Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 352-365). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (MA(Social Science))--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This study explores how the existence of traditional leadership alongside democratic governance within the local sphere of government affects traditional communities. It focuses on the relationships between traditional leadership and other key governance institutions at the local sphere; that is local government, administration of justice; community safety and land administration and how these relationships are translated in traditional communities. The key elements focused on include the roles of the different institutions, the role and position of the traditional community in governance, the need for institutions of governance to uphold their Constitutional mandates including the principles of democracy enshrined in the Bill of Rights within the Constitution. Through the use of the case study method of research, focusing on the Mamaila (Kolobetona) Traditional Community and the Lemondokop Village in particular, the study affirms the position held by some scholars that there is dual governance within the local sphere of government where the institution of traditional leadership exists. Furthermore, this study reveals that the relationships between traditional leadership and the other institutions of governance vary depending on the mandate of such institutions within the traditional community. The question is how such varied relationships affect the traditional community. To answer the above question I separated my findings into two chapters, focusing on perceptions and experiences of community leadership and community members respectively. This study shows that while dual governance is entrenched within the traditional community, and the key actors have found a way of accommodating each other and balancing their roles, the traditional community is at the mercy of traditional leadership because of the authority over communal land. The traditional community is not well conversant with the rights they have over the land and hence their development needs are driven by an elite who is more concerned about entrenching his authority than promoting community development.

This thesis is about the political implications of the constitutional recognition of the hereditary institution of traditional leadership in post-1994 South Africa for the democratization process in the rural areas of the former Bantustans. The thesis is organized around three related conceptual, historical and political questions. The conceptual question deals with the meaning of democracy in rural areas under the jurisdiction of traditional authorities. The historical question traces how the institution and traditional authorities have survived to the present post-colonial period. Lastly, this study investigates the political issue of why an ANC-led government came to recognize the institution. The focus of the thesis is the sphere of rural local government in the Xhalanga district, where these issues are best illustrated. The thesis argues that the institution of traditional leadership and its officials survived precisely because they were incorporated into the colonial and apartheid administrative structures in the project of indirect rule. Traditional authorities were central to the apartheid policy of retribalisation, which was essentially a form of control of Africans in the Bantustans. Rural residents engaged in fierce struggles against the imposition of rural local government structures such as the District Council and Tribal Authorities. In so far as traditional authorities were part of government structures, they could not avoid being targets in these struggles. In explaining the recognition of the institution of traditional leadership, the thesis focuses on the policies of the ANC, the majority party in the Government of National Unity, towards traditional authorities. Organisationally weak on the rural grounds, the ANC operated through what they considered to be “good/progressive/comrade chiefs”. The ANC had hoped that these traditional authorities would accept a non-political ceremonial role. However, traditional authorities have rejected this ceremonial role. Their refusal, coupled with the ANC’s ambivalence in resolving the tension imply, the study concludes, that the (political) citizenship rights of rural people are partial: they are neither citizens nor subjects.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Master of Management in the Field of Public Management and Development degree January 2016 / The study explores the role of traditional leaders in the Greater Taung Local Municipality (GTLM) situated in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality, North West Province. The purpose of the study is to investigate the role and the participation of the traditional leadership in the Greater Taung Local Municipal affairs, as well as to establish the factors leading to the tension between the traditional leaders and the municipal councillors in the municipality. Furthermore, the study proposed leadership strategies aimed at harmonising the relations between the Greater Taung municipal councillors and the traditional leaders, with the aim of ensuring sound collaboration and partnership between the two important stakeholders in provision of service delivery and development, a partnership that is more likely to improve good governance and service delivery in the area of jurisdiction of Greater Taung Local Municipality. / MT 2018

A research project submitted at the University of the Witwatersrand, Department of Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, in fulfilment of the Master of Arts (Research) Degree. / South Africa’s countryside’s are rich in ‘new’ high-demand metal and energy minerals, like platinum and uranium, as well as vast, untapped reserves of industrial staples, above all coal. Yet, these are also characterised by deep rural poverty and legally insecure systems of ‘customary’ tenure, under the local administrative control of traditional authorities. Here, new mining activity is setting in motion significant processes dispossession and Immiseration that are at once tracing, reconfiguring and widening the class, gender and other social divisions that define these rural settings. Communal land is frequently alienated with little or no compensation, local residents forcibly removed to make way for surface infrastructure, and scarce water and other natural resources polluted and depleted. At the same time political tensions are arising from the assumption that local chiefs are ‘custodians’ of the mineral-rich land under their jurisdiction. Questions of land, livelihood and rural democracy are thus intimately bound together on the new frontiers of the regional extractives boom in ways that are having profound implications for growing numbers of the rural poor. Using a case study of the Bapo ba Mogale traditional Authority in the North West Province, South Africa, this thesis seeks to explore how these new mining activities are shaping and reconfiguring the heightened political contestations over the institution of traditional leadership in the area, the definitions of community and belonging/exclusion, and the struggles over land ownership and how mining capital is shaping these struggles and is connected with these struggles / EM2017

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of Natal, 2002.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of Natal, 2000.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of Natal, 2000.

The failure of democracy in Africa can be partially attributed to the Eurocentric assumptions that belie Western recommendations for Africa. This thesis focuses on the failure of the modernisation school to account for the resiliency of tradition in the modern African state, which is described by Sklar (1991) as amounting to a form of 'mixed government', combining the traditional with the modern to create a uniquely African form of governance. This notion of a 'mixed government' is addressed from the vantage point of traditional leaders in the Eastern Cape. It maps the vacillating relationship between the chiefs, the people and the government through colonialism, Apartheid and democratisation. It concludes that although the Eastern Cape provincial government has subordinated the chiefs, this does not signify a victory for modernity over tradition because the chiefs are not a spent force. History has shown that when the government fails to act in the interests of the people, they seek an alternative authority namely, the chiefs. The ANC government's centralising tendencies have negative implications for democracy and consequently for the people. This opens up space for the chiefs to assert themselves provided they play an active role in furthering democracy, development and modernisation in the interests of the people. Hence, although ' mixed' government in the post-1996 South Africa is currently on the ANC's terms, traditional leaders may someday play a vital role in the modern democratic state.