1984 has witnessed an intensification of the world economic crisis which began 10 years ago and with it a heightening of the class struggle world-wide. So extreme has the recession become that banner headlines liken it countless times to the first capitalist crash of 1929. Not even the USA's conjunctural boom can act as any respite to its own working population or to those of the other nations linked inexorably in the Imperialist chain. In America capitalism can boast an increase in profits of up to 50% for 1984 and the truth is that this has been achieved by depressing the value of wages below the inflation rate since 1981. For Latin America, America's boom has brought nothing but greater hardship as she reels under the economic burden of increased indebtedness, exacerbated by the soaring interest rates in the USA. Caring little for traditional blood-ties America intensifies the death throes of her oldest rival - Britain. The buoyant dollar has suppressed confidence in sterling, pushing up the cost of credit and thus discouraging capitalists from investing. The threat of this ruthless business sense has expressed itself in the most tenacious struggles on the part of workers to defend their right to work. In South Africa, hopes of an export-led recovery have been shattered by greatly diminished exports from the drought striken agricultural sector, and the costly importation of heavy machinery from America and Japan where the rand finds very little in exchange. This then is the meaning of America's boom. In a period of rapidly declining capitalism, there can be no talk of a protracted boom which brings about general social upliftment, but only an intensification of the most nationalisic throat-cutting and the immiseration of large sections of the working class. / No. 4

A dissertation submitted in the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Political Studies. Johannesburg 1997. / In 1988 the Soweto People's Delegation and the councils of Soweto, Diepmeadow and Dobsonville began to negotiate an end to the rent boycott and the crisis in the provision of services. Discussions between civic bodies and local government officials - which eventually resulted in the Soweto accord - were increasingly infonned by the slogan 'one city, one tax base'. In the wake of the accord, other parties to similarly established negotiations commonly based their approach on the 'one city' slogan. As a result, local government negotiations and the institutional arrangements that followed were increasingly infonned by this notion. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version] / AC2017

Thesis (Ph. D. (Education )) -- University of the North, 2003 / Refer to the document

Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa one of the challenges that has remained elusive to policy-makers has been the issue of how to redistribute the same democratic advances made at national level to more ordinary citizens at grassroots level. The concern has been how to include voices of previously marginalized communities. The immediate policy plan at local government level is entitled “participatory governance” and has been adopted by the post-apartheid national government of the ANC to limit this participatory-democratic gap. The laws and policies that constitute the body of this policy are the White Paper on Local Government adopted in 1998 and the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 and the Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998. The Msunduzi municipality has formally adopted this policy and it is called “community participation policy”, which has yielded rather unsatisfactory results to date. Setting aside the issue of implementation for now, the present study explores the institutional design of this policy of participatory governance in Msunduzi by applying the design principles of the theory of “empowered participatory governance”. This theory attempts to understand how to build a deep democratic culture via government-community partnerships through the concept of citizens who are empowered to play such a role. The major finding of this thesis is that there are design flaws in these institutions in this municipality which require a reform of the policy itself. However, this may not be enough, as more empowered citizens are also required. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

This thesis provides an analysis of changes apparent in the ideology and style of the Inkatha Freedom Party'si politics since April 1994. The IFP's first three years in power under the new dispensation, as a member of the Government of National Unity and the majority party in KwaZulu-Natal, have witnessed a significant shift away from the militant Zulu nationalism and confrontational tactics that characterised the party from the mid-1980s. Zulu nationalism has been abandoned in favour of a broader appeal, while the brinkmanship employed during negotiations in the early 1990s, the walkouts and threats of violent resistance, have been largely absent in the post-election period. Confrontation since 1994, and especially since 1996, has gradually given way to more accommodatory and cooperative relations with the political opposition, on both the national and provincial levels of government. To understand why this shift has occurred, it is necessary to examine the nature of Zulu nationalism as espoused by Inkatha. It is my assertion that Inkatha employed Zulu nationalism in an attempt to preserve its institutionalised power base in the KwaZulu-Natal region and exercise a voice on the national level. Nationalist rhetoric became increasingly prevalent as violence escalated in the late 1980s, and peaked in the uncertainty of the political transition as the IFP faced marginalisation on South Africa's emerging politicalstage. Zulu nationalism acted as the rallying call for party faithful to resist the challenge of the United Democratic Front!African National Congress in the 1980s, and provided justification for Inkatha's confrontational approach and demands for Zulu self-determination in the early 1990s. Indeed, Inkatha's brand of Zulu nationalism has always been about 1 advancing the party interest, rather than defending the integrity of the divided and warring ,J Zulu people. It is in this light that the post-1994 shift in ideological emphasis must be understood. The April 1994 general election ushered in a new era in South African politics, in which the IFP found its role radically altered. From playing the part of spoiler on the outskirts of formal political structures it now had to adjust to its status as the majority party in the provincial legislature, with Buthelezi in a prominent role in the national cabinet. Under these conditions, the party's interests were advanced by the establishment of a smootWy run provincial administration, under which its regional power could be consolidated. Thus, the new political order created a space for the IFP within the democratic system in which its credibility rested on its ability to govern the province effectively. Further, under these conditions, confrontation was not only less attractive as a means of achieving party objectives, it was also less effective and feasible. This the IFP learnt the hard way, in terms of its disastrous constitution-making experience. Its boycott of negotiations at the national level merely served to deprive the IFP of a role in drawing up the country's final constitution, while a belligerent approach at the provincial level prevented the realisation of a compromise agreement. The IFP was forced to accept that its majority in the provincial legislature was insufficient to allow it to rule unilaterally in the province. The loss of therKing's political allegiance, coupled with election results which revealed strong support for the ANC among urban Zulus while the IFP's support was largely confined to traditionalist rural communities, undermined the party's claims to represent the Zulu nation. Furthermore, the gradual return of law and order in the province diminished the IFP's capacity to resort to militarism, thus taking some of the bite out of a confrontational strategy. In brief, the IFP was both pulled and pushed into the new order, and hence to some extent, a new ideology and political style. By 1996 the Zulu nationalism and belligerence that had characterised the party since the mid-1980s had been replaced with a liberal-conservative platform that sought resonance with the urban electorate, coupled with efforts to improve cooperative relations with the political opposition in the interests of provincial stability. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

The end of the cold war resulted in much optimism in Africa that political and economic problems would be minimised. In line with this optimism a number of countries undertook political and economic reforms. These developments are the reason why I chose the topic of democratic consolidation. There has been a growing interest in the democratisation prospects of these 'fragile states'. The question is, would they succeed in establishing necessary institutions to support democratic norms? In the literature there are diverse opinions, some point to political elites as the main stumbling block to democratic consolidation. They argue that there are no incentives to pursue a democratic path. Modernisation theory has placed more emphasis on economic development as a prerequisite to political stability. As a result some people argue that poor countries have limited chances to consolidate their democracy. This paper focuses upon the prospects of democratic consolidation in South Africa. The study has two main themes that are closely interlinked. The relationship between economic development and political development will be examined as will the positioning and ability of ruling elite to facilitate or impede democratic consolidation. What is argued is that institutions are in place to guarantee democratic consolidation. What is required now is a robust civil and political society to safeguard this democracy. This dissertation concludes by arguing that citizens are the key to democratic consolidation, they can guard their won freedom if they feel that it is threatened. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1999.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1996.

This thesis looks at the problem of governance and statehood in Africa from an international law perspective. Adopting a comparative analytical research method, the thesis investigated the idea of statehood in traditional Africa and Europe, and highlighted conceptual differences. It traced the origin and nature of the post colonial African state to an oppressive and totalitarian colonial state; and the coalescence of international law with European civilization and reality. The argument is made that the international law framework on statehood and international solutions of intervention and democratization, are inadequate for dealing with the problems of statehood in Africa and its consequences such as state collapse. The thesis proposes the legitimization of the African post colonial state through a combination of a process of self determination and democratization. The pattern of self determination proposed seeks to give normative expression to an African state's reality by using the equilibrium of the peoples incorporation and disengagement from the state as an index for determining the role and relevance of the state. It is proposed that this index, in determining the ambits of the right to self determination of the constituent political units in a state, should entitle an African nation to a minimum of the right to self governance in a confederate system. In complimenting the foregoing legitimization process, the thesis proposes a democratic framework that is constructed on cultural foundations of endogenous democracy and development.

This thesis provides a baseline understanding of the support given by foreign governments to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The study endeavours, first, to analyze the instances of international assistance provided to the TRC to determine what aid worked well and why or why not. The thesis finds overall that foreign support has been an important bulwark to the Commission. Nevertheless, the thesis identifies shortcomings in the effectiveness of foreign assistance to the TRC. Based on these findings the thesis pursues a second objective: extracting lessons from the TRC to guide future international efforts in support of truth commissions in post-conflict and transitional states. The thesis underscores common challenges facing truth commissions. By extrapolating from the South African case the thesis recommends ways international actors can best help future truth commissions overcome these difficulties.

The pivot around which the controversy over the Board's political policy revolved was the question whether a collective Jewish attitude towards the government's racial policies should be formulated, or whether this was the province of individual Jewish protest. Stemming from this was the question of the extent of communal responsibility towards the individual who had fallen afoul with the law in expressing his protest. The complexity of formulating policy was exacerbated by the trauma of the 1930's and 1940's where the National Party and its leadership espoused a radical anti-Semitic ideology and a pro-Nazism policy. Added to this was the very real sympathy felt for the aspirations of survival of the Afrikaner People, conflated by a revulsion and antipathy towards the measures the nationalist Government took to attain this end. The solution hit upon by the Board was a policy of 'neutrality' in the political area. This dissertation is an attempt to highlight the problems with which the Board grappled and its central concerns in formulating policy vis-a-vis the political issues that were at the centre of the political life of South Africa. The study follows the evolvement of the policy of collective non-involvement from the 1950s and the gradual evolution it underwent in the 1970s and 1980s towards a commitment and a responsibility to openly and publicly speak out on the moral aspects of Apartheid. In view of the above, the thesis begins in 1930 with the promulgation of the Quota Act, which initiated the new antisemitic policies of the National Party, until 1978. The epilogue ends 1985 when the Board of Deputies abandoned its policy of neutrality towards the political arena, when the 33rd National congress of the Jewish Board of Deputies, passed a resolution condemning the Policy of Apartheid, thus adopting a collective stance towards the government's racial policies. Although this stance was in line with the views prevalent in the white community, it signalled a giant step in the Board of Deputies' drive to abandon its policy of accommodation towards the NP government and Nationalist forces. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.