jurisprudence

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Mangu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
South African ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The South ◽  
Legislation And Jurisprudence ◽  
Foreign Nationals ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Labour Legislation

After several decades of apartheid rule, which denied human rights to the majority of the population on the ground of race and came to be regarded as a crime against humanity, South Africa adopted its first democratic Constitution in the early 1990s. The 1996 Constitution, which succeeded the 1993 interim Constitution, is considered one of the most progressive in the world. In its founding provisions, it states that South Africa is a democratic state founded on human dignity, the achievement of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedoms. The Constitution enshrines fundamental human rights in a justiciable Bill of Rights as a cornerstone of democracy. Unfortunately, in the eyes of a number of politicians, officials and lay-persons, the rights in the Bill of Rights accrue to South African citizens only. Xenophobia, which has been rampant since the end of apartheid, seems to support the idea that foreigners should not enjoy these rights. Foreign nationals have often been accused of posing a threat to South African citizens with regard to employment opportunities. In light of the South African legislation and jurisprudence, this article affirms the position of the South African labour law that foreign nationals are indeed protected by the Constitution and entitled to rights in the Bill of Rights, including the rights to work and fair labour practices.

The Prophetic Voice of the Church in a Democratic South Africa – A Theological Reflection

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufuluvhi Maria Mudimeli
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

This article is a reflection on the role and contribution of the church in a democratic South Africa. The involvement of the church in the struggle against apartheid is revisited briefly. The church has played a pivotal and prominent role in bringing about democracy by being a prophetic voice that could not be silenced even in the face of death. It is in this time of democracy when real transformation is needed to take its course in a realistic way, where the presence of the church has probably been latent and where it has assumed an observer status. A look is taken at the dilemmas facing the church. The church should not be bound and taken captive by any form of loyalty to any political organisation at the expense of the poor and the voiceless. A need for cooperation and partnership between the church and the state is crucial at this time. This paper strives to address the role of the church as a prophetic voice in a democratic South Africa. Radical economic transformation, inequality, corruption, and moral decadence—all these challenges hold the potential to thwart our young democracy and its ideals. Black liberation theology concepts are employed to explore how the church can become prophetically relevant in democracy. Suggestions are made about how the church and the state can best form partnerships. In avoiding taking only a critical stance, the church could fulfil its mandate “in season and out of season” and continue to be a prophetic voice on behalf of ordinary South Africans.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document