 South Africa: the transition to violent democracyKarl von Holdt Review of African Political Economy, 2013, vol. 40, issue 138, 589-604 Abstract: South Africa is torn between the persistence of an exclusionary socioeconomic structure marked by deep poverty and extreme inequality on the one hand, and on the other the symbolic and institutional rupture presented by the transition to democracy. This relationship produces a highly unstable social order in which intra-elite conflict and violence are growing, characterised by new forms of violence and the reproduction of older patterns of violence, a social order that can be characterised as violent democracy . I analyse three different forms of such violence -- the struggle for control of the state institutions of coercion, assassination, and the mobilisation of collective violence. The prevailing forms of politics may shift quite easily between authoritarianism, clientelism and populism, and indeed exhibit elements of all three at the same time. Violent practices accompany each of these political forms, as violence remains a critical resource in a struggle for ascendancy which democratic institutions are unable to regulate. Date: 2013 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revape:v:40:y:2013:i:138:p:589-604 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2013.854040 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 |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.