Summary in English. / Bibliography: leaves 87-92. / This dissertation evaluates the hypothesis that the implementation of stringent firearm control in South Africa will significantly decrease levels of violent crime. First, the specific dynamics of violent crime in this country are examined, in order to establish whether firearm control constitutes a fitting response to the problem. Second, some of the important theoretical underpinnings of the firearms control debate are considered.

Bibliography: pages 228-236. / This thesis is concerned with a study of the concept of politics in Marxist theory, and more particularly with Antonio Gramsci's contribution towards a revaluation of historical materialism.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-134). / The 1994 democratically elected government underpinned crucial socio-political changes in South Africa. The historical imbalances created by decades of Apartheid policies demanded employment of specific programmes in order to correct the situation. The period witnessed major transformation that is mainly intended to accommodate the previously marginalised communities; blacks, women and disabled people. These changes brought about the birth of affirmative action. Therefore, this study’s intention is to seek to examine "How successful has UCT been in achieving employment equity and why?" The main aim of this study is not attacking UCT’s achievement of Employment Equity, but to establish UCT’s course of action as well as inaction in achieving Employment Equity and the promotion of Affirmative Action. Comparative study analysis is used as a tool to capture information and data around the progress made in achieving Employment Equity and the promotion of Affirmative Action at UCT.

Bibliography: leaves 66-70. / The assertion that economic development can lead to democracy has been one of the most contested and debated issues in political science. Chapter Two outlines the evolution of the definitions and measurements of democracy and development which are used by Western scholars. The empirical studies on the relationship between development and democracy were largely generated in response to Seymour Martin Lipset's controversial study in 1959, which showed that the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances are for it to sustain a democracy. African scholars' criticisms of the Western canon will be presented in Chapter Three. This paper will describe the link between modernization theory and the development projects that have disappointed African scholars, thus causing them to search for a ""new and improved"" development theory which should replace Western theory. African scholars connect the failures of development projects in their own countries to the inapplicability of Western theory to the African continent. This paper will describe the African argument against Western definitions of democracy and development, methodologies used by Western theorists, and the 'Westernization' of social science. Then, the original literature will be presented to show that African scholars have created a contestable caricature of the Western canon which denies the possibility that African scholars and Western theorists have much in common. However, African scholars do not attempt to contribute to the evolution of the analysis on the relationship between development and democracy. Instead, they negatively stereotype the entire Western canon and do not acknowledge the robust value of the empirical findings outlined in Chapter Two. This ""misunderstanding"" of the Western canon suggests that African scholars are arguing against a construct rather than an accurate paradigm.

Includes bibliographical references.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-75)

Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Abstract How does living in a violent context influence political participation, political behavior, and attitudes about democracy? Since the end of the Cold War, intrastate violence has increased across developing democracies. This growing violence has occurred in parallel with the proliferation of elections. Although today, in almost every country globally, citizens are afforded the chance to select their leadership, too often, bullets and ballots mix. The mix of voting and violence threatens the democratization process, undermines essential democratic institutions, and can lead to prolonged civil conflict. It is dangerous to the survival of democratic regimes and, in many ways, can be a path to upending or suspending democratic processes altogether. Political violence makes it difficult to establish peace and stability and strengthen citizen confidence in democracy. Despite the substantial literature on political behavior in Africa, we still do not fully understand how varying socio-political and socioeconomic contexts influence citizens' behaviors. Although cross-national studies have examined the influence of political and institutional contextual factors, such as electoral and party systems, on voter turnout, country-specific issues, like ongoing armed conflict or pervasive political violence, are not always included in these analyses. It is necessary to move beyond examining individual characteristics and include country-specific contextual factors that can explain voter behavior and attitudes about democracy within African countries. Individual characteristics alone do not tell the whole story, and by focusing solely on these variables, we miss out on a variety of social and political environmental factors that may shape how citizens behave and think. Based on theories stemming from the literatures on the legacies of civil war, terrorism, electoral violence, and political behavior, I argue that voter turnout, vote choice, and attitudes to democracy are shaped by the social and political contexts in which citizens find themselves. Ongoing armed conflict and pervasive political violence are crucial contextual determinants that shape whether individuals decide to vote, whom they choose to support, and how they feel about democracy and democratic institutions. I also argue that close ties to a political party play a crucial role in conditioning the relationship between violence and democratic citizenship. Using a rich array of data, I produce statistical evidence that shows violent contexts have a negative impact on these behaviors and attitudes. I examine the consequences of political violence and ongoing armed conflict in a country that regularly holds elections. The case of Mozambique, and in particular, its 2014 election, presents an opportunity to understand the impact of armed conflict and political violence on both elections, and the larger multi-party regime. The evidence supports the notion that the ruling party, FRELIMO, lost support because of the violence and that RENAMO was able to bolster its support. However, the identity of the perpetrators of violence, in combination with individual partisan identity influenced how violence shaped Mozambican political behavior. In addition to violent contexts, I find that fear of electoral violence reduces voter turnout, support for the incumbent, and satisfaction with and support for democracy. The effect of fear is particularly salient for individuals who are not attached to a political party. Thus, not only does violence shape how people behave in a given election, it also shapes how they view the larger multi-party regime in which elections take place.

In this thesis I explore whether perceptions of individual economic inequality are linked to the legitimacy of democracy in Africa. Past research has suggested that high levels of economic inequality may affect the legitimacy of democracy, by reducing support for democracy and discouraging political participation. However, these findings have largely been described for cases in the global North. Little evidence is available for cases in Africa. This reflects an important omission in the literature. Africa – as a region – is simultaneously characterized by some of the highest levels of economic inequality in the world, and many democracies retain autocratic elements non-fully consolidated hybrid-regimes. This thesis addresses this omission. Much of the existing research on the consequences of economic inequality uses country-level measures of economic inequality, such as the Gini coefficient or the Palma ratio. This is problematic for two reasons. First, a growing body of research suggests that ordinary people widely misjudge levels of economic inequality and that people's perceptions of economic inequality are often weakly associated with actual, objective, levels of economic inequality. At an individual level people's attitudes and behaviours are thus probably informed by their perceptions of economic inequality rather than objective levels of economic inequality. Second, high-quality comparative data on economic inequality are predominantly only available for a limited number of economically developed countries. For countries in Africa, such data are often of poor quality, only available in irregular intervals and not easily comparable. This limits the empirical analysis of such cases. I bridge both problems by using representative survey data collected in 34 countries between 2016 and 2018 by the Afrobarometer value-survey (n>45000). Specifically, I compute measures of perceptions of individual economic inequality by using a survey question which asks respondents whether they feel relatively deprived (in regard to their living situation), relatively advantaged or equal to other people in their country. To link perceptions of individual economic inequality with democratic legitimacy, I apply Norris' 2011 multi-dimensional conceptualization of ‘political support'. Following Norris' conceptualization, I structure my thesis as a series of analyses focusing on the relationship between perceptions of individual inequality and the various dimensions of political support – support for democracy as a regime, satisfaction with how democracy is working, and trust in state institutions and representative government institutions. Lasty – as the legitimacy of democracy is reflected not only in people's attitudes towards and evaluations of democracy, but also in their actions – I explore whether perceptions of individual economic inequality are linked to civic and political participation. Employing multi-level analyses, I find that that people who feel equal to others are more supportive of democracy and have more demand for democracy than people who do not feel equal to others. Conversely, my results show that both those feeling severely relatively deprived and those feeling severely relatively advantaged tend to be less supportive of democracy and have less demand for democracy. Feeling relatively advantaged is significantly associated with more positive evaluations of how democracy is working in the respondent's country, while feeling relatively deprived is significantly associated with less positive evaluations. These results suggest that rather than emphasizing equality, people's expectations of the functioning of democracy in practice are driven by egocentric considerations. Likewise, people display egocentric motives regarding how much they trust representative government institutions and state institutions. I find that perceptions of individual relative deprivation are significantly associated with less political trust and that perceptions of relative advantage are significantly associated with more political trust. For all models, I find that the effect of perceptions of individual economic inequality remain significant, even when controlling for the effects of widely used explanations in the literature, such as partisanship, economic performance evaluations and perceptions of corruption. This indicates that how people feel compared to other people is an important explanation of how supportive people are of democracy, how they evaluate the functioning of democracy and how much they trust political leaders and state institutions. Lastly, I find that being materially poor and feeling relatively deprived do not appear to be consistently linked to being ‘voiceless' or ‘resigned' as the developmental narrative may suggest. The results show that people who feel relatively deprived are more likely to engage in communing activities, irrespective of poverty experience, but less likely to contact representatives when absolute lived poverty experience is considered. The models moreover suggest that people who have experienced more poverty are more engaged in communal activity, more likely to protest and more likely to contact representatives. Both perceptions of relative deprivation and experiences of poverty appear unrelated to voting. Overall, this thesis provides a number of important contributions to areas of both democracy research and economic research that have been understudied in the past. The results suggest that perceptions of individual economic inequality across 34 African countries consistently correlate with people's attitudes towards and evaluations of democracy, their trust in political leaders and institutions, and their levels of civic and political participation. This tells us that how people feel compared to others matters in terms of the legitimacy of democratic regimes in Africa. In many cases the results suggest that perceptions of relative deprivation and perceptions of relative advantage do not simply work in opposite ways. Much emphasis in both the public discourse and the empirical literature has been placed on the role of being or feeling relatively deprived. The results in this thesis clearly demonstrate that those who feel relatively better off are of equal importance and need to be studied in the future. Moreover, this thesis contributes to the methodological literature by providing a novel approach to the study of the consequences of economic inequality in Africa by focusing on perceptions and the use of value-survey data. Especially in the context of Africa (and the wider developing world) where high-quality macro-level data are often limited, the use of value-survey based experiential measures of inequality may open manifold new avenues of enquiry in a diverse set of fields of research.

African states have been divided in their relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite these divisions, the literature on this relationship has focused on withdrawal behaviour to the neglect of other types of behaviour, such as support for the ICC. Consequently, it is unable to explain what influences the diverse behaviour. This dissertation adapts Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (EVL) model into an International Relations model to categorise the different types of behaviour by African states and, subsequently, guide an explanation of the behaviour. Primary evidence of each African State Party's official policy position toward the ICC consisted of 208 country statements delivered between 2008 and 2018 at relevant United Nations and ICC forums. The study used discourse analysis to interpret satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the ICC in the statements and, consequently, categorise the states into one of the three behaviour groups for each year and forum. The country statement data are complemented by key informant semi-structured interviews, academic literature, news articles, and grey literature to explain the major factors influencing the behaviour of each state. Five explanatory variables were prevalent as explanations of African states' behaviour in relation to the ICC – head of state interests, domestic factors, regional politics, reputational factors, and economic factors. It was found that behaviour was caused by combinations of these variables. Broadly, exit and voice were primarily influenced by head of state interest and regional politics, whereas loyalty was influenced by reputational factors and/or economic factors. The results of this study have important implications for the study of Africa's international relations. The findings about the influence of the head of state variable demonstrated the relevance of the personalisation of power and how this affects the production of foreign policy. The heterogeneity of behaviour also challenges the usefulness of ‘Africa' as a category and highlights issues of essentialism and reductionism with the treatment of ‘Africa' as an indivisible unit of analysis, at least, regarding the withdrawal debate.