Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Engels.

D.Litt. et Phil. / This study focuses on the political theory of Michael Oakeshott in whose work we find a comprehensive and coherent theoretical understanding of the modern state and government. The modern state, according to Oakeshott, possesses a dual character because it entails a synthesis between what he calls an enterprise association understanding of the state and a civil association understanding. Both of these co-exist in the modern appreciation of the state, with the one ameliorating the excesses of the other. Oakeshott believes this duality provides the best possible framework for a theoretical appraisal of the modern state. Based on this framework the unique character of an individual state, such as South Africa, can be assessed in terms of the position of its contingent understanding in relation to these two different views. In his consideration of this hybrid character of the state, Oakeshott notes that the rationalistically inclined enterprise association view currently seems to dominate within the field of politics. Such a dominance, if pushed too far, would undermine the coherence of the modern state, whose stability depends on the continued coexistence of both a civil and an enterprise understanding. In this study, the post-1994 ANC government in South Africa will be appraised in light of Oakeshott’s understanding of the modern state. The question as to the dominance, or not, of an enterprise association view of the state and government within the ANC will be assessed. Consideration will be given to the ANC’s understanding of its role and function as government and of its view of the broader association called the South African state. Here I will assess the role and influence of historical circumstances, and also, those key ideas that give intellectual organisation to ANC politics and inform both the responsibilities that the ANC feels it has to fulfil and the goals that it sets for itself and for the society at large. Finally, the implications of the identified enterprise character of the ANC government will be assessed in terms of its impact on the broader South African state and society.