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.

scholarly journals Kant’s foedus pacificum: Path to peace or prolegomena to neoliberalism and authoritarian corporatist globalization in contemporary liberal democratic states?

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Terence M. Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Public Policies ◽  
State Level ◽  
Structural Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Society Of The Spectacle ◽  
Democratic State

Immanuel Kant’s language and concept of foedus pacificum (league of peace) combined with his call for a spirit of trade promised a prescription for world peace—“seeking to end all wars forever.” Nation-state level cooperation between liberal democracies has borne out Kant’s analysis to some effect. A consequence of the twin pursuits of foedus pacificum and spirit of trade has ironically resulted in the exploitation of society. Today’s international corporations adversely affect public policies ostensibly designed to protect citizens through an anti-democratic market-based ideology within the State—as seen through the lenses of Foucauldian post-structural theory and Debord’s society of the spectacle. The author proposes that globalist-corporatist control of governing apparatuses is now exposed for its authoritarian tendencies. This action could result in the ultimate destruction of the representative democratic state with the onset of neoliberalism and authoritarianism.

Notes: ‘Observations’ on the State Capture judgment

2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-500
Author(s):  
Michael Tsele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Controversial Issue ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Capture ◽  
The Law

This note concerns a controversial issue that has, surprisingly, received limited academic interrogation: whether the Public Protector has the power to instruct the President of South Africa to appoint a commission of inquiry. In this respect, I critique a high court decision which answered the question in the affirmative. I contend that the judgment contradicts prior case law, including Constitutional Court precedent. Thus, I argue that the court misconstrued the law on the President’s powers, particularly when it concluded that those powers are not purely discretionary but entail ‘responsibilities’ which are ‘coupled with a duty’. This reasoning led the court to conclude that the President thus has a constitutional ‘obligation’ to appoint a commission. In summary, I take issue with the court’s conclusion that the Public Protector has the power to instruct the President to appoint a commission of inquiry. I conclude that the decision caused uncertainty on the limitations of the Public Protector’s powers. I further say it is questionable whether the commission, better known as the ‘State Capture’ commission, was established lawfully.

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.

Anatomy of State Capture

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The State ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Africans ◽  
State Capture

Following the release of the Public Protector’s State of Capture Report in November 2016, South Africans have been witness to an explosion of almost daily revelations of corruption, mismanagement and abuses by those entrusted to lead the nation. The extent of this betrayal is overwhelming and it is often difficult to distil what actually happened during the Zuma administration. This book draws on the insights and expertise of 19 contributors from various sectors and disciplines to provide an account of what transpired at strategic sites of the state capture project. The ongoing threat of state capture demands a response that probes beyond what happened to understanding how it was allowed to happen. The stubborn culture of corruption and misgovernance continue to manifest unabated and the predatory practices which enable state capture have not yet been disrupted. It is our hope that the various case studies and analyses presented in this book will contribute to confronting these shortcomings in current discourse, and open avenues for progressive deliberation on how to collectively reclaim the prospects of a just and prosperous South Africa for all.

scholarly journals The Puzzle of Abu Ghraib: Are Democratic Institutions a Palliative or Panacea?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Davenport ◽  
Will H. Moore ◽  
David Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The State ◽  
Abu Ghraib ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Global Evidence

The events of Abu Ghraib exposed politicians, journalists, military and law enforcement personnel, NGOs, activists and ordinary citizens to the potential brutality of state repression. Many were left stunned that the agents of a liberal democracy would perpetrate such horrific acts against individuals in the state's control. Such shock makes sense if one believes that liberal democratic institutions constrain leaders from acting on the utilitarian incentive to employ torture during interrogations. While such a belief is apparently widespread, is it consistent with the recent historical record? Extant theories of repression and global evidence about torture suggest that it is not. We distinguish among three mechanisms that might constrain the use of torture in liberal democracies: voice, veto, and freedom of expression. We then argue that voice is unlikely to have a strong effect when the state is faced with violent dissent, and that the effect of veto and freedom of expression will be substantially reduced when the state is faced with a violent challenge. To test our hypotheses we use data from 146 countries covering the years 1980-1999 and investigate the extent to which voice, veto, or freedom of expression inhibit countries' use of torture both in times of quiescence and in times when dissidents challenge the state with violence. We find that rather than being aberrant, state-sponsored torture like that in Abu Ghraib is perfectly consistent with both theory and previous experience. More specifically, democratic institutions reduce the probability that a state uses torture in only limited circumstances.

Interventions since the Cold War: from statebuilding to stabilization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Louise Clausen ◽  
Peter Albrecht
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Current Phase ◽  
Fragile States ◽  
Security Sector Reform ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Through the lens of security sector reform, this article explores shifts in international interventions since the Cold War. Identifying three phases, it traces the global North's failure to transform fragile states into liberal democratic polities and changes to intervention practices in response to that failure. Immediately after the Cold War, an unfettered belief in the liberal peace thesis, and its global applicability, drove interventions that sought to establish an integrated liberal internationalist system of states shaped by mutuality. This changed with 9/11, shifting the focus towards extensive statebuilding exercises to replace, by force if necessary, security sectors and reconstruct failed states as liberal democracies. The current phase reflects lost faith in the global North's transformative potential following experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. New forms of intervention from a distance have emerged, relying on delegation to technology and militaries of the global South. This type of intervention allows the global North to maintain a sense of influence while shifting the burden of intervention onto the global South's populations and militaries—and foreclosing comprehensive statebuilding. The global North can no longer claim to act on behalf of universally applicable norms, but alternatives have yet to materialize, leaving interventions in an ideological limbo.

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.

Environmentalists, Nuclear Waste, and the Politics of Passive Exclusion in Germany

2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Hunold
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
The State ◽  
Radioactive Wastes ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Ecological Democracy ◽  
Over Time

In this essay I examine the dispute between the German GreenParty and some of the country’s environmental nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs) over the March 2001 renewal of rail shipmentsof highly radioactive wastes to Gorleben. My purpose indoing so is to test John Dryzek’s 1996 claim that environmentalistsought to beware of what they wish for concerning inclusion in theliberal democratic state. Inclusion on the wrong terms, arguesDryzek, may prove detrimental to the goals of greening and democratizingpublic policy because such inclusion may compromise thesurvival of a green public sphere that is vital to both. Prospects forecological democracy, understood in terms of strong ecologicalmodernization here, depend on historically conditioned relationshipsbetween the state and the environmental movement that fosterthe emergence and persistence over time of such a public sphere.

The Self-Undermining State

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjun Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
Central Authority ◽  
Interstate War ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Willingness To Sacrifice ◽  
The Cost

This chapter provides an informal rationalist model of state formation as an exchange between a central authority and a population. In the model, the central authority protects the population against external threats and the population disarms and pays taxes. The model specifies the conditions under which the exchange is self-enforcing, meaning that the parties prefer the exchange to alternative courses of action. These conditions—costly but winnable interstate war—are historically rare, and the cost of such wars can rise beyond the population’s willingness to sacrifice. At this point, the population prefers to avoid war rather than fight it and may prefer an alternative institution to the state if that institution can prevent war and reduce the level of extraction. Thus the modern centralized state is self-undermining rather than self-enforcing. A final section addresses alternative explanations for state formation.

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