Browsing Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences by Title
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Greenberg, Stephen (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: This report widens the debate about food production and distribution in South Africa to consider some of the entrenched power dynamics that shape the way these happen, and to consider whether a more radical transformation of the agro-food system is required to ensure adequate access to food for all.It considers the structure of the South African agro-food system, and looks at points of possible intervention that could not only open the system to greater involvement by those who have been marginalised or passively incorporated into that system, but that also offer potential pathways to structural change that could deepen diversity in the agro-food system and reorient it to the needs of the poor, both as historically subordinated producers and as consumers. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/572 Files in this item: 1
RR42.pdf (1.218Mb) -
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) -
Odendaal, Willem (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This brief examines some emerging trends and dynamics in changing power relations in rural Namibian communities due to emerging new elites and the threats to subsistence farmers’ access to communal land and natural resources. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/601 Files in this item: 1
PB 33.pdf (263.8Kb) -
Leith, Rian; Pretorius, Joelien (Routledge, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: In international relations states labelled as ‘middle powers’ are often responsible for crafting a middle way to bridge conflicting international interests. They typically favour multilateralism and cooperative international behaviour. Middle power diplomacy has played a crucial role in the establishment and maintenance of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. South Africa has played the role of a middle power in nuclear diplomacy since 1994, drawing on its moral position after giving up its nuclear weapons. This role has especially involved joining the efforts of middle powers in the North, such as Norway and Canada, to indefinitely extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, South Africa’s foreign policy has shown a gradual shift away from a middle power orientation not least due to an increasing non-aligned position that calls for deep reforms to the perceived unfair world order tilted in the favour of the developed North. This shift is also visible in South African nuclear diplomacy and is eroding the middle ground that has so far sustained the nonproliferation regime. The paper argues that South Africa’s middle power diplomacy has allowed it to punch above its weight in the nuclear realm, but its pursuit of international reforms has resulted in the drawing of a fault line between developed and developing countries. It is in the interest of nuclear non-proliferation to regain the middle ground by forming broad coalitions amongst all actors interested in nuclear disarmament. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/481 Files in this item: 1
PretoriusNuclearPolicy2009.pdf (124.0Kb) -
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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Hall, Ruth (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: The new cabinet ushered in after the 2009 national elections features new and renamed ministries. Those expected to take the lead in a new initiative to resuscitate the rural economy are the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. While the newfound priority placed on rural development is welcome, its separation from the dynamic subsectors in the rural economy is not. This brief shows how existing policies are bifurcated between BEE models for the better off and welfare for the poor. There is now a danger that the two ministries will replicate the dualism of the so-called ‘first’ and ‘second’ economies – an approach that deepens exclusion from and legitimises exploitation in the economic core, and prevents the creation of a ‘missing middle’ of successful small producers. What is needed instead is rural development that restructures the commercial sectors of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and the exploitative class relations (with workers and small producers) on which they are based, and which breaks down the concentration of capital and market power in few hands. Only then can redistributing land, forests and fishing quotas create new pathways for ‘the rural poor’ to participate, and produce, in these sectors in ways that create livelihoods and jobs, and set South Africa on a different and more appropriate growth path. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/69 Files in this item: 1
Hall_Fresh2009.pdf (351.8Kb) -
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) -
Thompson, Lisa; Conradie, Ina (Unisa Press, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This article examines how women organise themselves in community structures to claim socio-economic rights through participation. The discussion is based on case study research undertaken in Khayelitsha, Site C, where women involved in incomegenerating projects (IGPs) have also been involved in a dual strategy of trying to improve their living conditions through active engagement. The article looks at the intermediary institutions, the South African national Civics Association (SANCO) and the Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF) which mediate the participatory spaces for engagement created by local government, and how these organisations serve ordinary men and women from the townships in terms of helping them to attain a better quality of life. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/575 Files in this item: 1
ThompsonWomenParticipation2011.pdf (1.631Mb) -
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) -
Manjengwa, Jeanette; Mazhawidza, Phides (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: A bolder policy approach and more vigorous implementation are needed to support women’s empowerment, transfer of land rights to women, and to ensure their productive utilisation of land. The land reform programme focussed on racial imbalances of highly skewed land holdings and discriminatory land tenure systems while failing to mainstream the interests of women. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/87 Files in this item: 1
Manjengwa_Gender2009.pdf (348.8Kb) -
Tilley, Susan; Nkazane, Ntombizabantu; Lahiff, Edward (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: This report examines the efforts of the Groenfontein-Ramohlakane Trust to develop and use the land in (Mpumalanga) that has been restored to the community in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 (‘Restitution Act’). It examines the nature and content of the post-settlement support received and draws lessons from the community’s experience that might inform the development of a strategy for post-settlement support provision involving land reform institutions and associated agencies. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/79 Files in this item: 1
Tilley_Groenfontein2007.pdf (1.241Mb) -
Cousins, Ben (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This report describes the ‘living law’ of land in one part of Msinga, a deep rural area of KwaZulu-Natal. It presents research findings from the Mchunu and Mthembu tribal areas, where a three-year action-research project was carried out by staff of the Mdukutshani Rural Development Programme. Launched in 2007, at a time when implementation of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004 (CLRA) appeared imminent, the project aimed to gain a detailed understanding of land tenure in Msinga, facilitate local-level discussion of potential solutions to emerging problems around land rights, provide information on the CLRA to residents and authority structures, and help generate ideas on how local people could engage with the new law. Meetings, interviews and focus groups convened by the project between 2007 and 2009 generated lively discussions and debates on a range of issues and problems related to land tenure in Msinga. Policy-makers need to consider how to convene conversations of this kind, on a large scale, before they launch a new round of tenure reform policy formulation and law making. Our experience suggests that well designed processes are critically important to ensure informed discussion, but also that ordinary rural people, not just their leaders, are more than ready to engage in debates about policies that could have major impacts on their lives. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/390 Files in this item: 1
CousinsLandMsinga2011.pdf (3.011Mb) -
Hall, Ruth (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: This report investigates emerging trends evident in the limited literature available on the impact of land restitution on livelihoods, and suggests ways of thinking about, and planning for, livelihoods. The report has a two-fold emphasis: its primary focus is on rural restitution claims where land has been restored, but it also addresses rural land reform more generally. Where land ownership has been transferred to land reform beneficiaries, similar patterns and challenges may arise, regardless of whether the land was acquired through the redistribution or the restitution route. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/90 Files in this item: 1
Hall_Impact2007.pdf (1.418Mb) -
Rena, Ravinder (Ottawa United Learning Academy & Denfar Transnational DevelopmentOttawa United Learning Academy & Denfar Transnational Development, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: About two thirds of the WTO’s around 150 members are developing countries. They play an increasingly important and active role in the WTO because of their numbers, because they are becoming more important in the global economy, and because they increasingly look to trade as a vital tool in their development efforts. An attempt is made in this paper to examine whether the WTO policies have positive or negative effect on the trade of developing countries. The paper further discusses that the Doha Round of Talk is a myth, a fiction, or is it a reality. Can the spirit of Doha, which launched a new round of negotiations and work with an explicit pledge to deliver development-friendly results, be redeemed or not? Finally, it analyses the special differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/531 Files in this item: 1
RenaWTO-Policies2012.pdf (245.6Kb) -
Tilley, Susan (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper provides some insights into international experience and attempts to distil the key areas of strategic value for consideration in developing a national strategy for support provision to land reform beneficiaries in South Africa. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/74 Files in this item: 1
Tilley_International2007.pdf (1.269Mb) -
Tapela, Barbara (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: This report is based on research carried out between June 2003 and April 2005 in the Greater Sekhukhune Cross-Border District Municipality, which straddles the boundaries of the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. This research took place in two case-study sites, namely the Hereford and the Phetwane Irrigation Schemes. However, this report focuses on findings from Hereford only. The research was primarily concerned with the impact of BEE, articulated through joint ventures, on the ‘livelihoods’ of people living in emerging small-scale irrigation schemes in some of the least affluent rural areas within the municipality. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/71 Files in this item: 1
Tapela_Joint2005.pdf (816.7Kb) -
Nleya, Ndodana (Unisa Press, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: The notion of service delivery protests in South Africa has perhaps become a cliché in South Africa. While there was a lull in protest activity (excluding industrial action) in the first decade of democracy, the second decade has been characterised by increased militancy reminiscent of the anti-apartheid struggle days, with many of these diagnosed as so-called service delivery protests. To be sure, service delivery issues are often mentioned as part of a blend of issues that have caused the different communities to protest in media reports. The role of service delivery in the generation of these protests however has so far not been investigated directly. This article reports the results of a quantitative study using path analysis to investigate the strength of the claim of the link between service delivery and protests in Khayelitsha, one of the protest prone townships in Cape Town. The article concludes that that service delivery affects protests directly and indirectly through its impact on perceptions of service delivery, perception of condition of life and the attendance of meetings. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/596 Files in this item: 1
NleyaServiceDeliveryProtests2011.pdf (1.207Mb) -
Turner, Stephen (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape & Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere Inc. (CARE), 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: The study compares the livelihoods and inter-household sharing mechanisms in a Lesotho village across a 28 year period. The report examines the complex socio-economic structures and systems that are in place in the rural village. Despite external signs of improved housing standards, the study finds ominous signs of growing vulnerability as much of the community's economic backbone has been lost. Options for assistance by external agencies and by social protection systems are explored. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/70 Files in this item: 1
Turner_Livelihoods2005.pdf (882.4Kb)