For a 25-year period during the apartheid era in South Africa, all school-leaving white men were issued with a compulsory call-up to national military service in the South African Defence Force. It is estimated that 600 000 men were conscripted between 1968 and 1993, undergoing military training and being deployed in Namibia, Angola and South Africa. The purpose of this system of military conscription was to support both the apartheid state’s role in the “Border War” in Namibia and Angola and the suppression of anti-apartheid resistance within South Africa. It formed part of the National Party’s strategy of a “total response” to what it perceived as the “total onslaught” of communism and African nationalism. While recruiting and training young white men was the focus of the apartheid government’s strategy, all of white South African society was caught up in supporting, contesting, avoiding and resisting this system in one way or another. Rather than being a purely military endeavour, conscription into the SADF therefore comprised a social and political system with wide-ranging ramifications. The 1994 democratic elections in South Africa heralded the advent of a very different political, social and economic system to what had gone before. The focus of this research is SADF conscripts’ narrations of identity in the contested narrative terrain of post-apartheid South Africa. The thesis begins with a contextual framing of the historical, social and political systems of which conscription was a part. Drawing on narrative psychology as a theoretical framework, the thesis explores discursive resources of whiteness, masculinities and perceptions of threat in conscripts’ narrations of identity, the construction of memory fields in narrating memories of war and possible trauma, and the notions of moral injury and moral repair in dealing with legacies of war. Using a narrative discursive approach, the thesis then reflects on historical temporal threads, and narrative patterns that emerge when analysing a range of texts about the psychosocial legacies of conscription, including interviews, research, memoirs, plays, media reports, video documentaries, blogs and photographic exhibitions. Throughout the thesis, conscripts’ and others’ accounts of conscription and its legacies are regarded as cultural texts. This serves as a means to highlight both contextual narrative negotiations and the narrative-discursive patterns of conscripts’ personal accounts of their identities in the post-apartheid narrative terrain. The original contribution of this research is the development of conceptual and theoretical framings of the post-apartheid legacies of conscription. Key to this has been the use of narrative-based approaches to highlight the narrative-discursive patterns, memory fields and negotiations of narrative terrains at work in texts that focus on various aspects of conscription and its ongoing aftereffects. The concept of temporal threads has been developed to account for the emergence and shifts in these patterns over time. Existing narrative-discursive theory has formed the basis for conscripts’ negotiations of identity being identified as acts of narrative reinforcement and narrative repair. The thesis concludes with reflections on the future possibilities for articulating and supporting narrative repair that enables a shift away from historical discursive laagers and a reconfiguration of the narrative terrain within which conscripts narrate their identities. / Also known as: Edlmann, Theresa

The South African Council of Churches (SACC) played an extremely crucial role during the struggle against apartheid. The role of the SACC was first and foremost to provide a voice for the voiceless. It managed, among other tasks, to actively fill the void left by movements banned by the illegitimate apartheid government. As a result of its fight against the inequalities that existed in South Africa, its work adopted a political character. In the aftermath of post-apartheid South Africa, the SACC was left with the task of redefining its role within South African society and civil society, specifically. The euphoric sentiment in the mid-1990s was in part reflected in the SACC. However, the conclusion reached by the Council in 1995 was that it would also play a role of 'critical solidarity' which essentially meant that it would not shy away from attacking the government when the need arose. Since 1994, the South African government has implemented a number of policies that do not appear to be in the immediate interest of the majority of South African citizens atld have brought church and state into conflict. This thesis attempts to tackle three issues which are pertinent to the South African situation and which shed light on state-civil society interactions. These issues are HIV I Aids, the question of odious debt and the Zimbabwe crisis. By using both primary and secondary sources, the SACC's responses to government's handling of these matters will be compared with the responses of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference in order to determine their relationships with government. The conclusion of this investigation is that the SACC has in fact managed to maintain a position of critical solidarity. It has been faced with numerous challenges with regard to maintaining the fragile boundary of alliance with government on the one hand, and becoming anti-government on the other. However, by forming alliances with other civil society actors as well as fostering a relationship with government in order to facilitate mediation this dissertation argues that the SACC has become an essential member of South Africa's vibrant civil society.

The Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) acknowledged and recognised the centrality of good governance within the context of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an innovative mechanism acceded to by member states of the African Union (AU) as a self- monitoring mechanism for good governance. South Africa is one of the countries which acceded to the APRM in 2003. Accordingly, South Africa appointed a National Governing Council (NGC) under the chairpersonship of the Minister of Public Services and Administration as the focal point to develop a strategy to manage the national APRM process. The NGC was constituted of business, the disabled, civil society, churches, trade unions, government and women’s coalitions thus ensuring all relevant stakeholders are represented. As part of South Africa’s country assessment, questionnaires dealing with the four core thematic areas of the APRM were sent through to the public by community development workers. In addition, four technical assessment agencies were appointed to assist in conducting research on the four thematic areas. The primary objective of this study is to examine the theoretical approach to the study and the African Peer Review Mechanism’s contemporary relevance to South Africa, its intended beneficiaries and an assessment of South Africa for the period 2006. The study revealed that Proportional Representation (PR) and floor-crossing have an impact on the sustainability, relevance, long term development, vibrancy and profundity of constitutional democracy in the country. Clearly, since the dawn of the democratic dispensation in South Africa the electoral system introduced is such that it had to take into account the challenges the country faced during the apartheid system of governance. In this context, enough space for free political competition in the country was created. On the basis of the findings of the study, it is patently clear that the time allocated for the CSAR was minimal and the country should have been given at least two years so that the self assessment could have been extensively done. On the issue of HIV and AIDS and its relationship to socio-economic conditions, it was revealed that the country has a lot to do in this regard. The debilitating effect that HIV and AIDS has on the lives of the citizens requires clarity of policy and strategy, consistency in public communication and the need for sustained partnerships amongst all relevant stakeholders. At another level, there was a call for a basic income grant although government does not necessarily support it. Based on the research findings above, a new research area outlined under recommendations can be conceptualized for further research and it requires some attention.

The Republic of South Africa emerged as 'a product of a historical moment' and also as a reaction against imperialism, colonialism, racial discrimination and domination over the majority of black South Africans by the white minority. The democratic dispensation came into being also for the first time in its life in memorial for a long turbulent history followed by the general democratic elections held on 27th April 1994. The 1994 first general election liberated South Africa from the apartheid system and its subsequent primary objective was “… to transform South Africa into a non-racial and democratic society”. The new democratic government now looks politically different from the racist regime because the current government since 1994 has been, and to date still is, a truly and broadly representative of the South African citizens and also a transparent one, whereas the defunct apartheid government was characterized primarily by, among other things, the violation of human rights, denying black South Africans of any rights of basic services, no rights of owning property or land, no freedom of association and speeches and firmly practised discrimination which was detrimental to the majority of the black population groups in this country. According to the then President Nelson Mandela whilst addressing the ANC masses that were commemorating the eighty-third (83rd) anniversary of the African National Congress on the 8th January 1995, democracy entails “… a thorough-going process of transformation, of overcoming the political, social and economic legacy of apartheid colonialism, of racism, sexism and class oppression.” The government is still grappling with the challenge of ensuringa better life for all the citizens of this country (http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?doc=ancdocs/history/jan8-95html:1).

MPM / Olive Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

PhD (African Studies) / Centre for African Studies / The aim of this study is to examine existing secondary material to determine whether there is agreement concerning the acclaimed migration of the Africans across the Limpopo River into South Africa. This is done by determining, in an interwoven analytical manner, whether there is possible existing credible evidence that could be applied to examine the claim espoused by Sir George Mc Call Theal. The cause of the disparity amongst the whites and blacks in the country seems to have an historical origin that dates back to the epochs of colonialism and imperialism, which spanned centuries. These movements resulted in the apparently unfair foreign land ownership, which was carried out at the expense of the African blacks, such as the Bakone, Vhangoṋa and Banguni, to date. For one to determine the validity of foreign land acquisition in a foreign country like South Africa; research is required in order to find the genesis, credibility and justification of the total soil ownership by foreigners; which as stated, was conducted at the expense of the majority of Africans who possess no land, living in abject poverty, suffering from unemployment and treated with inequality. The brutal colonial efforts and the untested African migration remains an elusive problem that should be tested scientifically to confirm or negate, when precisely the Africans came; who saw them come, and what made them leave their original countries, if any. This in a perpetual cardinal point of the ‘north’ being occupied moving in ‘waves’ with no witnesses. This study seeks to examine why the naturalised foreign Europeans are better off in the country, in everything.

MAIR / Department of Development Studies / See the attached abstract below

The aim of this study is to analyse and describe the role of sub-national governments (SNG’s) in foreign policy and how the conduct of diplomacy has developed in the South African context, and to assess why and how provinces engage in this phenomenon. The theoretical approach to this study is embedded in neo-functionalism. In order to illustrate this, the South African province, the Limpopo Province is used as an illustrative case study. In particular, the study will analyse the role of the International Relations Unit (IRU) within the Office of the Premier (OtP) in the Limpopo Province as a case study. Limpopo is the main focus of this study because it, inter alia, borders on three sovereign states (Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe) which place the province in a good position to engage in international relations, mutual intentions and friendly relations with its neighbouring and other distant countries. The results of this study is that provinces have become important foreign policy and international relations actors in the area of low politics; however the national government remains as the main actor in the international relations and foreign policy making process. The results also indicate that Limpopo is being proactive in facilitating and accelerating the realisation of the foreign policy objectives since provinces engage with international activities that run in parallel with the objectives and principles of the national foreign policy. The study contributes to the literature on SNG’s diplomacy in South Africa. It also lays the foundation for further research in other SNG’s diplomacy especially in Africa by employing other theories that have been ignored including African theories. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

Housing delivery has been in a state of crisis long before the realisation of democracy in South Africa and still remains a point of contention for the poor. Issues of service delivery, particularly housing delivery, have consistently made newspaper headlines in post-apartheid South Africa. Between 2004 and 2012, service delivery protests increased from 34% in 2005 to 173% in 2012. The City Press, a weekly newspaper, focused on the coverage of issues of development in South Africa, emerging as an important voice in reporting on citizen action related to service delivery in the country during this time. Therefore, the principal objective of this study was to investigate the City Press representation of citizen action on housing delivery in South Africa between 2005 and 2015. With a view to providing insight into the role of the media in development, this study employed qualitative research methodology. Qualitative content analysis was utilised in studying the City Press editorials and the City Press individual journalist’ opinion pieces and the newspaper news reports. In addition, past and present City Press journalists identified with reporting on developmental issues were interviewed. The development communication theory was explored as an appropriate theoretical framework for this study, The investigation of the City Press representation of citizen action on housing delivery found that there were several complex issues and processes that negatively impacted the process of housing delivery during the second decade of South African democracy, including a scourge of corruption driven by inefficiencies administration of the housing delivery process. In that respect the study revealed that housing delivery has been hindered by many aspects, resulting in tensions and a strained relationship between the government and the poor citizens of South Africa. Furthermore, the study established that the City Press individual journalists played a significant role in the representation of citizen action through portraying housing delivery protests at key moments when these happened. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

African Union (AU) multilateral efforts in governance flounder at the level of implementation and their substantive intervention worth do not accord with the aspirations embodied in adopted normative frameworks and instruments. The research served to uncover the policy and delivery challenges within the overall AU institutional system as a means of providing a perspective on the future of AU governance mechanisms and related intervention modalities. Detailed empirical engagement, through an institutional lens, with norm formation and implementation in accountability, the rule of law and state capacity, and related delivery practices, enabled the extraction of crucial efficacy challenges in the AU institutional system. The exploration, using evidence embodied in documents from the AU governance implementation system, served to confirm that the AU continues to struggle between the imperatives of integration through established shared values and the exercise of state sovereignty. Within the policy-delivery nexus, the research points to the importance of agency by AU institutions and how practices and incentives serve to pervert the aspiration for a multilateral value-adding system in governance. In addition to providing a comprehensive historical macro-overview of AU governance intervention and related implementation modalities, the research served to uncover the implementation ‘black-box’ through a careful and comprehensive study of practices in each of the governance intervention terrains. The institutional focus serves to affirm that answerability for performance in the use of public resource and the structuring of organisations, matter for delivery and the production of substantive regional integration value. The core efficacy challenges at the level of AU multilateral engagements and implementation, such as norm proliferation, the exercise of power and sovereignty, staffing and capacity gaps, point to the need for a substantive and strategic reorientation of the AU governance normative framework and related intervention modalities. As an outcome of the analysis and reflection, a ‘norm graduating model’ is proposed to accommodate contextual realities in AU Member States on the back of historically hard-fought-for shared values in governance. At the level of implementation modalities, efficacy challenges point to the importance of a more tempered and realistic delivery approach. The primary focus in the immediate term should be on building governance through a diffused peer-engagement strategy culminating in norm compliance and full adherence to the provisions of established AU governance instruments over the long-term. / Public Administration and Management / Ph. D. (Public Administration)