Laurence Piper
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3677093 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Laurence Piper |
| NOMBRES | Laurence |
| APELLIDO | Piper |
| FIRMA | PIPER L |
| AFILIACIONES | University of the Western Cape |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0061-0736 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 45 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 72 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 44 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1998 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Book Roundtable
This is a discussion between Guido Parietti, author of On the Concept of Power: Possibility, Necessity, Politics (Oxford University Press, 2022), and four respondents, Laurence Piper, Christine Hobden, Lawrence Hamilton and Camila Vergara, focussed on the notion of power as possibility. This discussion was first held in an online seminar in late 2024, which was broadcast on Theoria 's YouTube channel, and is captured here for readers
Co-developing best bets for participatory disaster risk management in a postcolonial harmscape
The conditions that characterize marginal and informal settlements in the Global South make the environmental hazards resulting from the current Climate Crisis more dangerous, giving rise to multifaceted risks that can be characterized as Anthropocene harmscapes. As such settlements are home to a large and growing population, this is an increasingly widespread problem that, if not addressed, could result in deaths, unrest and increasing numbers o…
‘Design justice’ and transformative pedagogy
The Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation (GCDI) explores the impact that critical design frameworks like ‘design justice’ can have on student experiences and capacity building. Positioning students and civil society partners as co-creators and co-designers, while designing spaces that invite lived experience and facilitate collaborative work, can offer new pathways to reanimate the higher education learning environment. These experiences, pa…
Place-pedagogies of water stress
This article explores the pedagogical affect of water in a place of water stress and illustrates its entanglement with dynamics of power and control. The current climate crisis is rendering already drought-prone regions ever drier, and it is often the already socially and economically disadvantaged who experience the most immediate impacts. In this article, we describe the experiences of residents in one township in South Africa’s Cape Flats to e…
Policy engagement as ‘empowered representation’
Drawing on the theoretical framework of 'political mediation', the policy engagement process is characterised as a positive instance of democratic mediation through 'empowered representation', with some specified limitations
Trust is personal and professional
This article explores trust dynamics among a coalition of civil society organizations called Unite Behind that formed in Cape Town, South Africa, in late 2017. Unite Behind was established to demand more accountability from a state marred by corruption—and specifically for the resignation of then President Jacob Zuma. When Zuma resigned, the coalition attempted to transition to a social movement campaigning for social justice but declined as a co…
Understanding resilience capitals, agency and habitus in household experiences of water scarcity, floods and fire in marginalized settlements in the Cape Flats, South Africa
A significant percentage of the urban population in most low- and middle-income countries live in informal settlements. Due to poor quality housing, dense settlement patterns and lack of risk reducing infrastructure, informal settlements are least prepared and at higher risk for climate change issues. Marginalized communities in settlements in the Cape Flats region of South Africa face a range of environmental hazards and risks including recurren…
Bridging theory and practice through Work-Integrated Learning (WIL)
In this article we interrogate how University of Sweden (UoS), the leading Work-integrated learning (WIL) university in Sweden, represents WIL publicly, discussing this in relation to higher education’s changing role within an increasingly knowledge-based capitalism, in which knowledge and research become subsumed under demands for market utility and student employability. Through analysis of WIL literature we distil a theory-practice ‘gap’ with …
Theoria Speaks Back
In this interview, the previous editor-in-chief of Theoria , Lawrence Hamilton, describes the evolution of Theoria to become a journal with more Southern political theory scholars and ideas, and how this was inspired by the limitations of Northern theory alone in understanding real world political problems in South Africa especially. He traces the evolution of this thought in becoming a more ‘decolonial’ type thinker through his own work, and how…
Good Jew, Bad Jew’
In Good Jew, Bad Jew Steven Friedman argues that the meaning of anti-Semitism favoured by the Israeli government and its allies prioritises loyalty to the Israeli state over identification with the Jewish people. On this view, ‘good Jews’ are those who support the Israeli state, and ‘bad Jews’ are those who criticise Zionism. This framing reflects a discursive transition over decades linked to the desire to make Israel part of Europe politically …
An interview with the new Editor-in-Chief
In lieu of an editorial for this issue, we interviewed our new Editor-in-Chief, Laurence Piper. In this brief conversation, he talks about his history with the journal as an editor, plans for his tenure as Editor-in-Chief, and the evolving role of the journal in the field of social and political theory, globally
Localising governance in the African city
The paper articulates a model of urban governance, developed through emergent analysis of the rulers, methods, rules and logics evident in the practices of security governance in Hout Bay, Cape Town. Informed by the concept of hybrid governance, this grounded theorising draws on extensive fieldwork on security governance practices in a complex urban neighbourhood to present a model of multiple and sometimes contending forms of governance that inc…
Defiant citizenship
This article examines the rise of ‘defiant citizenship’ in Hangberg, a historic fishing village set on the lower slopes of the Sentinel Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. Defiant citizenship affirms membership of the state, but on terms that assert the primacy of residents’ right of belonging in, and sovereignty over, the place of Hangberg, even against the will of the state. This form of citizenship is rooted in long-standing experience of rac…
Decolonisation after Democracy
Democracy Disconnected
Democracy Disconnected
Upgrading Imizamo Yethu
After the Riot? Rancière, Hamilton, and Radical Politics
In recent years, political forces from the Occupy movement in North America to the #FeesMustFall student protest in South Africa have attempted to disrupt the political order in the name of democratic equality. Inspired by radical theorists like Rancière, this politics promises a model of social change through the combination of the disruption of institutions and the reinvention of daily life and political subjectivities. I argue that this radica…
Representing Hamilton
In his most important book to date, Freedom is Power: Liberty Through Political Representation (2014b), Lawrence Hamilton offers what he describes as a realistic theory of freedom for \nmodern conditions, located in the tradition of Western political thought. It is in fact both a philosophical and a theoretical argument with the former focusing on the link between freedom \nand power, and the latter between power and representation, as reflected …
Xenophobia, Price Competition and Violence in the Spaza Sector in South Africa
The last decade has seen growing awareness of violent attacks against foreigners in South Africa. This includes attacks against foreign traders in the townships where they are portrayed as †̃taking overâ€TM by out-competing South African traders on price. Central to township trade are neighbourhood grocery or convenience stores colloquially known †̃spazaâ€TM shops. Drawing on evidence from surveys with over 1000 spaza shopkeepers from South Afric…
The limits of participatory democracy and the rise of the informal politics of mediated representation in South Africa
In general, South Africans view the formal participatory institutions of their state as ineffective mechanisms for the realization of their demands. Conversely, the reach of formalized civil society is limited in terms of policy impact, and social movements have little presence on the ground outside of the larger townships of the major metropolitan cities. In this context, the tensions between communities, civil society actors, and the state, oft…
Small Area Census Approach to Measure the Township Informal Economy in South Africa
In this article, we describe a research approach to undertaking a small area census to identify informal economy activity, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative tools. The method focuses on enterprise activity. The approach enables the researcher to record a broader spectrum of informal micro-enterprises through identifying businesses in situ within an area of sufficient scale to broadly reflect area-level market conditions and business…
Mediating between state and citizens
This article argues that we should take more seriously the role of intermediaries in relationships between states and citizens in the global south. More specifically it holds that the practice of mediation, the third party representation of citizens to states and vice versa, is a widespread and important political practice in this context. Largely distinct from the contentious politics and popular mobilisation of social movements, mediation is mo…
How Participatory Institutions Deepen Democracy through Broadening Representation
At the same time as democracy has 'triumphed' in most of the world, it leaves many unsatisfied at the disjuncture between the democratic ideal and its practical expression. Participatory practices and institutions, as exemplified in the participatory budgeting process of the local government of Porto Alegre in Brazil, claim to embody a more substantive version of democracy that can settle this deficit. This article interrogates this promise throu…
Crisis, History and the Challenge of Reinvention in the Postcolonial
Susan Booysen. 2011. The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Anthony Butler. 2012. The Idea of the ANC. Athens: Ohio University Press. Stephen Ellis. 2012. External Mission: The ANC in Exile. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball. Arianna Lissoni, Jon Soske, Natasha Erlank, Noor Nieftagodien and Omar Badsha (eds). 2012. One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories Today. Joh…
Too Dependent to Participate
Will participatory local government structures help deepen democracy in South Africa? That is the proclaimed purpose of the ward committee system, the centre-piece of post-apartheid local government reform, intended to facilitate deliberative democratic decision making. Drawing on a case study of the Msunduzi municipality, it is argued here that ward committees, as yet barely functional seven years since first being established, have from the out…
Nationalism without a nation
During South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy the most virulent opposition to change came from Zulu nationalism. Post‐apartheid, however, Zulu nationalism has largely waned. This is because Zulu nationalism was instrumentally invoked and jettisoned by the Inkatha Freedom Party. Beginning in 1975, Inkatha embraced a ‘third way’ resistance politics between ‘acquiescence’ in apartheid and ‘impossible’ militant resistance. It was only …
Small Area Census Approach to Measure the Township Informal Economy in South Africa
In this article, we describe a research approach to undertaking a small area census to identify informal economy activity, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative tools. The method focuses on enterprise activity. The approach enables the researcher to record a broader spectrum of informal micro-enterprises through identifying businesses in situ within an area of sufficient scale to broadly reflect area-level market conditions and business…
Xenophobia, Price Competition and Violence in the Spaza Sector in South Africa
The last decade has seen growing awareness of violent attacks against foreigners in South Africa. This includes attacks against foreign traders in the townships where they are portrayed as †̃taking overâ€TM by out-competing South African traders on price. Central to township trade are neighbourhood grocery or convenience stores colloquially known †̃spazaâ€TM shops. Drawing on evidence from surveys with over 1000 spaza shopkeepers from South Afric…
Unpacking race, party and class from below
The limits of participatory democracy and the rise of the informal politics of mediated representation in South Africa
In general, South Africans view the formal participatory institutions of their state as ineffective mechanisms for the realization of their demands. Conversely, the reach of formalized civil society is limited in terms of policy impact, and social movements have little presence on the ground outside of the larger townships of the major metropolitan cities. In this context, the tensions between communities, civil society actors, and the state, oft…
Mediating between state and citizens
This article argues that we should take more seriously the role of intermediaries in relationships between states and citizens in the global south. More specifically it holds that the practice of mediation, the third party representation of citizens to states and vice versa, is a widespread and important political practice in this context. Largely distinct from the contentious politics and popular mobilisation of social movements, mediation is mo…
Democracy for a bargain
While the IFP/ANC race for first place in KwaZulu-Natal was the \nclosest of any in the country, the 1999 election was both freer and fairer than \never before, and the result was readily accepted by all parties. In short, the 1999 \nelection further consolidated both the institutions and culture of liberal democracy. Importantly, this consolidation was predicated in an understanding \nreached between the IFP and ANC that, whatever the outcome of…
The decline of ‘militant Zulu nationalism
nThis article argues that since 1994, but especially since 1996, the IFP has progressively moved away from the Zulu nationalist rhetoric and confrontational tactics of the transition period which we term the ‘militant Zulu nationalist’ strategy. The reasons for this are not to be found in changed political objectives, for instance the IFP remains committed to provincial autonomy, but rather in changed political and institutional conditions. First…
Trust is personal and professional
This article explores trust dynamics among a coalition of civil society organizations called Unite Behind that formed in Cape Town, South Africa, in late 2017. Unite Behind was established to demand more accountability from a state marred by corruption—and specifically for the resignation of then President Jacob Zuma. When Zuma resigned, the coalition attempted to transition to a social movement campaigning for social justice but declined as a co…
From Exclusion to Informal Segregation
In the context of higher education transformation in South Africa, this paper attempts to capture a series of observations about transformation at the former University of Natal. From a descriptive, multidisciplinary perspective it critiques racial transformation at the University as driven by concerns of representivity over the need for desegregation. We base this discussion on three sets of observations: an analysis of institutional policy, a r…
Localising governance in the African city
The paper articulates a model of urban governance, developed through emergent analysis of the rulers, methods, rules and logics evident in the practices of security governance in Hout Bay, Cape Town. Informed by the concept of hybrid governance, this grounded theorising draws on extensive fieldwork on security governance practices in a complex urban neighbourhood to present a model of multiple and sometimes contending forms of governance that inc…
How Participatory Institutions Deepen Democracy through Broadening Representation
At the same time as democracy has 'triumphed' in most of the world, it leaves many unsatisfied at the disjuncture between the democratic ideal and its practical expression. Participatory practices and institutions, as exemplified in the participatory budgeting process of the local government of Porto Alegre in Brazil, claim to embody a more substantive version of democracy that can settle this deficit. This article interrogates this promise throu…
Party politics, the poor and the city
Needs and Rights not needs versus rights
Hamilton's argument for a political philosophy of needs moves from a critique of rights, more specifically the 'rights-preferences couple', as inappropriate foundation for liberal political theory and practice. While acknowledging some role for rights in a needs-based polity, Hamilton says nothing about what this role might be, and follows Geuss in criticising rights as neither philosophically special nor politically useful. This conclusion would…
Defiant citizenship
This article examines the rise of ‘defiant citizenship’ in Hangberg, a historic fishing village set on the lower slopes of the Sentinel Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. Defiant citizenship affirms membership of the state, but on terms that assert the primacy of residents’ right of belonging in, and sovereignty over, the place of Hangberg, even against the will of the state. This form of citizenship is rooted in long-standing experience of rac…
From Religious Transcendence to Political Utopia
In recent times South African politics has come to exhibit features typical of many post-colonial contexts, not least the rise of acrimonious and confrontational politics based around personalities and forms of populism. In such contexts rational dialogue and democratic deliberation become increasingly difficult to get going and to sustain. Drawing on Richard Turner's The Eye of the Needle, first published some forty years ago, the paper examines…
Democracy by Accident
In party organisational terms, the rise of Jacob Zuma to the Presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) is a victory for the alliance partners and the struggle‐era vision of the ANC as a popular front, or the ‘ANC as alliance’, as against Mbeki’s centralised and exclusionary practice. Accidentally, this renaissance of the ANC as alliance is good for democracy in South Africa understood in both liberal and participatory terms. On the one ha…
Postmodernism and the Reclaiming of Tradition
‘The history of the Zulu people is the history of myself’.1 In Africa, as elsewhere, the notion of tradition is bound up with the discourses of ethnicity and nationalism. Typically invoking pre-colonial identities as the basis of peoplehood, such narratives of common descent are imbued with a strong sense of ‘pastness’, orientating the modern self in traditional terms. Anderson explains this invocation of tradition as a feature of the inverted na…
The decline of ‘militant Zulu nationalism
nThis article argues that since 1994, but especially since 1996, the IFP has progressively moved away from the Zulu nationalist rhetoric and confrontational tactics of the transition period which we term the ‘militant Zulu nationalist’ strategy. The reasons for this are not to be found in changed political objectives, for instance the IFP remains committed to provincial autonomy, but rather in changed political and institutional conditions. First…
Democracy for a bargain
While the IFP/ANC race for first place in KwaZulu-Natal was the \nclosest of any in the country, the 1999 election was both freer and fairer than \never before, and the result was readily accepted by all parties. In short, the 1999 \nelection further consolidated both the institutions and culture of liberal democracy. Importantly, this consolidation was predicated in an understanding \nreached between the IFP and ANC that, whatever the outcome of…
Do I need ethnic culture to be free? A critique of Will Kymlicka’s liberal nationalism
As part of a vigorous debate about the politics of multiculturalism, Will Kymlicka has sought to find grounds within liberal political theory to defend rights for cultural groups. Kymlicka argues that the individual’s ability to choose the good life necessarily takes place in a cultural context such that access to one’s ethnic or national culture constitutes a condition of autonomy. Thus, in liberal societies where the culture of minority ethnic …
Nationalism without a nation
During South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy the most virulent opposition to change came from Zulu nationalism. Post‐apartheid, however, Zulu nationalism has largely waned. This is because Zulu nationalism was instrumentally invoked and jettisoned by the Inkatha Freedom Party. Beginning in 1975, Inkatha embraced a ‘third way’ resistance politics between ‘acquiescence’ in apartheid and ‘impossible’ militant resistance. It was only …
Return to the Organic
Nationalism and Modernism, by Anthony D. Smith. London & New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN: 0415063418. Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, by Umut Özkrimili. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. ISBN: 0333777123. Understanding Nationalism, edited by Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN: 0745624022
From Exclusion to Informal Segregation
In the context of higher education transformation in South Africa, this paper attempts to capture a series of observations about transformation at the former University of Natal. From a descriptive, multidisciplinary perspective it critiques racial transformation at the University as driven by concerns of representivity over the need for desegregation. We base this discussion on three sets of observations: an analysis of institutional policy, a r…
Power
Power: a Radical View (Second Edition), by Steven Lukes. London: Palgrave, 2005. ISBN: 0-333-42092-6
Needs and Rights not needs versus rights
Hamilton's argument for a political philosophy of needs moves from a critique of rights, more specifically the 'rights-preferences couple', as inappropriate foundation for liberal political theory and practice. While acknowledging some role for rights in a needs-based polity, Hamilton says nothing about what this role might be, and follows Geuss in criticising rights as neither philosophically special nor politically useful. This conclusion would…
The emergent practice of governance and its implications for the concept of politics
This paper explores the implications of the disjuncture between the real-world practice of governance and the popular understanding of politics. There are two ways of addressing this disjuncture. The first is to accept the popular conception of politics and declare its relative decline, alongside the state, in the face of supra-national governance. The second is to challenge the popular conception of politics and include governance in a new, broa…
Les Ward Committees À Msunduzi
Cet article explore la relation des ward committees, institution récente de la démocratie locale sud-africaine, avec les partis politiques. Cette interrogation s’inscrit dans le contexte du « syndrome du parti dominant » associé à l’African National Congress (ANC) au pouvoir depuis 1994. S’appuyant sur le cas de la municipalité de Msunduzi, l’article montre que lorsque les ward committees fonctionnent, ils restent sous l’influence des partis à l’…
The Zuma Watershed
It is common cause that the rise of Jacob Zuma in South African politics signals change; what is contested is the nature and extent of that change. For example, Zuma’s champions in the Congress of
Democracy by Accident
In party organisational terms, the rise of Jacob Zuma to the Presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) is a victory for the alliance partners and the struggle‐era vision of the ANC as a popular front, or the ‘ANC as alliance’, as against Mbeki’s centralised and exclusionary practice. Accidentally, this renaissance of the ANC as alliance is good for democracy in South Africa understood in both liberal and participatory terms. On the one ha…
Too Dependent to Participate
Will participatory local government structures help deepen democracy in South Africa? That is the proclaimed purpose of the ward committee system, the centre-piece of post-apartheid local government reform, intended to facilitate deliberative democratic decision making. Drawing on a case study of the Msunduzi municipality, it is argued here that ward committees, as yet barely functional seven years since first being established, have from the out…
From Religious Transcendence to Political Utopia
In recent times South African politics has come to exhibit features typical of many post-colonial contexts, not least the rise of acrimonious and confrontational politics based around personalities and forms of populism. In such contexts rational dialogue and democratic deliberation become increasingly difficult to get going and to sustain. Drawing on Richard Turner's The Eye of the Needle, first published some forty years ago, the paper examines…
Xenophobia, Criminality and Violent Entrepreneurship
Violence against Somali shopkeepers is often cited as evidence of xenophobic attitudes and violence \nin South Africa. However, as argued in this article, it is not necessarily the case that such violence \nis driven by anti-foreigner sentiment. Instead, as illustrated in the case of Delft, a poor, mixed-race \narea in the City of Cape Town, violence against spaza shopkeepers may also be explained in \nterms of criminal activities and economic co…
Unpacking race, party and class from below
Party politics, the poor and the city
How Participatory Institutions Deepen Democracy through Broadening Representation
At the same time as democracy has 'triumphed' in most of the world, it leaves many unsatisfied at the disjuncture between the democratic ideal and its practical expression. Participatory practices and institutions, as exemplified in the participatory budgeting process of the local government of Porto Alegre in Brazil, claim to embody a more substantive version of democracy that can settle this deficit. This article interrogates this promise throu…
Crisis, History and the Challenge of Reinvention in the Postcolonial
Susan Booysen. 2011. The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Anthony Butler. 2012. The Idea of the ANC. Athens: Ohio University Press. Stephen Ellis. 2012. External Mission: The ANC in Exile. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball. Arianna Lissoni, Jon Soske, Natasha Erlank, Noor Nieftagodien and Omar Badsha (eds). 2012. One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories Today. Joh…
Chronique bibliographique
Cet article explore les dynamiques historiques, politiques et sociales des violences qui font rage en République centrafricaine. Le conflit centrafricain (2012-2014) oppose des groupes issus de l’ex-rébellion Séléka, qui avait pris le pouvoir en Centrafrique par un coup d’État le 24 mars 2013, et des formations d’auto-défense dites anti-balaka, qui s’en prennent aux communautés musulmanes et mettent en scène une violence extrême sur le corps de l…
Small Area Census Approach to Measure the Township Informal Economy in South Africa
In this article, we describe a research approach to undertaking a small area census to identify informal economy activity, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative tools. The method focuses on enterprise activity. The approach enables the researcher to record a broader spectrum of informal micro-enterprises through identifying businesses in situ within an area of sufficient scale to broadly reflect area-level market conditions and business…
Mediating between state and citizens
This article argues that we should take more seriously the role of intermediaries in relationships between states and citizens in the global south. More specifically it holds that the practice of mediation, the third party representation of citizens to states and vice versa, is a widespread and important political practice in this context. Largely distinct from the contentious politics and popular mobilisation of social movements, mediation is mo…
Xenophobia, Price Competition and Violence in the Spaza Sector in South Africa
The last decade has seen growing awareness of violent attacks against foreigners in South Africa. This includes attacks against foreign traders in the townships where they are portrayed as †̃taking overâ€TM by out-competing South African traders on price. Central to township trade are neighbourhood grocery or convenience stores colloquially known †̃spazaâ€TM shops. Drawing on evidence from surveys with over 1000 spaza shopkeepers from South Afric…
The limits of participatory democracy and the rise of the informal politics of mediated representation in South Africa
In general, South Africans view the formal participatory institutions of their state as ineffective mechanisms for the realization of their demands. Conversely, the reach of formalized civil society is limited in terms of policy impact, and social movements have little presence on the ground outside of the larger townships of the major metropolitan cities. In this context, the tensions between communities, civil society actors, and the state, oft…
Political science (37 obras) · Sociology (30 obras) · Law (27 obras) · Politics (26 obras) · Law (19 obras) · Democracy (15 obras) · Philosophy (13 obras) · Public Administration (13 obras) · Political economy (12 obras) · South African History and Culture (12 obras)