Author: Gumede, Vusi Publisher: CODESRIA ISBN: 2869787049 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
The book, made up of three parts, covers a wide spectrum of political economy issues on post-apartheid South Africa. Although the text is mainly descriptive, to explain various areas of the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa, the first and the last parts provide illuminating insights on the kind of society that is emerging during the twenty-one years of democracy in the country. The book discusses important aspects of the political history of apartheid South Africa and the evolution of post-apartheid society, including an important recap of the history of southern Africa before colonialism. The text is a comprehensive description of numerous political economy phenomena since South Africa gained its political independence and covers some important themes that have not been discussed in detail in other publications on post-apartheid South Africa. The book also updates earlier work of the author on policy and law making, land and agriculture, education and training as well as on poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa thereby providing a wide-ranging overview of the socio-economic development approaches followed by the successive post-apartheid administrations. Interestingly, three chapters focus on various aspects of the post-apartheid South African economy: economic policies, economic empowerment and industrial development. Through the lens of the notion of democratic developmental state and taking apartheid colonialism as a point of departure, the book suggests that, so far, post-apartheid South Africa has mixed socio-economic progress. The author’s extensive experience in the South African government ensures that the book has policy relevance while it is also theoretically sound. The text is useful for anyone who wants to understand the totality of the policies and legislation as well as the political economy interventions pursued since 1994 by the South African Government.
Author: Sean Jacobs Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 0253040574 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 206
Book Description
In Media in Postapartheid South Africa, author Sean Jacobs turns to media politics and the consumption of media as a way to understand recent political developments in South Africa and their relations with the African continent and the world. Jacobs looks at how mass media define the physical and human geography of the society and what it means for comprehending changing notions of citizenship in postapartheid South Africa. Jacobs claims that the media have unprecedented control over the distribution of public goods, rights claims, and South Africa's integration into the global political economy in ways that were impossible under the state-controlled media that dominated the apartheid years. Jacobs takes a probing look at television commercials and the representation of South Africans, reality television shows and South African continental expansion, soap operas and postapartheid identity politics, and the internet as a space for reassertions and reconfigurations of identity. As South Africa becomes more integrated into the global economy, Jacobs argues that local media have more weight in shaping how consumers view these products in unexpected and consequential ways.
Author: Hein Marais Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9781856499675 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
Drawing on the rich structural and political understandings of radical South African intellectuals, this book explains why the South African government has been unable to breach the boundaries of change erected by the privileged classes. It reveals why it has adopted conservative economic policies, and why the country's popular movement has failed to press home more radical opinions. Hein Marais compellingly probes the hidden dynamics of South Africa's transition, arguing that the democratic breakthrough was much less open-ended than generally believed.
Author: Hein Marais Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1780320833 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 624
Book Description
Since 1994, the democratic government in South Africa has worked hard at improving the lives of the black majority, yet close to half the population lives in poverty, jobs are scarce, and the country is more unequal than ever. For millions, the colour of people's skin still decides their destiny. In his wide-ranging, incisive and provocative analysis, Hein Marais shows that although the legacies of apartheid and colonialism weigh heavy, many of the strategic choices made since the early 1990s have compounded those handicaps. Marais explains why those choices were made, where they went awry, and why South Africa's vaunted formations of the left -- old and new -- have failed to prevent or alter them. From the real reasons behind President Jacob Zuma's rise and the purging of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, to a devastating critique of the country's continuing AIDS crisis, its economic path and its approach to the rights and entitlements of citizens, South Africa Pushed to the Limit presents a riveting benchmark analysis of the incomplete journey beyond apartheid.
Author: Adekeye Adebajo Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1786723328 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 389
Book Description
South Africa is the most industrialized power in Africa. It was rated the continent's largest economy in 2016 and is the only African member of the G20. It is also the only strategic partner of the EU in Africa. Yet despite being so strategically and economically significant, there is little scholarship that focuses on South Africa as a regional hegemon. This book provides the first comprehensive assessment of South Africa's post-Apartheid foreign policy. Over its 23 chapters - -and with contributions from established Africa, Western, Asian and American scholars, as well as diplomats and analysts - the book examines the current pattern of the country's foreign relations in impressive detail. The geographic and thematic coverage is extensive, including chapters on: the domestic imperatives of South Africa's foreign policy; peace-making; defence and security; bilateral relations in Southern, Central, West, Eastern and North Africa; bilateral relations with the US, China, Britain, France and Japan; the country's key external multilateral relations with the UN; the BRICS economic grouping; the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP); as well as the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO). An essential resource for researchers, the book will be relevant to the fields of area studies, foreign policy, history, international relations, international law, security studies, political economy and development studies.
Author: Ayabonga Cawe Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers ISBN: 1776260953 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
We must look beyond the now, the current economy on our doorstep, and ... reach out to a humanity that lies dormant in all of us. While the depth and sophistication of South Africa's financial and capital markets are lauded by indices the world over, South Africa is also considered to be the most unequal society in the world. The Economy On Your Doorstep probes the reasons for this tragic paradox of South African life and tries to go through and beyond the graphs, margin calls, trading updates, indices and earnings reports to explain how economic 'actions' frame the lives of South Africans in a transitional society faced with the challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The economy is and always has been primarily about people. How they live, what they produce, under what conditions and what social, political and environmental factors influence decisions of consumption, investment and distribution, and how they act under conditions of uncertainty, scarcity, need and crisis. After all, economies are about people coming together to produce, exchange, distribute and consume goods and services that emerge from their communities and those of others. How and under what conditions can we ensure the expansion of our productive forces, while expanding access to the base of assets, services and support that allow for the social reproduction of our entire society and workforce? Ayabonga Cawe outlines some key areas that can and should define a policy agenda towards a 'people's economy' in South Africa and the long-term objectives of such a policy programme, and engages with the political economy of 21st century South Africa through an analysis of a few selected areas of the economy and the implications of this for policy action. This is what this book is about, an exposition of what we see around us and an explanation and discussion of possible ways beyond it. In this well-researched book, Ayabonga Cawe, a development economist, columnist and broadcaster, makes sense of the post-apartheid political economy through the lives of the many people who live and survive in it every day.
Author: Shaukat Ansari Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030697665 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
This book critically examines the persistence of market orthodoxy in post-apartheid South Africa and the civil society resistance such policies have generated over a twenty-five-year period. Each chapter unpacks the key political coalitions and economic dynamics, domestic as well as global, that have sustained neoliberalism in the country since the transition to liberal democracy in 1994. Chapter 1 analyzes the political economy of segregation and apartheid, as well as the factors that drove the democratic reform and the African National Congress’ (ANC) subsequent abandonment of redistribution in favor of neoliberal policies. Further chapters explore the causes and consequences of South Africa’s integration into the global financial markets, the limitations of the post-apartheid social welfare program, the massive labour strikes and protests that have erupted throughout the country, and the role of the IMF and World Bank in policymaking. The final chapters also examine the political and economic barriers thwarting the emergence of a viable post-apartheid developmental state, the implications of monopoly capital and foreign investment for democracy and development, and the phenomenon of state capture during the Jacob Zuma Presidency.
Author: Mills Soko Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers ISBN: 192070728X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
Over the past 20 years the global political economy has experienced its most profound shifts since the onset of the industrial revolution. In South Africa and the World, Mills Soko reflects on some of the salient issues that have pervaded public discourse during this time, analysing them within the context of the contemporary South African political economy and of the country's position in the world. Arranged thematically, the essays were all written during a defining period in recent history, a period that has witnessed, among others, the accession of China to the WTO, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, the invention of the iPad, the birth of Facebook, the 2008/9 global financial crisis, Brexit and the global coronavirus pandemic which began at the end of 2019. The turbulent multipolar world demands visionary political and economic leadership, supported by institutions well attuned to contemporary conditions. Such leadership is in short supply. Nor is the existing institutional architecture sufficiently equipped to deal with a complex array of economic, social, environmental, technological and demographic challenges. Mills Soko highlights what has not worked in terms of politics, leadership, foreign policy, the economy, the African development trajectory, corporate ethics, international trade, global governance, and the thread which underlies all these issues – the importance of strong, decisive and accountable leadership. He counters his criticism with what has worked and offers views on how some of the problems that have constrained progress in South Africa and the world can be solved. A central message emerges from his writings: leadership and governance matter, whether in the national or international context. It is a message that permeates all the chapters in the book. And it goes to the heart of what South Africa has gone through over the past two decades and where it is today.
Author: Gumede, Vusi
Author: Sean Jacobs
Author: Sihle Moon
Author: Hein Marais
Author: Hein Marais
Author: Adekeye Adebajo
Author: Ayabonga Cawe
Author: Shaukat Ansari
Author: Kevin Danaher
Author: Mills Soko