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Politikon
South African Journal of Political Studies
Volume 27, 2000 - Issue 2
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Original Articles

Is South Africa heading towards authoritarian rule? Instability myths and expectations traps in a new democracy

Pages 189-205 | Published online: 18 Aug 2010

  • Leon , T. 1999 . "The Democratic Party's "Fight Back" Campaign Paid Off . Business Day , 1 July
  • Wilhelm , P. 1998 . Transformation: Is It the End of Reconciliation?' . Financial MaU , 17 April
  • Malala , J. 1998 . 'Cowed by Red Bluster' . Financial Mail , 22 May
  • Lane , J.-E. and Ersson , S. 1997 . 'Probability of Democratic Success in South Africa' . Democratization , 4 (4) : 1 – 15 .
  • Giliomee , H. and Simkins , C. , eds. 1999 . The Awkward Embrace: One-Party Domination and Democracy , Cape Town : Tafelberg .
  • Spence , J. , ed. 1999 . After Mandela , London : Royal Institute for International Affairs . On the emergence of democratic centralism in the ANC, see the measured deliberations of the Royal Institute of International Affairs study group on South Africa, collected
  • 1999 . 'Party Time in South Africa' . The Economist , 20 February In addition, see
  • Kohli , A. 1997 . “ On Sources of Social and Political Conflicts in Follower Democracies' ” . In Democracy's Victory and Crisis , Edited by: Hadenius , A. 71 – 80 . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .
  • Seekings , J. 1993 . Heroes or Villains? Youth Politics in the 1980s , Johannesburg : Ravan . Apartheid era anthropologists had monopolised the study of 'African polities', leaving political scientists to focus on the 'European' behaviour of the White electorate
  • McCarthy , C. 1990 . “ Apartheid Ideology and Economic Development Policy ” . In Political Economy of South Africa , Edited by: Nattrass , N. and Ardington , E. Cape Town : Oxford University Press .
  • Maradani , M. 1996 . Citizen and Subject , 286 Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press . Accounts equating apartheid with 'indirect rule' ignore South Africa's nineteenth-century exceptionalism (in wars of dispossession, population displacements, and enforced changes of social organisation) and the minerals revolutions that proletarianised South Africa and produced its self-consciously ideological and anti-ethnic political culture
  • Brewer , J. D. , ed. 1994 . Restructuring South Africa , London : Macmillan .
  • Johnson , R. W. and Schlemmer , L. , eds. 1996 . Launching Democracy in South Africa , New Haven, CT : Yale University Press .
  • Lijphart , A. 1985 . Power Sharing in South Africa , Berkeley : University of California . The most important authors were
  • Horowitz , D. 1991 . A Democratic South Africa? , Berkeley : University of California .
  • MacDonald , M. 1992 . "The Siren's Song: The Political Logic of Power-Sharing in South Africa' . Journal of Southern African Studies , 18 (4) : 709 – 25 . Lijphart (1985), op. cit., pp. 19-20. For incisive criticism, see
  • Institute for Social Development . 1993 . Mont Fleur Scenarios , Bellville : University of Western Cape . See, for example
  • Tucker , R. and Scott , B. 1992 . South Africa: Prospects for a Successful Transition , Kenwyn : Juta .
  • Professional Economists Panel . 1993 . Growing Together , Johannesburg : Old Mutual .
  • McClelland , J. S. 1996 . A History of Western Political Thought , 663 London : Routledge . 1 have relied heavily on McClelland's uniquely penetrating analysis here
  • Butler , A. 1998 . Democracy and Apartheid , 140 – 9 . London : Macmillan . Commentators reinforced racialisation by conflating correlation with causation. Observing that most Africans vote for the ANC, writers often continue to assume that they have voted in this way because they are Africans (without exploring whether some other factor, including interest, might not be responsible). While the sophisticated Idasa-SABC-Markinor Opinion '99 surveys (see www.idasa.org.za) have for the first time used internationally accepted survey methods and analytical frameworks to magnificent effect, academic and media commentators have yet fully to digest their findings. On earlier political attitude surveys, see
  • Taylor , R. and Orkin , M. 1995 . 'The Racialisation of Social Scientific Research on South Africa' . South African Sociological Review , 7 (2) : 43 – 69 . On racialised research, see the seminal article
  • Habib , A. and Taylor , R. 1999 . 'Parliamentary Opposition and Democratic Consolidation in South Africa' . Review of African Political Economy , 80 : 261 – 7 . Defections from the ANC in two provinces in 1999, and the sophistication of the Gauteng electorate, caution against reliance on current political attitude analysis. To the (limited) degree that people's perceptions of their own behaviour are to be trusted, around two-thirds of the electorate, and about half of Africans, considered themselves 'independents' in 1998, as against only about 10 per cent of the electorate in 1994. See
  • McGreal , C. 1999 . "The Great Persuader' . Weekly Mail & Guardian , 1 June When asked whether Thabo Mbeki would make a good president, his father Govan replied: 'He's guided by the politics of this organisation. It's the organisation that matters, not the man'
  • Neustadt , Richard E. 1960 . analysis of presidential power in Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership , New York : Wiley .
  • Crossman , R. 1963 . “ 'Introduction' to Walter Bagehot ” . In English Constitution , 51 London : Fontana .
  • Lodge , T. 1999 . South African Politics Since 1994 , 110 – 20 . Cape Town : David Philip .
  • Republic of South Africa . 1998 . Report of a Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Transformation and Reform of the Public Service , Pretoria : Republic of South Africa .
  • Ibid., 1.2.
  • Barrel! , H. and Streck , B. 1999 . 'Hidden Face of Government' . Weekly Mail & Guardian , 12 November : 12 – 15 .
  • Mann , M. 1986 . “ The Autonomous Power of the State ” . In States in History , Edited by: Hall , J. A. Oxford : Blackwell . For elaboration of this concept, see
  • Friedman , S. 'Democracy the Victim if ANC Loses Touch' . Business Day , 23 December 19%. Alternatively, 'an over-concentration of power in South Africa may end up in the ANC getting more and more control over less and less'
  • Giliomee , H. and Simkins , C. 1999 . “ 'Dominant Party Regimes' ” . Edited by: Giliomee and Simkins . 42 op. cit.
  • Barrell , H. 2000 . 'Mbeki: One Year On' . Weekly Mail & Guardian , 2 June
  • Gumede , W. M. 2000 . 'Why the ANC Backs Zanu' . Financial Mail , 2 June
  • Blondel , J. 1992 . “ Dual Leadership in the Contemporary World ” . In Parliamentary and Presidential Government , Edited by: Lijphart , A. Oxford : Oxford University Press .

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