Browsing Book Chapters (Political Studies) by Title
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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) -
Africa, Cherrel; van Rooyen, Garth (SUN Press, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: Small parties and independents play an important role in South Africa’s democracy. It is on the level of the local that these small parties and independents have some chance to make indents in terms of winning a few wards that could turn them into council kingmakers, or at least represent some particular local constituency needs. This chapter examines the multitude of small and micro-parties, as well as independent candidates in the 2011 local government elections. It first features classification-based endeavours to ‘make sense of this multitude of often-neglected but crucial political players in South Africa’. The classifications use the number of contesting candidates and election outcomes as the two classificatory principles. The chapter also explores the increase in contestation by independent candidates. Thereafter it investigates the details of their results, and the reasons for their largely dismal displays in local election 2011. The chapter concludes that while these political actors remain largely in an underworld of small and micro-parties, they retain enthusiasm for electoral contestation, thus continuing to add value to multi-party democracy in South Africa. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/550 Files in this item: 1
AfricaSmallParties2012.pdf (142.9Kb)
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