scholarly journals Feasibility of Democratisation in Sub-Sahara Africa, A study of South Africa after Apartheid system

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshood Saka
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Driving Mechanism ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
The People ◽  
Real People ◽  
Excess Power ◽  
Popular Party

<p>This article explores the intellectual ideas of Ake on feasibility of democratisation in Africa. Democratisation is feasible as government focuses on the real people irrespective of racial affinity. In the past, the apartheid government in South Africa was adjudged as obstacle to democracy because majority black were marginalised in the representative democracy. The African National Congress (ANC) developed a pressure against undemocratic laws of apartheid rule. This process translated to Trust Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a driving-mechanism towards peaceful negotiation in the country. While this is true, this article argues that transition to democratisation in 1994 by founding elections marked the beginning of a representative government. This article contests the current practice of democratisation by political disconnection of the popular party after the death of President Nelson Mandela. Finally, it is argued that feasibility of democracy is economic empowerment of the people but was trivialised in the country. The article further states the characters which marred democratisation process after the post-third wave. The article submits that there was adequate oversight functions which checked the excess power of executive arm and the others. This de facto is justified by the action of opposition parties such as EFF, DA, and IFP in the Freedom House. As a result, triangulation politics is recommended as mechanism which can promote national unity in the country.</p><p> </p>

Michael Harmel (1915-1974): A South African Communist and His Discourse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Milan Oralek
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Core Beliefs ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Actual Contribution

<p>This thesis explores the life and work of a South African journalist, editor, and activist Michael Alan Harmel (1915–1974), a political mentor and friend of Nelson Mandela. A resolute believer in racial equality and Marxism-Leninism, Harmel devoted his life to fighting, with “the pen” as well as “the sword”, segregation and apartheid, and promoting an alliance of communists with the African National Congress as a stepping stone to socialism in South Africa. Part 1, after tracing his Jewish-Lithuanian and Irish family roots, follows Harmel from his birth to 1940 when, having joined the Communist Party of South Africa, he got married and was elected secretary of the District Committee in Johannesburg. The focus is on factors germane to the formation of his political identity. The narrative section is accompanied by an analytical sketch. This, using tools of close literary interpretation, catalogues Harmel’s core beliefs as they inscribed themselves in his journalism, histories, a sci-fi novel, party memoranda, and private correspondence. The objective is to delineate his ideological outlook, put to the test the assessment of Harmel—undeniably a skilled publicist—as a “creative thinker” and “theorist”, and determine his actual contribution to the liberation discourse.</p>

Michael Harmel (1915-1974): A South African Communist and His Discourse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Milan Oralek
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Core Beliefs ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Actual Contribution

<p>This thesis explores the life and work of a South African journalist, editor, and activist Michael Alan Harmel (1915–1974), a political mentor and friend of Nelson Mandela. A resolute believer in racial equality and Marxism-Leninism, Harmel devoted his life to fighting, with “the pen” as well as “the sword”, segregation and apartheid, and promoting an alliance of communists with the African National Congress as a stepping stone to socialism in South Africa. Part 1, after tracing his Jewish-Lithuanian and Irish family roots, follows Harmel from his birth to 1940 when, having joined the Communist Party of South Africa, he got married and was elected secretary of the District Committee in Johannesburg. The focus is on factors germane to the formation of his political identity. The narrative section is accompanied by an analytical sketch. This, using tools of close literary interpretation, catalogues Harmel’s core beliefs as they inscribed themselves in his journalism, histories, a sci-fi novel, party memoranda, and private correspondence. The objective is to delineate his ideological outlook, put to the test the assessment of Harmel—undeniably a skilled publicist—as a “creative thinker” and “theorist”, and determine his actual contribution to the liberation discourse.</p>

Post-Apartheid South Africa and Its Neighbours: a Maritime Transport Perspective

1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Okechukwu C. Iheduru
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Maritime Transport ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

The official dismantling of apartheid, the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years imprisonment in Febuary 1990, and especially the first multi-racial elections in April 1994 followed by the inauguration of the Government of National Unity (GNU), have marked this decade as the most fascinating in the history of South Africa.

Presidencies and Policy in Post-apartheid South Africa

Politeia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vusi Gumede
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Thabo Mbeki

From a policy perspective, the question naturally arises as to whether there have been major changes in policy making and associated issues in South Africa since 1994. Arguably, the first five years or so focused on institutional reforms and legislative interventions. In the late 1990s the South African government established specific processes and institutions for policy development and coordination.  In 2005-6, specific processes and institutions for long-term planning and monitoring and evaluation were formally established. The paper examines the evolution of policy making and coordination in South Africa since the late 1990s, it also reflects on monitoring and evaluation as well as long-term planning. The erstwhile Policy Coordination and Advisory Services (PCAS), which had been the main engine of policy (coordination and other aspects) in post-apartheid South Africa that was established towards the end of 1997 in the Office of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki (at the time) was disbanded in 2010. The PCAS, popularly known as the Policy Unit, coordinated all policies and reforms, and led in planning as well as monitoring and evaluation, among other responsibilities. From 2010, functions were institutionalised or strengthened (e.g. government departments have been established to deal with planning as well as monitoring and evaluation). There have not been major shifts and/or changes in policy coordination, planning as well as monitoring and evaluation since the late 1990s. However, there appears to be a shift in emphasis to focusing more on implementation. This might have been one of the biggest mistakes of the Jacob Zuma administration because capacity for policy thinking is critical. It would seem that the Thabo Mbeki administration focused specifically on policy. The Nelson Mandela administration, which was a Government of National Unity, was largely focused on various policy, legislative and institutional reforms with very limited capacity for policy making, coordination and monitoring and evaluation as well as long-term planning. 

The Republic of South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 337-362
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
The Republic

This chapter explores the origins and growth of judicial review in South Africa. Judicial review originated in South Africa in 1994 for rights from wrongs reasons. The great moral wrongs of racist Afrikaner and British imperial rule could only be overcome with a new Democratic Constitution, accepted by blacks and whites, with a very generous Bill of Rights that is enforced by a very powerful Constitutional Court. The African National Congress (ANC) party, led by Nelson Mandela, had called for a Bill of Rights and judicial review ever since the 1950s. In the 1990’s, the ANC got its wish. South African judicial review also result, in part, from borrowing. South Africans borrowed heavily from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 and from the German Basic Law of 1949. South Africa particularly borrowed from Germany the idea of creating one very powerful Constitutional Court, which alone has the power of judicial review in South Africa.

The Courtroom as a Site of Epistemic Resistance: Mandela at Rivonia

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Awol K. Allo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Site

The 1963–64 trial of Nelson Mandela and other leading members of the liberation movement was a political trial par excellence. In the courtroom, the Apartheid government was trying the accused for the crime of sabotage but in the court of public opinion, it was using the event of the trial to produce images and ideas aimed at slandering and discrediting the African National Congress (ANC) and the movement for a free and democratic South Africa. The defendants, on their part, used their trial to denounce the racist policies of Apartheid and to outline their vision of a post-Apartheid society. In this article, I want to read Nelson Mandela’s counter-historical mobilization of lived experiences and memories of Africans – the scars, chains, the rage and Apartheid’s unlivable juridical bind – as an act of epistemic resistance that re-opened epistemic battles and effected epistemic renegotiations. By submitting himself to the very law he denounces, strategically positioning himself at law’s aporetic sites and moments – those most fragile frontiers that are so heavily policed from transformative interventions – he bears witness to Apartheid’s rotten foundation. Drawing on modes of critique that are performative and genealogical, those that are possible within law’s frameworks and categories, Mandela both obeys and defies the law, uses and critiques it, resists and claims authority, at the very site he is called to account for charges of sabotage. The article will show, how, by attending to contradictions, discursive dynamics, and points of tension, Mandela the accused creates conditions of possibility for forms of critique that register without being co-opted or domesticated by the discourse and the system it resists.

South Africa in Remission: the Foreign Policy of an Altered State

1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Evans
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Interest ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Altered State ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The Government

This article examines the extent to which the foreign policy of South Africa has altered since the inauguration of the Government of National Unity (GNU), following the historic, non-racial multi-party elections in May 1994. Has the African National Congress (ANC)-led regime succeeded in its stated aims of ‘normalising’ relations with the outside world while simultaneously forsaking traditional assumptions and perspectives about the national interest, and how best to define, defend, and promote it? Or has the understandable preoccupation with, and demands of, internal reconstruction led to a situation where foreign policy is ‘on hold’, in the sense that little attention has so far been directed at substantive questions concerning the norms, values, and conventions implicit in the strategic culture and policy inclinations of the ‘ancien régime’? In other words, what are the elements of continuity and change?

Election 1999: Prospects for the Consolidation of Democracy in South Africa

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-8
Author(s):  
Khehla Shubane ◽  
Louise Stack
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Party System ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Election Results

The African National Congress (ANC) emerged from South Africa’s 1999 election in a greatly strengthened position. Now, not only is the constitutionally obligatory five-year period of a government of national unity over—which means that the ANC as the majority party is entitled to rule the country on its own—but the ANC increased its already strong majority in Parliament to just short of two-thirds.In this article, we first discuss the context of the political debate in which the election took place, as well as the outcome of the election. We then examine the prospects for the consolidation of democracy in South Africa in light of the election results and in relation to the issues surrounding electoral procedure, a dominant party system, and opposition politics within the context of a still very much racially divided society.

The Final ‘Thank You’

Derrida Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Grant Farred
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Cup ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Black President ◽  
The Moment

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1

KUALITAS PELAYANAN DALAM PEMBANGUNAN INFRASTRUKTUR DI KECAMATAN CIAWI, KABUPATEN BOGOR

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Muhamad Alfian ◽  
Nandang Saefudin Zenju ◽  
Irma Purnamasari
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Service ◽  
National Development ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The People ◽  
Driving Wheel ◽  
Alternative Routes ◽  
The City ◽  
Quality Infrastructure

Infrastructure development is an integral part of national development and the driving wheel of economic growth. Infrastructure also has an important role in strengthening national unity and unity (Bappenas: 2009). The banjarwaru, banjarwangi, and telukpinang highways are the access roads traversed by 8 villages including alternative routes for the cicurug-sukabumi area. This road is always passed by the people who headed to the city. Therefore, the benefits of this road is very important because it is often passed from the cicurug-sukabumi area due to the diversion of traffic flow so that the intensity of high road users.In this study the author uses the theory of Ridwan and Sudrajat. Quality of service is the level of incompatibility between expectations with customer desires and also the perceptions of these customers. Quality of service here can be assessed by looking at the dimensions. These dimensions include the quality of service, the ability of officials, and service convenience. During the observation to the community through the survey to direct approach with the community, most people complained that the development service to build the kecamatan should be further improved and the results of this study showed that the Quality Assessment of Service in Road Infrastructure Development in Ciawi Sub-district Bogor Regency is categorized Fair Good this is because the assessment of the quality of development services by the Subdistrict Apparatus itself and from the community assess the ability of District Officers still have to be improved in conducting the service and its implementation.Keywords: Service Quality, Infrastructure Development.

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