Partner to History

Partner to History PDF Author: Princeton Nathan Lyman
Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press
ISBN: 9781929223367
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
A remarkable book about a remarkable time, Partner to History reveals the role played by U.S. diplomacy in South Africa's surprisingly successful transition from apartheid to democracy. Princeton Lyman, the U.S. ambassador during the transition, makes clear that America didn't "own" the transition process-the South Africans did. But U.S. involvement was active and intense. And it made a difference. Lyman tells an enthralling story of how Washington policymakers and the American embassy used U.S. influence, economic assistance, and political support to help end apartheid without sparking civil war. The book offers candid assessments both of U.S. policy deliberations and of the leading players in the unfolding, unpredictable drama. It takes us behind the diplomatic scenes as well as onto the public stage, as American diplomats strove to facilitate dialogue, encourage reconciliation, and dissuade potential spoilers.

Partner to History

Partner to History PDF Author: Princeton Nathan Lyman
Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press
ISBN: 9781929223367
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book

Book Description
A remarkable book about a remarkable time, Partner to History reveals the role played by U.S. diplomacy in South Africa's surprisingly successful transition from apartheid to democracy. Princeton Lyman, the U.S. ambassador during the transition, makes clear that America didn't "own" the transition process-the South Africans did. But U.S. involvement was active and intense. And it made a difference. Lyman tells an enthralling story of how Washington policymakers and the American embassy used U.S. influence, economic assistance, and political support to help end apartheid without sparking civil war. The book offers candid assessments both of U.S. policy deliberations and of the leading players in the unfolding, unpredictable drama. It takes us behind the diplomatic scenes as well as onto the public stage, as American diplomats strove to facilitate dialogue, encourage reconciliation, and dissuade potential spoilers.

South Africa's Transition to Democracy

South Africa's Transition to Democracy PDF Author: Sandy Shaw
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The author points out that this book is not an academic study of South Africa and Africa, but a focus on the psycho-political dimension of the new South Africa, asking whether it will work and highlighting positives and strengths that can be made to work.

After Apartheid

After Apartheid PDF Author: Ian Shapiro
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813931010
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
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 Africa in Transition

South Africa in Transition PDF Author: Aletta J. Norval
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349268011
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
South Africa in Transition utilises new theoretical perspectives to describe and explain central dimensions of the democratic transition in South Africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s, covering changes in the politics of gender and education, the political discourses of the ANC, NP and the white right, constructions of identity in South Africa's black townships and rural areas, the role of political violence in the transition, and accounts of the democratization process itself.

The challenges of democratic transition in South Africa

The challenges of democratic transition in South Africa PDF Author: Simon Bekker
Publisher: Centro de Estudos Internacionais do Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL)
ISBN: 9728335016
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Summer School on “Problems of Transition to Democracy in Africa”, organized by the Centro de Estudos Africanos for AEGIS, the European network of African studies at the Convento da Arrábida near Lisbon, September, 10th to 23rd, 1995. The Summer School was sponsored by the European Community (D.G.VIII), the Gulbenkian and Luso-American Foundation, The Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica (Portuguese agency for science and technology) and the Instituto da Cooperação Portuguesa (Portuguese agency for development cooperation).

From Apartheid to Democracy

From Apartheid to Democracy PDF Author: Katherine Elizabeth Mack
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271065729
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings can be considered one of the most significant rhetorical events of the late twentieth century. The TRC called language into action, tasking it with promoting understanding among a divided people and facilitating the construction of South Africa’s new democracy. Other books on the TRC and deliberative rhetoric in contemporary South Africa emphasize the achievement of reconciliation during and in the immediate aftermath of the transition from apartheid. From Apartheid to Democracy, in contrast, considers the varied, complex, and enduring effects of the Commission’s rhetorical wager. It is the first book-length study to analyze the TRC through such a lens. Katherine Elizabeth Mack focuses on the dissension and negotiations over difference provoked by the Commission’s process, especially its public airing of victims’ and perpetrators’ truths. She tracks agonistic deliberation (evidenced in the TRC’s public hearings) into works of fiction and photography that extend and challenge the Commission’s assumptions about truth, healing, and reconciliation. Ultimately, Mack demonstrates that while the TRC may not have achieved all of its political goals, its very existence generated valuable deliberation within and beyond its official process.

An Ordinary Country

An Ordinary Country PDF Author: Neville Alexander
Publisher: University of Kwazulu Natal Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa disputes the notion of a "miracle" transition in this country. It argues that the new South Africa had to happen in the way it did because of the specific history of the country and the players involved. While it identifies some of the turning points at which critical choices were made by local and international forces, it shows why, in retrospect, the known decisions were made rather than other possible ones. Alexander explores a range of issues in post-apartheid South Africa including national identity and the rainbow nation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the role and status of language, showing the volatility, the tentativeness, and the fluidity of the situation that is evolving. In looking ahead at probable developments, An Ordinary Country predicts that South Africa will develop, or stagnate, as a "normal" bourgeois democratic social formation for the next generation, at least until the inevitable alternatives to the prevailing system of political economy regain their credibility.

Political Parties in South Africa

Political Parties in South Africa PDF Author: Thuynsma, Heather
Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa
ISBN: 0798305142
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Political parties and the party system that underpins South Africa’s democracy have the potential to build a cohesive and prosperous nation. But in the past few years the ANC’s dominance has strained the system and tested it and its institutions’ fortitude. There are deeper issues of accountability that often spurn the Constitution and there is also a clear need to foster meaningful public participation and transparency. This volume offers a different and detailed assessment of the health of South Africa’s political system. This study intends to unravel the condition of the party system in South Africa and culminates in the question: Do South African parties promote or hinder democracy in the country? The areas of the party system that are known to require continued work are the weakness of democratic structures within parties, the perceived lack of responsibility of elected parliamentarians towards voters, non-transparent private partner financing structures and a lack of attractiveness of party-political commitment, especially for women. Experts in the respective fields address all of these areas in this book.

The Politics of Transition

The Politics of Transition PDF Author: Richard Spitz
Publisher: Witwatersrand University Press Publications
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
During the early 1990s, South Africans kept a close eye on the media coverage of South Africa's negotiated transition to democracy. Likened to a soap opera by some, the negotiations featured violent interlopers, dramatic walkouts, alliances and, somehow, a fortunate conclusion in the form of the Interim Constitution and Bill of Rights. The importance of the negotiating process and the Interim Constitution itself should not be underestimated, however, in relation to their longer-term influence over the form of democracy currently enjoyed in South Africa. In this brave publication, Spitz and Chaskalson examine the politics behind the Kempton Park negotiations and the Interim Constitution, and the influence that these have had on the subsequent consolidation of a South African democracy.

Women's Organizations and Democracy in South Africa

Women's Organizations and Democracy in South Africa PDF Author: Shireen Hassim
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299213838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
The transition to democracy in South Africa was one of the defining events in twentieth-century political history. The South African women’s movement is one of the most celebrated on the African continent. Shireen Hassim examines interactions between the two as she explores the gendered nature of liberation and regime change. Her work reveals how women’s political organizations both shaped and were shaped by the broader democratic movement. Alternately asserting their political independence and giving precedence to the democratic movement as a whole, women activists proved flexible and remarkably successful in influencing policy. At the same time, their feminism was profoundly shaped by the context of democratic and nationalist ideologies. In reading the last twenty-five years of South African history through a feminist framework, Hassim offers fresh insights into the interactions between civil society, political parties, and the state. Hassim boldly confronts sensitive issues such as the tensions between autonomy and political dependency in feminists’ engagement with the African National Congress (ANC) and other democratic movements, and black-white relations within women’s organizations. She offers a historically informed discussion of the challenges facing feminist activists during a time of nationalist struggle and democratization. Winner, Victoria Schuck Award for best book on women and politics, American Political Science Association “An exceptional study, based on extensive research. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice “A rich history of women’s organizations in South African . . . . [Hassim] had observed at first hand, and often participated in, much of what she described. She had access to the informants and private archives that so enliven the narrative and enrich the analysis. She provides a finely balanced assessment.”—Gretchen Bauer, African Studies Review