A public choice perspective on apartheid and the post-apartheid political economy (original) (raw)
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The Political Economy of Apartheid: A Public Choice Analysis
1991
It is ironic that the relationship between apartheid and South African business interests is used as propaganda by the apartheid regime and its leftist opponents. On one hand, the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies often depict apartheid as a necesssary and evil derivative of capitalism. On the other hand, the National Party describes itself as the only true friend of capitalism in Africa. Both claims are false.
Much has been written about Apartheid and the consequences thereof. This study is concerned as to why it started. Why would a nation go to such extreme measures to implement the policy of Apartheid on 80% of its population and then try to justify it?
MNF, 2015
“In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.” – Desmond Tutu1 The twentieth century has been one of great suffering and bitterness for South Africa. The practices that took place there at the time shocked the world and represent an important, albeit horrifying, chapter of human history. From 1910 to 1994, the country was ruled by the white minority, during which period, the non-white population was subjected to boundless cruelty, humiliation and marginalisation, their basic human and political rights denied. Today, it is a nation scarred by years of oppression and discrimination against the majority of its own people. When people speak of racism and discrimination in South Africa, the first thing that comes to mind is Apartheid, the unique segregationist policy adopted by the nation after World War II. However, the oppression of and discrimination against coloured and black people by the country’s whites had started well before this policy had even been thought of. To better understand the dynamics between whites and non-whites during the twentieth century, it is worthwhile to go back to the origin of this cohabitation and subsequent segregation.
The Economic Legacy of Apartheid
2002
Many people—in South Africa and abroad—believed that bringing apartheid formally to an end would be like waving the Fairy Godmother’s magic wand, turning the pumpkin immediately into a carriage. Not so. In one of the great volte faces of this century, apartheid was declared legally dead—but that remarkable and inspiring act did not overcome the terrible problems which apartheid created. The harsh reality facing South Africa’s new rulers is that apartheid contributed to the forging of a legacy which will take generations to overcome. In the years leading up to the 1994 election a broad consensus emerged on three issues: apartheid was a catastrophe; South Africa’s various peoples could be brought into a “rainbow nation”; and the apartheid state should be replaced by a law-governed constitutionalist order. But this was basically a political consensus; it did not include a fully articulated, shared economic vision of the country. The platform from which Nelson Mandela now governs rests ...
South African Apartheid: A Struggle for New Order
This paper deconstructs the various conflicts that arose as a result of the democratic transition and regime change in South Africa. To explain the spawn of conflicts that evolved as a direct result President F.W. De Klerks decision to "unban" the anti-apartheid political organizations like the African National Congress (ANC), free Nelson Mandela, and abolish apartheid; I will use four (4) approaches: Conflict Spiral Model, Contender-Defender Model, Power Imbalance, and Social Identity. Each approach will identify the main components of the conflict and a comparative analysis will provide a comprehensive understanding of South Africa's paradigm shift.
2021
The historical system of racial segregation in Africa has been evolutional. With countries like South Africa and Sudan in every spotlight, it is no wonder why they still struggle with civil wars and homophobia, two phenomena of which I dare say are direct consequences of the apartheid struggle, even though such has left the scene decades ago. Here, we deep dive into apartheid proper, setting our scope to Africa and dissecting through the struggles and stories of native black South Africans and Sudanese against racial and religious apartheid. Notable events, figures, dates, practices, current and future effects on the economy, as well as contemporary relevance. This way, the researcher aims to give the audience a different yet better perspective of the apartheid struggle, with Africa at a glance.
Apartheid: ancient, past and present
1999
By Nisrccn Balliish and Anthony Ldwsledt (Webster University. Vienna) I. Introduction The Afrikaans term apartheid, which originally means 'apartness' or 'separateness', has become a globally used, household word for ethnic and ethnicist oppression. There is some irony in this, since South Africa's National Party, which ruled the country from 1948 until 1994, itself coined the term to veil or mask the oppressive elements of its policies and practices. The concept of separateness in itself does not imply any group being favored over any other Segregation per se of ethnic entities, after all, was supported by some South African Blacks 2 Now in common usage all over the world, apartheid has drifted away from its original lexical meaning to denote physically repressive, economically exploitative and ideologically racist or ethnicist segregation. This paper focuses on three apartheid societies, Graeco-Roman Egypt, South Africa and Israel, and offers conceptual reflections on possible frameworks for future Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, especially with regard to present day Israel Apartheid in comparative focus Throughout this century, the unique developments in South Africa have often confounded political theorists by proving to be exceptions from otherwise global trends. For instance, whilst race in apartheid South Africa became more decisive than economic class, Marxism's central tenet of class struggle was suspended. Ever since the repeal of the apartheid laws in this decade, however, Marxism could be said to have been vindicated "in the last resort" From that perspective, the highly artificially racist society of South Africa is now being replaced by a "conventionally" capitalist class society ' The same Marxist analysis in this regard could be applied to the USA from I86S (abolition of slavery) and 1964 (legislation against segregation), respectively. The US laws of segregation between Blacks and Whites, the non-violent struggle against them and the violent White backlash and reaction to that struggle in themselves manifest strong parallels to South African developments, especially as many formative events in this regard took place around the same time, in the 1950's and the 1960's. Albert Luthuli could indeed be compared to Martin Luther King whilst Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela could be likened with Malcolm X (the latter two at least with regard to strategies of resistance). Blacks in the USA and in the preceding North American colonies, however, were always a minority, as opposed to South Africa. ' We arc indebted to the Austrian Ministry or Science and Traffic (Oslcrreichisches Bundcsniinislerium fur Wisscnschaft und Verkchr) and to VOEST-ALPINE Induslrieanlagcnbau GmbH., Litiz. Tor grants sponsoring the presentation or this paper at the conference. "The TRC Commissioning the Past", jointly organized by the History Workshop at the University of the Wilwalcrsnind and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, in Johannesburg. June 11-14. 1999. 2 Lester. Alan: From Colonization to Democracy: A new historical geography of South Africa. London & New York: Tauris Academic Studies. 1996: 87ff. Without segregation, many South African Blacks may indeed not have been able to keep so many of their cultural traditions-including language-and proud resistant attitudes in defiance of Whiles and their cultures. Of course, this was not part of the Whites' plan. The indigenous culture was supposed to just fade away, due merely to being in the proximity of superior' While culture. Cf, for instance. Jaspers. Karl: Voin Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte. Zurich, 1949: 69, 88. Similarly, the physical separation of races was favored by a Black US emancipationist like Malcolm X. and it still is today by Louis Farrakhan. ' Lester 1996: 2ff Along with Australia and New Zealand, South Africa also stands out as a prominent exception to the "North-South Divide" of rich and poor countries, respectively. It is, for example, an often forgotten fact that the electric power station in Johannesburg in 1914 was the largest and most modern one in the world. Ever since the industrialization of South Africa, it has been one of the richest and technologically most advanced countries in the world. The first ever open heart surgery on a human patient was performed there in 1967 Only a few years later, the NP government procured the country's first nuclear weapons, less than 30 years after the USA. Other comparative attempts to make sense of South African political developments have included comparisons with Nazi Germany, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other. The National Party (NP) had close ties with the Nazis and openly supported them, but the former were not yet in power when the World War II broke out. The slightly less racist Union Party formed the government at the time, and South Africa joined the war on the allied side. After the war, however, the NP unexpectedly won the 1948 (ail-White) elections-they were to stay in government until 1994. Already in their first few years in power, the NP rehabilitated South African Nazi supporters and introduced racist laws and covert operations reminiscent of Hitler's "master race" policies. 5 Ideology was also similar in these cases: The centuries-old Afrikaner idea of being "God's Chosen People" 6 (which of course goes back to the millennia-old Jewish idea) was mirrored in the Nazi notion of Aryans or Germans being "Nature's Chosen People", the be-all and end-all of natural selection. Especially anthropology and biology were misused to a great extent in order for Whites in Germany and South Africa to attempt to prove these ideas. The parallel with the Soviet Union could also be argued convincingly. Both apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union created a giant state apparatus and undertook massive social engineering programs, including large, forced removals of millions of people, whole segments of the population. These costly adventures-in financial as well as human termswere made possible only by industrialization, the advent of which nearly coincided in the two countries at the beginning of this century. Yet, both states, it has been argued, were rendered obsolete by further industrialization. The further development of globalized capitalism demanded a state with less expenditure and less market intervention and control. 7 Indeed, only half a year lies between the demise of the apartheid state and the end of the Soviet Union The two countries are at present also facing similar restructuring problems manifesting themselves primarily as high unemployment and high crime-rates. Apartheid in an historically wide sense In this paper, we will compare the South African apartheid system as well as the oppressive structures which preceded and influenced it, with Egypt under Greek and Roman rule, from 332 BC continuously until AD 642, on the one hand, and with modern Palestine under Israeli rule since 1948, on the other. Both of these societies have repeatedly been compared to apartheid South Africa in sweeping terms. What we wish to do here is to provide an analysis to match those generalizations, without shying away from the differences. What the parallels of Graeco-Roman Egypt and modern Israel 8 (until the late 1970's, when the Jews
Engel/Pallottii (eds.) 2016. South Africa after Apartheid
South Africa after Apartheid Policies and Challenges of the Democratic Transition, 2016
South Africa is a work in progress, in which at every step the contradictions between promises and expectations must be negotiated in a context of fractures and hierarchies inherited by the legacy of apartheid and influenced heavily by dominant international blueprints. The essays proposed here succeed to make connections between scholarly research and political and social action, between theory and practice. To show how state decision-making is influenced, and in what measure determined, by the nature and internal social changes and by government staying in power in regional and international relations. Connections that raise further relevant questions to stimulate the critique of the democratic process and on how these relations of power may influence, stall or even drive back, the path of autonomous emancipation, as it was and is embedded in the history of suffering and sacrifice of the population.