Why the Notion of " State Capture " is Complete Nonsense: An Apartheid Studies approach (original) (raw)
State capture: Case of South Africa
2021
ISSN 2620-0406 Citation: Bester, D., & Dobovsek, B. (2021). State capture: Case of South Africa. NBP. Nauka, bezbednost, policija, 26(1), 73–87. doi:10.5937/nabepo 26-32346 Abstract: “Grand corruption” and “state capture” are two intertwined concepts of corruption that have become systemic and institutionalized in many transitional countries around the world. “State capture” can simply be defined as “the payment of bribes at high levels of government in order to extract or plunder significant amounts of money from the state”. The following paper will argue that when state capture occurs in transitional countries, it runs the risk of becoming socially embedded and institutionalized, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain the principles of democracy and threatens the overall stability of a country in transition. South Africa makes for a useful case study because it clearly represents how corruption in the form of state capture has infiltrated the political landscape of a country...
Review of “How to Steal a Country: State Capture and Hopes for the Future in South Africa”
2021
96 A Review of “How to Steal a Country: State Capture and Hopes for the Future in South Africa” Nkosingiphile Mkhize DOI: https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.48.5 Nkosingiphile Mkhize, from Johannesburg (South Africa), holds two master’s degrees; one in Political Science (research component and defence awarded a distinction) from the Masarykova Univerzita, Czech Republic. The second MA degree in Public Governance (cum laude) from the University of Johannesburg School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy. He is currently a Ph.D. Candidate with the University of Johannesburg School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy. His theses focus on integrity, ethics, corruption and anticorruption, and risk management in the South Africa public sector. The broad areas of his Ph.D. thesis focus form part of his key research interests. E-mail: nkosingiphile.e.m18@gmail.com.
Theoretical analysis of state capture and its manifestation as a governance problem in South Africa
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa
State capture became topical in South Africa in March 2016 following the dismissal of the then Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, on 09 December 2015. ‘Nenegate’ revealed poor understanding of state capture among politicians and the general public. The literature indicates that state capture lacks analytical clarity as there is no clear demarcation between legitimate political lobbying and state capture created by corruption. The research question addressed in this article is: What is state capture and how is it manifested in South Africa? Firstly, it systematically unpacks the phenomenon as a type of business–state relationship distinct from influence, corruption and lobbying and outlines its types, features and essence. Secondly, the article explores state capture in contemporary South Africa. Methodology-wise, a combination of literature study and current research reports is used to illuminate the phenomenon and its manifestation. The article contributes to existing knowledge by...
South African State Capture: A Symbiotic Affair between Business and State Going Bad(?)
Insight on Africa, 2017
Since March 2016, the subject of South African state capture has received much attention from the political, business and scholarly community in the country and beyond. The vibrancy of this public and scholarly discourse was reignited by the claims by some politicians from the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), that in the recent past, they were approached by the Gupta family (business moguls) for consideration in ministerial appointments. These revelations have since produced a dominant perception that the Gupta family wields an undue influence over the President of the Republic and by extension, the entire state machinery. This extends to the family and friends as well. While the Guptas 'capture' the state, ministers and premiers are not directly accountable to them by protocol, but only to the President as a constitutional prerogative to do so. The view on state capture is not uniformly accepted. One notes the discourse is dominated by Euro-American perspectives, purporting to create a misunderstanding of the current trajectory of business-state relations in South Africa. As a theoretical framework, Afrocentricity is adopted and used in this article to answer the following two central questions: (i) Is it a myth or reality that the Gupta family has captured the South African state? (ii) At which point should corporate influence in state affairs be considered as illegal? Methodologically, this is achieved through thematic content analysis on conversations and the prevailing discourses circulating within South Africa.
Buffalo Law Review, 2019
Post-conflict or post-colonial constitutions are increasingly understood to be "transformative" constitutions. While initially a term used to describe South Africa's postapartheid constitutional order, the idea of a transformative constitution may be best described as the adoption of a constitutional order which is expected to "transform" the existing pre-constitutional order. To this extent, these constitutions are aspirational and are meant to empower the newly democratized state to make significant changes to the existing social and economic order. This perceived need for a powerful state, to overcome the legacies of conflict and the social conditions that divided the society, is in direct tension with the liberal constitutional notion of limited government. While constitutions establish and empower government, constitutionalism is thought to ensure that government continues to represent and respect the rights of the people in whose name most constitutions...
African Sun Media eBooks, 2020
Virtually all countries see themselves as special and unique, which they are, in a trivial sense. However, an understanding of them can often be enhanced by seeing them as part and a variant of a type. Here, I look at South Africa as a nation-state and focus on the meaning of its turnaround in 1994. I shall not go into the proper history of the South African state and its turn, although I am, of course, starting from some elementary outsider knowledge of it. Instead, I shall deploy a framework for analysing types of nation-states, once developed based on empirical historical generalisation; of the rise of the right to vote in the world ; and their sociocultural and political implications. This framework differs from the bulk of the literature, both on nationalism and on state formation, by focusing on the kind of political conflict out of which a nation-state emerged, in particular against whom the claim to statehood and political rights of the nation was asserted.
African Economic History, 2024
The right of conquest is a doctrine in the theory of international law in terms of which victory in war entitles the victor both to the title to territory of the vanquished as well as sovereignty over them. Far from being a mere event, however, conquest is an ongoing process, structure, and relation of domination. Despite the widely celebrated “transition to democracy” and the supposed triumph of popular sovereignty in South Africa in the past three decades, we argue that South Africa’s “democratic” constitutional order remains firmly rooted in the dubious right of conquest asserted since the defeat of its indigenous people in the unjust wars of Western colonization, which began in the mid-seventeenth century. In this article we critically reflect on South African historiography by asking “Who conquered South Africa”? The question is necessary because sovereign power is both misunderstood and obfuscated in South African contemporary history and public discourse. We argue that conquest, and its attendant concepts of sovereignty and war, are deliberately underemphasized in South African historiography despite being at the root of problems regarding economic sovereignty. Our argument considers the problem of succession to conquest, in terms of which both the title to territory and sovereignty over the conquered is transferred from the conqueror to another party who then enjoys these entitlements and powers. We trace various successors in title to Conquest South Africa, and show that their economic power originates in the right of conquest. Their ownership of South Africa’s natural resources originates in the title to territory acquired through its disseisin following the conquest of the indigenous people, and in the same way their continued de facto sovereignty over that population now takes the form of the wanton and relentless exploitation of their labor power.
State Capture in South Africa and Canada: A Comparative Analysis
Public Integrity, 2022
ABSTRACT Corruption in all its forms, from bribery to influence and distortion of oversight, accountability and justice systems, in order to protect the criminal behavior of functionaries (public officials and political officials) is a global phenomenon. Corruption as a phenomenon is found in well-established democracies such as Canada, and is often endemic in young democracies such as South Africa, who fall into a cycle of political corruption and administrative accountability avoidance. What are the cross-cutting risk factors and mitigation factors that shape the functionality of anti-corruption mechanisms? This comparative analysis of corruption and state capture provides insight into the functionality of oversight, anti-corruption and accountability mechanisms in both countries. Findings indicate that both Canada and South Africa are at risk of the erosion of safeguards and at risk of the deterioration of levels of vigilance required to prevent state capture
New “traditional” strategies and land claims in South Africa: a case study in Hammanskraal
New Contree a Journal of Historical and Human Sciences For Southern Africa, 2013
In post-apartheid South Africa, many hopes were pinned on the process of land-restitution to be a major part of power and wealth redistribution. However, as the land claims process is linked to demonstrable historical legitimacy, this process has sometimes necessitated both the restating and reinventing of local histories and "ethnic identities", in line with new political structures or moral frameworks. This article addresses continuity and innovation in strategies around historical adaptation to governance structures, ethnicity and "traditional" structures in South Africa. These themes will be explored using Hammanskraal, located in the north of Gauteng, as a case study, examining the way legitimacy has been gained, constructed and established in two specific periods: around 1911, government ethnographer NJ Van Warmelo produced a history of Johannes "Jan Tana" Kekana's Ndebele, depicting the history and lineage of the AmaNdebele-a-Moletlane group. In 1995, a substantial land-claim was lodged by a contestant for the chieftaincy of the AmaNdebele-a-Moletlane, presenting a different historical background that contested the narrative produced by Van Warmelo. The contestant for the chieftaincy, not currently officially recognised by South African state structures, has used various strategies to concretise his position. These strategies show how entrenched historical legitimacy is being counteracted by popular modes of expression, construction and communication. This new politics, consciously constructed around ideas of traditional structures and legitimacy, interacts with new power structures, adding the importance of political connections or resources to the construction of the claim. Contextualising this historically shows how continuities regarding "traditional" authorities have interacted with the state before, during and after apartheid.
Cutting the apron strings: the South African experience of decolonisation
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2013
Decolonisation is a recurring constitutional and political theme in the process of change and reform in South Africa's history during the 20 th century. The constitutional emancipation of the erstwhile Union of South Africa and the subsequent internal decolonisation of designated black ethnic population and cultural groups, are two kindred processes which have interesting similarities, but also important differences. The former involved British Imperialism, the latter involved Afrikaner Nationalism and African Nationalism. The former was a natural, legitimate and spontaneous process, the latter was an artificial process that was induced by Afrikaner Nationalism, that was spurned internationally and domestically by the the international community of nations and indigenous people of South Africa respectively. The article examines the legitimacy of the process of the decolonisation of the Union of South Africa resulting in its independence, followed by the adoption of a republican form of government. In contrast, a comparison is made with the controversial and questionable evolution of the Bantustans, which emerged out of the erstwhile native reserves, a stratagem designed in effect to thwart the liberation struggle for a truly democratic form of government for all the people of South Africa. This pseudo decolonisation was an analogous process to that of genuine decolonisation. The former involved political fragmentation, whatever it was designated, that in effect, denied to the indigenous people, freedom and liberation for decades. As an odyssey it was a very protracted and painful process. Ultimately, in a belated and circuitous manner, after the inordinate suffering and oppression of South Africa's indigenous people, a genuine democracy in a unified and consolidated state for all the people of South Africa was to transpire. This was liberation and not decolonisation, and was the final stage in the historic and traumatic process for South Africa. It is also argued that only with the inception of the Interim Constitution, following the first historic democratic election of 27 April 1994, did South Africa and its people adopt an authentic democratic and republican constitution.
The Evolution and Fall of the South African Apartheid State: A Political Economy Perspective
Ufahamu a Journal of African Studies, 1998
The article reviews the history of state intervention in South Africa's political economy. Both the political and economic evolution of the apartheid state are traced. More imponantly, it appraises the erosion of the apartheid state from the 1970s onwards as a result of the growing costs of apartheid and the increasing challenges it faced as South African society became increasingly mobilized. This is evidenced in the rise of tax revolts, paramilitary forces, people's courts, crime rate, and the collapse of black local authorities. Finally, it evaluates the strength of the apartheid state and argues that it represents a strong state within a weak one. The state in effect had a schizoid existence possessing pockets of extraordinary strength but with its power being narrowly diffused. The result was the slow but steady collapse of the state that led to the negotiation of a new constitutional settlement from a position of weakness.
Engel/Pallotti (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.
2019
This research examines South African history, beginning with it as a colonial entity up until its inception as a democratic state, and how it works in conjunction with the land reform debate. This paper addresses arguments of South Africa’s colonial history, analyzes policy making during the apartheid era, and traces the steps taken towards becoming a democracy. Furthermore, it places special attention to how actions mandated by the apartheid government, and legislation from this time period, are currently affecting the debate at hand. It then addresses the current debates on land reform and some social implications that come along with its implementation. By tracing the land reform debate through the lens of South African history, this research makes the critical connection of the present debate to the past and how implications of this policy stem from an equally important historical context. The history of South Africa reaches far beyond Nelson Mandela, apartheid, and colonialism....
The State and policy-making in apartheid's second phase
1990
This paper focuses on two of the key discontinuities between the first and second phases of Apartheid-the bid !M Bantu Affairs Department (BAD) to restrict white " dependence on African labour in the cities, and to remove urbanised Africans' 'residential rights'. The paper examines how and why these strategies were introduced by the BAD, and the extent of the BAD's success in translating its plans into law. In so doing, it is shown that contrary to the conventional wisdom, the making of Apartheid policy must be seen as a process of ceaseless conflict, negotiation, compromise and change. 2
The current Southern African Development Community (SADC) was initially formulated as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) and was, to a certain extent, premised on liberation politics. One of its main objectives was to address the problem of the Apartheid regime, which was destabilising the Southern African region. SADC is driven by the objectives of development, peace, stability, and economic integration. While these objectives of the current SADC are laudable, this paper posits that they are not sustainable, so long as South Africa remains a malign regional hegemon and, at the same time, a white settler colony. In 1994, the Afrikan majority was not liberated from white settler colonialism. What occurred during the 'negotiations' was a transition from 'slavery by coercion to slavery by consent'. This took the form of the triumph of the democratisation paradigm at the expense of the decolonisation paradigm, which is in line with liberation politics. Instead of State succession premised on the Nyerere doctrine, South Africa experienced government succession under the civil-rights based leadership of the African National Congress (ANC). The research question of this paper is: What is the relationship between the national question in South Africa and the regional question in the SADC region? This paper argues that the national question in South Africa must be resolved before South Africa, as the post-conquest New Afrika/Azania, can be an Afrikan-centred regional hegemon. Afrikans must go back to the liberation politics of SADCC to bring an end to South Africa and replace it with an independent New Afrika that is premised on Lembede's idea of 'Africa for the Africans'. The paper relies on the 93