Progressive academic economists & the Challenge of development in South Africa's decade of liberation

Vishnu Padayachee

Review of African Political Economy, 1998, vol. 25, issue 77, 431-450

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between progressive academic economists and anti‐apartheid social movements in the period that has come to be known as South Africa's decade of liberation, roughly the mid‐1980s to the mid‐1990s. It does so through a critical examination of the interaction of progressive economists with social movements in South Africa since 1985, an interaction which occurred in the main via policy research networks and think‐tanks. The article also explores the major trends in the relationship between progressive economists and social movements over the decade of liberation and attempts to provide some tentative answers to the controversial question of why many of South Africa's progressive economists underwent a sea change in their economic thinking by the mid‐1990s. The argument is that South African academics and intellectuals (like those elsewhere) are far from independent; they are the creatures and creations of their time. Their positions depend upon their shifting circumstances and the demands placed on them. Ultimately, the explanation for the change in economics thinking rests on the politics of the transition itself, although other factors may contribute to explaining why the shift was so extreme and so pervasive.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03056249808704324 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revape:v:25:y:1998:i:77:p:431-450

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CREA20

DOI: 10.1080/03056249808704324

Access Statistics for this article

Review of African Political Economy is currently edited by Graham Harrison, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Claire Mercer, Nicolas Pons-Vignon, Aurelia Segatti and Ray Bush

More articles in Review of African Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().