Structural constraints, resources, and decision-making: A study of South Africa's transition to democracy.
Item
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Title
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Structural constraints, resources, and decision-making: A study of South Africa's transition to democracy.
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Identifier
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AAI9820538
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identifier
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9820538
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Creator
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Habib, Adam Mahomed.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Kenneth Erickson
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Date
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1998
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political Science, General | Education, Sociology of | Education, Social Sciences
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Abstract
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This study is on the transition to democracy in South Africa. The key research question that guides this study is why negotiated outcomes in the democratic transition differed so significantly from the political visions and policies advocated by the major opposition movement before it came to power. Prior to 1992, the ANC was committed to a majoritarian democracy, a regulated economy with strong state intervention, and a labor movement that was vigorous and autonomous from the government. Yet the negotiated outcome in the South African transition took the form of a consensual democratic system which enshrined power-sharing for five years. Moreover, the ANC as the leading partner in the Government of National Unity adopted and implemented neoliberal economic policies and strategies, and established a corporatist set of labor relations that created a national partnership among government, labor, and business. Explaining this disjuncture between the negotiated outcomes in the democratic transition and the initial vision of the ANC is thus the focus of this study.;The hypothesis of this study is that the substantive features of the democratic transition in South Africa were determined by elites and other actors whose choices and options were constrained by a transformed structural distribution of power. This is illustrated through an analytical focus on three case studies: constitutional negotiations, political economy, and state-labor relations. All three cases represent important aspects of South Africa's negotiated democratic system and, all three case studies demonstrate that the ANC's decision to adopt a consensus democratic system, a neoliberal economic strategy, and a corporatist set of labor relations, was inspired by the distribution of capabilities or relations of power among actors. In this way the study links agency and structural variables, and shows how structures have constrained or shaped the options for actors. This dissertation, then, develops an analysis of the South African transition that captures the role of both agency and structure. Agents or actors developed the substantive features of South Africa's democratic system, but they did this within their perceptions of the constraints and possibilities permitted by the structural distribution of power.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
