3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item How and why the ANC's nationalisation policy changed(1995) Ceruti, ClaireThe study traces and explains reformulation of ANC natlonatlsatlon policy between 1990 and early 1994. In doing so It develops the sociology of natlonallsatlon. It argues that natlonallsatlon is a nexus of particular social relations. First, since these relations are dynamic, nationalisation can only be fully understood through a concrete rather than an abstract approach to its study. Second, the nature of the relations which natlonallsatlon expresses are both political and economic. Therefore changes in ANC nationallsatlon policy cannot be analyzed only from an economic or pragmatist perspective. Finally, nationalisation reflects and expresses class relations. It is necessary to understand the class character of the major actors Involved and the balance of class forces to analyze any particular instance or absence of natlonallsatlon, The ANC's natlonallsatlon policy gradually rejected wlde-scalo natlonalleatlon. Nationallsatlon represents one form of the state-capital relation. The ANC's olass character as a nationalist organisation constrains It to act within the broad framework given by global trends in capitalism, since Its aim Is to get hold of a nation state (ttle characteristic political form of capitalism). As a government-in-waltlng' during the transition, It was Increasingly concerned to find the optimum relation between Itself (a future state) and capital In Its economic policy, the aim being to safeguard the national economy. The advancing lnternatlonallsatlon of capital has created a tendency for a multi-polar relation between individual capitals and various nation-states. Nationallsatlon (a close link between Individual capitals and a rjngle nation state) is out of line with these trends. However, these trends were not directly, unproblematlcally or even consciously assimilated Into ANC policy. The ANC's contradictory relation to its mass base Is key in understanding the ANC's increased sensitivity to such questions. The prolonged nature of the transition revealed the political limitations on nationalism In the present global context, in the ANC's vacillation between its mass base and other political actors. This constrained the ANC's ability to drive home an economic and political programme of Its own Initial choice and increased its sensitivity to capital and other major actors. Research Into the South African economy and the experience of other countries was Interpreted from the ideological framework given by the Eastern European revolutions and the collapse of command 1st economies, which themselves were interpreted from the framework of nationalist polit!cs. The study concludes that natlonallsatlon must be understood to express social relations. Its disappearance from ANC economic policy expresses the dynamic of the prevailing capitalist system, through the agency of a nationalist organisation.Item The role of the media in a democracy: unravelling the politics between the media, the state and the ANC in South Africa. Research question: What is the intersection between the floating signifier, 'Democracy' and an independent press?(2011-06-21) Daniels, GlendaThis is a theoretical conceptual post-modern1 study which aims to elucidate the ANC’s democratic project through the prism of its relationship to the media. In turn, it aims to scrutinize events that have already occurred post-liberation in order to explore whether the free space of the media is steadily being impinged upon, and eroded and explore further, what ‘turns’ journalists made when under pressure from political forces. Whilst recognising that interlocking imperatives inform freedom and independence of the press, this study’s main focus is a political one. However, the issue of ownership is intrinsic to research on media ‘freedom’, particularly the concentration of ownership of the media and so, how commercial imperatives impact2 will be examined. Several theorists have been referred to in order to begin putting together a conceptual theoretical framework with which to clarify and account for the emergent pattern of discourse by the ANC on the media. The conceptual framework adumbrated here and employed in the analysis of the relationship of the ANC with the media draws heavily from Zizek, Mouffe and Butler, in particular. The concept of ‘resignifications’ comes from Butler, those of ‘Master signifier’ and ‘social fantasy’ from Zizek, and the conception of radical democracy from Mouffe. Use is made of these theoretical tools in order to account for the compulsion that characterizes certain discursive interventions on the media, which are always in some respect ‘inappropriate’ or in ‘excess’ of expectations. 1 Post-modern thinking has been influenced by Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Francois Lyotard and is characterised by fluidity, undecidability, openness, irony, parody as well a recognition of the world as a field of infinite interplay (McGrath, A: 1993: p456-60) 2 John Keane (1991) in The Media and Democracy is particularly useful in questioning how the concept of freedom of the press originated, but also how deregulation and commercial imperatives impact on the notions of democracy and freedom. Anton Harber wrote in a newspaper piece, Two fat ladies make a meal of it (2003: Business Day) that concentration of ownership - following the global trend – presents a danger to democracy, ‘leading to a homogenized and tepid media’.Item The African National Congress' changing relationship with liberal democracy.(2007-02-23T11:52:29Z) Brooks, HeidiThis dissertation traces the changing relationship of the ANC with liberal democracy from the party's inception to the present, and analyses the various influences upon, and shifts within, the ANC's thinking with regard to liberal democracy over this period. The paper argues that the years between 1987 and 1994 represented a critical and dramatic shift in the ANC's relationship with liberal democratic values in which it came to openly state its acceptance of institutionalised pluralism and rights. It also argues, however, that despite the momentous and extremely valuable nature of these commitments for the consolidation of liberal democracy in South Africa, there remain suggestions within the language and discourse of the ANC that are problematic for its full realisation, the essence of which lies in the ANC's own understanding and interpretation of the meaning of liberal democracyItem RENDERING VISIBLE: The underground organisational experience of the ANC-led Alliance until 1976(2006-11-01T08:26:28Z) Suttner, Raymond SorrelThis thesis is a study of underground organisation from the 1950s until 1976, though it also draws on material prior to and after these periods. It delves into an area of social activity that has been relatively invisible in scholarship on South Africa and resistance history. The study considers the concept of underground operations. It is taken to include not only the place where the ‘final’ activities may have taken place, but those countries where cadres were trained or housed, even if this would normally be characterised as located in ‘exile’. It is ‘outside’, but it such activities are also treated as part of the underground phenomenon considered as a whole. At the level of historiography the thesis is a re-reading of early ANC underground, partly giving a different interpretation to existing literature, but also relying on the insights of oral informants. The establishment of the SACP underground is fleshed out through interview material, but the thesis challenges the notion that the Party controlled the ANC, arguing in contrast that the conditions of the alliance demanded limitations on SACP’s autonomy. In the period after Rivonia the conventional historiography speaks of a lull and an absence of the ANC and its allies. The thesis provides evidence to contradict this showing that while there may have been silence, there was never absence. It also probes the relationship between ANC and Black Consciousness, where it shows far more overlap than much of the existing literature has disclosed. The study is at once a historical narrative and also an attempt to characterise the social character of this area of study, the special features that go to make up clandestine organisaton. Within this characterisation of underground activity, the thesis also probes the gendered nature of these activities, the definite impact of concepts of masculinity and femininity within a conventionally male terrain. Related to these questions the thesis probes the relationship between the personal and organisational, both at the level of individual decision-making and notions of love and realising emotions. The chapter on gender examines the denial of manhood to African men and considers ANC masculinities and assertion of the need to regain manhood in that context. The thesis also examines the entry of women into the male world of the army and underground, explaining many of the difficulties and the countervailing efforts of women as well as certain men to assert the rights of women to equal participation. The chapter on the impact of revolutionary activity on the personal examines the subordination of individual judgement to the collective and in the personal sphere, notions of revolutionary love, found not only in South Africa but in most revolutionary struggles, where ‘love for the people’ tends to displace inter-personal love. The final chapter –by way of an epilogue- examines the outcomes of struggles after 1976, initiated by various forces including the underground organisation. In this period ANC hegemony begins to consolidate and the character of that hegemony is broken down into various components.