Security and Politics in South Africa

Security and Politics in South Africa
Author: Peter Vale
Publisher: Juta and Company Ltd
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781919713816

This analysis of South Africa's postapartheid security system moves beyond a realist discussion of interacting states to examine Southern Africa as an integrated whole. Despite South Africa's manipulation of state structures and elites in the region for its own ends, the text argues, the suffering endured under the apartheid regime drew the region together at the popular level, and economic factors such as the use of migrant labor reinforced the process of integration. Exploring how the region is changing today--as transnational solidarity and a single regional economy remove the distinctions between national and international politics--the book explores whether South African domination can finally be overcome and considers what sort of cosmopolitan political arrangement will be appropriate for southern Africa in the new century.

Security, Governance, and State Fragility in South Africa

Security, Governance, and State Fragility in South Africa
Author: Edward L. Mienie
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2020-03-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1793609535

Do existing measures of state fragility measure fragility accurately? Based on commonly used fragility measures, South Africa (SA) is classified as a relatively stable state, yet rising violent crime, high unemployment, endemic poverty, eroding public trust, identity group based preferential treatment policies, and the rapid rise of the private security sector are all indications that SA may be suffering from latent state fragility. Based on a comprehensive view of security, this study examines the extent to which measures of political legitimacy and good governance, effectiveness in the security system – especially with respect to the police system – and mounting economic challenges may be undermining the stability of SA in ways undetected by commonly used measures of state fragility. Using a mixed-methods approach based on quantitative secondary data analysis and semi-structured interviews with government officials, security practitioners, and leading experts in the field, this study finds that the combination of colonization, apartheid, liberation struggle, transition from autocracy to democracy, high levels of direct and structural violence, stagnating social, political, and economic developments make South Africa a latently fragile state. Conceptually, the results of this research call into question the validity of commonly used measures of state fragility and suggest the need for a more comprehensive approach to assessing state fragility. Practically, this study offers a number of concrete policy recommendations for how South Africa may address mounting levels of latent state fragility.

Security and Democracy in Southern Africa

Security and Democracy in Southern Africa
Author: Gavin Cawthra
Publisher: IDRC
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 1868144534

Southern Africa has embarked on one of the world's most ambitious security co-operation initiatives, seeking to roll out the principles of the United Nations at regional levels. This book examines the triangular relationship between democratisation, the character of democracy and its deficits, and national security practices and perceptions of eleven southern African states. It explores what impact these processes and practices have had on the collaborative security project in the region. Based on national studies conducted by African academics and security practitioners over three years, it includes an examination of the way security is conceived and managed, as well as a comparative analysis of regional security co-operation in the developing world.

State Security in South Africa

State Security in South Africa
Author: James Michael Roherty
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1992
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780873328777

This work is a study of civil-military relations in the Republic of South Africa while Pieter Willem Botha was prime minister (1978-89). The author's controversial thesis is that Prime Minister Botha, recognizing that his country had reached the historical juncture when it needed to establish a new political order encompassing all of its diverse peoples, moved effectively to prepare the ground for fundamental constitutional change. What was needed above all were stabilization measures to assure the support of the white population for reform. Botha used the South African defence force as his primary instrument. By 1989, Professor Roherty maintains, a striking degree of stabilization had been achieved within the country and throughout South Africa, and the groundwork for epochal change had been prepared. The author makes use of exclusive interviews with South Africans from the political, military, intelligence, corporate, and academic worlds.

The New South Africa

The New South Africa
Author: Edmund James Yorke
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2016-01-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781349266623

This cohesive and challenging collection of academic essays represents a radical analysis, indeed re-interpretation, of the political, social and economic events which have occurred within the new South Africa since the momentous 1994 general election. Chapters by three of the leading authorities in the field of South African history and politics, Professors Marks, Spence and Gutheridge, concisely examine the prospects for stability and progress as the key fields of regional and international security, armed forces integration and social and economic policy. Three other authors examine, sometimes in controversial fashion, the progress of and prospects for the three main political parties: the ANC; the NP; and the IFP. A further three studies address the ramifications of recent elections, developments in the arms industry and changes in the political economy of the new South Africa. The book as a whole will be seen as the first comprehensive study of the security prospects of the New South Africa under the inspired leadership of Nelson Mandela.

Foreign Policy in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Foreign Policy in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Author: Adekeye Adebajo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2017-12-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1786723328

South Africa is the most industrialized power in Africa. It was rated the continent's largest economy in 2016 and is the only African member of the G20. It is also the only strategic partner of the EU in Africa. Yet despite being so strategically and economically significant, there is little scholarship that focuses on South Africa as a regional hegemon. This book provides the first comprehensive assessment of South Africa's post-Apartheid foreign policy. Over its 23 chapters - -and with contributions from established Africa, Western, Asian and American scholars, as well as diplomats and analysts - the book examines the current pattern of the country's foreign relations in impressive detail. The geographic and thematic coverage is extensive, including chapters on: the domestic imperatives of South Africa's foreign policy; peace-making; defence and security; bilateral relations in Southern, Central, West, Eastern and North Africa; bilateral relations with the US, China, Britain, France and Japan; the country's key external multilateral relations with the UN; the BRICS economic grouping; the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP); as well as the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO). An essential resource for researchers, the book will be relevant to the fields of area studies, foreign policy, history, international relations, international law, security studies, political economy and development studies.

African Security Politics Redefined

African Security Politics Redefined
Author: K. Dokken
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2008-05-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230612490

This book analyzes recent alterations in African security politics, focusing on regionalization of civil wars, transnational aspects of African conflicts, African regional peacekeeping efforts, the privatization of security in Africa, and the role of the UN in peacekeeping.

Governing through Crime in South Africa

Governing through Crime in South Africa
Author: Gail Super
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317125509

This book deals with the historic transition to democracy in South Africa and its impact upon crime and punishment. It examines how the problem of crime has emerged as a major issue to be governed in post-apartheid South Africa. Having undergone a dramatic transition from authoritarianism to democracy, from a white minority to black majority government, South Africa provides rich material on the role that political authority, and challenges to it, play in the construction of crime and criminality. As such, the study is about the socio-cultural and political significance of crime and punishment in the context of a change of regime. The work uses the South African case study to examine a question of wider interest, namely the politics of punishment and race in neoliberalizing regimes. It provides interesting and illuminating empirical material to the broader debate on crime control in post-welfare/neoliberalizing/post transition polities.

The Politics of the New South Africa

The Politics of the New South Africa
Author: Heather Deegan
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN:

For undergraduate and taught masters courses on modern South Africa as part of a politics, area studies, development studies or combined social sciences degree. This book provides an appraisal of critical moments in South Africa's history: segregation and racial supremacy, black opposition, politics under apartheid and violence and terror. The authors include up-to-date information such as the transfer of power in 1994, enfranchisement and political realignment, the post-electoral period of adjustment and socio-economic transition, the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the 1999 elections.