Political Opposition and Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa
Political Opposition and Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author: Elliott Green

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1134933126

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This book takes a closer look at the role and meaning of political opposition for the development of democracy across sub-Saharan Africa. Why is room for political opposition in most cases so severely limited? Under what circumstances has the political opposition been able to establish itself in a legitimate role in African politics? To answer these questions this edited volume focuses on the institutional settings, the nature and dynamics within and between political parties, and the relationship between the citizens and political parties. It is found that regional devolution and federalist structures enable political opposition to organize and gain local power, as a supplement to influence at the central level. Generally, however, opposition parties are lacking in organization and institutionalization, as well as in their ability to find support in civil society and promote the issues that voters find most important. Overall, strong executive powers, unchecked by democratic institutions, in combination with deferential values and fear of conflict, undermine legitimate opposition activity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Democratization.

Opposition and Democracy in South Africa
Opposition and Democracy in South Africa

Author: Roger Southall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-14

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1135277419

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This collection examines the nature, scope and prospects for political opposition under African National Congress political dominance.

Reflections on the 2019 South African General Elections
Reflections on the 2019 South African General Elections

Author: Joleen Steyn Kotze

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-17

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1000293394

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Reflections on the 2019 South African General Elections is a critical reflection on the key lessons of Elections 2019 in South Africa, focusing on the future of the country’s electoral democracy. The volume engages questions on land, election campaigns, voter turnout, voter apathy, and how opposition parties will be forced to co-exist in the context of declining electoral dominance the ANC once comfortably held. An important reflection on the lessons of the 2019 South African General Elections, the contributors ask: Quo Vadis South Africa? The 2019 General Elections marked a watershed in South Africa’s political landscape. The ANC under the banner of a narrative of regeneration and getting back on the moral path dipped below the 60 % mark for the first time in South Africa’s democratic history. This decline in electoral support for the party may be interpreted as a degeneration of the ANC through the loss of its moral stature, the erosion of its integrity and disillusionment with its performance as a governing party. Opposition political parties could not capitalise on this seeming disillusionment with the ruling ANC. Caught in their own factional battles and in the midst of corruption scandals, opposition parties were unable to successfully increase their share of the vote, and capture the undecided and disillusioned voter. Considering the future of South Africa’s electoral democracy at 25 years of democracy, Reflections on the 2019 South African General Elections will be of great interest to scholars of African Studies, South Africa, Governance and Elections. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies.

Political Parties in South Africa
Political Parties in South Africa

Author: Thuynsma, Heather

Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 0798305142

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Political parties and the party system that underpins South Africa’s democracy have the potential to build a cohesive and prosperous nation. But in the past few years the ANC’s dominance has strained the system and tested it and its institutions’ fortitude. There are deeper issues of accountability that often spurn the Constitution and there is also a clear need to foster meaningful public participation and transparency. This volume offers a different and detailed assessment of the health of South Africa’s political system. This study intends to unravel the condition of the party system in South Africa and culminates in the question: Do South African parties promote or hinder democracy in the country? The areas of the party system that are known to require continued work are the weakness of democratic structures within parties, the perceived lack of responsibility of elected parliamentarians towards voters, non-transparent private partner financing structures and a lack of attractiveness of party-political commitment, especially for women. Experts in the respective fields address all of these areas in this book.

Political Opposition and Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa
Political Opposition and Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author: Elliott Green

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1134933053

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This book takes a closer look at the role and meaning of political opposition for the development of democracy across sub-Saharan Africa. Why is room for political opposition in most cases so severely limited? Under what circumstances has the political opposition been able to establish itself in a legitimate role in African politics? To answer these questions this edited volume focuses on the institutional settings, the nature and dynamics within and between political parties, and the relationship between the citizens and political parties. It is found that regional devolution and federalist structures enable political opposition to organize and gain local power, as a supplement to influence at the central level. Generally, however, opposition parties are lacking in organization and institutionalization, as well as in their ability to find support in civil society and promote the issues that voters find most important. Overall, strong executive powers, unchecked by democratic institutions, in combination with deferential values and fear of conflict, undermine legitimate opposition activity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Democratization.

Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies
Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies

Author: Ludger Helms

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-18

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1317970306

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Previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies, this volume offers a broad comparative assessment of the many faces of parliamentary opposition in different political, legal and cultural settings. Issues of political opposition, and of parliamentary opposition in particular, are at the very heart of the study of democratic processes in different parts of the world. Written by leading scholars in the field, this book looks both at the core features of the parliamentary opposition itself and its role in the legislative and wider political process. This includes an inquiry into the manifold challenges that the parliamentary opposition in many countries has come to face in the more recent past, in particular the rise of different non-parliamentary opposition actors. The countries covered in this volume include the old democracies of the Anglo-Saxon world, continental Europe and Japan, and the new democracies and democratizing regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Africa. Another chapter looks at the manifestations of parliamentary opposition within the multi-level system of the European Union

The Black and White Rainbow
The Black and White Rainbow

Author: Carolyn Holmes

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0472127179

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Nation-building imperatives compel citizens to focus on what makes them similar and what binds them together, forgetting what makes them different. Democratic institution building, on the other hand, requires fostering opposition through conducting multiparty elections and encouraging debate. Leaders of democratic factions, like parties or interest groups, can consolidate their power by emphasizing difference. But when held in tension, these two impulses—toward remembering difference and forgetting it, between focusing on unity and encouraging division—are mutually constitutive of sustainable democracy. ​Based on ethnographic and interview-based fieldwork conducted in 2012–13, The Black and White Rainbow: Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-Building in Democratic South Africa explores various themes of nation- and democracy-building, including the emotional and banal content of symbols of the post-apartheid state, the ways that gender and race condition nascent nationalism, the public performance of nationalism and other group-based identities, integration and sharing of space, language diversity, and the role of democratic functioning including party politics and modes of opposition. Each of these thematic chapters aims to explicate a feature of the multifaceted nature of identity-building, and link the South African case to broader literatures on both nationalism and democracy.

Democracy Compromised
Democracy Compromised

Author: Lungisile Ntsebeza

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005-06-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9047407903

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This book argues that the promulgation of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework and Communal Land Rights Acts runs the risk of compromising South Africa's democracy. The acts establish traditional councils with land administration powers. These structures are dominated by unelected members.

South Africa's Uneasy Alliance
South Africa's Uneasy Alliance

Author: Martin Plaut

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published: 2012-10-31

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 186842555X

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The communist party in South Africa began as a revolutionary movement. In exile in the 1960s and 1970s it took on significance its numbers never warranted through its relationship with the Soviet Union and the weapons it brought to the armed struggle. Today it worries that it has been absorbed into the ANC machinery of government, without being able to retain its own identity. The unions of Cosatu were born out of the fight against poverty level wages of the 1970s. Their culture comes from the shop-floor and the democracy of the shop steward movement. They played a critical role in ending apartheid through their links with the United Democratic Front and the grassroots groups in the townships. African Nationalism, Marxism-Leninism and popular democracy are never easy ideological partners. Yet the Alliance has survived and flourished. The cost of this relationship has been endless disputes. While each element of the Alliance pledges its support for the greater good, it fights for its own corner. The history of post-apartheid South Africa is littered with examples of how this has been played out. The overthrow of President Thabo Mbeki by Jacob Zuma in 2007 would have been unthinkable without the complex web of relationships that were developed within the Alliance. As the ANC moves towards its elective conference in Mangaung in December 2012, tensions within the Alliance are at breaking point once more. In theory this is a purely internal ANC party issue. But candidates for the top job are battling it out and the support of the unions and the Communist Party is a critical element in their campaigns. These battles can only be understood in the context of the Alliance – an extraordinary but poorly understood movement.