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ENVISIONING GOVERNANCE: EXPECTATIONS AND ESTRANGEMENTS OF TRANSFORMED RULE IN GLENDALE, SOUTH AFRICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2013

Bernard Dubbeld
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Abstract

This article explores how, in the village of Glendale in KwaZulu-Natal, residents and local government officials – including councillors and municipal technicians – ‘see’ the post-apartheid state. I show how residents of the village regard the government – despite extensive state intervention – as inadequate, complaining especially of their ‘invisible’ and ‘impersonal’ character. Indeed, for them, democracy has brought anything but ‘direct rule’. And yet, while chiefly rule is sometimes invoked as a favoured alternative, I argue that people's estrangement from democratic government is not the desire to return to ‘culture’ but rather an expression of structural difficulties central to South Africa's increasingly tenuous experiment with participatory democracy. I suggest that these difficulties are also not reducible to state failure or corruption but point towards contradictions in contemporary citizenship.

Résumé

Cet article explore comment les résidents et les fonctionnaires locaux (y compris les conseillers et employés municipaux) du village de Glendale au KwaZulu-Natal « voient » l’État post-apartheid. L'auteur décrit le regard critique que portent les villageois sur le gouvernement dont ils dénoncent en particulier le caractère « invisible » et « impersonnel », malgré un interventionnisme d’État marqué. Ils estiment en effet que la démocratie a tout apporté sauf une « administration directe ». Pourtant, si certains avouent parfois une préférence pour le pouvoir des chefs, l'auteur soutient que ce sentiment d'aliénation vis-à-vis du gouvernement démocratique n'est pas un désir de retour à la « culture » mais plutôt une expression de difficultés structurelles au cœur de l'apprentissage de plus en plus ténu de la démocratie participative en Afrique du Sud. L'auteur suggère que ces difficultés ne peuvent pas se réduire à la défaillance de l’État ou à la corruption, mais sont révélatrices de contradictions de la citoyenneté contemporaine.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 492 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2013 

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