Trust and power in land politics in South Africa
By: Gran, Thorvald.
Material type:
ArticlePublisher: 2002Description: p.419-40.Subject(s): Land reform - South Africa | Land reform
In:
International Review of Administrative SciencesSummary: Land politics is of high practical and symbolic importance in much of Africa. South Africa is no exception. Here it is investigated from two angles. First from a discussion of trust and a culture of trustworthiness as conditions for the functioning of modern institutions. Second from an interest in how the administrative level of communities and/or political cultures gives form to the relations between authority and subjects or, more generally, in modernity to the relation between state and society. Western South Africa was chosen for the investigation as there are no homelands, `Land-reformed' communities in two provinces, Northern and Western Cape, are compared. The study showed (1) that the ANC's land policy is increasingly an expression of a unified government-bureaucracy-modern economy elite;(2) that there are specific barriers to the formation of cultures of trustworthiness in institutions of authority (commercial farmers, lack of horizontal communication and the power of ethnicity), barriers blocking `embedded authorities'; and (3) that trust in government with respect to land policies is waning, despite progress in the redistribution of land. - Reproduced.
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | Volume no: 68, Issue no: 3 | Available | AR54315 |
Land politics is of high practical and symbolic importance in much of Africa. South Africa is no exception. Here it is investigated from two angles. First from a discussion of trust and a culture of trustworthiness as conditions for the functioning of modern institutions. Second from an interest in how the administrative level of communities and/or political cultures gives form to the relations between authority and subjects or, more generally, in modernity to the relation between state and society. Western South Africa was chosen for the investigation as there are no homelands, `Land-reformed' communities in two provinces, Northern and Western Cape, are compared. The study showed (1) that the ANC's land policy is increasingly an expression of a unified government-bureaucracy-modern economy elite;(2) that there are specific barriers to the formation of cultures of trustworthiness in institutions of authority (commercial farmers, lack of horizontal communication and the power of ethnicity), barriers blocking `embedded authorities'; and (3) that trust in government with respect to land policies is waning, despite progress in the redistribution of land. - Reproduced.
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