Is South Africa heading towards authoritarian rule? Instability myths and expectations traps in a new democracy

Politikon

Volumn 27, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 189-205

  Butler, Anthony ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85071210378     PISSN: 02589346     EISSN: 14701014     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713692335     Document Type: Article

References (33)

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6. Spence, J., ed. 1999. After Mandela, London: Royal Institute for International Affairs. On the emergence of democratic centralism in the ANC, see the measured deliberations of the Royal Institute of International Affairs study group on South Africa, collected
7. 1999. 'Party Time in South Africa'. The Economist, 20 February In addition, see
8. Kohli, A., 1997. “ On Sources of Social and Political Conflicts in Follower Democracies' ”. In Democracy's Victory and Crisis, Edited by: Hadenius, A., 71–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9. Seekings, J., 1993. Heroes or Villains? Youth Politics in the 1980s, Johannesburg: Ravan. Apartheid era anthropologists had monopolised the study of 'African polities', leaving political scientists to focus on the 'European' behaviour of the White electorate
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11. Maradani, M., 1996. Citizen and Subject, 286Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Accounts equating apartheid with 'indirect rule' ignore South Africa's nineteenth-century exceptionalism (in wars of dispossession, population displacements, and enforced changes of social organisation) and the minerals revolutions that proletarianised South Africa and produced its self-consciously ideological and anti-ethnic political culture
12. Brewer, J. D., ed. 1994. Restructuring South Africa, London: Macmillan.
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14. Lijphart, A., 1985. Power Sharing in South Africa, Berkeley: University of California. The most important authors were
15. Horowitz, D., 1991. A Democratic South Africa?, Berkeley: University of California.
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19. McClelland, J. S., 1996. A History of Western Political Thought, 663London: Routledge. 1 have relied heavily on McClelland's uniquely penetrating analysis here
20. Butler, A., 1998. Democracy and Apartheid, 140–9. London: Macmillan. Commentators reinforced racialisation by conflating correlation with causation. Observing that most Africans vote for the ANC, writers often continue to assume that they have voted in this way because they are Africans (without exploring whether some other factor, including interest, might not be responsible). While the sophisticated Idasa-SABC-Markinor Opinion '99 surveys (see www.idasa.org.za) have for the first time used internationally accepted survey methods and analytical frameworks to magnificent effect, academic and media commentators have yet fully to digest their findings. On earlier political attitude surveys, see
21. Taylor, R., and Orkin, M., 1995. 'The Racialisation of Social Scientific Research on South Africa'. South African Sociological Review, 7(2): 43–69. On racialised research, see the seminal article
22. Habib, A., and Taylor, R., 1999. 'Parliamentary Opposition and Democratic Consolidation in South Africa'. Review of African Political Economy, 80: 261–7. Defections from the ANC in two provinces in 1999, and the sophistication of the Gauteng electorate, caution against reliance on current political attitude analysis. To the (limited) degree that people's perceptions of their own behaviour are to be trusted, around two-thirds of the electorate, and about half of Africans, considered themselves 'independents' in 1998, as against only about 10 per cent of the electorate in 1994. See
23. McGreal, C., 1999. "The Great Persuader'. Weekly Mail & Guardian, 1 June When asked whether Thabo Mbeki would make a good president, his father Govan replied: 'He's guided by the politics of this organisation. It's the organisation that matters, not the man'
24. Neustadt, Richard E., 1960. analysis of presidential power in Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, New York: Wiley.
25. Crossman, R., 1963. “ 'Introduction' to Walter Bagehot ”. In English Constitution, 51London: Fontana.
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27. Republic of South Africa. 1998. Report of a Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Transformation and Reform of the Public Service, Pretoria: Republic of South Africa.
28. Barrel!, H., and Streck, B., 1999. 'Hidden Face of Government'. Weekly Mail & Guardian, 12 November: 12–15.
29. Mann, M., 1986. “ The Autonomous Power of the State ”. In States in History, Edited by: Hall, J. A., Oxford: Blackwell. For elaboration of this concept, see
30. Friedman, S., 'Democracy the Victim if ANC Loses Touch'. Business Day, 23 December 19%. Alternatively, 'an over-concentration of power in South Africa may end up in the ANC getting more and more control over less and less'
31. Barrell, H., 2000. 'Mbeki: One Year On'. Weekly Mail & Guardian, 2 June
32. Gumede, W. M., 2000. 'Why the ANC Backs Zanu'. Financial Mail, 2 June
33. Blondel, J., 1992. “ Dual Leadership in the Contemporary World ”. In Parliamentary and Presidential Government, Edited by: Lijphart, A., Oxford: Oxford University Press.