3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Social capital, civil society, and good governance: civic traditions in Johannesburg's shack settlements and Greater Pietermaritzburg's villages under chiefly rule(2013-05-15) Hlela, Kenneth SipheleloThis thesis explores the relationship between social capital/civil society and good governance/economic development both conceptually and empirically through case studies in the urban, rural, and peri-urban South Africa. As a starting point, this thesis attempts to answer the following six questions: How is social capital identifiable? Is its production exclusively confined to horizontally structured forms of associational life? Can peasant societies generate social capital? Do social capital networks accentuate divisions within communities between those who have access to authority and those without? Can political institutions play a role in producing social capital or does the enlargement of state authority take place at the expense of the associational networks which do produce social capital? And what kind of organisations in rural settings can best bridge sectional concerns and promote wider communities of trust? Can traditional existing political institutions be adapted to modern democratic requirements? I believe that in answering these questions I have gone some way in resolving some of the conceptual dilemmas identified by critics of the concept of social capital. I was then in a position to test and explore two hypotheses. Firstly, I argue that there is a relationship between social capital (a product of civil society) and good governance as well as economic and democratic development. Secondly, I argue that positive social capital will be under-produced in societies in which there is a weak market economy, that is, where members of civil society do not have independent sources of income. I demonstrate that civil society, the state, and markets have a symbiotic relationship and that they all have a role to play in the production of positive social capital. This thesis employed various data collection methods in order to navigate around the case studies chosen for the purposes of this study, viz. individual and group interviews, focus groups, direct observations, research surveys, secondary literature, and local newspapers. Evidence emanating from this thesis suggests that there is a vibrant civil society and, by implication, social capital in poorly resourced areas found in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas of South Africa, which has to some extent contributed to good governance as well as economic and democratic development. However, I conclude by arguing that the informalisation of the economy as well as high levels of unemployment in these areas certainly inhibit civil society from playing its important democratising and governance role since the production of positive social capital is constrained by this new reality.Item Civil society, the public sphere and policy-making in a democracy: the case of the South African Human Sciences Research Council(2009-02-25T12:35:11Z) Shepherd, David K.Abstract The central argument in this MA research report is that arguing for a compromised or depleted political culture or space is extremely difficult if we consider the complexity of the public sphere. This involves firstly arguing that by re-interrogating the concept of the public sphere underpinning orthodox critical perspectives on democratic functioning from deliberative democratic theorists, we find notions of the critical public sphere have been corrupted by the idealism that accompanies this nonetheless important concept. By illuminating this flaw in the orthodox critical democratic perspective and applying it to critiques of South African democracy, I argue that critiquing South African politics and policy making should in general be done with more care, since what is under-contemplated in these critiques by way of the actual nature of the public sphere, is not negligible. Critics, who often start by characterising the political space as dominated by one party which allegedly renders the political space unfit for its critical purpose, ought to be fairer in their accounts. The end result of this increasingly consensual critical position is that we inhabit only a relatively meaningless formal democracy. The exploratory case study of the Human Sciences Research Council which I go on to consider was chosen on the basis of the considered guess that it was likely to throw up evidence of interesting illustrative tendencies in what I argue may constitute a ‘new’ public sphere. The theoretical possibilities I aim to highlight are arguably deserving of more focused appraisal in themselves, but the aim of this dissertation is to introduce the theoretical possibility of an under-theorised public sphere through highlighting how that situation came about, and less so, what would constitute evidence of the nascent theory’s correctness.Item Urban livelihoods and intra-household dynamics: the case of Mpumalanga and Enhlalakahle townships, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa(2006-11-15T08:41:32Z) Mosoetsa, Sarah