Ivor Chipkin | University of the Witwatersrand (original) (raw)

Papers by Ivor Chipkin

Journal of Public Administration, 2024

This article describes five weaknesses in the organisation of government that taken together are ... more This article describes five weaknesses in the organisation of government that taken together are responsible for what it calls the crisis of government. It then discusses a package of legislative and policy reforms that are underway, including the

... consolidation. ADAM HABIB, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa Do South Africans E... more ... consolidation. ADAM HABIB, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa Do South Africans Exist? makes a spiky, original and distinctive contribution to the existing literature on nationalism and nation-building in South Africa. It ...

European Journal of Social Theory, Apr 11, 2023

This article considers what the figure of the Nazi means today, especially in the context of the ... more This article considers what the figure of the Nazi means today, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine. Like Hans-Herbert Kögler, the article considers Nazism as a Russian political discourse, which has to be understood on its own terms. In this regard, the article proposes that for Putin it is unlikely that the Holocaust is Nazism’s main point of reference, but rather the murder and slavery of millions of Slavs and Russians is. In this regard, talk of Nazism is a way of recalling the existential threat that Russians experienced as Slavs.

Političke perspektive, Jun 20, 2022

This paper argues that we must look to the politics of popular sovereignty, and in particular its... more This paper argues that we must look to the politics of popular sovereignty, and in particular its unfolding in the period after the Second World War, for the origin of the postcolonial condition, its specific vulgarity and temporality. Following Arendt, the paper proposes that as a democratic practice popular sovereignty transforms the 'people' into absolutist subject, one that is necessarily simple, at one with itself and exercising supreme authority over its territory. Where such a people cannot be convened or institutionalised, democracy tends either towards dictatorship or oligarchy or society itself fragments and is at risk of dissolution. This has especially been the case on the African continent where the new states that emerged after independence from European Empires (and from settler-colonialism) were home to multitudes of great and wide heterogeneity, without long histories of living together in common and without, therefore, traditions and institutions of collective decision-making.

University of the Witwatersrand. History Workshop., Sep 18, 1999

Report prepared for the Conflict and Governance Facility (CAGE), a joint initiative of the Europe... more Report prepared for the Conflict and Governance Facility (CAGE), a joint initiative of the European Union and the National Treasury, August

Since South Africa’s first democratic election in 1 994, the public service—and the state in gene... more Since South Africa’s first democratic election in 1 994, the public service—and the state in general—has been the object of numerou s interventions to ‘transform’ it. The reasons were and remain compell ing. In the first place the apartheid state operated a brutal system of racial segregation and domination. Expenditure on black South Africans was a fraction of what it was on whites. Government departments and state administrations were fragmented by race and even further divided across Bantustans and self -governing territories. The result was a plethora of parallel bureaucracies, re sponsible to multiple, political authorities. In addition, the South African bureauc racy was staffed—especially at management levels—exclusively by white South Africans, and amongst them, overwhelmingly by Afrikaans-speaking men.

Političke perspektive

This paper argues that we must look to the politics of popular sovereignty,‎ and in particular it... more This paper argues that we must look to the politics of popular sovereignty,‎ and in particular its unfolding in the period after the Second World War, for ‎the origin of the postcolonial condition, its specific vulgarity and temporality.‎ Following Arendt, the paper proposes that as a democratic practice popular‎ sovereignty transforms the ’people’ into absolutist subject, one that is necessarily ‎simple, at one with itself and exercising supreme authority over its territory.‎ Where such a people cannot be convened or institutionalised, democracy‎ tends either towards dictatorship or oligarchy or society itself fragments and ‎is at risk of dissolution. This has especially been the case on the African continent‎ where the new states that emerged after independence from European ‎Empires (and from settler-colonialism) were home to multitudes of great and ‎wide heterogeneity, without long histories of living together in common and‎ without, therefore, traditions and institutions of col...

A dissertation submitted in the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in the fulfillm... more A dissertation submitted in the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Political Studies. Johannesburg 1997.

The Trouble with Democracy, 2016

The state of the public sector in South Africa is heavily influenced by particu lar histories of ... more The state of the public sector in South Africa is heavily influenced by particu lar histories of state administration related to the legacy of apartheid and the nature of the political transition to democracy. We suggest, however, that there is a paucity of scholarly work in the discipline of Public Administration which takes into account this legacy and the manner in which the public sector is embedded in broader social, political and economic relations. This has had significant consequences for the particular models of public administration adopted. In making our case for the importance of applying a historical lens to the study of the public sector, we draw on research on the incorporation of the former Bantustans into provincial government administration in South Africa.