The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power , livre ebook
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2011
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361
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English
Ebook
2011
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Publié par
Date de parution
11 novembre 2011
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781868147816
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Publié par
Date de parution
11 novembre 2011
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781868147816
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
The African National Congress is light years beyond the liberation movement of old. It remains a juggernaut, but its control and dominance are no longer watertight. The ANC lives the contradictions of weaknesses, cracks and factions while retaining its colossal status. As a party-movement it draws on its liberation credentials, and extracts immense power from its deep anchorage in South Africa s people. It is immersed in electoral politics that marks the state of its overwhelming power cyclically. As government the ANC is the object of protest, but not protest designed to bring the ruling party to its knees. The ANC is in command of the state, yet fails to definitively counter the deficits that make South Africa s democracy seem so diluted. Its incredulous and thus far trusting supporters condemn but only rarely punish deployees who do not pass through the eye of the needle .
The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power unpacks these contradictions. It focuses on four faces of the ANC s political power - the organisation, the people, political parties and elections, and policy and government - and explores how the ANC has acted since 1994 to continuously regenerate its power.
By 2011-12 the power configurations around the ANC were converging to a conjuncture holding vexing uncertainties. This book presents insights into how South African politics - in many ways synonymous with the politics of the ANC - is likely to unfold in years and possibly decades to come.
THE
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
AND THE
REGENERATION OF POLITICAL POWER
SUSAN BOOYSEN
THE
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
AND THE
REGENERATION OF POLITICAL POWER
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright Susan Booysen 2011
First published 2011
ISBN (print) 978-1-86814-542-3
ISBN (EPUB - IPG) 978-1-86814-781-6
ISBN (EPUB - ROW) 978-1-86814-782-3
ISBN (PDF) 978-1-86814-553-9
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Edited by Dick Cloete
Cover design and layout by Hothouse South Africa
Printed and bound by Ultra Litho (Pty) Ltd
Contents
Preface
SECTION 1 ANC MOVEMENT-PARTY IN POWER
CHAPTER 1 Introduction: ANC pathways to claiming, consolidating and regenerating political power
The ANC and the regeneration of power
Conceptualisation of political power in relation to the ANC
Mapping the ANC s pathways to power
Conclusion
Annexure to chapter 1 - Mapping the ANC s power trajectory, 1910-2011
CHAPTER 2 Aluta continua, from Polokwane to Mangaung
The birth and the limits of the new ANC
A break with post-1990 leadership determination
Polokwane as ANC war
Lessons from the president of plots and conspiracies
ANC Youth League - king-makers, foot soldiers and agent provocateur
The arms deal, Polokwane war and the haunted ANC
Times of ambush and conquest - case study of the construction of an ANC elective conference victory
Forward to Mangaung
Conclusion
SECTION 2 ANC POWER AND THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE
CHAPTER 3 The ANC and its pillars of people s power
People s power in South Africa
People pardoning the ANC, repeatedly
The paradox of poverty, unemployment and ANC power
ANC in election mode relating to the people
The seeming paradox of democratic centralism and people s participation
Conclusion
CHAPTER 4 Power through the ballot and the brick
The chain of protest triggers
Protest as bargaining with the ANC for better governance
Frequency, spread and periods of protest
Five peak periods of protest and evolving complexity of protest
Period one - 2004-05: Protest as local election bargaining tool
Period two - 2007: National and provincial delivery grievances
Period three - 2008: Xenophobia and the dark side of lapses in local authority
Period four - 2009-10: Rights activism protests
Period five - 2011: ANC candidate-revolt and ANCYL protests
Hierarchies of reasons for protest - configuration of unfolding waves
Government s efforts at corrective action
Conclusion
CHAPTER 5 Participation and power through cooperation, complicity, co-optation
Regenerating power through variations on the theme of participation
Status of people in public participation in South Africa
Changing presidential orders and variations in public participation
Inclusive mapping of public participation in South Africa
Government-sanctioned public participation
Unsolicited, spontaneous and protest participation
Conclusion
SECTION 3 ANC IN PARTY POLITICS AND ELECTIONS
CHAPTER 6 Power through elections - serial declines, but the centre holds
Elections and the ANC s power project
Fourth term and the confluence of electoral and public institution power
The ANC and opposition politics beyond party politics
How elections work for the ANC
ANC power in four sets of national-provincial elections
Synthesis of ANC power through participation in legitimate elections
Why South Africans vote ANC
Two worlds , extended liberation movement dividend and parallel democracy
Conclusion
Annexure to chapter 6 - ANC performances in four sets of provincial elections, 1994-2009
CHAPTER 7 Floor-crossing and entrenchment of ANC electoral supremacy
The tumultuous party political setting
Alliance formation, floor-crossing and electoral systems
Three rounds of power shifts through floor-crossing
Round one: Floor-crossing moving the earth
Round two: NNP remnants for sale, legal scramble to protect electoral bases
Round three: A weak and discredited show
The fates of floor-crossing parties
Conclusion
CHAPTER 8 Subjugation and demise of the (New) National Party
Antecedents to the NP as virtuous negotiator
Benchmarks in a drawn-out decade of decline and disintegration
Three consecutive NP identities in ANC-controlled South Africa
Identity one: The re-invented post-1994 NP
Identity two: Schizophrenic about-turns in the DA and ANC flirtation
Identity three: Subsumed into the ANC
Post-mortem of NNP demographic and ideological positioning
When did the NNP die?
Conclusion
Annexure to chapter 8 - Comparative NP and ANC power trajectories
CHAPTER 9 Countered and cowered Congress of the People (Cope)
Affirmation and negation of ANC power
The struggle for predominance and identity
Externalising internal opposition
Ebb and flow of Cope s challenge to the ANC
Cope s ideological and policy counter-positioning to the ANC
Refuge in collaboration, alliances and reconciliation?
Conclusion
Annexure to chapter 9 - Development of Cope and counter actions by the ANC
SECTION 4 ANC POWER AND STATE POWER
CHAPTER 10 State institutions as site of struggle in ANC wars
The ANC in command of the state
State as site of intra-ANC struggles
Periodisation of the ANC in relation to the institutions of state power
Mandela period - early capture of state power (1994-99)
Mbeki period I - ANC control and elaboration of state structures (mid-1990s-2004)
Mbeki period II - interregnum of contest and paralysis (2005-08)
Zuma period I - repopulating and taking control (2008-09)
Zuma period II - new cycles of contest (2009 onwards)
Cadreship, deployment and hegemony
Select institutional domain wars
Comrades in business and state-business
Conclusion
CHAPTER 11 Between centralisation and centralism - the Presidency of South Africa
Presidents negotiating the balance between state and party power
Reinvention of the Presidency - continuity and change in the Zuma presidency
Presidential dominance, presidency centralisation and centres of power
Clusters of influence on policy and governance
Recasting the architecture of coordination, integration and planning
Conclusion
CHAPTER 12 Policy, pursuit of the turn to the left and the paradox of continuity
Mapping the succession-policy contestation interfaces
Unfolding debates and discourses on left turns in ANC policy
Policy results in the time of Zuma
Intersecting dual centres of (state) power and centre of (alliance) power
Conclusion
SECTION 5 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 13 ANC at a critical conjuncture - movement, people, elections, governance
Stocktaking of the four faces of ANC power
Synthesis and implications for the regeneration of ANC power
Acronyms
Index
Preface
Enter the ANC world
In the 20 years of transitional and confirmed democratic politics in South Africa I traversed two worlds, having been both direct observer and analyst-researcher, and occasional research participant in the processes. First, there is the world of the African National Congress (ANC) . When one enters the marquee in Polokwane, the hallowed halls of Gallagher Estate, Esselen Park or the Durban Convention Centre for ANC elective conferences, National General Councils (NGCs), policy conferences, or South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) gatherings, one finds the profound, emotive experience of struggle ethos, movement mobilisation against the forces that restrain and prohibit faster progress, and politico-intellectual engagement to explain and propel the present and the future. There is a sense of representation of the people and the advancement of the national democratic revolution, albeit in the contexts of elections and modern government.
A profound awareness in the movement of the responsibilities that come with being a spoke in the wheel of democratic centralism is omnipresent. Internal debates to advance the project of far-reaching transformation are embraced. The outside environment is often seen as hostile, embodying forces that continuously threaten the mission of the ANC as liberation movement
