South Africa's civics in transition: Agents of change or structures of constraint?

Nelson Mandela's May 1994 inauguration represented a clear victory for South Africa's formal transition to non-racial democracy, but, as this article demonstrates, a formal, national level transition does not simply lead to local level change. Change within South Africa's townships has been much more minimal and difficult than an elite perspective suggests. This is explained not only by the specific context of political tension and violence in many township communities but also, surprisingly, by a certain resistance to change within the very local level institutions that had long championed the democratic transition.