The political freedoms ushered in by the post 1994 transition were seen at that time as the basis for redressing long-standing economic deprivations suffered by the majority of the population. The reduction of poverty, in all its dimensions, was the goal. The volume will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, and to the technical staff of international agencies and government ministries.

The book, made up of three parts, covers a wide spectrum of political economy issues on post-apartheid South Africa. Although the text is mainly descriptive, to explain various areas of the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa, the first and the last parts provide illuminating insights on the kind of society that is emerging during the twenty-one years of democracy in the country. The book discusses important aspects of the political history of apartheid South Africa and the evolution of post-apartheid society, including an important recap of the history of southern Africa before colonialism. The text is a comprehensive description of numerous political economy phenomena since South Africa gained its political independence and covers some important themes that have not been discussed in detail in other publications on post-apartheid South Africa. The book also updates earlier work of the author on policy and law making, land and agriculture, education and training as well as on poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa thereby providing a wide-ranging overview of the socio-economic development approaches followed by the successive post-apartheid administrations. Interestingly, three chapters focus on various aspects of the post-apartheid South African economy: economic policies, economic empowerment and industrial development. Through the lens of the notion of democratic developmental state and taking apartheid colonialism as a point of departure, the book suggests that, so far, post-apartheid South Africa has mixed socio-economic progress. The author’s extensive experience in the South African government ensures that the book has policy relevance while it is also theoretically sound. The text is useful for anyone who wants to understand the totality of the policies and legislation as well as the political economy interventions pursued since 1994 by the South African Government.

"We Are the Poors follows the growth of the most unexpected of these community movements, beginning in one township of Durban, linking up with community and labor struggles in other parts of the country, and coming together in massive anti-government protests at the time of the UN World Conference Against Racism in 2001. It describes from the inside how the downtrodden regain their dignity and create hope for a better future in the face of a neoliberal onslaught, and shows the human faces of the struggle against the corporate model of globalization in a Third World country."--Jacket.

Introduction -- Development dilemmas -- The post-apartheid development experience -- Evolution of policy in post-apartheid South Africa -- Nation building -- Social and economic transformation : policies and prospects -- Conclusion: towards an inclusive society

This book critically examines the current social policy in post-apartheid South Africa and proposes an alternative social policy agenda to create a new development pathway for the country. Taking social policy as a vehicle that will facilitate the creation of a new society altogether, namely the "Good Society," the author argues for the adoption of policy that will socially re-engineer South Africa. The author shows how the policy tools and development interventions which were undertaken by the post-apartheid state in driving South Africa's transformation agenda failed to emancipate many individuals, families, and communities from the cycle of intergenerational poverty and underdevelopment. He contends that social policy interventions that foster the social re-engineering of South African society must take place to untangle the inherited colonial-apartheid social order. This book includes comparative analyses on the Global South and Global North to present the ways in which countries such as post-Second World War Great Britain and Sweden, and post-independence Zambia of the 1960s and 1970s, were able to use social policy to create new societies altogether or places similar to the "Good Society." The conceptual and methodological issues that form the basis for this book reside in public policy-making and the public good and will be of interest to scholars of social policy, social development, and South African society.

Democracy came to South Africa in April 1994, when the African National Congress won a landslide victory in the first free national election in the country’s history. That definitive and peaceful transition from apartheid is often cited as a model for others to follow. The new order has since survived several transitions of ANC leadership, and it averted a potentially destabilizing constitutional crisis in 2008. Yet enormous challenges remain. Poverty and inequality are among the highest in the world. Staggering unemployment has fueled xenophobia, resulting in deadly aggression directed at refugees and migrant workers from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Violent crime rates, particularly murder and rape, remain grotesquely high. The HIV/AIDS pandemic was shockingly mishandled at the highest levels of government, and infection rates continue to be overwhelming. Despite the country’s uplifting success of hosting Africa’s first World Cup in 2010, inefficiency and corruption remain rife, infrastructure and basic services are often semifunctional, and political opposition and a free media are under pressure. In this volume, major scholars chronicle South Africa’s achievements and challenges since the transition. The contributions, all previously unpublished, represent the state of the art in the study of South African politics, economics, law, and social policy.

South Africa2019s social landscape is disfigured by poverty, inequality and mass unemployment. Poverty in South Africa: Past and Present argues that it is impossible to think coherently or constructively about poverty, and the challenge it poses, without a clear understanding of its origins, its long-term development, and it2019s changing character over time. This historical overview seeks to show how poverty in the past has shaped poverty in the present. Colin Bundy traces the lasting scars left on the face of South African poverty by colonial dispossession, coerced labour and segregation; and by a capitalist system distinctive for its reliance on cheap, right-less black labour. While the exclusion of the poor occurs in very many countries, in South Africa it has a distinctive extra dimension. Here, poverty has been profoundly racialised by law, by social practice, and by prejudice. He shows that the 2018solution2019 to the 2018poor white question2019 in the 1920s and 201930s had profound and lasting implications for black poverty. After an analysis of urban and rural poverty prior to 1948, he describes the impact of apartheid policies and social engineering on poverty. Over four decades, apartheid reshaped the geography and demography of poverty."