OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Reddy, Thiven"

Browsing by Author "Reddy, Thiven"

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Open Access
ANC Decline, Social Mobilization and Political Society: Understanding South Africa's Evolving Political Culture
(Taylor & Francis, 2010) Reddy, Thiven
This article examines the evolving political culture in contemporary South Africa. It draws on elite culture, neo-patrimonialism, and revisionist institutionalist perspectives to understand state weaknesses and patterns of politicization confronting South Africa’s developing democracy. While it accepts that the democratic political system and its constituent institutions are in place and function formally, a discourse of violence or threats of violence to rival political actors is commonplace. The article is structured as follows: the first part describes the increased social mobilization of disgruntled citizens who rely on a discourse of violence rather than articulating grievances through political structures; the second part focuses on those factors that ferment this kind of political culture. The article discusses the deepening economic inequality and its expression in class conflict under conditions of democracy. It then discusses the politics of the ANC as a dominant party, and in particular intra-elite conflict, ANC factionalization, and the consequent weakening of state institutions. These factors, the paper argues, encourage a politics in which political society, rather than civil society, becomes the main terrain for expressing conflict.
Open Access
Black Consciousness in contemporary South African politics
(HSRC Press, 2009) Reddy, Thiven; Kagwanja, Peter; Kondlo, Kwandiwe
An ironic feature of contemporary South African politics is that while the organisations representing Black Consciousness (BC) ideas remain weak and fragmented, a revival in BC ideas, values and practices in official and civil society discourses seems evident. BC organisations dominated anti-apartheid politics in the 1970s, but their startling decline, particularly their weakened state under post-1994 democracy, calls out for analytical attention. In the 1999 and 2004 elections, the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) was the leading BC organisation. Together with the smaller Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa), Azapo received dismal support. Moreover, Azapo has split into three smaller organisations. Efforts to merge the three have so far faltered. One cannot conclude, however, that the obvious failure of BC political parties to challenge the ANC and the historically white political parties at the polls means that we should dismiss these organisations’ ideologies as ineffective and lacking in influence. The resurgence of BC ideas at the level of civil society, at a time when we might expect BC to be anachronistic, is intriguing. It is also the subject of this chapter.
Open Access
Black here, black there, black everywhere: using theatre to understand what being-black-in-the-world entailed during apartheid South Africa
(2022) Seti, Kitso; Reddy, Thiven;
When a Black person sees a display on stage of a fellow Black person getting killed by a White person, why do they not intervene to stop that killing from happening? One would answer, ‘Because it is just a performance. That Black person is not literally getting killed. It is all an act'. Fair enough. Then why does that spectating Black person get a heavy heart when he sees that killing being portrayed on stage? Is it because it is an experience he is familiar to? He has seen his fellow Blacks getting killed in front of his eyes. What does he do about what he sees on stage? What does the play do to his psyche? Richard Schechner, using Goffman's words, argues that the events on stage must be experienced as, what he deems, ‘actual realization': meaning that “the reality of performance is in the performing” (Bennet, 1997:11). Because the violence taking place on stage is only a performance, the spectator does not intervene as he might in an actual violence he would see taking place outside the theatre hall. However, that does not, as Schechner puts it, make the violence ‘less real' but ‘different real' (Bennet, 1997:11). The imaginary world of theatre is not an entirely ‘unreal' world, it is a world based on real occurrences. These real occurrences are taken to the imaginary world with hopes that when they are returned to the real world they will impact it in different ways, in ways set to transform it.
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The ‘Cabbage and the Goat’: Xenophobic Violence in South Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Reddy, Thiven
The paper offers a way to think through the advent of xenophobia as a feature of post 1994 South African democracy. It does so by locating it within a broader politics of a mobilized citizenry in which a ruling class has been unable to assert its hegemony. In this context of opposing wills, the very terms of reference of citizenship are contested, the elite in the society operate within an idiom of rights, and the mass of poor, radical resource distribution and recognition. The ambivalent position of the ANC as liberation movement, key actor in the founding of the new constitutionalism, and political party engaged in competitive electoral politics adds to the social unease. The resultant fragile ruling ideology has allowed local discourses to thrive based on degrees of authentic belonging.
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The Challenge of African Democracy
(2008) Reddy, Thiven
ORDINARY AFRICAN CITIZENS EXPECTED A BETTER LIFE following independence, but the post-independence period has proved to be utterly disappointing. The dominant narrative of the experience since independence can be read as follows: expectations at independence; failure of the state and elites to address African development and democracy; crisis of rule, poverty and societal withdrawal; structural adjustment programmes; internal opposition; democratic transitions with varied outcomes; and the present disappointment with democracy. Yet many of those living on the continent remain optimistic about the future. Where once coups were the established pattern for elite circulation, and single-party and military regimes dominated the African political landscape, the late 1980s witnessed a wave of competitive multi-party elections across the continent. In the hostile socioeconomic conditions prevalent in many African countries, the possibility of democracy flourishing was interpreted as a new beginning.
Open Access
Community participation and participatory development in Post-Apartheid South Africa
(2003) Svenskerud, Monica; Reddy, Thiven
Bibliography: leaves 65-75.
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The Congress Party Model: South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) and India’s Indian National Congress (INC) as Dominant Parties
(Brill Academic Publishers, 2005) Reddy, Thiven
The paper argues that the model developed to analyze the dominance of the Indian National Congress of the political party system during the first two decades of independence helps in our understanding of the unfolding party system in South Africa. A comparison of the Congress Party and the African National Congress suggests many similarities. The paper is divided into three broad sections. The first part focuses on the dominant party system in India. In the second part, I apply the model of the Congress System to South Africa. I argue that the three features of the Congress System – a dominant party with mass based legitimacy, constituted by many factions and operating on the idiom of consensus-seeking internal politics, and sources of opposition who cooperate with factions in the dominant party to influence the political agenda – prevails in South Africa. In the third part, I draw on the comparison between the ANC and Congress Party to account for why certain nationalist movements become dominant parties. I emphasize that broad nationalist movements displaying high degrees of legitimacy and embracing democratic practices are adaptive to changing contexts and develop.
Open Access
Drugs, police inefficiencies and gangsterism in violently impoverished communities like Overcome
(2013) Taheri-Keramati, Yashar; Reddy, Thiven
This research establishes an understanding of the relationship between gangsterism, the drug commodity and inefficiencies in the state’s policing institution, as well as the consequences of this relationship, in the context of Overcome squatter area in Cape Town. Overcome is representative of other violently impoverished Cape Town communities with its high rate of unemployment, low quality of education, domestic abuse, stagnant housing crisis, lack of access to intellectual and material resources or opportunities for personal growth, gangsterism, inefficient policing, substance-dependency, and violence. This research demonstrates that the current relationship between the gangs, drugs and the police fosters an unpredictable, violent environment, leaving residents in a constant state of vulnerability. The argument is developed around three key historical junctures in the development of organized crime in South Africa, starting with the growth of the mining industry in the Witwatersrand after 1886, followed by forced removals and prohibition like policies in Cape Town circa 1970, and finally the upheaval created around transition away from apartheid in 1994. Research for this paper was both quantitative and qualitative in nature, and included expert interviews on the subjects of police criminality, narcotic sales, and gangsterism. Newspapers articles, crime statistics, books, census figures, and a host of journals were also utilized. Upon reviewing a host of police inefficiencies and criminal collusions, the research concludes that public criminals related to the state, such as police, and private criminals, such as gangsters, work together in a multitude of ways in a bid to acquire wealth, most notably through an illicit drug market today dominated by ‘tik’. It is shown that this violent narcotics market binds police and gangsters together at the expense of creating a state of insecurity for those living in poor drug markets.
Open Access
The fall of Hosni Mubarak: Skocpol's structural approach
(2013) Price, Clare; Reddy, Thiven
The recent Arab Spring movement in the Middle East and North Africa has been heralded as a transition to democracy for a region plagued by authoritarian regimes and their durable leaders. This paper seeks to understand why Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's former long-time president, was forced from office during the early months of 2011. Influenced by recent work in political scholarship on the Middle East, the Post-democratisation paradigm, seeks to escape from the democratisation paradigm. Instead of viewing events as indicative of inevitable democratisation in the region, the paper attempts to explain events in terms of Skocpol's structural approach to revolution which can also be used to understand significant social change. In line with the structural approach the paper provides a contextual and narrative history of Egyptian politics, including opposition and protests, as a backdrop to the events between the 25th of January and the 11th of February 2011 which led to Hosni Mubarak leaving office. The paper exhibits structural contradictions in the Mubarak regime, some of which would lead to tension in the elite. Specifically, it highlights tension between the military and the Mubaraks over the matter of Gamal Mubarak's apparent succession of his father. This explains why the military would not use coercive force to help maintain Mubarak's power. It found that the social movement #January25 was successful at maintaining momentum in the face of state repression, including an analysis of the role of social media.
Open Access
From Afghani to Khomeini : the state in modern Islamic political thought
(2010) Asmal, Muhammad Zakaria; Reddy, Thiven
Open Access
Government policy direction in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa to their San communities : local implications of the International Indigenous Peoples' Movement
(2007) Hartley, Bonney Elizabeth; Reddy, Thiven
Word processed copy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-103).
Open Access
Higher Education and Social Transformation: South Africa Case Study
(2004-02) Reddy, Thiven
This paper advances and draws on the following four propositions. First, in analysing the role of universities in social transformation there is a need to draw a distinction between the pre- and post-Apartheid periods; the former focuses on practices of resistance to the Apartheid regime and the latter on constituting a democratic polity in part by addressing Apartheid legacies. The second draws attention to the unintended consequences of National Party policy. It established black universities to produce passive elites to administer ethnic political institutions but created instead terrains that established a vibrant oppositional student movement and other forms of resistance within and related to the higher education sector. Third, in the post 1994 period the position of the state towards the role of universities and social transformation is derived from a policy inevitably open to reading in two opposing ways. The state demands that universities contribute towards economic and socio-political transformation, yet the nature of the transition from Apartheid to a democratic regime, its macro-economic state policies, and the constraints of globalisation have led to two opposing tendencies. In the first, universities are expected to perform as viable “corporate enterprises” producing graduates to help steer South Africa into a competitive global economy. In the second, universities are expected to serve the public good and produce critical citizens for a vibrant democratic society. To be sure these two tendencies need not be inherently contradictory, yet they do contain in a country with deep class, race and gender divisions the possibility of pulling in opposite directions. Last, when we consider universities as intrinsic sites of civil society, then the focus on the relationship between the state and civil society can be used to better illuminate some of the problems associated with the role of universities in the post-Apartheid system. While the ANC controlled state actively pursues a transformative agenda, institutions of civil society continue to be sites of ongoing contestation and remain more reticent to change. Universities, like other civil society institutions, if they are not simplistically conceived as monolithic coherent blocs, but as constituted by different constituencies (faculty, departments, students, administrators, workers, etc.) allows us to see how various sectors could function in contradictory ways - reproducing, eroding, transforming or remaining consciously oblivious to inherited and prevailing social relations.
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Ideology, Discourse and Social Theory: André Du Toit's Contribution to South African Studies
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2000) Reddy, Thiven
Du Toit's conception of ideology, discourse and texts as applied to South African intellectual history lies on the edges, is deeply layered and open to multiple interpretations and approaches. In this paper, I want to trace those identifiable, yet faint, pathways passing through Marxist, Post-Structuralist and Post-Colonial literature, which allow us to appreciate Du Toit's contribution to our understanding and analysis of ideology in South African history and politics. The first part identifies the problems associated with applying a narrow conception of ideology to Afrikaner and African nationalist discourses in South Africa. The second section traces the debate of ideology in the context of Marxism, particularly the relationship between ideology and power. This is followed by a discussion of ideology in relation to discourse and, finally, the paper concludes with an overview of Du Toit's reworking of Thompson's framework. We will see how Du Toit's conception of ideology - one related to a broader social theory, and also to the production of discourses, the relations of domination and the constitution of subjects - provides a far more nuanced conception to apply to South African intellectual history.
Open Access
Memorialising White Supremacy: The Politics of Statue Removal: A Comparative Case Study of the Rhodes Statue at the University of Cape Town and the Lee Statue in Charlottesville, Virginia
(2019) Trippe, Katie Sophia; Reddy, Thiven
In April 2015, the bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes- notorious mining magnate, archimperialist and champion of a global Anglo-Saxon empire- was removed from its concrete plinth overlooking Cape Town, South Africa. This came as a result of the #RhodesMustFall (#RMF) movement, a movement that would see statues questioned and vandalised across the country. Two years later, fierce contestation over the hegemonic narrative told through the American South’s symbolic landscape erupted over the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, resulting in the deaths of multiple people in Charlottesville, Virginia. Increasing research on the removal of Rhodes and the removal of Confederate statuary has emerged in recent years. However, previous scholarship has failed to compare the wider phenomena of the calls for removal, from the memorialised figures to their change in symbolic capital, the movements’ inception and its outcomes. There is subsequently a gap in the literature understanding what the politics of statue removal tell us about not only the American and South African commemorative landscapes, but the nations’ interpretations of the past and societies themselves. Therefore, this thesis uses descriptive comparative analysis to compare two case studies where the debate over statue removal has surfaced most vehemently: Rhodes’ statue at the University of Cape Town and Lee’s statue in Charlottesville. Ultimately, this dissertation finds that the calls for the removal of statues are part of a wider change in tenor towards understanding and disrupting prevailing hegemonic narratives of white supremacy, in both society and its symbolic landscape. The phenomena demonstrates that heterogeneous societies with pasts marred by segregation and racism are moving to reject and re-negotiate these histories and their symbols, a move that has elicited deeply divided, emotional responses. Despite waning attention to monument removals, the issue remains unresolved, contentious, and capable of re-igniting.
Open Access
Quest for political change : popular struggles for regime transition in former Zaire
(2000) Downey, Kristen M; Reddy, Thiven
Includes bibliographies.
Open Access
Representing 'the people' : the national discourse in Zimbabwe
(2009) Fry, Tom; Reddy, Thiven
Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-84).
Open Access
South Africa, settler colonialism and the failures of liberal democracy
(Zed Books Ltd, 2015) Reddy, Thiven
South Africa is a society driven by guilt, fear and anger. In a society that is so clearly a product of injustice for so long, the past cannot but be deeply etched upon everything. One part lives in a world of comfort, fear and guilt. The other, the vast majority, survives in a world of squalor, frustration and anger—a world of bare life (Agamben 1998). The two hardly meet except in the world of work, but this is a world of masters and servants. The democratic breakthrough in 1994 has not changed this division much. Now, another group, the emerging black middle class, has moved into the world of fear and guilt, but also comfort and, for a few, ostentatious wealth. Everywhere this division haunts all in this society; it never completely leaves even though most try to ignore its presence. Ken Owen, a keen observer of South African politics, blamed ‘the deplorable state’ of contemporary South African democracy on the low self-esteem of the black leadership. He scathingly argued that ‘we are dealing with a generation of black leaders who were severely damaged, men more than women, by the terrible humiliations of apartheid’. As a result the black political elite are prone to express ‘insecurity, desper- ate greed, excessive concern for status and appearance, a sad reliance on paper qualifications, dishonesty, abuse of the weak, especially women and children, vain displays of wealth, and pomposity. Bodyguards, expensive cars, huge mansions, expensive whisky, business class flights—the symptoms of a sense of inferiority are everywhere’. By contrast: ‘White South Africans are writing books, producing plays, defending causes, mending machines, teaching, even helping to govern badly like Alec Erwin and Jeremy Cronin’ (Owen 2009). Is this attack on a country that has only recently celebrated two full decades of constitutional democracy following the end of Apartheid, where the ‘terrible humiliations’ of this iniquitous system still remain raw, appropriate? Many would strongly disagree with Owen’s view and especially his tone, but all his criticisms cannot be easily disputed. Perhaps we can accuse him of reductionist thinking, offering too simplified a conclusion to the problems that bedevil a complex society. After all, Owen would be remembered for the unintentional irony of his warning about the dangerous in uence of ‘Black Consciousness’ as advocated by Steve Biko in the 1970s; he drew the Apartheid government’s attention to the very issues that this ideology addressed, most importantly the psychological inferiority of the oppressed subject. Regardless, Owen’s criticisms highlight an important aspect of contemporary South Africa’s troubled, psychotic democracy. That theme is the focus of this book.
Open Access
The role of the legislature in promoting the integration of the South Africa in political system.
(1999) Herzenberg, Collette G; Reddy, Thiven; Seegers, Annette
The dissertation asserts that South Africa is a divided society where cleavages of class, race and ethnicity exist due to the proliferation of particularised identity formation under the systems of apartheid and colonisation. Despite the process of democratisation in 1994 the possibilities of political parties reflecting these cleavages are high, leading to identity mobilisation and system instability. Instead, South Africa has experienced an overlapping of class, race and ethnicity where mobilisation of particular identities is slight, which has resulted in a degree of stability within the political system. An explanation is required to understand the increasing integrating tendencies within the political system as a whole. The study will argue that the political system promotes system integration and therefore societal integration because of post-apartheid institutional arrangements. Institutional arrangements that enhance political integration can be located within the legislature, known as the National Assembly in South Africa, and include the PR electoral system and party representivity and secondly, the role of minority parties in the legislative process. South Africa is used as an illustrative case to evaluate the relationship between the legislature and integration of the political system. A process of political integration is an essential condition for the future stability of South African political system. The theoretical framework establishes the relationship between the legislature and political integration. The concept of political integration and associated aspects like interest articulation and aggregation as functions of the legislature are utilised. The pluralist approach explains how societal conflicts manifest themselves as groups with various identities and interests. The pluralist perspective also shows how divided societies challenge political integration due to resultant societal conflict. The neo-institutionalist approach aids the investigation of the legislature in order to evaluate its role in the integration of the political system. ii The importance of, and challenges to, political integration in South Africa are discussed by examining the divided nature of the society. The constructionist approach is used as an explanatory tool to consider the causative factors of South Africa's societal divisions. The legislature is evaluated by focusing on two research areas: The inclusive formal representation of all societal groups in the form of political parties within the legislature; and the degree of influence afforded to the represented political parties at the decision-making level where disparate demands can be channeled, given expression and some degree of persuasion. The first indicator deals with the electoral system and its effects on political inclusivity for parties within the legislature. Secondly, the electoral system is examined to assess whether it allows for electorate inclusivity. Slating procedures and activities of political Parties; are discussed, to illustrate politically inclusive behaviour. Lastly, the nature of the party system contributes to the study as it affects how politically inclusive the political arena is. These focal points reflect the various ways that the legislature can promotes political integration. The second indicator focuses on the decision-making level of the legislature. The committee system and its implications for political inclusivity are examined by focusing on its structural and procedural elements and its powers. Secondly, House Rules and Procedures are investigated to measure the opportunities for parties to influence the legislative process. Thirdly, the skill of opposition parties impacts on their ability to be influential at this level. Finally, the role of the representative and his relationship with the electorate is discussed.
Open Access
Young and the urban in Addis Ababa: towards a popular history of the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, c. 1950s-1974
(2022) Asfaw, Semeneh Ayalew; Reddy, Thiven
This is a study about the Ethiopian revolution through the social and cultural developments that formed the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The largest participants in the social protests of 1974 were predominantly young Addis Ababans with a range of class and social formations. They were the authors of the Ethiopian revolution. In addition to documenting the social protests of 1974, however, this study is also interested in tracing the subject formation of the youth in Addis Ababa between the 1950s and 1974. By giving special focus to developments in the post 1950 period, where demographic, social and cultural transformations take particular intensity and form in the making of Addis Ababa, this study seeks to expose the linkages between the subject formation of the youth in the two and a half decades leading up to the revolution. By examining the processes that went into the formation of dissidence, this study asks whether factors (other than university student militancy) were significant to explain the emergence of the Ethiopian revolution. The material for this study comes from three main archives: 1. Non-literary works: newspapers and magazines; 2. Literary works: mainly novels and musical productions; and 3. Interviews. By integrating written and audio-visual archives and oral materials, this study examines and analyses the history of subject formation of the youth before and during the Ethiopian revolution. The significance of this study lies in its emphasis on the multiplicity of social actors in the making of the Ethiopian revolution as well as its attempt to demonstrate that subject formation was a function of everyday life and social and cultural production of rebel sensibility in Addis Ababa. In its attempt towards writing the popular dimensions of the history of the Ethiopian revolution in the Ethiopian capital, this study examines the conditions in which the social protests of 1974 occurred, and the social and cultural context in which the revolution became "thinkable". It demonstrates the interconnections between the social and cultural formation of subjects, the political formativeness of cultural phenomena, and explicitly political protest.

Browsing by Author "Reddy, Thiven"

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