The “Discipline of Freedom”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antina von Schnitzler
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
Systemic Crises ◽  
Styles Of Reasoning

This chapter discusses the beginnings of a specifically neoliberal techno-politics in South Africa within the context of conceptual and practical responses to the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Drawing on archival research and interviews with apartheid-era economists and functionaries, the chapter examines the political styles of reasoning that emerged as neoliberal thought was appropriated by the state and private organizations in response to the systemic crises of the 1970s. It also considers the move away from the macro-techniques of grand apartheid and toward more micro-political techniques at the level of the administrative and the technical. It shows that this late-apartheid techno-politics, and the neoliberal archive that often inspired it, gave rise to a form of counterinsurgency mediated by infrastructure and administrative techniques. Finally, it explains how, in post-1976 South Africa, neoliberalism emerged as a series of adaptable concepts and techniques that built upon and often worked through preexisting contexts.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Padraic Kenney
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Imprisonment

In an ordinary prison, the goal is to rehabilitate its inmates; in the political prison, the state demonstrates its power to detain, confine, name, and torture or at the very least discomfort and inhibit a group of people who claim to oppose it. Often state leaders learn that they have to negotiate with prisoners and treat them as potential partners. Rendered illegible by the state’s prison, prisoners create their own illegibility and confuse the prison, refusing its terms. As they create communal structures, engage in protest, and invent prison universities, political prisoners create a new narrative and wrest back their own agency, forcing the regime to respond. Political imprisonment thus has an effect quite different from that intended by the regime. The conclusion looks briefly at the role of prisoners during and after transformations in Poland, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.

scholarly journals Editorial

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Francois Venter
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Political Dominance ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

This second edition of 2006 offers an interesting range of topics, in this instance all covered by South African authors.In her analysis of the "institutions supporting constitutional democracy" established by the South African Constitution, Professor Christina Murray of the University of Cape Town argues that thethe institutions share the roles of providing a check on government and of contributing to transformation.  The newness of democracy, the great demands on the state and the political dominance of the governing party in South Africa are identified as the greatest challenges of the institutions discussed.

Opposition Parties and Democracy in South Africa

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Marina Ottaway
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
African Socialism

In the heydays of African socialism, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere declared that socialism was a state of mind. It was, it turned out, the state of mind of some intellectuals, but neither of the mass of the population nor of those in a position to turn an ideal into a political and economic system. In the early 1990s, democracy was sweeping through the continent—as the state of mind not only of a few intellectuals but of a larger segment of the population, although by no means all. It was revulsion against the abuses and human rights violations perpetrated by single party and military regimes, against the lack of accountability of leaders and the economic hardship brought about by years of mismanagement on the part of officials seeking first the political kingdom.

Silence, Disobedience, and African Catholic Sisters in Apartheid South Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Higgs
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Women Religious ◽  
The State ◽  
African Women ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Catholic Sisters ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
State History ◽  
Political Act

Abstract:This article considers the choices made during the apartheid era by Catholic sisters who were members of one of the largest orders for African women, the Montebello Dominicans, based in KwaZulu-Natal, and one of the smallest orders, the Companions of Saint Angela, based in Soweto, the sprawling African township to the southwest of Johannesburg. The Montebellos took an apolitical stance and embraced “silence,” but they could not avoid the political tensions that defined KwaZulu-Natal. The Companions became activists, whose “disobedience” brought them into direct confrontation with the state. History, region, ethnicity, and timing help explain what it meant for African women religious to be apolitical, and what it meant to be politicized, in the context of state repression so effective that every action could be interpreted as a political act.

scholarly journals The South African labour movement

Tempo Social ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Bridget Kenny
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
The South ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Union Renewal

This paper reviews the state of the South African labour movement. It discusses trade unions within the context of national political dynamics, including the Tripartite Alliance and neoliberalism, as well as growing precarianization of work within South Africa. It examines splits within the major federation and explores debates around union renewal and new worker organizations. It argues that the political terrain is fragmented and shifting, but workers’ collective labour politics abides.

Restructuring the State in South Africa: New Strategies of Incorporation and Control

1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Young
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
African State ◽  
National Level ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Moment ◽  
And Control ◽  
New Strategies

Although it is now widely conceded that there have been many changes in South Africa in recent years, not least in the political sphere, the nature and significance of these changes remain hotly contested. After sketching the pre-reform system, this article presents a broad and comprehensive account of the institutional reorganization of the South African state and the official justification for it. Acknowledging that at the moment only tentative interpretations of these developments are possible, it poses questions about the adequacy of official explanations and suggests that a deeper motivation for the changes lies in a commitment to both order and reform, the outlines of which are much clearer at the local than at the national level.

Politični položaj na Slovenskem leta 1919

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2020) (2) ◽  
pp. 359-394
Author(s):  
Jurij Perovšek
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
New Era ◽  
Party Organisation ◽  
Western Border ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
First Time ◽  
Similar Development

For Slovenes in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes the year 1919 represented the final step to a new political beginning. With the end of the united all-Slovene liberal party organisation and the formation of separate liberal parties, the political party life faced a new era. Similar development was showing also in the Marxist camp. The Catholic camp was united. For the first time, Slovenes from all political camps took part in the state government politics and parliament work. They faced the diminishing of the independence, which was gained in the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and the mutual fight for its preservation or abolition. This was the beginning of national-political separations in the later Yugoslav state. The year 1919 was characterized also by the establishment of the Slovene university and early occurrences of social discontent. A declaration about the new historical phenomenon – Bolshevism, had to be made. While the region of Prekmurje was integrated to the new state, the questions of the Western border and the situation with Carinthia were not resolved. For the Slovene history, the year 1919 presents a multi-transitional year.

“I'd make thee eat the mischief thou hast vented”: Discourse of Law in Ben Jonson's Catiline His Conspiracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Gunpowder Plot ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Legal Procedures ◽  
The Way

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.

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