Thesis (M.M. (Public Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Governance, 2014. / This explanatory sequential thesis examined the Minerals Energy Complex (MEC) as a
network of policy stakeholders in South Africa’s beneficiation policy adopted in 2011. The
MEC is a set of well-developed industries and institutions that have developed around the
mining, energy and financial sectors of the South African economy. The MEC, as Fine and
Rustomjee (1996, p. 5) see it, evolves over time depending on the balance and distribution of
power amongst stakeholders in the mineral sector. This thesis found evidence that the MEC as
it exists 2014 has evolved into a policy network of participant stakeholders in the beneficiation
policy. The thesis employed network analytic techniques by combining qualitative and
quantitative research methodologies. The combination of the two methodologies allows a
researcher to utilise findings from different data sets; thereby increasing the comprehensiveness
of the study, as pointed out in the literature by Fischer (2011). As Coviello (2005) has
illustrated, policy networks can be meaningfully examined with a bifocal lens that integrates
both qualitative and quantitative analytic techniques relevant to understanding network
structure, relationships between network participants and dynamics of these relationships. The
data results derived from research methodology unpacked how the MEC as a policy network
of stakeholders is constituted and operates in terms of the resources exchanges around the
beneficiation policy. Since the research proposition argued that stakeholders in possession of
highly valued resources in the MEC policy network are likely to exercise higher levels of
influence in the implementation dynamics of the beneficiation policy, the results generated
revealed a limited number of influential stakeholders in the MEC policy network. Against this
background, the thesis detailed the type of influence stakeholders may exert, along with their
level of interest in the implementation of the beneficiation policy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/17043 |
| Date | 23 February 2015 |
| Creators | Hlongwane, Khensane |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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