But the central focus will be to explore the foreign policy transition by reflecting the theory that even though international and regional political developments had an impact on the foreign policy transition of the ANC, the internal and domestic political struggles that had evolved during the same time-frame as both the international and regional political developments also had major contributions to the foreign policy transition of the movement. Within this context, the study will also explore the preliminary contours of a post-apartheid foreign policy as perceived by the ANC as to how the country will be reintegrated into the political and economic world order.

No description available.

The period of ‘people’s power’ in South Africa from 1985-7 represented for many participants a form of participatory, and often prefigurative, democracy. In the post-1994 period South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has committed to participatory democracy alongside representative democratic government. There has, however, been no clearly articulated theory of participatory democracy within the ANC. Through a combination of interviews and analysis of primary documents (including policy frameworks, legislation, discussion documents, guidance and other commentary), this thesis analyses the ANC’s understanding of participatory democracy as both a liberation movement in opposition and a government in power. While making a contribution to normative democratic debate, the thesis also challenges arguments which suggest that the democracy established in post-1994 South Africa is unrelated to people’s power or that people’s power in its entirety represented a superior form of democracy. Instead, it is argued that people’s power constituted a variety of overlapping themes and discourses. Elements were rooted in radical democratic theory, community activism, and ideas of popular empowerment. However it was also markedly influenced by Marxist-Leninist thought and a dominant notion of vanguardism. Overall, people’s power embraced a largely unitary form of democracy in which participation could only be exercised within the framework of the liberation movement. Into the democratic era, many of the ideas informing people’s power were woven into policy on participatory democracy. What also emerged, however, were new ideas and influences from development theory, governance discourse and international best practice. While these strands have themselves created conceptual tension - between the dual demands of performance and efficiency and citizen participation - public policy nonetheless provides politically pluralistic mechanisms for citizen influence. This thesis argues that alongside public policy discourse is a separate and distinct discourse of participation from the ANC as a movement. Here, vanguardism remains the dominant conceptual thread in which participation is seen as a means of fulfilling the NDR and extending ANC hegemony. As such, the teleological nature of participation as conceived by the ANC risks undermining the public policy objective of increasing citizen influence.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.

M.A. (Political Science) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

PhD, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand,2011 / This is a theoretical conceptual post-modern1 study which aims to elucidate the ANC’s democratic project through the prism of its relationship to the media. In turn, it aims to scrutinize events that have already occurred post-liberation in order to explore whether the free space of the media is steadily being impinged upon, and eroded and explore further, what ‘turns’ journalists made when under pressure from political forces. Whilst recognising that interlocking imperatives inform freedom and independence of the press, this study’s main focus is a political one. However, the issue of ownership is intrinsic to research on media ‘freedom’, particularly the concentration of ownership of the media and so, how commercial imperatives impact2 will be examined. Several theorists have been referred to in order to begin putting together a conceptual theoretical framework with which to clarify and account for the emergent pattern of discourse by the ANC on the media. The conceptual framework adumbrated here and employed in the analysis of the relationship of the ANC with the media draws heavily from Zizek, Mouffe and Butler, in particular. The concept of ‘resignifications’ comes from Butler, those of ‘Master signifier’ and ‘social fantasy’ from Zizek, and the conception of radical democracy from Mouffe. Use is made of these theoretical tools in order to account for the compulsion that characterizes certain discursive interventions on the media, which are always in some respect ‘inappropriate’ or in ‘excess’ of expectations. 1 Post-modern thinking has been influenced by Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Francois Lyotard and is characterised by fluidity, undecidability, openness, irony, parody as well a recognition of the world as a field of infinite interplay (McGrath, A: 1993: p456-60) 2 John Keane (1991) in The Media and Democracy is particularly useful in questioning how the concept of freedom of the press originated, but also how deregulation and commercial imperatives impact on the notions of democracy and freedom. Anton Harber wrote in a newspaper piece, Two fat ladies make a meal of it (2003: Business Day) that concentration of ownership - following the global trend – presents a danger to democracy, ‘leading to a homogenized and tepid media’.

Honours Degree / James April, [hereafter referred to as April] was a member of the ANC's military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe [otherwise referred to as MK. What might have seemed unusual to the court that day, and to many onlookers, was the fact that he was a "Cape Coloured" man espousing his allegiance to the ANC and praising it as" ... the spirit of the African people". April and Basil February Chis close friend and comrade] were among the first non-African people to join MK thereby recognising the common destiny of all black people. In part,to tell April's [and Basil February's] story is to explore from an individual perspective the capacity and ability of people to overcome their socialisation, and to rise above conformity and social restrictions. Most of all, April's story is of an activist whose political involvement led him to realise the inevitability and necessity of armed struggle. Furthermore, it is the story of the commitment of his life to this very armed struggle.

Th. doct.--Hist.--Barcelone, 1994. / Bibliogr., 12 p.

Thesis (M.A. (Political and International Studies))--Rhodes University, 2005. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Political Studies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.