The politics of Hegemony and the politics of development

Following the first multi‐racial, democratic elections in South Africa, in April 1994, the new leadership and the country are confronting the dual task of political transformation and economic redistribution having won a clear popular mandate on the basis of a populist, Reconstruction and Development Programme. In government, however, the former liberation movement is now under pressure to adjust its policies and its developmental strategy in the light of new economic constraints, both domestic and international. The choice is between the politics of compromise, suggesting adoption of a corporatist (and elitist) model of policy‐making, with the co‐optation of various constituencies, or adherence to a more radical style of direct popular political participation, akin to the ‘mass action’ of recent decades. Nowhere is this contradiction clearer than in the Eastern Cape Province, with a long tradition of militant mass action, strong trade unions and industrial action and a history of popular involvement in the liberation struggle

Compromise · Contradiction · Democracy · Development economics · Direct action · Economics · Hegemony · Mandate · Militant · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Populism · Sociology · Community Development and Social Impact · International Development and Aid · Law · South African History and Culture

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