Bridging the values gap: how support for women's constitutional rights changed University of Cape Town in the two decades following South Africa's democratic transition

Powell, Emma Louise

Bridging the values gap: how support for women's constitutional rights changed University of Cape Town in the two decades following South Africa's democratic transition

Thesis / Dissertation

2024

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Political Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

The objective of this research is to understand how levels of support for women's Constitutional rights changed in South Africa between 1996 and 2013. It further aims to advance an explanation for the findings, within the context of the applied theoretical framework. The timeframe over which these attitudes are assessed is between 1996 and 2013. This period measures a 17-year time frame that can be roughly aggregated to demonstrate progress towards the adoption of progressive attitudes concerning the rights of women, as enshrined in the South African Constitution. This period coincides with immediate two decades following the first free and fair Democratic national elections in 1994. The theoretical framework within which this research is conducted, is Value Change Theory which will be used as an analytical lens which will be returned to for explanatory purposes rather than hypothesis testing.Here, I explore Ronald Inglehart's original thesis Value Change Theory (1971 and then 1977), as well as the various argument advanced in response. I further provide an analysis of the antagonisms inherent within Cultural Relativist and Universalist constructions of human and gender rights, and how these are relevant in the South African context. Value Change Theory advances that whilst economic modernisation and the satisfaction of material needs generate relatively rapid increments in self-expression value adoption in much of the world, in nations where democratic consolidation and economic development is slow, the adoption of progressive values - such as support for women's equal rights - tracks a far slower course. It is contended that this hastens as genuine democratic consolidation occurs over time, as a result of the forces of economic modernisation. The data that is relied upon in this study was collected and made available for independent analysis by the international research organisation, World Value Surveys (WVS) and self-processed using IMB's SPSS data processing software. The population statistics that are used to measure any substantive change in the material conditions of South Africans are derived from Statistics South Africa.

Keywords

political science

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