UID:
almafu_9960118580302883
Umfang:
1 online resource (xii, 307 pages) :
,
digital, PDF file(s).
Ausgabe:
First edition.
ISBN:
9781868146093
,
186814609X
Inhalt:
South Africa's Suspended Revolution engages with the country's transition into democracy and its prospects for inclusive development. It is an antidote to many descriptive and voluntarist explanations in which leaders and other actors are treated as unfettered agents whose choices and behaviour are merely the result of their own abilities or follies. In contrast, Adam Habib explains the story of how South Africa arrived at this point by locating these actors in context. He tries to understand the institutional constraints within which they operated, why they made the choices they did, and what the consequences are. The book also explores what other policy options and behavioural choices may have been available, and why these were forsaken for the ones that were eventually adopted. In essence, the book is about how South Africa got to its present state of affairs, what the country's current challenges are, and how these could be transcended. It is deeply historical in the sense of understanding what possibilities may have existed in one moment, but not another. The narrative recognises that societies evolve and as a result the potential for political and socioeconomic advances themselves change. This then is a story of the dynamic interplay between actors and context, how the latter can constrain and condition the former, but also how individuals and institutions can, with imagination, act against the grain of their location and historical moment, thereby transforming the possibilities and, through them, society itself.
Anmerkung:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 21 May 2019).
,
Cover -- Title Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- The state of the nation -- Explaining the transition -- A brief outline of the book -- 2. Governance, political accountability and service delivery -- The construction of the post-apartheid state -- The erosion of political accountability -- Behind the service delivery crisis -- The challenge -- 3. The political economy of development -- The shift to GEAR -- The central contradiction -- Groping towards social democracy -- Acknowledging changes in economic policy -- Contradictory approaches to inequality -- The challenge -- 4. The viability of a sustainable social pact -- Social unionism and South Africa's first social pact -- Understanding the emergence of social pacts -- The potential for a social pact in the post-Polokwane era -- The challenge -- 5. The evolution of state-civil society relations -- Historical context -- Civil society in the democratic era -- The state, civil society and the consolidation of democracy -- The challenge -- 6. South Africa and the world -- Foreign policy and second-generation nationalism -- South Africa's foreign policy, 1994-2008 -- Continuities and discontinuities in foreign policy since 2008 -- The challenge -- 7. What is to be done? -- Reform or transformation -- Reconstructing political accountability to citizens -- Reconciling constitutional rights -- The necessity of leadership -- 8. Reinterpreting democratic and development experiences -- Human agency and its structural conditioning -- Socio-economic justice in transitional democracies -- The battle of interpretation -- A progressive nationalism? -- Frequently used acronyms and abbreviations -- Endnotes -- References -- Index.
Weitere Ausg.:
ISBN 9781868146086
Weitere Ausg.:
ISBN 1868146081
Sprache:
Englisch
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