Despite the more general social, political and economic advances that have been made under the ANC's rule since 1994, power has not only remained in the hands of a small minority but has increasingly been exercised in service to capital. This has seen the ANC become the key political vehicle, in party and state form as well as application, of corporate capital; both domestic and international, black and white, local and national and constitutive of a range of different fractions. As a result, 'transformation' has largely taken the form of macro-acceptance of, combined with micro-incorporation into, the capitalist system, now minus its specific and formal apartheid frame. What has happened in South Africa over the last twenty-two years is the corporatisation of liberation; the generalised political and economic commodification of society and its development; with all the attendant impacts on governance, the exercise of power, the understanding and practice of democracy as well as political, economic and social relations.

Shadow of Liberation explores the intricate twists, turns, contestations and compromises of ANC economic and social policymaking with a focus on the transition era of the 1990’s and the early years of democracy With the damning revelations by the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture on the massive corruption of the South African body politic, the timing of this book could not be more relevant. South Africans need to confront the economic and social policy choices that the liberation movement made and to see how these decisions may have facilitated the conditions for corruption to emerge and flourish. Answers are needed. Padayachee and van Niekerk focus their attention on the primary question of how and why the ANC, given its historical anti-inequality, re-distributive stance, come in the 1990s, to such a dramatic turn around and move towards an essentially market-dominated approach. Were they pushed or did they go willingly? What role if any did Western governments and international financial institutions play? And what of the role of the late apartheid state and South African business? Did leaders and comrades ‘sell out’ the ANC’s emancipatory policy vision? Shadow of Liberation tries to provide answers to these questions drawing on the best available primary archival evidence as well as extensive interviews with key protagonists across the political, non-government and business spectrum. The authors argue that the ANC’s emancipatory policy agenda was broadly to establish a social democratic welfare state upholding rights of social citizenship. However its economic policy framework to realise this emancipatory mission was either non-existent or egregiously misguided.

This timely book analyses the crisis and chaos of journalism in contemporary South Africa and argues for and about the power of public interest journalism The transition to digital news has been messy, random and unpredictable. The spread of news via social media platforms has given rise to political propaganda, fake news and a flattening of news to banality and gossip. Media companies, however, continue to shrink newsrooms, ousting experienced journalists in favour of 'content producers'. Daniels writes of the contribution of investigative journalists to exposing corruption and sees new opportunities emerging, which may well be a model for the future of non-profit, public-funded journalism. Engaging and dynamic, the book argues for the power of public interest journalism, including investigative journalism, and a diversity of voices and positions to be reflected in the news. It addresses the gains and losses from decolonial and feminist perspectives and advocates for a radical shift in the way power is constituted by the media in the South African postcolony. A valuable introduction to the confusion that confronts journalism students, it has much to offer practicing media professionals. Daniels uses her years of experience as a newspaper journalist to write with authority and illuminate complex issues about newsroom politics. Interviews with alienated media professionals and a semi-autobiographical lens add a personal element that will appeal to readers interested in the inner life of the media.

The link between security and development has been rediscovered after 9/11 by a broad range of scholars. Focusing on Southern Africa, the Security-Development Nexus shows that the much debated linkage is by no means a recent invention. Rather, the security/development linkage has been an important element of the state policies of colonial as well as post-colonial regimes during the Cold War, and it seems to be prospering in new configurations under the present wave of democratic transitions. Contributors focus on a variety of contexts from South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia, to Zimbabwe and Democratic Congo; they explore the nexus and our understanding of security and development through the prism of peace-keeping interventions, community policing, human rights, gender, land contests, squatters, nation and state-building, social movements, DDR programmes and the different trajectories democratization has taken in different parts of the region.

This volume offers a bold restatement of the importance of social history for understanding modern revolutions. The essays collected in Worlds of Labour Turned Upside Down provide global case studies examining: - changes in labour relations as a causal factor in revolutions; - challenges to existing labour relations as a motivating factor during revolutions; - the long-term impact of revolutions on the evolution of labour relations. The volume examines a wide range of revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, covering examples from South-America, Africa, Asia, and Western and Eastern Europe. The volume goes beyond merely examining the place of industrial workers, paying attention to the position of slaves, women working on the front line of civil war, colonial forced labourers, and white collar workers. Contributors are: Knud Andresen, Zsombor Bódy, Pepijn Brandon, Dimitrii Churakov, Gabriel Di Meglio, Kimmo Elo, Adrian Grama, Renate Hürtgen, Peyman Jafari, Marcel van der Linden, Tiina Lintunen, João Carlos Louçã, Stefan Müller, Raquel Varela, and Felix Wemheuer.

Die komplexen Wandlungen der Menschenrechte in der jüngsten Zeitgeschichte. Nach 1990 gewannen Menschenrechte national wie international ein wohl vorher nie erreichtes Gewicht. Immer mehr Akteure begriffen gesellschaftliche Probleme als Menschenrechtsfragen. Der Universalanspruch erfuhr weltweite Zustimmung und beförderte eine Vielzahl neuer interventionistischer Praktiken über nationalstaatliche Grenzen hinweg. Nicht zuletzt machten zahlreiche wissenschaftliche Disziplinen Menschenrechte, in einer vielschichtigen Wechselwirkung mit den gleichzeitigen politischen Veränderungen, zum Gegenstand der Forschung. Die Phase zukunftsgewisser Aufbrüche endete jedoch bereits vor der Jahrhundertwende. Zugleich sah sich die Idee universal gültiger Rechte heftigen Anfechtungen und Gegenentwürfen ausgesetzt. Dieser Band will eine neue empirische Grundlage für das Nachdenken über die jüngste Menschenrechtsgeschichte legen, indem zentrale Entwicklungen der letzten dreißig Jahre beleuchtet werden. Dabei bewegen sich die Beiträge über dichotomische Deutungsangebote von einerseits Triumph und Erfolg, andererseits Scheitern und Niedergang hinaus und schärfen den Blick für komplexe Wandlungsprozesse und gegenläufige Entwicklungen. Der Band erscheint vollständig in englischer Sprache. _____ The complex trajectory of human rights in the history of the past three decades. The 1990s saw an extraordinary surge in the significance that various actors attributed to the concept of human rights. A growing number of activists and politicians began framing their concerns as human rights issues. The universal claim of human rights received unprecedented support and spurred new interventionist practices across national borders. Numerous academic disciplines made human rights a subject of research, both reflecting on and influencing the emerging human rights policies. Yet the moment of enthusiastic new departures waned even before the advent of the new century. At the same time – and often as a direct consequence of its new prominence – critics opposed the idea of universal rights with an unprecedented fierceness. This volume breaks new ground in examining important developments that have unfolded in human rights history over the past thirty years. In situating these events, the volume looks beyond dichotomous interpretations of either triumph and success or failure and decline, sharpening our view of complexities and contradictions. The volume is published entirely in English.

A history of the erosion of democracy across the globe Democracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet. Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy. Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.