South Africa “trapped” in a perpetual developmental state: the failure of the South African cooperative government constitution-assessing the role of the South African federal arrangements on macroeconomic policy

Abstract

This research report is a critical analysis of the cooperative government system of the Republic of South Africa, with the main objective to explore the role and contribution of cooperative governance or the federal cooperative arrangements in the economic development of South Africa post-apartheid. It is a review of the impact caused by the establishment of a cooperative governance Constitution and it examines the macroeconomic successes and failures of the federal cooperative arrangements in the South African context. It examines the economic policy of the ANC before and after election in April 1994. This is done to give social expression to the compromises and settlements during the constitutional negotiations. The report takes a qualitative research approach method to provide a critical analysis of how the constitutional cooperative arrangements play a role in the economic development process as well as in the exacerbation and maintenance of colonial and apartheid inequalities. The findings of the report suggest that the establishment of these cooperative arrangements meant that redistribution would not be prioritised over privatisation. The report has found that these cooperative arrangements in the constitution do not redress the inequalities of the past but rather make them worse. This failure of cooperative government disadvantages and traps the poor into perpetual poverty while it ensures that the rich become richer. The essence of the report is therefore to study the capacity of the South African federal cooperative arrangements in driving growth, economic development and pulling the country out of the developmental state.