Developmental local government: a case study of South Africa
JW de Visser. Antwerp, Oxford: Intersentia, 2005, 313 pp., ISBN 90 509 425 1
This book is primarily concerned with the link between development and decentralisation. It examines the argument embedded in the South African Constitution of 1996 that ‘decentralisation is good for development’ and does this in terms of a human rights discourse which includes concepts such as ‘the right to development’ and the ‘right to dignity’. The author has worked as a local government researcher with the Community Law Centre at the University of Cape Town, and this background comes through clearly in the book.
In Chapter 1 the author explores the various definitions of ‘development’ and ‘decentralisation’ and positions himself in relation to the debates in these areas. He chooses a broad definition of development: ‘the improvement of material well-being, empowerment with choice, and intersocial equity in the delivery of development’ (p. 13). In defining decentralisation, however, he chooses to use a narrow definition that emphasises the devolution and delegation of powers. In this chapter the author concludes that empirical evidence and theoretical positions ‘sustain South Africa's claim that decentralisation to local government is good for development’ (p. 33).
Chapter 2 provides the background to the choices South Africa made in relation to local government. It also elaborates on the central features of local government in post-apartheid South Africa, which include demarcation of ‘wall-to-wall’ local government, municipal structures, municipal powers, intergovernmental relations, local government finance and internal functioning of local government. The author shows how a new system of local government emerged in post-apartheid South Africa in terms of its ‘constitutionally protected status’ and its mandate to promote ‘developmental local government’. Chapter 3 examines the design of the South African local government against three aspects of local autonomy: local democracy, allocation of powers and financial independence. After a lengthy discussion that occupies over one-third of the book, the author concludes that South Africa is performing well in this regard. For de Visser, the degree of autonomy of local government is critical to the success of decentralised development, but he does acknowledge that ‘an accepted understanding of the limits of local government autonomy and a proper system of supervision of local government by other levels of government is equally important’ (p. 169). Chapter 4 considers the principle of supervision, which includes notions of regulation; evaluation and intervention; and redistribution. The author concludes that the regulatory efforts by national and provincial governments have generally resulted in an institutional design that is capable of addressing the development challenge. He further argues that monitoring of local government by national and provincial governments is necessary in order to protect the national and provincial development agendas and to pick up early signals of problems in municipalities that require intervention of some sort. Chapter 5 examines intergovernmental relations in terms of the principle of cooperative governance. For de Visser, the South African system has gone beyond the classical quest for balancing autonomy and supervision. The chapter provides a framework for intergovernmental cooperation which is now at least partly contained in the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Bill.
Chapter 6 is a summary of content and a list of recommendations. The most interesting part of this book is perhaps Chapter 7, which puts forward a model for institutional choices around developmental local government. De Visser's proposed model aims at maximising the developmental benefits of decentralisation and minimising its dangers. It is framed on the principles of autonomy, supervision and cooperation. The principle of autonomy refers to “an institutional framework for local government that assigns sufficient and real powers to a democratic local government” (p. 36). De Visser argues that for local governments to be responsive to people's needs, they need to have a democratic nature (i.e. representative and participatory) and sufficient regulatory and financial powers. However, the functionality of relations between national and local governments is regarded by the author as the most critical success factor in the organisation of the decentralized state. Therefore “accepted understanding of the limits of local government autonomy and a proper system of supervision of local government by other levels of government are important” (p. 169). Supervision is defined by three aspects, namely regulation, evaluation and intervention and redistribution. The importance of the proposed model is that it is not just based on theories (of development and decentralisation) but also tested in practice. Furthermore, it conveys the findings of de Visser's study to a general audience and could possibly assist people involved in the question of how to create an institutional reality that will make the most of local government development potential.
On the whole, De Visser has produced a publication that deals successfully with the question ‘How should a transitional state handle issues of decentralisation and development?’ It is not a theoretically deep book, but it does provide an accessible and useful overview of South Africa's system of local government, and it engages with conceptual debates. It is a textbook-style book that should be welcomed by policy makers, students, researchers and local government practitioners. The one limitation of the book is that it was written before the recent political crisis around local government delivery. It is not yet clear how the apparent failure of many municipal authorities to deliver on their mandate will affect perceptions of the value of decentralisation. There are already indications that the South African government is shifting away from decentralisation as a general objective towards a strengthening of the provincial and national spheres.
Salah Elzein Mohamed
PhD student, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand