A call for comparative thinking: Crime, citizenship and security in the global South

Abstract

This article argues for the importance of an international comparative perspective in terms of our analysis and response to violent crime. This is particularly important in the light of the fact that while an increasing number of countries in the global Southhave achieved formal democracy, they continue to be plagued by high levels of violent crime. In fact, transitions from authoritarian to democratic governance around the world, from Eastern Europe to Latin America and Africa, have been accompanied by escalating violent crime rates. In this context, we have much to learn from an international comparative approach in terms of understanding why democratic transitions are so often accompanied by increases in violence, what the impact of this violence is on the ability of these societies to deepen democracy, and what the most appropriate interventions are in relatively new and often resource poor democracies.

The Social and Political Implications of Demographic Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa

“…The unemployed are said to have time on their hands, and unemployed men are also said to hit their girlfriends out of anger and frustration with their own marginalization, especially if women make them feel like failures for not providing. This popular explanation mirrors analyses of a crisis of masculinity, with respect to the 1980s by Campbell (1992), and more recently by Wood and Jewkes (2001), Bruce (2007), and Barolsky et al (2008). In these accounts, unemployment and the consequent inability to perform the role of male breadwinner undermine the status of young men, who seek status in other ways through sexual success and interpersonal violence.…”

Social cohesion in Gauteng

“…Emerging literature highlights social cohesion as a government project -or at least the need for it -in the developing world (see, for instance, Chipkin and Ngqulunga 2008;Barolsky and Pillay 2009;Ortmann 2009). Much of this literature argues that the project of social cohesion is following a similar route in democratic societies in the developing world as it did in (Western) Europe.…”

“…In South Africa, social cohesion is often linked to the impacts that social change has had on social relations, which is the backdrop to social cohesion becoming increasingly prominent in the South African policy context (see Barolsky andPillay 2009, andBallantine et al 2017). According to Barolsky and Pillay (2009), South Africa was not immune from the social and economic change that triggered fragmentation and the need for social cohesion elsewhere (both in Europe and in other sub-Saharan Africa countries), and, in addition, in this country social cohesion in the policy environment had to take into account severe criminality and violence associated with the political transition from apartheid to democracy. As Barolsky and Pillay (2009) observe in their study on how crime, citizenship and safety manifest in the global South: many societies that have experienced a transition from authoritarian rule, as was the case in South Africa, have experienced a rapid escalation in crime rates, including violent crime.…”

“…According to Barolsky and Pillay (2009), South Africa was not immune from the social and economic change that triggered fragmentation and the need for social cohesion elsewhere (both in Europe and in other sub-Saharan Africa countries), and, in addition, in this country social cohesion in the policy environment had to take into account severe criminality and violence associated with the political transition from apartheid to democracy. As Barolsky and Pillay (2009) observe in their study on how crime, citizenship and safety manifest in the global South: many societies that have experienced a transition from authoritarian rule, as was the case in South Africa, have experienced a rapid escalation in crime rates, including violent crime. Continents and countries that have since the 1970s experienced this correlation between democratisation and violence include Latin America, the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, as well as democratizing states in Africa, most notably South Africa itself (Barolsky and Pillay 2009: 17).…”

“…Although notions of social cohesion and nation-building have been articulated one way or another via documents such as the South African Constitution -which stresses the need for unity in diversity, among other things -it has been taken 'on the ground' to mean other things in addition to this constitutional ideal (Barolsky and Pillay 2009). People in a variety of contexts have cohered around what unites them and what sets them apart from other ethnic/cultural/socio-economic/political groups.…”