South Africa’s Political Futures

Journal Article

2003

Permanent link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22196
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Butler_SA's Political Futures_2003.pdf (83.18 KB)
Authors
Butler, Anthony
Journal Title

Government and Opposition

Link to Journal
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/government-and-opposition
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher

Blackwell Publishing

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department
Department of Political Studies
Faculty
Faculty of Humanities
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Series
Abstract
RARELY HAS A COUNTRY SO DIVIDED POLITICAL ANALYSTS AS contemporary South Africa. Ever since R. W. Johnson famously enquired ‘How long will South Africa survive?’,1 a procession of doom-mongers has viewed its political trajectory through the lenses of post-colonial African decline, seeing its carefully managed ‘transition to democracy’ as just one more step along the road to civil war, rampant tribalism, and a one-party state. Well-wishers saw the new South Africa through quite different eyes, as a rainbow-coloured adventure bus unshackled by the ‘miracle’ of transition from the economic and social chains of apartheid. Many of the liberation movement’s supporters even saw the African National Congress (ANC) as the glorious locomotive of continental renaissance, pulling its peoples into the African century.
Description

Reference:

Butler, A. (2003). South Africa's Political Futures. Government and Opposition, 38(1), 93-112.

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