Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa
Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa

Author:

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-01-23

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 0198906323

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In its modern history, Africa has experienced different waves of constitutional ordering. The latest democratisation wave, which began in the 1990s, has set the stage over the past decade for what is now a hotly debated issue: do recent, new, or fundamentally revised constitutions truly reflect an African constitutional identity? Thoughtfully navigating a contested field, this volume brings to the fore a number of foundational questions about African constitutionalism. Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa asks whether the concept of constitutional identity clarifies our understanding of constitutional change in Africa, including an exploration of the relationship between constitutional identity and a country's unique culture(s) and histories. Building on this, contributions examine the persistent role of colonial heritages in shaping constitutional identity in post-Independence African nations, and the question of path-dependency. Given the enduring influence of the colonial experience, the volume asks how, why, and to what end African constitutions must be 'decolonised' to form an authentic constitutional identity. This theoretical insight is supplemented and further deepened by detailed case studies of South Africa, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Cameroon, and Egypt and their diverse experience of constitutional continuity and change. This volume in the Stellenbosch Handbooks in African Constitutional Law series, brings together contributions from established scholars and emerging voices on the study of constitutional processes. They provide an urgent critical analysis of existing paradigms, concepts and normative ideologies of modern African constitutionalism in the context of constitutional identity.

Freedom's Debt
Freedom's Debt

Author: William A. Pettigrew

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2013-12-30

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1469611821

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In the years following the Glorious Revolution, independent slave traders challenged the charter of the Royal African Company by asserting their natural rights as Britons to trade freely in enslaved Africans. In this comprehensive history of the rise and fall of the RAC, William A. Pettigrew grounds the transatlantic slave trade in politics, not economic forces, analyzing the ideological arguments of the RAC and its opponents in Parliament and in public debate. Ultimately, Pettigrew powerfully reasons that freedom became the rallying cry for those who wished to participate in the slave trade and therefore bolstered the expansion of the largest intercontinental forced migration in history. Unlike previous histories of the RAC, Pettigrew's study pursues the Company's story beyond the trade's complete deregulation in 1712 to its demise in 1752. Opening the trade led to its escalation, which provided a reliable supply of enslaved Africans to the mainland American colonies, thus playing a critical part in entrenching African slavery as the colonies' preferred solution to the American problem of labor supply.

The Apartheid City and Beyond
The Apartheid City and Beyond

Author: David M. Smith

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1134902964

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Apartheid as legislated racial separation substantially changed the South African urban scene. Race group areas' remodelled the cities, while the creation of homelands', mini-states and the pass laws' controlling population migration constrained urbanization itself. In the mid-1980s the old system - having proved economically inefficient and politically divisive - was replaced by a new policy of orderly urbanization'. This sought to accelerate industrialization and cultural change by relaxing the constraints on urbanization imposed by state planning. The result was further political instability and a quarter of the black (or African) population housed in shanty towns. Negotiations between the Nationalist government and the African National Congress are working towards the end of the old apartheid system. Yet the negation of apartheid is only the beginning of the creation of a new society. The vested interests and entrenched ideologies behind the existing pattern of property ownership survive the abolition of apartheid laws. Beyond race, class and ethnicity will continue to divide urban life. If the cities of South Africa are to serve all the people, the accelerating process of urbanization must be brought under control and harnessed to a new purpose. The contributors to this volume draw on a broad range of experience and disciplines to present a variety of perspectives on urban South Africa.

Beyond Our Wildest Dreams
Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

Author: Ineke van Kessel

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9780813918686

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The 1980s in South Africa were marked by protest, violent confrontation, and international sanctions. Internally, the country saw a bewildering growth of grassroots organizations--including trade unions, civic associations in the black townships, student and other youth organizations, church-based groups, and women's movements--many of which operated under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front (UDF). "Beyond Our Wildest Dreams" explores the often conflicted relationship between the UDF's large-scale resistance to apartheid and its everyday struggles at the local level. In hindsight, the UDF can be seen as a transitional front, preparing the ground for leaders of the liberation movement to return from exile or prison and take over power. But the founding fathers of the UDF initially had far more modest ambitions. Interviews with Cachalia and other leading personalities in the UDF examine the organization's workings at the national level, while stories of ordinary people, collected by the author, illuminate the grassroots activism so important to the UDF's success. Even in South Africa, writes Ineke van Kessel, who covered the anti-apartheid movement as a journalist, resistance was not the obvious option for ordinary citizens. Van Kessel shows how these people were mobilized into forming a radical social movement that developed a highly flexible and innovative form of resistance that ultimately ended apartheid. --From publisher's description.

Labour Beyond Cosatu
Labour Beyond Cosatu

Author: Andries Bezuidenhout

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2017-07-01

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1776141512

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Labour Beyond Cosatu is the fourth volume in the series Taking Democracy Seriously – a ground-breaking, textured and nuanced study on workers and democracy – which was established in the 1990s. The series looks at members of trade unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and provides a rich database of trade union members and research conducted over the past twenty years. It is one of the very few such resources available to researchers anywhere in the world. Labour Beyond Cosatu paints a complex picture. The 12 chapters of the volume explore various rebellions and conflicts in the trade union sector, starting with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and rivalries between Cosatu affiliates. Unpacking the conflicts between state-sector and private-sector workers, contributors look at the impact of generational and educational shifts, seen by some commentators as proof that Cosatu is now ‘middle class’. The book also raises the issue of gender in the unions by usefully locating the controversy around charges levelled at Zwelinzima Vavi in 2013 in the larger context of serious problems in the gender politics within parts of Cosatu. Refuting the image of a union federation solidly committed to the ANC, Labour Beyond Cosatu presents evidence of a sharp decline in support for the ANC within Cosatu, and growing scepticism towards the Alliance. It shows that attempts to understand the labour movement in South Africa in the future will need to include research of smaller, independent unions and social movements. The volume’s contributors make a major contribution to key debates on labour and democracy, providing new material that can potentially shift the discussion in important ways. This book will be of great value to students and researchers in Industrial Sociology, Political Studies, Industrial Psychology and Economics and Management.

Beyond State Failure and Collapse
Beyond State Failure and Collapse

Author: George Klay Kieh

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780739108925

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Various arguments have been proffered to explain the dynamics of African state failure and collapse. However, the literature on state reconstitution is inchoate and minimal. This edited volume focuses on prescriptions for reconstituting the post-colonial state in Africa. Essays on nine African states (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, and Uganda) are preceded by an introduction to the political economy of the African state.

South Africa Beyond Covid-19
South Africa Beyond Covid-19

Author: Pieter du Toit

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published: 2020-05-29

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1776190920

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In the aftermath of the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19, 31 of South Africa's top analysts, economists, academics and journalists – including Adriaan Basson, Koos Bekker, Pieter du Toit, Adam Habib and Thuli Madonsela – try to chart a way forward, identify our biggest stumbling blocks, and offer solutions for when the virus subsides. When reports emerged from China in December 2019 about a seemingly incurable virus, few South Africans took notice. But less than three months after those reports, in March 2020, South Africa went into a full lockdown. Life as we knew it ground to a halt. Schools were closed, businesses were shuttered, a curfew imposed, freedom of movement curtailed and hospitals prepared for an unprecedented health storm. The spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has forced the world and South Africa to reconsider how society works. Can the economy continue to function as it has for the past century, and how can it be reconfigured to be more inclusive? In a post-state-capture country, what must citizens expect and demand from their government? And how can we bridge societal cleavages – many caused by our unjust past – so that we emerge a stronger nation beyond Covid-19? Contributors: Pieter du Toit, Haroon Bhorat, Servaas van der Berg, Imraan Valodia, Alex van den Heever, Louis Reynolds, Kuku Voyi, James Arens, Ron Derby, Thabi Leoka, Koos Bekker, Ann Bernstein, Dawie Roodt, Norman Mbazima, Isaah Mhlanga, Qaanitah Hunter, Thuli Madonsela, Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Mcebisi Ndletyana, Nicole Fritz, Mpumelelo Mkhabela, William Gumede, Judith February, Darias Jonker, Theo Venter, Leon Wessels, Elmien du Plessis, Ralph Mathekga, Adriaan Basson, Adam Habib, Wilmot James.