Browsing by Subject "Post-Apartheid"
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- ItemOpen AccessThe Colour of Desert: Race, Class and Distributive Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa(2005) Seekings, JeremyThis paper examines how racial differences affect perceptions of distributive justice in post-apartheid South Africa. In ‘divided’ societies, citizens might be expected to discriminate on the basis of race or culture in assessing the justice of other citizens’ claims. South Africa is a prime example of a ‘divided’ society whereby, in the past, legislation and racial elite culture combined in pervasive discrimination. Given the continued importance of race in daily life in South Africa, we might expect that attitudes about distributive justice would continue to be racialised, with people considering members of the same ‘racial group’ as themselves as being more deserving than members of other groups. But evidence from both national data-sets and a new data-set for Cape Town in particular suggests that race has complex and often counter-intuitive effects on perceptions of distributive justice. By some criteria, and some analytic techniques, people do not discriminate on the basis of race when assessing desert; by other criteria, and other analytic techniques, desert appears still to be somewhat coloured in post-apartheid South Africa. Overall, however, the evidence suggests that the effects of race are either weak or work in counterintuitive directions. Rich, white Capetonians are certainly more generous in their views on redistribution than is generally assumed.
- ItemRestricted'Just Deserts': Race, Class and Distributive Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa(Taylor & Francis, 2008) Seekings, JeremyThis article examines how racial differences affect perceptions of distributive justice in postapartheid South Africa. In 'divided' societies, citizens might be expected to discriminate on the basis of race or culture in assessing the justice of other citizens' claims. South Africa is a prime example of a 'divided' society in which, in the past, legislation and racial elite culture combined in pervasive discrimination. Given the continued importance of race in daily life in South Africa, we might expect that attitudes about distributive justice would continue to be racialised, with people considering members of the same 'racial group' as themselves as being more deserving than members of other groups. But evidence from both national datasets and a new data-set for Cape Town in particular suggests that race has complex and often counter-intuitive effects on perceptions of distributive justice. By some criteria, and some analytic techniques, people do not discriminate on the basis of race when assessing 'just deserts'; by other criteria, and other analytic techniques, 'just deserts' appear still to be somewhat 'coloured' in post-apartheid South Africa. Overall, however, the evidence suggests that the effects of race are either weak or work in counter-intuitive directions. Rich and white Capetonians are certainly more generous in their views on redistribution than is generally assumed.
- ItemMetadata onlyRace and trust in post-apartheid South Africa(CSSR and SALDRU, 2015-05-28) Burns, Justine
- ItemMetadata onlySavings, Insurance and Debt over the Post-Apartheid Period: A Review of Recent Research(CSSR and SALDRU, 2015-05-28) Ardington, Cally; Lam, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Levinsohn, James
- ItemMetadata onlyThe measurement of earnings in the post-Apartheid period: An overview(Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Wittenberg, Martin; Pirouz, Farah
- ItemMetadata onlyThe sensitivity of estimates of post- apartheid changes in South African poverty and inequality to key data imputations(CSSR and SALDRU, 2015-05-28) Ardington, Cally; Lam, David; Leibbrandt, Murray; Welch, Matthew
- ItemRestrictedTrade unions, social policy & class compromise in Post-Apartheid South Africa(Taylor & Francis, 2004) Seekings, JeremyThe poor benefit greatly through redistribution through the budget in South Africa: Poor children attend public schools in large numbers and poor households benefit from a public welfare system that is exceptional in comparative terms. Trade unions have championed these apparently pro-poor policies, even though the trade union movement is not a movement of the poor in South Africa (there are very few union members in the poorest half of the population). Trade unions' record in acting as a movement for the poor is shaped by their primary objective of looking after their members' interests. In education, teachers and unions engage with the state as the employer more than as the provider of a social service. Teachers' unions were primarily responsible for securing more expenditure on poor schools in the mid-1 990s, but this was the result of increased salaries. Self-interest has led teachers and their unions to oppose, block or impede some reforms that would improve the quality of schooling for poor children. In welfare reform, trade unions have championed the cause of the basic income grant, which is in the interests of the poor. A close analysis suggests that organised labour is also acting here in part out of self-interest. The socialisation of welfare costs will reduce the burden on working people and would deflect criticism of union-backed policies that, arguably, contribute to an economic growth path characterised by high wages but low employment. In previous work I argued that post- apartheid South Africa entailed a double class compromise, between capital, labour and the poor. The evidence from these areas of social policy suggests that this argument overstated the power of the poor and underestimated that of organised labour.
- ItemOpen AccessTransmitting the Transition: Media Events and Post-Apartheid South African National Identity(2012) Evans, Martha; Glenn, IanSouth Africa came late to television, and its enjoyment of the medium was diminished by the fact that just as a national television service was acquired, the rest of the world began to shun the country because of apartheid. While the ruling National Party feared the integrative effects of television, they did not foresee the negative impact that exclusion from globally unifying broadcasts would have on political rule. Television helped to facilitate the sporting and cultural bans and played an important, mostly unexamined role in the transition to democracy. While South Africa was barred from participating in some of television's greatest global attractions (including sporting events such as the Olympics and contests such as Miss World), with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison – one of the world's most memorable media events – came a proliferation of large-scale live broadcasts that attracted the gaze and admiration of the rest of the world. At the same time, the country was permitted to return to international competition, and its readmittance played out on television screens across the world. These events were pivotal in shaping and consolidating the country's emerging post-apartheid national identity. Using Dayan and Katz's theory of “media events” – those historic and powerful live broadcasts that mesmerise mass audiences – this thesis assesses the socio-political effect of live broadcasting on South Africa's transition to democracy and the effects of such broadcasts on post-apartheid nationhood. The thesis follows events chronologically and employs a three-part approach: firstly, it looks at the planning behind some of the mass televised events, secondly, it analyses the televisual content of some of the events; and thirdly it assesses public responses to events, as articulated in newspapers at the time. Live broadcasting was used first by the rest of the world as a means of punishing apartheid South Africa and then by the emerging NP–ANC alliance as a means of legitimating the negotiation process. In particular, media events served as a powerful means of securing support for the country's first democratic president, Nelson Mandela. At the same time, the apparent transparency of live broadcasting helped to rejuvenate the poor reputation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, perceived as a government mouthpiece under apartheid and, like South Africa itself, in need of an image overhaul. The thesis argues that just as print media had a powerful influence on the development of Afrikaner nationalism, so the “liveness” of television helped to consolidate the “newness” of the post-apartheid South African national identity.