Recrafting the national imaginary and the new “vanguardism”

Abstract

An opportunity exists to assess the limitations in building long-term peace in post-conflict states, particularly given the extent to which negotiated settlements incorporate demands for democratic mechanisms. By assessing how post-conflict governments construct new majorities through policy tools as well as assessing how they are constrained by the structural realities of negotiated settlements, we gain some purchase on the reasons why some post-conflict state projects succeed while others fail. This has potentially transformative implications for our understanding of how social contracts, and their attendant issues of consent, dissent, and legitimacy, operate in the modern world and the ways they impact such critical discussions as democratic transition, post-conflict reconciliation, and nation-building. We use the case of post-apartheid South Africa to analyse how post-conflict states are limited in terms of forging social contracts among citizens and between citizens and governments. Of specific interest is the way that post-conflict social contracting compels nation-builders to eschew the uncertainties of viable electoral democracy in favour of dominant party regimes or electoral authoritarianism. We suggest that this tension is less a result of pecuniary interest on the part of nation-builders and more a consequence of the imperfections of the modern social contracting process.

Keywords:

• post-conflict states
• social contracts
• dominant parties
• South Africa
• African National Congress

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the editorial staff of Democratization as well as the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on the manuscript.

Notes on contributors

Brian D. Shoup is assistant professor of political science and public administration at Mississippi State University.

Carolyn E. Holmes is a PhD candidate in political science at Indiana University and is currently a visiting scholar at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Notes

1. Byman, Keeping the Peace; Sisk, Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts.

2. Downes, “The Problem with Negotiated Settlements to Ethnic Civil Wars,” 231.

3. Paris, At War's End, 5–8.

4. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 196–201.

5. Bloom, Standing, and Lloyd, “Markets, Information Asymmetry and Health Care.”

6. Giovannucci and Ponte, “Standards as a New Form of Social Contract,” 299.

7. Cragg, “Human Rights and Business Ethics.”

8. Nussbaum, “Beyond the Social Contract,” 5.

9. Hobbes, Leviathan; Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice.

10. Rawls, A Theory of Justice; Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.

11. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory.

12. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War”; Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From.

13. Following Fearon, “Separatist Wars, Partition and World Order,” we do not suggest that secession and partition be employed as a mechanism of conflict management. We DO suggest that the disinclination to allow partition is connected to the general collective action problem inherent in social contract negotiation.

14. For more on this see Gellner, Nations and Nationalism; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780; Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen.

15. Bates, Prosperity and Violence; Levi, Of Rule and Revenue; North, Structure and Change in Economic History; Tilly, Coercion and Capital.

16. Jackson, “Quasi States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory”; Jackson and Rosberg, “Why Africa's Weak States Persist.”

17. See especially Cueppen and Geschiere, “Autochthony: Local or Global?”

18. Examples include ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, PRI in Mexico, Congress Party in India, UMNO in Malaysia, and the ANC in South Africa.

19. Jung, “Power-Sharing and Democracy Promotion in Civil War Peace Building.”

20. Ganguly, “Introduction,” xix–xxii.

21. Glaser, Politics and Society in South Africa; and Thompson, A History of South Africa.

22. Glaser, Politics and Society in South Africa, 214.

23. The document can be accessed at http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=2424.

24. Ferree, Framing the Race in South Africa, 193–203.

25. Giliomee, Myburgh, and Schlemmer, “Dominant Party Rule, Opposition Parties and Minorities in South Africa,” 171.

26. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes and Social Movements”; Diani, “Linking Mobilization Frames and Political Opportunities.”

27. The document can be accessed at http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=2535 and must also be viewed in light of the imminent split of the Coalition of the People (COPE) wing of the ANC.

28. Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life.

29. See Gibson, “The Legacy of Apartheid,” 781–4, who notes that among the damaging legacies of apartheid is the propensity for the black majority to be generally disinclined to support multiparty elections and to express higher rates of political intolerance. Consistent with the frame presented thus far, we suggest that this may reflect the felt need to compel adherence to new social contracts through exclusionary practices as opposed to some genuinely felt opposition to democratic practice.

30. Gibson, “The Legacy of Apartheid”; Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.

31. Gibson, “Does Truth Lead to Reconciliation?,” 207–8.

32. Dimitrijevic, “Justice Beyond Blame”; Posel and Simpson, Commissioning the Past.

33. Biggar, Burying the Past.

34. Chipkin, Do South Africans Exist?

35. Norval, “The (Im)possibility of Reconciliation,” 263.

36. Doxtader, “Making Rhetorical History in a Time of Transition,” 250.

37. Gibson, Overcoming Apartheid, 70.

38. Ferree, Framing the Race in South Africa, 142–55.

39. Gibson, “Does Truth Lead to Reconciliation,” 215.

40. Gibson, Overcoming Apartheid; Gibson and Gouws, “Social Identities and Political Intolerance.”

41. Ratele, Mpolweni-Zantsi, and Krog, “Ndabethwa lilitye.”

42. Giliomee, Myburgh, and Schlemmer, “Dominant Party Rule, Opposition Parties and Minorities in South Africa,” 171.

43. Following Cherry, “‘Just War’ and ‘Just Means,’” 20–1, it is also important to note that the ANC cooperated more fully with the TRC than other organizations.

44. Ferree, Framing the Race in South Africa, 212–21.

45. Acemoglu and Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Boix, Democracy and Redistribution.

46. Glaser, Politics and Society in South Africa, 214.

47. Butler, Contemporary South Africa, 114, suggests that black ownership of the economy lies “between 2 and 10 percent, with the former the more realistic measurement.” In addition, despite the impressive growth of a black middle class, upper management positions tend to be dominated by whites. Lodge, Politics in South Africa, 30, noted that as of 2002, only 353 out of 3406 corporate directors were black.

48. Southall, “The ANC and Black Capitalism in South Africa.”

49. Iheduru, “Black Economic Power and Nation-Building in Post-Apartheid South Africa.”

50. Iheduru, “Social Concertation, Labour Unions and the Creation of a Black Bourgeoisie in South Africa.”

51. Ceuppens and Gaschiere, “Autochthony: Local or Global?”; Geschiere and Jackson, “Autochthony and the Crisis of Citizenship”; Marshall-Fratani, “The War of ‘Who is Who.’”

52. Jung, “Power Sharing and Democracy Promotion in Post Civil War Peace Building”; Paris, At War's End.

53. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.

54. Gleditsch et al., “Armed Conflict 1946–2001.”

55. Lane and Svante, “South Africa: Explaining Democratic Stability.”

56. Varshney, “Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Rationality”; Hale, “Explaining Ethnicity.”

57. Lynch and Crawford, “Democratization in Africa 1990–2010,” 285–90.