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Abstract
The early elite of the African National Congress (ANC) embraced values of moral improvement, individual responsibility and a sense of social consciousness. The ANC now governs South Africa, but with what appears to be a different set of principles. The current scourge of corruption, increasing state control, coupled with a general lack of service delivery point to behaviour of the ruling party which is inward-looking, self-seeking and self-preserving. Arguing that political culture and its accompanying values and attitudes is a prime motivator of behaviour, the paper seeks to understand the changing political culture of the dominant party. To understand the political culture of the ANC we use interviews with ANC parliamentarians and ANC supporters conducted in 2006–2007 and 2013 as well as an analysis of the ANC's Strategy and Tactics policy documents. We contend that the liberal values of the early elites were never fully embedded, but in their stead is a liberationist culture, where the state is normatively understood to be extensive and embodying the will of the people. We argue, that through the resulting centralized determination of the interests of the people, patronage networks, and diminishing of accountability, a system conducive to corruption and the pursuit of personal interest is created.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Nicola de Jager is a senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University and a member of the Transformation Research Unit (TRU) research team. She holds a PhD on the topic of a comparative study of Mexico and South Africa's dominant party systems. She is the co-editor of Friend or Foe: Dominant Party Systems in Southern Africa. Insights from the developing world (2013), published by UCT Press and United Nations University Press.
Cindy Lee Steenekamp is a research associate at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics (CICP) at Stellenbosch University and a member of the TRU research team. She holds a PhD on the topic of social capital and its development, dimensions and determinants in post-apartheid South Africa. Her research focuses primarily on the World Values Survey and several opinion-leader surveys conducted around the world. Steenekamp is the co-author of a book, several research reports and occasional papers.
Notes
1. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, 1; Welsh, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, 37.
2. Thompson, A History of South Africa, 156; Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith, 11, 18.
3. Thompson, A History of South Africa, 156; Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith, 46.
4. Ellis and Sechaba, Comrades against Apartheid, 16; Dubow, Sutton Pocket Histories, 4.
5. Quoted in Limb, The ANC's Early Years, 290.
6. Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith, 10–11.
7. An area or so-called homeland, set aside by the apartheid state for Africans.
8. BAPA, A. Luthuli, “Answer these posers, Bantustan supporters”, Golden City Post, 20 September 1959. This paper therefore contends with Tom Lodge's argument that the current neo-patrimonialism within the ANC is a return to the patrimonial leadership of its founders. The current neo-patrimonialism is parasitic, it is not creative nor is it productive; it is concerned with self-gain, not improving the lot of the broader community, and it is linked to access to the bounty of the state, not an emphasis on personal development. See Lodge, “Neo-patrimonial Politics in the ANC,” 1–23.
9. Freedom House, “Freedom House Concerned.”
10. While agreeing with Hamil that the ANC reached its electoral apogee in the 2004 national elections, with its weighty liberation credentials it is likely to remain dominant for the time being. Hamill, “A (Qualified) Reaffirmation of ANC Hegemony,” 3–23.
11. De Jager and du Toit, “Introduction.”
12. Gordhan, “A Road to a Better Africa.”
13. Schedler, “Measuring Democratic Consolidation,” 69.
14. Verba, “Comparative Political Culture,” 513.
15. Heywood, Politics, 206.
16. Lipset, Political Man.
17. Dubow, Sutton Pocket Histories, 15.
18. Gagiano and du Toit, “Consolidating Democracy in South Africa,” 47.
19. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures, 29–31.
20. Ibid., 29.
21. Gagiano and du Toit, “Consolidating Democracy in South Africa,” 50.
22. Kotze, “South Africa,” 160–1.
23. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures, 29.
24. Kotze, “South Africa,” 161.
25. Gagiano and du Toit, “Consolidating Democracy in South Africa,” 51.
26. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures, 29.
27. Modern (“positive”) liberalism, associated with welfare provision and economic management, has led to the criticism that liberalism becomes an “incoherent ideology, embracing contradictory beliefs, notably about the desirable role of the state.” Heywood, Political ideologies, 26.
28. Hobhouse, Liberalism, 23.
29. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures, 30.
30. Gagiano and du Toit, “Consolidating Democracy in South Africa,” 61.
31. Southall, Liberation Movements in Power, 2.
32. Ibid., 2.
33. Hamill and Hoffman, “The African National Congress and the Zanufication debate.”
34. Finer, The History of Government III, 1642, 1644.
35. Swart, “Contending Interpretations of the Rule of Law,” 42.
36. Professor Hennie Kotzé is the principal investigator of the South African elite project
37. Parliamentarians from the following 10 political parties were respondents (the numbers in brackets indicate the number of respondents): African Christian Democratic Party (1); African National Congress (74); Democratic Alliance (12); Freedom Front Plus (1); Independent Democrats (1); Inkatha Freedom Party (6); Minority Front (1); Pan Africanist Congress (1); United Christian Democratic Party (1); and United Democratic Movement (2).
38. Random sampling is a sampling technique whereby a group of subjects (a sample) are selected for study from a larger group. Each individual is chosen entirely by chance and each member of that larger group has a known, but possibly non-equal, chance of being included in the sample. Random sampling was chosen because past experience has shown that it is virtually impossible to interview all of those individuals holding top positions within parliament (that is, cabinet ministers and deputy ministers) and the likelihood of bias is reduced when using random sampling.
39. The 2013 survey is part of an international research project, Comparative MP Survey 2013 (CMP 2013), funded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ). The Principal Investigators are Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Yilmaz Esmer and Ursula Hoffmann-Lange.
40. The WVS initiative has conducted nationally representative surveys across 97 countries every five years since 1981 and focuses primarily on changing values and their impact on social and political life. Market-research company IPSOS conducted face-to-face interviews based on a structured (and standardized) root questionnaire in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Sotho, Tswana and Xhosa for both waves of the WVS under investigation. Probability samples were drawn, with all South Africans 16 years old and older having an equal chance of being selected. The sample was stratified into homogenous sub-groups defined by age, province, gender, race, language and community size. Since the sample was weighted to the full population and within a statistical margin of error of less than 2% at 95% confidence level, it was representative of the adult population of South Africa at the time the survey was conducted. The sample included 3000 respondents in 2006 and 3531 respondents in 2013. Like the South African elite survey, the WVS project in South Africa is conducted under the auspices of the Centre for International and Comparative Politics (CICP) at Stellenbosch University. The Principal Investigator is Professor Hennie Kotzé.
41. The original variable had four response categories: Definitely freedom (25.4%); Rather freedom (7.9%); Rather equality (15.9%); and Definitely equality (34.9%). The percentages shown collapse these four categories into two: freedom and equality. Due to the number of respondents who could not/would not choose between the two, we decided to report the figure instead of excluding them from the analysis.
42. ANC, NGC discussion document on the balance of forces, point 4.
43. Ibid., point 3.
44. ANC, “Preface to the Strategy and Tactics, 2002.”
45. Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, 221–2.
46. Filatova, “The ANC and the Soviets.”
47. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 1997.”
48. ANC, “Accelerating the Pace of Change.”
49. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 1997.”
50. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2007,”129.
51. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 1997.”
52. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2012,” 58.
53. Ibid., 29.
54. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2007,” point 144.
55. Ibid., point 193 [our emphasis].
56. Ibid., point 49 and point 96.
57. Ibid., point 115.
58. Ibid., point 49.
59. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 1997.” See also the banner on the ANC's website, which reads “South Africa's Liberation Movement.”
60. Ibid., 5.
61. Ibid., 13.
62. Ibid., 13.
63. Ibid., 15.
64. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2012,” 16.
65. Ibid., 32; ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2007,” point 73.
66. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2012,” 33.
67. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 1997.”
68. ANC, “Strategy and Tactics, 2007,” point 62 [our emphasis].
69. Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith, 77.
70. Ibid., 51.
71. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, 7.
72. Limb, A.B. Xuma, xii.
73. Feinstein, After the Party, 21.
74. Van Zyl Slabbert, The Other Side of History, 164.
75. According to Ellis, after the banning of the CPSA “its members adopted the practice of joining other organizations through which they could exercise their self-appointed role in the vanguard of revolutionary change”; Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 6.
76. Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 20.
77. During this period Luthuli was under a banning order in Natal, while meetings between the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Johannesburg Working Group of the ANC were happening.
78. Filatova, “The ANC and the Soviets.”
79. Gevisser, The Dream Deferred: Thabo Mbeki, 149.
80. Welsh, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, 135.
81. Gevisser, The Dream Deferred: Thabo Mbeki, 147.
82. Butler, “Introduction,” 11–12.
83. Mattes, “South Africa's Emerging Black Middle Class,” 11.
84. Southall, “The Black Middle Class and Democracy in South Africa,” 657.
85. Mbembe, “Fragile Democracy Faces Triple Threat.”
86. Filatova, “The ANC and the Soviets.” It should also be noted that Filatova also acknowledges that these traits developed in other countries too, independent of Soviet involvement. Yet she also asserts that the NDR is without a doubt part of the Soviet legacy.
87. Filatova, “The ANC and the Soviets.”
88. Shubin, ANC: A View from Moscow, 37.
89. South Africa, Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Section 181.
90. Madonsela, Security Cluster versus Public Protector, Case no. 59529/2013.
91. Mokone, “Manuel's Plan Cuts into Cadre Deployment Policy.”
92. Ibid.
93. Quoted in Van Onselen, “The Selective Moral Outrage of Trevor Manuel.”
94. Heywood, Politics, 128.
95. Gagiano and du Toit, “Consolidating Democracy in South Africa,” 63.