Post-liberation Politics in Africa: examining the political legacy of struggle

Provincial–regional ANC politics in the Northern Cape: corruption or everyday informal practices?

“…There has been some considerable scholarly focus on how the ANC has created a compliant party-state, where lines between the party and state are often blurred. This is underpinned by the argument of how the ANC has managed to use the liberation discourse to exert its hegemony and power over the levers of power in the state apparatus as a dominant party (Giliomee and Simkins 1999;Bompani 2006;Dorman 2006;Booysen 2015;Butler 2009Butler , 2015Suttner 2009). These scholars and commentators have raised criticism and concerns on how the ANC has managed to entrench its political dominance through the use of state power and distribution of state resources in exchange for party support to generate control and political power (Butler 2010).…”

Post-liberation Democratic Authoritarianism: The Case of Namibia

“…Transforming the liberation movement into a party, which more than 20 years into post-colonial governance is still to a large extent dominated and controlled by the first generation of the liberation struggle's leadership is no minor achievement, though it comes at a price. Not only provided the continuity a welcome stabilizing factor in the institutionalization of the new state, and allowed for a relatively smooth and unspectacular establishment of a new order, which 'balanced the demands of institutional reform with continuity' (Dorman 2006(Dorman , p. 1097. At the same time it promoted complacency in combination with a proclaimed and strongly guarded exclusivity, which encouraged a lack of delivery.…”

“…There emerged a 'more exclusivist mode of autocratic rule, continuing to draw on tropes of liberation, development and democracy, but which increasingly appear perverted' (Dorman 2006(Dorman , p. 1099. As a result of such a mold, the symbolic narrative 'Leading the pack in this unholy alliance is an assortment of some uppity whites, which, unfortunately, still believes that it is the white men's burden to "civilize" the "natives" and teach them not only about democracy, but also how to behave and how to spend taxpayers' money.…”

“…A scholarly compilation of studies with the thematic focus on 'dominant political parties and democracy' does not even list Namibia in its index (Bogaards and Boucek 2010). 4 In contrast, this contribution seeks to add further to the perspectives dealing with the 'limits to liberation' (Melber 2003a), comparatively explored also by Dorman (2006), contributions to De Jager and Du Toit (2013) and most prominently by Southall (2013) with regard to the cases of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. The analysis links to the recent debates over authoritarian forms of democracy, as among others promoted by Levitsky and Way (2002, 2010aand 2010b.…”

“…This is especially the case with regard to the negotiated transitions in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa and the subsequent consolidation of the former liberation movements as political parties (cf. Dorman 2006, Southall 2013. Somewhat disillusioned, Mamphela Ramphele -the former activist, then senior academic and high-ranking World Bank official (who failed in her rather naïve efforts to join South African party politics during 2013/14) -maintained in a lecture in , that, 'there is not a single post-liberation movement in Africa, perhaps in the rest of the world that has made the successful transition to democratic governance' (Ramphele 2012, p. 11).…”