STATE AND NATION
The final edition of Focus for 2014 recapitulates and analyses some of the issues which have arisen in the past year with a view to adding new and alternative assessments of South Africa's development as a constitutional state (see here for full edition).
(Note: All links in PDF)
Inside Focus
Editorial
Francis Antonie
Crisis Management - Then and Now
Jack Spence
Spence focuses on the problems around crisis management during the First World War. For Spence one major obstacle to successful management of the crisis was the division of the great powers into two hostile camps, the Triple Alliance versus the Triple Entente.
He argues further that the balance of power, successful as it was in maintaining order in the 19th and early 20th centuries was, by 1914, relatively inflexible. He poses the question of what lessons, if any, the failure of crisis management, both before and during WWI, have for the current international scene.
Gauteng and the Arrival of Uncertainty
David Everatt
Everatt reflects on Gauteng and the arrival of uncertainty. He argues that the 2014 election was the most contested in Gauteng's history and that "substantive uncertainty" appears to have arrived in Gauteng. He is not solely concerned about the politics of the 2014 elections, but more about their consequences.
Electoral Reform in South Africa
Wim Louw
Louw considers the problem of electoral reform in South Africa. Much has been said and argued about the problems of accountability in the PR system. But Louw cautions that changing the electoral system is not a solution to solving general problems around accountability. Something more is needed.
Inequality in South Africa
Gavin Keeton
Keeton considers the problem of inequality in South Africa. He draws the necessary distinction between wealth and income. And then poses the question: Why does inequality matter? In a discourse familiar to most economists, he juxtaposes the views of Kuznets with more recent views of Thomas Piketty. And he considers the implications for South Africa.
South Africa: Failure and Success in Public Services
Tom Lodge
Lodge reviews public education and the public health sector. He is forthright in his concerns about our public education system. Comparing South Africa to other African countries, our public education is relatively well resourced. Why, then, have we not been able to do better?
An Overview of Youth Policy
Anele Mtwesi
Mtwesi reviews the key institutions and policies which go to make up the legislative and strategic interventions for youth development. This survey covers some seventeen years since the first development of a National Youth Policy. But the harsh conclusion is that there is neither a degree of policy coordination nor sufficient evaluation and monitoring to suggest that these policies have been successful.
The Zumafication of the SABC
Gavin Davis
Davis reviews some of the ongoing dramas currently taking place at the SABC, specifically around the Board. He argues that the capture of the SABC by factional interests is mirrored in the politicization of other state institutions important for President Zuma's political survival.
The Crisis of the South African Public Service
Peter Franks
Franks discusses the crisis of the South African public service. Franks reviews the history of the civil service since 1995, but his conclusions are deeply disquieting. Nearly two decades of cadre deployment and redeployment, inadequate training, management and discipline, and the increasing evidence of the corruption of public funds and processes, have been met by increasing service delivery protests and the dislocation of labour relations.
Book Reviews
Anthony Egan reviews: The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s by Glenn Moss.
Dennis Davis reviews: The Judiciary in South Africa by Cora Hoexter and Morné Olivier.
Dickie Davis reviews: Why States Recover by Greg Mills.
Issued by the Helen Suzman Foundation, October 30 2014
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