Published in the June Edition of The Thinker.
African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa.
Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elites. The concept of a ‘strong state’ that has traditionally evolved out of a need to protect valuable agricultural assets, and (later) mineral resources was gradually replaced by a need to create strong political systems that conserve the balance of all power dynamics that obtained during and post-liberation. Maintaining the status quo in power relations became a given in the post-liberation mathematical equation about ‘creating a better life’ for ‘our people’Published in the June Edition of The Thinker.
African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa.
Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elites. The concept of a ‘strong state’ that has traditionally evolved out of a need to protect valuable agricultural assets, and (later) mineral resources was gradually replaced by a need to create strong political systems that conserve the balance of all power dynamics that obtained during and post-liberation. Maintaining the status quo in power relations became a given in the post-liberation mathematical equation about ‘creating a better life’ for ‘our people'Published in the June Edition of The Thinker.
African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa.
Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elites. The concept of a ‘strong state’ that has traditionally evolved out of a need to protect valuable agricultural assets, and (later) mineral resources was gradually replaced by a need to create strong political systems that conserve the balance of all power dynamics that obtained during and post-liberation. Maintaining the status quo in power relations became a given in the post-liberation mathematical equation about ‘creating a better life’ for ‘our people’.
The South African anti-colonial and liberation struggle narrative display a rather esoteric trajectory that is instructive to the various state formation endeavours which shaped the foundational tenets of its democracy. The colonial character of South Africa with its Eurocentric personality enjoins it to the broader narrative of colonialism as manifest in the dogmatic adoption of governance systems reflective of the colonising centre; in the RSA case the Westminster system and it’s supporting administrative systems. The euro-cosmopolitan character of the South African ‘white settler’ community further transposed the in-Europe nationalist hegemonic contestations onto to the political texturing of South African politics; pre and post-colonial as well as post 1994.
The foundational Dutch ‘colonial’ government that was interrupted by non-Dutch settlements, such as the French Huguenots, as well as ‘British Empire’ expansionist tendencies, established a republicanist community that became passionate about ‘self-rule’ and ‘nation state’ (volkstaat) creation. The ‘self-rule’ settler movement developed into an ‘own affairs’ ‘liberation movement’ that pursued the ideal of being ‘detached’ from the colonising centre; being Europe and particularly Britain. The quest for such a ‘liberation’ ignited a ‘frontier expansionist’ movement that moved north of the Cape colony and thus starting a ‘land dispossession’ campaign that introduced into the ‘liberation’ discourse new victims of a ‘liberation’ inspired in-land expansion. The corresponding resistance against this ‘encroachment’ redefined the ‘liberation movements’ of Southern Africa with the consequence being the development of two nationalisms along ‘racial and non-racial’ lines. These race defined compartments defined the 100 year anti-colonial struggles of South Africa and its approach to government.
In these anti-colonial ‘struggles’ the conduct of struggle became both ‘dispossessional’ and ‘de-hegemonic’. Dispossession meant the ‘retitling’ of indigenous land to reflect ‘new ownership’ patterns that were based on a legal system alien to the ‘co-operating’ and/or ‘coerced’ indigenous communities. De-hegemonic meant the detachment of the colonial ‘frontier’ redefining communities with the colonial government. This defined the establishment of ‘in-land’ republics modelled around self-government as experienced in Europe. A conglomeration of new owner ‘titled’ land into a geographical space legitimised the creation of ‘states’ with a juridical realm and thus allowing rules of co-existence to define the ascendant laws. The template for a ‘whites only’ nationalist reawakening that found political currency through the 1913 formation of the National Party as well as a pro-Black nationalist awakening that got institutionalised in 1912 through the formation of the ANC was set.
The ‘white nationalist’ ‘anti-colonial’ movement resulted in a number of ‘wars’. These wars created a state formation trajectory that acknowledged the ‘iron and blood’ prerequisite for a treaty for co-existence to be signed. Such a treaty defines the ‘arrangements’ with which ‘peace time’ communities agree to rule themselves; the 1910 Constitution of South Africa is seen in this context herein. The ‘black resistance’ wars established historical truths about ‘settler behaviour’ in the quest for ‘liberation’. The development focus of the ‘advancing settler’ ‘liberation movement’ that was cushioned , in development terms, by the ‘missionary’ inspired religious encroachment created ‘a parallel liberation movement’ designed to ‘self-determine’ the indigenous communities who were now victims of the ‘de-hegemonising’ and ‘dispossessing’ white only struggles.
The struggle for ‘self-determination’ was thus defined along racial lines in South Africa. The theoretical advantage of being descendants to established ‘democracies’ and a long history of state formation and rule of law made the ‘dispossessing’ and ‘de-hegemonising’ liberation movement to set-up governance systems that still define the South African State to date. The concretising paradigm of ‘state’ became thus defined in clear European and/or western terms; and a template was set. The 1909 settlement amongst the ‘white nationals’ of South Africa brokered a deal that saw the systematic and state sponsored marginalisation, to the periphery, of Black South Africans away from the commanding heights of socio-economic and political life. The ensuing African led ‘liberation’ struggle got defined along the lines of being accommodated in the concretising system. The quest for political control was conceptualised around the seizure of ‘a chambered’ political powerhouse, otherwise known as parliament.
The instruments with which this struggle was to be executed were also modelled along the evolving ‘political template’. The 1909 settlement created therefore a background of permanence for the political management of South Africa. The body politic became the differentiator within which public policy could be dispensed. The entrenchment of the rule of and/or rule by law principles found resonance during these formative years of the South African democratic experiment. It is in this context that this paper argues the existence of a centennial band that not only defines the formation of the African National Congress but the establishment of some permanence in government, state and governance tracks, the difference of which can only be experienced in the policies of the government of the day as dictated by changing polities and political coalitions.
The centennial band was in the main characterised by an established racial hierarchy emanating from the early conceptualisation of the colony as a mere ‘refreshment’ station en route to the booming trade with Asia and the far east. It is during this ‘band’ that South Africa entered a political transition continuum that created ‘race-based’ socio-economic gains for the ‘dispossessing’ ‘anti-colonial’ victors of 1948. The consolidation of these gains redefined the ‘foundational national ethos’ of the ‘whites only nationalist assignment. Anchoring this consolidation was the growing triumph of neo-liberal economic regime and its adjunk liberal democracy. The programmatic praxis of African liberation politics required therefore an identity that could legitimately claim to be acting as the representative of a non-racial alternative based on the reigning government sub-structure.
The formation of the ANC in 1912 formalised into an organised entity the political and economic aspirations of the ‘liberation movement’ representing the dispossessed whilst the 1913 formation of the National Party formalised a new era in the ‘de-hegemonisation’ ‘anti-colonial struggle; all of which were legitimate anti-colonial struggles depending on political vintage points chosen. The 1913 Land Act defined the British resolve to create a coalition of ‘white’ and not ‘nationalist’ interest in South Africa and thus institutionalised the two ‘national’ that defines the present ‘national’. The formalisation of constitutional democracy in South Africa meant the development of a corresponding Public Administration practice. Such a practice would have as its strategic mandate the management of public service delivery through a competent Public Service; and these are all critical aspects of the faculty of public administration and Public Administration.
Whereas dominant public administration discourse submits that its study got formalised after the Woodrow Wilson American Presidency, there is emerging evidence that Public Administration has always existed side by side with formalised politics and democracy. In the South African context the definition of parliament based democracy with an executive and a judicial arm of government meant the generic approaches of Public Administration were finding expression in the conduct of government. The formalisation of elections, creation of state departments and accompanying organs of state as well as state owned entities created a terrain within which the various polities could start claiming legitimacy to participate.
The Weberian approach that a state is defined in terms of its ability to enforce started to find expression in the South African constitutionalisation journey. Power was thus defined and its use was allocated to a governing centre and thus creating capability to regulate citizen relations with a polity defining context; a ‘new South Africa’. The adequacy and sufficiency of political representation in terms of the various ‘nationals’ and ‘races’ established new currencies for the concretising ‘political market’. Land claims and self-determination defined the ‘non-white’ polities and the ‘protection of acquired land and property rights’ defined the ‘non-black’ polities’. Public administration was thus seen as an instrument to manage the ‘institutionalised power’ of the ‘legitimate and yet illegitimate’ state.
Citing Skocpol, Gumede explains a state as a set of administrative, policing and military organisations headed and more or less co-ordinated by, an executive authority. Authority would thus imply the existence of a process by which a ‘state-society’ consensus is struck to give elected and/or appointed officials some defined rights to govern on their behalf. The 1910 Constitution represented therefore a legalised agreement and or consensus by those present at the 1909 Convention to govern the territory of South Africa. The decolonising mind-set of a ‘dehegemonising’ polity was premised of sustaining the colonisation of the dispossessed polity whilst reducing the power of the greater colonising centre. Such could only be achieved, and in the context of a lost active war, through a sophisticated ‘political rights’ demanding machinery. ‘Nation’(volk) development and political representation modelled around a coalition of ‘volk’ interests organised as civil society interests would create a vehicle with which such a ‘struggle’ could be executed.
The ‘developmental coalitions’ that oversaw the legalisation of a ‘two national’ state formation path that found a ‘democratic breakthrough’ in 1948 and formalised into law in 1961 created a social base that required the deeper consciousness of the ‘dispossessing’ and ‘de-hegemonising’ liberated ‘communities’ to imagine a race-transcending South Africa. The developmental coalition identified the state ‘bureaucracy’, the loci of public administration, and ‘partnership with capital’ and ‘interest managing’ civil society bodies as well as the dominant ‘think tank’ formations as vehicle with which any ‘challenge’ to the established pattern of government is either ‘redirected’ in hegemonic terms or ‘quashed’ . The structure of ‘government’ and ‘its machinery was thus cast in the ‘intellectual stone’ whereby any conception of an alternative would be based on accessing the levers that move the existing infrastructure for the ‘potential transfiguration’ of the established hegemony.
The preoccupation with designing ‘non-black’ hegemony in all facets of South African life created a social structure that thrived on a general mistrust of ‘any non-black’ endeavour at political transformation and management. The segregationist ‘DNA’ that has its roots in the institutionalisation of the two ‘national’ sub-structure of the South African ‘nation’ state became the ‘opiate’ that feeds into the general discourse on South African Politics. At its inception, the ‘new-new’ South African government, which incidentally operated in the ‘1910’ set template of the state, identified the public service and by extension Public Administration as a fundamental area of transformation.
The transformation paradigm was, and interestingly so, focused on the cosmetic aspects of public service administration. The White Paper on the Transformation of the Public service made pronouncements on the lack of representation, lack of legitimacy, lack of service delivery, centralised control and top-down management, lack of accountability and transparency, and a number of endemic inefficiencies. What the ‘white paper’ did not identify are the efficiencies of the system in areas defined ‘non-white’ thus confirming the colonial approach of ‘limiting the reach of the state to ‘capitals’ and ‘urbanised colonial development centres’. This is not withstanding the scientific truth of spatial development patterns that are informed by ‘state interventionist’ and ‘private sector’ driven economic investments.
At the time of taking over the levers of state power in 1948, the National Party led ‘anti-colonial’ struggle inherited an ‘infrastructural power’ that could facilitate the carrying out of state decisions in the interest of the ‘voting polity’ and ‘the ascendary political elite’. The authority of the state to make its decisions binding was thus limited to the legitimating polity and its ‘mega’ tax payers; big business. The inability of the post 1948 government to establish a stable infrastructure power amongst the ‘non-white’ or ‘outside voting polity’ constituencies, as a result of the black social organisation that emerged in the aftermath of the 1948 National Party’s own ‘democratic breakthrough’ began an ‘our people’ tradition that potentially ‘excluded’ ‘non-blacks’ as the people.
Accommodatory politics became a beneficiary to the concretising absence of an ideological centre to galvanise society around a set of agreed values for nation building. The ‘governing civil society’ movement got ‘redeployed’ and positioned in the bureaucracy of the state in order to advance gains that came with the ‘1948 democratic breakthrough’. Deployment degenerated into a patronage dispensary in political terms, the public service was thus conceptualised as the conduit within which objectives of the ‘development coalition’ could be advanced. The blatant exclusion of blacks in the ‘arrangements’ of the ‘development coalition’ ignited a need to build a ‘social movement’ with a ‘new liberation’ intent around a ‘black-led’ political organisation; the ANC. This notwithstanding the fact that the ANC itself was instrumental in the conceptualisation of this social movement.
The activities of the ‘other liberation movement’ in anti-colonial struggle terms and representing the other ‘national’, put an obligation on the ANC-led liberation movement to define a vision for South Africa. The Freedom Charter’s ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it’ became the strategic vision around which a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa could be conceptualised. The appeal of the Freedom Charter’s preamble grew to become South Africa’s clarion ‘one nation’ building statement. The ANC-led liberation movement’s ideal pronouncements for South Africa, created a ‘new developmental’ coalition that ‘collected’ a conglomerate of diverse interests about ‘a democratised’ South Africa. Such diversities continue to decorate the decorum of ANC-ness in a manner that creates internal tensions informed by a quest to ‘melt’ into one these historical diversities.
Characteristic of struggles for a ‘democracy’ within a state, the price of being government brings with it new priorities for the new political elites. The centennial band within which the ANC was formed creates therefore a further obligation, and potentially higher that the foregrounding of the Freedom Charter preamble as ‘bequeathed’ to South Africa by the ANC, to craft a new ‘one nation’ reawakening trajectory for South Africa. The overarching ‘interest’ of the ANC, derived from it annals, remains the unity of South Africans around marshalled collective interests that can be legitimately claimed in a ‘factional’ manner by those organised around the narrow enclaves of the broader ANC interest.
Public Administration as the nexus of government and governance provides a sub-structure with which a country’s bureaucracy can be marshalled to build both a state and a nation. The organisation of society is in many ways centred on the bureaucracy’s interpretation of the policy intents of government. Given the template of state structures and systems that were created to meet the demands of the various ‘development coalitions’ along the centennial growth of South Africa’s constitutional history, the need to establish a ‘new developmental coalition’ that coalesces around the reinforcement of the ‘new constitutional accord struck’ in 1993 is thus established. The inherent mistrust amongst critical stakeholders required for the development coalition, particularly beneficiaries of the ‘dispossessing’ ‘liberation movement’ development outcomes, can only be mitigated by the capacity of the executive to reign in on the growing.
In crafting this ‘coalition’ it will be important for the ruling political elite to acknowledge that only a new ‘democracy’ was ushered in 1994, the state remained the same with its government responding to the ‘new dictates’ of an emerging polity. The reach of the new polity’s limitations is now informed by priorities that seek to change the lives of ‘the people’ within the ‘our people’ political requirements. Public Administration has as its philosophical foundation the requirement to always operate within the guidelines that emanate from the body politic. The ‘dubbing’ of the 2012 ANC Policy Conference as advancing towards the second transition, recognises the need to agglomerate the various societal interests and marshal them towards a South Africa that ‘belongs to all who live in it.
African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa.
Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elites. The concept of a ‘strong state’ that has traditionally evolved out of a need to protect valuable agricultural assets, and (later) mineral resources was gradually replaced by a need to create strong political systems that conserve the balance of all power dynamics that obtained during and post-liberation. Maintaining the status quo in power relations became a given in the post-liberation mathematical equation about ‘creating a better life’ for ‘our people’Published in the June Edition of The Thinker.
African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa.
Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elites. The concept of a ‘strong state’ that has traditionally evolved out of a need to protect valuable agricultural assets, and (later) mineral resources was gradually replaced by a need to create strong political systems that conserve the balance of all power dynamics that obtained during and post-liberation. Maintaining the status quo in power relations became a given in the post-liberation mathematical equation about ‘creating a better life’ for ‘our people'Published in the June Edition of The Thinker.
African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa.
Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elites. The concept of a ‘strong state’ that has traditionally evolved out of a need to protect valuable agricultural assets, and (later) mineral resources was gradually replaced by a need to create strong political systems that conserve the balance of all power dynamics that obtained during and post-liberation. Maintaining the status quo in power relations became a given in the post-liberation mathematical equation about ‘creating a better life’ for ‘our people’.
The South African anti-colonial and liberation struggle narrative display a rather esoteric trajectory that is instructive to the various state formation endeavours which shaped the foundational tenets of its democracy. The colonial character of South Africa with its Eurocentric personality enjoins it to the broader narrative of colonialism as manifest in the dogmatic adoption of governance systems reflective of the colonising centre; in the RSA case the Westminster system and it’s supporting administrative systems. The euro-cosmopolitan character of the South African ‘white settler’ community further transposed the in-Europe nationalist hegemonic contestations onto to the political texturing of South African politics; pre and post-colonial as well as post 1994.
The foundational Dutch ‘colonial’ government that was interrupted by non-Dutch settlements, such as the French Huguenots, as well as ‘British Empire’ expansionist tendencies, established a republicanist community that became passionate about ‘self-rule’ and ‘nation state’ (volkstaat) creation. The ‘self-rule’ settler movement developed into an ‘own affairs’ ‘liberation movement’ that pursued the ideal of being ‘detached’ from the colonising centre; being Europe and particularly Britain. The quest for such a ‘liberation’ ignited a ‘frontier expansionist’ movement that moved north of the Cape colony and thus starting a ‘land dispossession’ campaign that introduced into the ‘liberation’ discourse new victims of a ‘liberation’ inspired in-land expansion. The corresponding resistance against this ‘encroachment’ redefined the ‘liberation movements’ of Southern Africa with the consequence being the development of two nationalisms along ‘racial and non-racial’ lines. These race defined compartments defined the 100 year anti-colonial struggles of South Africa and its approach to government.
In these anti-colonial ‘struggles’ the conduct of struggle became both ‘dispossessional’ and ‘de-hegemonic’. Dispossession meant the ‘retitling’ of indigenous land to reflect ‘new ownership’ patterns that were based on a legal system alien to the ‘co-operating’ and/or ‘coerced’ indigenous communities. De-hegemonic meant the detachment of the colonial ‘frontier’ redefining communities with the colonial government. This defined the establishment of ‘in-land’ republics modelled around self-government as experienced in Europe. A conglomeration of new owner ‘titled’ land into a geographical space legitimised the creation of ‘states’ with a juridical realm and thus allowing rules of co-existence to define the ascendant laws. The template for a ‘whites only’ nationalist reawakening that found political currency through the 1913 formation of the National Party as well as a pro-Black nationalist awakening that got institutionalised in 1912 through the formation of the ANC was set.
The ‘white nationalist’ ‘anti-colonial’ movement resulted in a number of ‘wars’. These wars created a state formation trajectory that acknowledged the ‘iron and blood’ prerequisite for a treaty for co-existence to be signed. Such a treaty defines the ‘arrangements’ with which ‘peace time’ communities agree to rule themselves; the 1910 Constitution of South Africa is seen in this context herein. The ‘black resistance’ wars established historical truths about ‘settler behaviour’ in the quest for ‘liberation’. The development focus of the ‘advancing settler’ ‘liberation movement’ that was cushioned , in development terms, by the ‘missionary’ inspired religious encroachment created ‘a parallel liberation movement’ designed to ‘self-determine’ the indigenous communities who were now victims of the ‘de-hegemonising’ and ‘dispossessing’ white only struggles.
The struggle for ‘self-determination’ was thus defined along racial lines in South Africa. The theoretical advantage of being descendants to established ‘democracies’ and a long history of state formation and rule of law made the ‘dispossessing’ and ‘de-hegemonising’ liberation movement to set-up governance systems that still define the South African State to date. The concretising paradigm of ‘state’ became thus defined in clear European and/or western terms; and a template was set. The 1909 settlement amongst the ‘white nationals’ of South Africa brokered a deal that saw the systematic and state sponsored marginalisation, to the periphery, of Black South Africans away from the commanding heights of socio-economic and political life. The ensuing African led ‘liberation’ struggle got defined along the lines of being accommodated in the concretising system. The quest for political control was conceptualised around the seizure of ‘a chambered’ political powerhouse, otherwise known as parliament.
The instruments with which this struggle was to be executed were also modelled along the evolving ‘political template’. The 1909 settlement created therefore a background of permanence for the political management of South Africa. The body politic became the differentiator within which public policy could be dispensed. The entrenchment of the rule of and/or rule by law principles found resonance during these formative years of the South African democratic experiment. It is in this context that this paper argues the existence of a centennial band that not only defines the formation of the African National Congress but the establishment of some permanence in government, state and governance tracks, the difference of which can only be experienced in the policies of the government of the day as dictated by changing polities and political coalitions.
The centennial band was in the main characterised by an established racial hierarchy emanating from the early conceptualisation of the colony as a mere ‘refreshment’ station en route to the booming trade with Asia and the far east. It is during this ‘band’ that South Africa entered a political transition continuum that created ‘race-based’ socio-economic gains for the ‘dispossessing’ ‘anti-colonial’ victors of 1948. The consolidation of these gains redefined the ‘foundational national ethos’ of the ‘whites only nationalist assignment. Anchoring this consolidation was the growing triumph of neo-liberal economic regime and its adjunk liberal democracy. The programmatic praxis of African liberation politics required therefore an identity that could legitimately claim to be acting as the representative of a non-racial alternative based on the reigning government sub-structure.
The formation of the ANC in 1912 formalised into an organised entity the political and economic aspirations of the ‘liberation movement’ representing the dispossessed whilst the 1913 formation of the National Party formalised a new era in the ‘de-hegemonisation’ ‘anti-colonial struggle; all of which were legitimate anti-colonial struggles depending on political vintage points chosen. The 1913 Land Act defined the British resolve to create a coalition of ‘white’ and not ‘nationalist’ interest in South Africa and thus institutionalised the two ‘national’ that defines the present ‘national’. The formalisation of constitutional democracy in South Africa meant the development of a corresponding Public Administration practice. Such a practice would have as its strategic mandate the management of public service delivery through a competent Public Service; and these are all critical aspects of the faculty of public administration and Public Administration.
Whereas dominant public administration discourse submits that its study got formalised after the Woodrow Wilson American Presidency, there is emerging evidence that Public Administration has always existed side by side with formalised politics and democracy. In the South African context the definition of parliament based democracy with an executive and a judicial arm of government meant the generic approaches of Public Administration were finding expression in the conduct of government. The formalisation of elections, creation of state departments and accompanying organs of state as well as state owned entities created a terrain within which the various polities could start claiming legitimacy to participate.
The Weberian approach that a state is defined in terms of its ability to enforce started to find expression in the South African constitutionalisation journey. Power was thus defined and its use was allocated to a governing centre and thus creating capability to regulate citizen relations with a polity defining context; a ‘new South Africa’. The adequacy and sufficiency of political representation in terms of the various ‘nationals’ and ‘races’ established new currencies for the concretising ‘political market’. Land claims and self-determination defined the ‘non-white’ polities and the ‘protection of acquired land and property rights’ defined the ‘non-black’ polities’. Public administration was thus seen as an instrument to manage the ‘institutionalised power’ of the ‘legitimate and yet illegitimate’ state.
Citing Skocpol, Gumede explains a state as a set of administrative, policing and military organisations headed and more or less co-ordinated by, an executive authority. Authority would thus imply the existence of a process by which a ‘state-society’ consensus is struck to give elected and/or appointed officials some defined rights to govern on their behalf. The 1910 Constitution represented therefore a legalised agreement and or consensus by those present at the 1909 Convention to govern the territory of South Africa. The decolonising mind-set of a ‘dehegemonising’ polity was premised of sustaining the colonisation of the dispossessed polity whilst reducing the power of the greater colonising centre. Such could only be achieved, and in the context of a lost active war, through a sophisticated ‘political rights’ demanding machinery. ‘Nation’(volk) development and political representation modelled around a coalition of ‘volk’ interests organised as civil society interests would create a vehicle with which such a ‘struggle’ could be executed.
The ‘developmental coalitions’ that oversaw the legalisation of a ‘two national’ state formation path that found a ‘democratic breakthrough’ in 1948 and formalised into law in 1961 created a social base that required the deeper consciousness of the ‘dispossessing’ and ‘de-hegemonising’ liberated ‘communities’ to imagine a race-transcending South Africa. The developmental coalition identified the state ‘bureaucracy’, the loci of public administration, and ‘partnership with capital’ and ‘interest managing’ civil society bodies as well as the dominant ‘think tank’ formations as vehicle with which any ‘challenge’ to the established pattern of government is either ‘redirected’ in hegemonic terms or ‘quashed’ . The structure of ‘government’ and ‘its machinery was thus cast in the ‘intellectual stone’ whereby any conception of an alternative would be based on accessing the levers that move the existing infrastructure for the ‘potential transfiguration’ of the established hegemony.
The preoccupation with designing ‘non-black’ hegemony in all facets of South African life created a social structure that thrived on a general mistrust of ‘any non-black’ endeavour at political transformation and management. The segregationist ‘DNA’ that has its roots in the institutionalisation of the two ‘national’ sub-structure of the South African ‘nation’ state became the ‘opiate’ that feeds into the general discourse on South African Politics. At its inception, the ‘new-new’ South African government, which incidentally operated in the ‘1910’ set template of the state, identified the public service and by extension Public Administration as a fundamental area of transformation.
The transformation paradigm was, and interestingly so, focused on the cosmetic aspects of public service administration. The White Paper on the Transformation of the Public service made pronouncements on the lack of representation, lack of legitimacy, lack of service delivery, centralised control and top-down management, lack of accountability and transparency, and a number of endemic inefficiencies. What the ‘white paper’ did not identify are the efficiencies of the system in areas defined ‘non-white’ thus confirming the colonial approach of ‘limiting the reach of the state to ‘capitals’ and ‘urbanised colonial development centres’. This is not withstanding the scientific truth of spatial development patterns that are informed by ‘state interventionist’ and ‘private sector’ driven economic investments.
At the time of taking over the levers of state power in 1948, the National Party led ‘anti-colonial’ struggle inherited an ‘infrastructural power’ that could facilitate the carrying out of state decisions in the interest of the ‘voting polity’ and ‘the ascendary political elite’. The authority of the state to make its decisions binding was thus limited to the legitimating polity and its ‘mega’ tax payers; big business. The inability of the post 1948 government to establish a stable infrastructure power amongst the ‘non-white’ or ‘outside voting polity’ constituencies, as a result of the black social organisation that emerged in the aftermath of the 1948 National Party’s own ‘democratic breakthrough’ began an ‘our people’ tradition that potentially ‘excluded’ ‘non-blacks’ as the people.
Accommodatory politics became a beneficiary to the concretising absence of an ideological centre to galvanise society around a set of agreed values for nation building. The ‘governing civil society’ movement got ‘redeployed’ and positioned in the bureaucracy of the state in order to advance gains that came with the ‘1948 democratic breakthrough’. Deployment degenerated into a patronage dispensary in political terms, the public service was thus conceptualised as the conduit within which objectives of the ‘development coalition’ could be advanced. The blatant exclusion of blacks in the ‘arrangements’ of the ‘development coalition’ ignited a need to build a ‘social movement’ with a ‘new liberation’ intent around a ‘black-led’ political organisation; the ANC. This notwithstanding the fact that the ANC itself was instrumental in the conceptualisation of this social movement.
The activities of the ‘other liberation movement’ in anti-colonial struggle terms and representing the other ‘national’, put an obligation on the ANC-led liberation movement to define a vision for South Africa. The Freedom Charter’s ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it’ became the strategic vision around which a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa could be conceptualised. The appeal of the Freedom Charter’s preamble grew to become South Africa’s clarion ‘one nation’ building statement. The ANC-led liberation movement’s ideal pronouncements for South Africa, created a ‘new developmental’ coalition that ‘collected’ a conglomerate of diverse interests about ‘a democratised’ South Africa. Such diversities continue to decorate the decorum of ANC-ness in a manner that creates internal tensions informed by a quest to ‘melt’ into one these historical diversities.
Characteristic of struggles for a ‘democracy’ within a state, the price of being government brings with it new priorities for the new political elites. The centennial band within which the ANC was formed creates therefore a further obligation, and potentially higher that the foregrounding of the Freedom Charter preamble as ‘bequeathed’ to South Africa by the ANC, to craft a new ‘one nation’ reawakening trajectory for South Africa. The overarching ‘interest’ of the ANC, derived from it annals, remains the unity of South Africans around marshalled collective interests that can be legitimately claimed in a ‘factional’ manner by those organised around the narrow enclaves of the broader ANC interest.
Public Administration as the nexus of government and governance provides a sub-structure with which a country’s bureaucracy can be marshalled to build both a state and a nation. The organisation of society is in many ways centred on the bureaucracy’s interpretation of the policy intents of government. Given the template of state structures and systems that were created to meet the demands of the various ‘development coalitions’ along the centennial growth of South Africa’s constitutional history, the need to establish a ‘new developmental coalition’ that coalesces around the reinforcement of the ‘new constitutional accord struck’ in 1993 is thus established. The inherent mistrust amongst critical stakeholders required for the development coalition, particularly beneficiaries of the ‘dispossessing’ ‘liberation movement’ development outcomes, can only be mitigated by the capacity of the executive to reign in on the growing.
In crafting this ‘coalition’ it will be important for the ruling political elite to acknowledge that only a new ‘democracy’ was ushered in 1994, the state remained the same with its government responding to the ‘new dictates’ of an emerging polity. The reach of the new polity’s limitations is now informed by priorities that seek to change the lives of ‘the people’ within the ‘our people’ political requirements. Public Administration has as its philosophical foundation the requirement to always operate within the guidelines that emanate from the body politic. The ‘dubbing’ of the 2012 ANC Policy Conference as advancing towards the second transition, recognises the need to agglomerate the various societal interests and marshal them towards a South Africa that ‘belongs to all who live in it.
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