Browsing Political Studies by Author "Piper, Laurence"
Now showing items 1-13 of 13
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Piper, Laurence; Matisonn, Heidi (Routledge, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: In party organisational terms, the rise of Jacob Zuma to the Presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) is a victory for the alliance partners and the struggle-era vision of the ANC as a popular front, or the ‘ANC as alliance’, as against Mbeki’s centralised and exclusionary practice. Accidentally, this renaissance of the ANC as alliance is good for democracy in South Africa understood in both liberal and participatory terms. On the one hand, the factionalism in the party provided for an alternation of leadership not possible through formal elections; and perhaps not desirable at this time. Further, the emergence of Congress of the People (COPE) promises a more meaningful party pluralism, taking the pressure for democratic competition off ANC internal processes into the future. On the other hand, the renaissance of the ANC as alliance provides better access to government by organisations, especially COSATU, who have a proven record in mobilising working and poor people around key social issues from land to HIV-AIDS and Zimbabwe. In this way the chances of greater inclusion in national decision-making are heightened, at least for some marginalised groups. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/482 Files in this item: 1
PiperTripartiteAlliance2009.pdf (213.3Kb) -
Piper, Laurence; von Lieres, Bettina (Institute of Development Studies, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: Summary: The paper argues that the practice of democratic mediation is an increasingly common, yet under-researched, component of engagements between citizens and public authorities across the globe. While the actors who mediate (and their tactics) are diverse and are not necessarily of the marginalised group, they share a commitment to overcoming representational, knowledge or ideological deficits in decision-making for the marginalised group. While the ‘speaking for’ nature of democratic mediation clearly opens up critical legitimacy problems, the practice of democratic mediation appears to be remarkably common, and even effective. The paper demonstrates this by surveying at least three kinds of democratic mediation observed across a large number of cases. First is ‘mediation as professional advocacy’. The mediator in these cases is more an ‘interested intermediary’ in contentious policy politics. In a context of skewed powerrelations where certain groups remain systematically marginalised, not least through knowledge and representational deficits, a degree of advocacy is required to get more egalitarian policy dialogue. Second is ‘mediation as representational entrepreneurship’. This refers to engagements between citizens and forms of public authority that stretch from the local to the global level. In more ‘global-local’ mobilisations, mediators are often experts, professionals, and international NGOs. In more ‘local – global’ movements, the mediators are ‘hybrid activists’ deeply rooted in the local identities and associations. However, in either case the actor is distinguished by the taking of initiative to include the voices of the marginalised in a domain of power-relations which is multi-level. Lastly, ‘mediation as citizenship development’ refers to forms of activism typically associated with community and capacity development, and usually involves limited advocacy by civil society organisations (CSOs). Hence there 04 IDS WORKING PAPER 364 may be little by way of explicit mediation in local governance decision-making in these cases, although the empowerment of communities has a demonstrable and mostly positive impact on local governance. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/480 Files in this item: 1
PiperDemocraticMediation2011.pdf (1.662Mb) -
Piper, Laurence (University of Natal Press, 2009)[more][less]
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Charman, Andrew; Petersen, Leif; Piper, Laurence (University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: Small, home-based grocery stores, known as spaza shops, are ubiquitous throughout the township areas of urban South Africa, constituting an important business in the informal economy. In recent years, this retail market has become a site of fierce competition between South African shopkeepers and foreign entrepreneurs, especially Somalis, and is often cited in the media as one reason behind the xenophobic attacks on foreigners. Drawing on original data collected in the Delft township in the city of Cape Town, this paper demonstrates that foreign entrepreneurs, overwhelmingly Somalis, have come to own around half of the sizeable spaza market in Delft in the last five years. This increase is attributable to larger scale and price competitive behaviour as these entrepreneurs operate collectively in terms of buying shops, and stock, as well as in stock distribution. Also important are some more customer friendly services too. Compared to the more 'survivalist' local business model where individual owners look to supplement existing household income rather than generate an entire livelihood, the Somali business model has rapidly outcompeted local owners, bringing spaza prices down and forcing many locals to rent out their shop space to foreign shopkeepers. Consequently, while South African shopkeepers resent the Somali influx, most consumers appreciate the better prices and improved service. The rise of Somali shopkeepers thus represents a transformation of business practice in the spaza sector from survivalist to entrepreneurial modes URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/517 Files in this item: 1
CharmanSpazaDelft2012.pdf (3.113Mb) -
Piper, Laurence (Berghahn Journals, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: In recent times South African politics has come to exhibit features typical of many post-colonial contexts, not least the rise of acrimonious and confrontational politics based around personalities and forms of populism. In such contexts rational dialogue and democratic deliberation become increasingly difficult to get going and to sustain. Drawing on Richard Turner’s The Eye of the Needle, first published some forty years ago, the paper examines the role religion, and religious organisations, could play in returning such acrimonious public debate to more democratic and visionary grounds. The key point is that religion offers a form of transcendence from the divisive and bitter particularities that animate contemporary political conflicts. It does this through the spiritual affirmation of our shared human worth due to the love of God(s). From this recognition, achieved through spiritual appeals, the conditions for more rational and democratic debate can be retrieved. In addition, religious transcendence redeems the value of utopian thinking, and thus could help re-orientate public debate from a politics of blame for past wrongs to a politics of imagining of future rights. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/582 Files in this item: 1
PiperSouthAfricanPolitics2010.pdf (207.2Kb) -
Piper, Laurence (SUN Press, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This chapter argues that local government elections offer a unique opportunity in South Africa’s political system for voters to practice forms of democracy that are more local, plural and accountable in character than at provincial or national level. A key reason for this is the mixed electoral system where half of all councillors are directly elected from the wards in which they live. The 2011 election supplied significant evidence of voters attempting to make use of this opportunity, particularly around the candidate selection process of the major parties, and through the accountability talk that dominated public debate. However, analysis of both ‘supply’ (party behaviour) and ‘demand’ (voter choice) suggests that this democratic potential was outweighed by bipartisan politics between the ANC and DA which affirmed the national over the local, a choice between two parties over many, and reinforced identity-based political loyalties over the direct accountability of politicians. In short, the 2011 elections were rendered a proxy for a national competition, frustrating much of the unique democratic potential that local government elections offer, effectively taking local politics further from the people. The proposal to hold national, provincial and local elections simultaneously in the future will further impede the democratic potential of the local electoral system. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/549 Files in this item: 1
PiperElectoralSystem2012.pdf (150.9Kb) -
Piper, Laurence (Unisa Press, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This article explores the significance of an important event, namely, the Pioneers of Participation workshop held in November 2009 in Cape Town, for public participation advocacy in South Africa. By tracing the shifting consciousness of one participant, a key provincial official (Jackie O whose name has been changed), the article shows both how such events can change mindsets to create better informed, better inspired and more connected advocates for public participation, and that this transformation is not necessarily permanent. Hence, it is argued that events like the Pioneers workshop are best located in a broader advocacy strategy appropriate to the particular context of state-society relations. In South Africa’s case it is argued that this strategy ought to focus on the twin objectives of policy reform – both to make formal participatory spaces more inclusive, democratic and empowered and to support the emergence of independent, popularly rooted yet technically competent civil society formations that are capable of mediating both popular needs and the policy system. How these objectives ought to be realised is an open question, but it is clear that events like the Pioneers workshop can be a galvanising and mindset changing resource in this broader strategy. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/584 Files in this item: 1
PiperParticipation2011.pdf (1.131Mb) -
Piper, Laurence; Nadvi, Lubna (Zed Books, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: This chapter seeks to explore the character of popular mobilization in South Africa, mostly at the local level. This is done through exploring the interaction of two independent processes. The first concerns the relative empowerment of political parties and the disempowerment of civil society (especially social movements) by the democratization process in South Africa. The second concerns the introduction of new institutions of public participation in local governance. Hence, while the latter are portrayed as ‘invited spaces’ in which communities can engage the local state constructively, the poor design of these spaces, a lack of genuine will on the part of elites and the relative power of key social actors mean that, in practice, they are either meaningless processes or simply co-opted by political parties. Notably, civil society has tended either to disengage from the local state and focus on provincial and national levels, or to resort to forms of popular protest to be heard by local government – the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector usually favouring the first approach and social movements the second. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/488 Files in this item: 1
PiperPartyDominance2010.pdf (133.1Kb) -
Nleya, Ndodana; Tapscott, Chris; Thompson, Lisa; Piper, Laurence; Esau, Esau (Unisa Press, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: Protest politics in South Africa has a long history and has been deployed differentially in different historical moments. Whereas protests formed an important vehicle during the fight against apartheid, their rebirth and propulsion to the centre of the struggles in the post-apartheid dispensation have come as a surprise to many. A majority of these protests, so-called ‘service delivery protests’, are reported as emanating from communities’ dissatisfaction with municipal service delivery as well as problems relating to lack of communication between council and councillors on the one hand and citizens on the other. In this article, we interrogate data from five study sites located in Cape Town and Pietermaritzburg. While we found support for the importance of service delivery, our data contradicts many widely held assertions as regards what causes these protests. We were able to show, for example, that these so-called ‘service delivery protests’ may actually emanate from reasons that extend beyond service delivery. Since our data indicates that levels of participation in Cape Town are higher than in Pietermaritzburg on the one hand, illustrating perhaps the different provincial contexts, there is also variation between the relatively high participation rates of the ‘black African’ sites of Langa and Khayelitsha, on the one hand, and the lower rates of the ‘coloured’ site of Bonteheuwel, on the other, which we ascribe to the disengagement of the community in Cape Town, from both local and national politics. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/555 Files in this item: 1
NleyaProtestPolitics2011.pdf (2.491Mb) -
Piper, Laurence; Deacon, Roger (Routledge, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Will participatory local government structures help deepen democracy in South Africa? That is the proclaimed purpose of the ward committee system, the centre- piece of post-apartheid local government reform, intended to facilitate deliberative democratic decision making. Drawing on a case study of the Msunduzi municipality, it is argued here that ward committees, as yet barely functional seven years since first being established, have from the outset been caught up in relations of dependency with ward councillors, political parties and the municipality itself, and that these relations threaten to undermine the democratic dividends that the committees are expected to yield. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/483 Files in this item: 1
PiperWardCommittees2009.pdf (237.2Kb) -
Piper, Laurence; Africa, Cherrel (Elsevier, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: On the basis of a 2008 survey conducted in the Msunduzi municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province, the paper begins an exploration of the character of popular politics and citizenship in South Africa. Embracing a ‘citizen-centred’ methodology informed by participation literatures, and sensibilities to the ‘work in progress’ character of African cities from urban studies debates, the paper interrogates the mainstream liberal-participatory model of citizenship in South Africa, and the critiques of current South African politics informed by these notions, specifically the ‘racial census’ and ‘dominant party syndrome’ analyses. Taken together these views can be read as characterising South African politics as a game for individual citizens governed by liberal rules, but played by racial and/or partisan groups in exclusionary ways, thus distorting liberal democratic mechanisms of representation and accountability. The paper also examines evidence for an alternative class-based analysis of one aspect of citizenship, namely, protest against poor local governance. The paper looks to unpack this ‘liberal model versus racialised communitarian practice’ imaginary by, on the one hand, demonstrating the ways in which citizenship is not racialised, or is asymmetrically racialised. Indeed, other than party allegiances and trust in key offices, very little by way of what citizens do, believe or think of themselves follows discrete racial lines. Similar points hold for partisanship too. On the other hand, the paper does not redeem the liberal-democratic model as there is also evidence of trust in government when it is not deserved based on performance, but more importantly, evidence that citizens embrace ‘informal’ means to secure their rights. A good example of this is protestors who are also more likely to vote than non-protestors. Taken together, these findings affirm both the way in which the racial and partisan legacy of the past is being undone by new institutions and practices, and suggest the complex intersection of these with networks of personal relations which characterise the local politics of most African cities. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/496 Files in this item: 1
PiperCitizenshipMsunduzi2012.pdf (1.231Mb) -
Piper, Laurence; Charman, Andrew (Taylor & Francis; Unisa Press, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: Violence against Somali shopkeepers is often cited as evidence of xenophobic attitudes and violence in South Africa. However, as argued in this article, it is not necessarily the case that such violence is driven by anti-foreigner sentiment. Instead, as illustrated in the case of Delft, a poor, mixed-race area in the City of Cape Town, violence against spaza shopkeepers may also be explained in terms of criminal activities and economic competition in the form of ‘violent entrepreneurship’. This argument is made drawing on a survey of over 100 spaza shopkeepers, a household survey, police statistics, and interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders living in Delft. The key insight is that despite a recent history of intense economic competition in the spaza market in which foreign skopkeepers have come to dominate, levels of violent crime against foreign shopkeepers, 80 per cent of whom are Somali, are not significantly higher than against South African shopkeepers. In addition, while South African shopkeepers openly resent the Somali advent, most consumers remain indifferent to their presence and certainly prefer the lower prices. While our findings cannot be generalised beyond this case, they do alert us to the importance of locating arguments about xenophobia in the wider context of crime and violence in South Africa, as well as paying close attention to the local particularities that can turn general sentiment into xenophobic action. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/554 Files in this item: 1
CharmanSomaliShopkeepers2012.pdf (612.6Kb) -
Piper, Laurence (Routledge, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: Introduction: It is common cause that the rise of Jacob Zuma in South African politics signals change; what is contested is the nature and extent of that change. For example, Zuma's champions in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Communist Party (SACP) describe his rise as a victory over the authoritarian Thabo Mbeki and his neo-liberal '1996 class project' (Craven 2008). Many detractors, including some on the political left as well as the right, see Zuma as heralding an African populism which shields patronage behind popular bigotry. As well as disagreeing on whether Zuma's colours are truly red or black, there is significant disagreement as to whether Zuma's ascent will herald a 'tsunami' of change, washing away apartheid's legacy, or more of an 'eddy' in the current of capitalist develop¬ment in South Africa. Hence, within the SACP are both those who see Zuma as the 'vehicle of sweeping change' and those who just 'hope and pray' that Zuma will support left policies (Pillay 2008). Similarly, amongst those who see Zuma's ascent in terms of elite rivalries some fear a corrupt and incompetent patrimonialist, while others see a wily but personable prag- matist keen to keep business confidence (Economist 25 September 2008). Who then, is the real Jacob Zuma, and what interests does he really represent? What will his leadership mean for the future of governance in South Africa, especially as regards its democratic consolidation, economic growth and development? These are the questions which occupy the authors of this special edition of Representation. I now survey some of the answers before interpreting the directional pull of their collective weight; the sum of which suggests we stand at the beginning of a new and more familiar era of postcolonial politics in South Africa. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/491 Files in this item: 1
PiperZumaPolitics2009.pdf (138.2Kb)
Now showing items 1-13 of 13