Browsing Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences by Issue Date
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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; 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 (University of Natal Press, 2009)[more][less]
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du Toit, Andries (2009)[more][less]
Description: Paper presented at the "Escaping Poverty Traps: Connecting the Chronically Poor to Economic Growth" Conference, February 26-27, 2009 J.W. Marriott, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/65 Files in this item: 1
duToit_Adverse2009.pdf (408.0Kb) -
Hara, Mafaniso; Matose, Frank; Wilson, Doug; Raakjær, Jesper; Magole, Lapologang; Magole, Lefatshe; Demotts, Rachel; Njaya, Friday; Turner, Stephen; Buscher, Bram; Haller, Tobias; Mvula, Peter; Binauli, Lucy; Chabwela, Harry; Kapasa, Cyprian; Mhlanga, Lindah; Nyikahadzoi, Kefasi (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: This Policy Brief is based on synthetic studies undertaken by participants in the Cross Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa (CROSCOG) project between 2007 and 2009, funded by the European Commission (European Commission: FP6-2002-INCO- DEV/SSA-1, contract no. 043982). The objective of the project was to share existing research and experience in the governance of large-scale natural resource commons across various ecosystem types in southern Africa. Description: This policy brief was authored by the CROSCOG (Cross Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa) project team URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/68 Files in this item: 1
Hara_Commons2009.pdf (211.1Kb) -
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) -
White, Richard (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Decentralising the administration of communally-owned land to a local system in Botswana was a sound objective and could be pursued elsewhere in the region. Yet, despite Botswana having grappled relatively successfully with many of the land challenges, evidence suggests that tribal land administration is not free of problems. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/88 Files in this item: 1
White_Tribal2009.pdf (283.5Kb) -
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) -
Luescher-Mamashela, Thierry (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: The racial desegregation of the student bodies of historically white universities in South Africa has had significant political implications for student politics and university governance. I discuss two key moments in the governance history of the University of Cape Town (UCT) critically. The first involves the experience of racial parallelism in student governance in the late 1980s and early 1990s, making specific reference to the re-conceptualisation of the UCT Students’ Representative Council (SRC) as a ‘NUSAS-SRC’, along with the recognition of the political salience of race in the student body. The second traces the origins of the demographic representivity rule in the university’s statute to student demands for the dissolution of the UCT Council, and its replacement by a Transformation Forum in the early 1990s. I thus show that the recognition of race as politically significant in university governance is the outcome of a deliberate struggle, by students in general, and black students in particular, to de-privatise and politicise any sense of racial/racist marginalisation, and therefore to open up race as a topic for deliberation in the political realm of the post-apartheid university. Thus, the institutionalisation of race has come to serve the interests of the struggle for non-racialism. Description: Research article URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/226 Files in this item: 1
LuescherDesegregation2009.pdf (145.3Kb) -
Naicker, Visvanathan; Combrinck, Theodore; Bayat, Abdullah (University of the Western Cape: School of Business and Finance, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: Executive Summary: By almost any measure, most South African public schools, and schools in the Western Cape, are underperforming academically. For a number of years, there has existed a wide degree of consensus among education stakeholders, and particular government, that the problems in our schools extend beyond academic under-achievement. Massive budget allocations, overhauling curricular, restoring skewed learning resources, retraining educators and attempting to deal with the more pressing community problems and social ills that influence the results of a school are all necessary interventions. But, unless there is a concurrent improvement of schools from a „business‟ management point of view, there is no guarantee that the resources allocated to schools, both materially and in the form of educators, will be optimally deployed. Principals need to be occupied with the tasks of managing and leading teaching and learning i.e. instruction leadership, not managing routine administration. In recognising the potential of school administrative personnel to provide relief and support for the administrative role of principals, the Western Cape Government initiated a training course – the CSBA – in July 2008 for school business administrators. The ground-breaking pilot programme was completed in February 2010. Thereafter the WCED commissioned an evaluation of the results achieved. The purpose of the evaluation is to inform the WCED‟s plans for development of the course going forward. This report represents a synopsis of the findings of the evaluation. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/412 Files in this item: 1
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Gottschalk, Keith (Routledge, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: This article introduces and analyses South Africa’s space programme. This divides into three phases. First was the age of amateurs 1947-1962. Second, between 1963-1993, South Africa’s apartheid ancien regime started various missile projects. A secret military space launcher programme aimed at orbiting reconnaissance satellites. Under US Government pressure, this was cancelled before the first democratically-elected government came to power, and the facilities for manufacturing and testing solid propellant missiles destroyed. But South Africa still maintains a nucleus of space heritage infrastructure, including a coastal space launch range with telemetry capabilities, satellite testing and integration facilities, and modest aerospace and software industrial sectors. Third, South Africa became a democracy in 1994, and rolled out the legal and institutional infrastructure for a space programme. It is increasingly active in COPUOS and other international forums. South Africa has started to shape a new space policy, this time with public transparency. Since developing countries have severe resource constraints (aggravated by global recessions) the reviving future of South Africa’s space programme clearly needs to involve bilateral and multilateral partnerships. First fruits are that South Africa has negotiated with Algeria, Kenya, and Nigeria, the African Resource Management constellation, to pool imagery and other remote sensing data from all their microsats. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/155 Files in this item: 1
GottschalkAstropolitics2010rev 2011.pdf (477.9Kb) -
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) -
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) -
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 (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) -
Aliber, Michael (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: This second volume of Strategies to support South African smallholders as a contribution to government’s second economy strategy contains sixteen case studies that comprise the main data for the analysis detailed in Volume 1. This collection of case studies provides a useful resource on its own, providing a rich and diverse repository of narratives depicting various types of smallholders in diverse circumstances and environments. As researchers were given the latitude to deviate from a standardised approach, this volume reveals the authors’ different styles, different emphases, and indeed different disciplinary strengths. The ‘unit of analysis’ also differs across case studies: some are studies of single individuals, others focus on particular schemes or projects, and still others involve a comparative analysis of individuals or projects. Due to the complexity of categorising the case studies they have been simply grouped by province, and are ordered, roughly, from southwest to northeast. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/392 Files in this item: 1
AliberSmallholders2011.pdf (4.092Mb) -
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) -
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) -
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) -
Pretorius, Joelien (Routledge, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: The United States India nuclear agreement, announced in 2005, was a first step in the process to normalise India’s international nuclear relations despite the fact that India is not a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Africa is largely seen as a uranium supplier rather than nuclear power producer in the world nuclear order. The position that African states take towards Africa India nuclear cooperation, uranium supply to India in particular, is informed by two seemingly contrasting factors, namely economic and political pragmatism on the one hand, and non-proliferation imperatives and norms on the other. The African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, also referred to as the Pelindaba Treaty, prohibits uranium and nuclear-related exports to states without comprehensive safeguards of their nuclear facilities, but the case of India is still open for interpretation. Africa and India’s shared post-colonial consciousness, manifesting in their historical ties, membership of the Non-Aligned Movement and South South cooperation, is often regarded as another factor facilitating Africa India nuclear relations. A more critical view points to the different notions of post-coloniality in Africa and India, resulting in different approaches to nuclear non-proliferation that constrain their nuclear relations. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/484 Files in this item: 1
PretoriusPelindabaTreaty2011.pdf (256.8Kb)