Political Radicalism: Responding to the Legitimacy Gap in South Africa

Jager, Nicola de; Steenekamp, Cindy

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-89453-9_6

Cited by 16 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The political component usually would overpromise during elections. In addition, communities also have misplaced expectations after the demise of apartheid (De Jager & Steenekamp 2019). This already muddied picture is further clouded by economic impediments that result in limited budgets and the municipality's inability to collect revenue under difficult economic conditions (Van der Waldt 2015).…”

Section: Organisational Culture As Vehicles For Improved Intrapreneur...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework of intrapreneurial practices to improve service delivery in municipalities of the O.R. Tambo District Municipality

Ntoyanto-Tyatyantsi

Amadi-Echendu

Mmako

2022

APSDPR

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Background: This article examines intrapreneurship principles that can contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of service delivery in the O.R. Tambo District Municipality.Aim: The aim of this research was to investigate whether municipalities practise intrapreneurship and how intrapreneurship drivers may be incorporated into the municipal environment to improve service delivery to surrounding communities.Setting: This study is based in the O.R. Tambo District Municipality, and the target population is middle- and top-level managers from all the municipalities in the district.Methods: The research is situated within the interpretivist paradigm and employed the qualitative method of semi-structured interviews, which were purposively conducted with 12 middle- and top-level managers. Content analysis was used to analyse the data. Municipal documents were also used for triangulation purposes.Results: The empirical findings revealed that policies, laws and regulatory aspects are a hindrance to the development of intrapreneurial practices. The bureaucratic environment that exists is not flexible enough to encourage intrapreneurial conduct among employees. The blurred lines between the administrative and political wings in the municipalities lead to a constricting environment that hinders intrapreneurial practices in the municipalities.Conclusion: A framework for the integration of intrapreneurship drivers to improve service delivery was developed. The article recommends that employees and the community should play a larger role in the planning process so that they can assist to identify best practices and alternate approaches to certain identified issues. The implementation of projects should be left to the administrative managers and staff, and contingency platforms should be introduced to manage transition periods with new replacements.

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Section: Organisational Culture As Vehicles For Improved Intrapreneur...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework of intrapreneurial practices to improve service delivery in municipalities of the O.R. Tambo District Municipality

Ntoyanto-Tyatyantsi

Amadi-Echendu

Mmako

2022

APSDPR

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“…The more instrumental understanding of democracy in many African states intensifies the danger that the illiberal nature of populist rhetoric poses to the continent's as-yet unconsolidated democracies, as support for the democratic system becomes conditional on materialist factors and may be withdrawn if socio-economic goods are not received or material inequalities are not rectified (De Jager 2015: 205). In unconsolidated democracies where a democratic political culture is still developing, poor governance (with its accompanying economic failings) can result in citizens attributing the poor performance to the democratic regime rather than the incumbents (De Jager & Steenekamp 2018: 2), and populists are quick to use the opportunity of this societal disgruntlement. Unconsolidated democracies that suffer from poor governance thus become vulnerable to political actors who are indifferent to the intrinsic values of liberal democracy.…”

Section: Populism In Africa and Its Implications For Democratic Consolidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populist parties shifting the political discourse? A case study of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa

Fölscher¹,

Jager

Nyenhuis

2021

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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This article examines the use of populist discourse in South African politics. We investigate speeches of leaders from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). We find that the EFF consistently employs populist appeals, while both the incumbent ANC and official opposition DA largely refrain. Our longitudinal analysis allows an examination of fluctuation across party leaders and electoral cycles, and illustrates that neither the ANC nor the DA have modified their political discourses in light of a rising populist challenger. However, there is some evidence that the two most dominant parties have reformed their programmatic offerings and behaviour in an attempt to compete with the EFF's popular appeal. The South African case offers important insights into the study of oppositional populism on the African continent, and a window into how major political parties may respond to emerging populist contenders.

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Democracy in Hard Places

2022

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How does democracy persist for long periods of time in countries that are poor, ethnically heterogenous, wracked by economic crisis, and plagued by state weakness? In Democracy in Hard Places, leading scholars of comparative political regimes attempt to answer this question by examining cases of unlikely democratic survival in “hard places”: countries that lack the structural factors and exist outside of the contexts that scholars have long associated with democracy’s emergence and endurance. Democracies in hard places overcome underdevelopment, ethnolinguistic diversity, state weakness, and patriarchal cultural norms. The book offers rich, empirically grounded theoretical debates about whether democracy survives only because a balance of power and formal institutions constrain actors from overthrowing it, or if it also survives in part because some critical actors are normatively committed to it. The book presents nine case studies—written by leading experts in the discipline—of episodes in which democracy has emerged and survived against long odds. The cases are drawn from almost every region of the world that formed part of the “third wave” of democracy. In each case, many of the conditions conventionally associated with durable democracy were either attenuated or absent. Each case study details the constellation of obstacles to democracy faced by a given country, describes the major political actors with the potential to impact regime trajectories, and explains how the threat of democratic breakdown was staved off or averted.

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Political Radicalism: Responding to the Legitimacy Gap in South Africa

Cited by 16 publications

References 15 publications

A framework of intrapreneurial practices to improve service delivery in municipalities of the O.R. Tambo District Municipality

A framework of intrapreneurial practices to improve service delivery in municipalities of the O.R. Tambo District Municipality

Populist parties shifting the political discourse? A case study of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa

Democracy in Hard Places

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