The political struggle for ‘the people’: populist discourse in the 2019 South African elections

Nyenhuis, Robert

doi:10.1080/14662043.2020.1746040

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…Perhaps not as well-studied as European or Latin American iterations, work on African populism (Hess & Aidoo 2014; Cheeseman & Larmer 2015; Mbete 2015; Nyenhuis 2020) has expanded over the last decade. More recently, individual chapters in cross-regional edited volumes (Resnick 2017; Cheeseman 2018; Mbete 2020; Mutsvairo & Salgado 2021) have cast long overdue academic light on the continent's cases, developing rich conceptual and theoretical insights for the broader comparative study of populism.…”

Section: African Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specific to South Africa, scholars have described the antics of Jacob Zuma (Vincent 2011) and Julius Malema (Melber 2018; Mbete 2020). Others (Nyenhuis 2020; Fölscher et al 2021) empirically investigated actors’ speeches. In short, (South) African populism studies focus entirely on populism's supply.…”

Section: African Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EFF has cleverly tapped into deep discontent with a liberation party whose well of political capital seems to have diminished, and perhaps run dry. Given its steady supply of populist rhetoric in the 2019 campaign (Nyenhuis 2020), matched with the crisis conditions needed to ‘activate’ (Hawkins et al 2019) populist attitudes, South Africa provides a fair test of the ideational theory and approach of populism. It may also yield insights into the scope conditions for successful populist mobilisation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Failure to launch? The lack of populist attitudinal activation in the 2019 South African elections

Nyenhuis

Schulz-Herzenberg

2023

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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Do South Africans hold strong populist attitudes? If so, who is the ‘populist citizen’ and have these attitudes been activated in the electoral arena? In this article, we make use of 2019 Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) data to answer these questions. We find that populist attitudes tend to vary across levels of education, geographic location and racial groups. Given the constant supply of populist rhetoric from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), we expected this party to marshal electoral support from citizens holding the strongest populist attitudes. However, we contend that the party's racialised populism and radicalism ultimately handicapped it at the ballot box. The EFF ultimately suffered from citizens’ mistrust, its lack of credibility and savvy political moves by the ANC ahead of the election.

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Section: African Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: African Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Failure to launch? The lack of populist attitudinal activation in the 2019 South African elections

Nyenhuis

Schulz-Herzenberg

2023

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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“…Different political party leaders in South Africa master the art of employing populist rhetoric to take advantage of ideological and ethno-cultural differences amongst citizens to be their main strategy for politicking which is propitious to win hearts and minds of the electorates and gain political mileage. Paradoxically, Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) and Cornie Mulder from the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) both employ populist rhetoric to rally supporters based on racial and ideological identities (Ngwane, 2019;Nyenhuis, 2020;Resnick, 2014). According to Adam (1995), Johnson (1994) and Louw (1994) the ANC gradually shifted from non-racialism to Black Nationalism to attract majority of black voters during election campaigns because voting has become a racial census in South Africa.…”

Section: Ideological and Ethnocultural Tensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coalition Governance: Unchartered Waters in South African Political Landscape

Makole

Ntshangase

Adewumi

2022

BEL

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Coalition governance in South Africa is adjudged as an opportunity for nation-building and social compact, which intends to jettison the apartheid legacy of racial and social separation. Coalition governance in South Africa quintessentially demonstrates a maturing nation-building project whereby political parties embrace a cohesive spirit for democratic governance and citizenship representation. However, the lack of consensus about a developmental posture to drive nation-building in South Africa put different political parties on antithetical dissimulations that undermine effective coalition governance in both national and local governmental spheres. An era of dominant party hegemony is approaching its final demise, which challenges political parties to build workable and collaborative consensus toward leading South Africa out of its current developmental stagnation. The study examines the challenges and opportunities of coalition governance in South Africa. The objective of the paper is to understand how coalition building can be a leverage for Nation building in the context of South African political structure. A qualitative study is undertaken by analyzing strategic and policy documents of political parties and journal articles to examine challenges and opportunities for coalition governance in South Africa. The thematic content analysis examines emerging patterns from primary and secondary documentary sources to generate relevant themes that influence and guide conceptualization, challenges, and opportunities for coalition governance in South Africa. Findings revealed that a major challenge for coalition governance in South Africa is political brinkmanship by political parties who negotiate in bad faith, demanding more concessions than votes garnered from election results, which demonstrates political immaturity. However, a positive aspect of coalition governance might be for parties to formalize binding coalition agreements that can serve as conflict management mechanisms that can compel parties to demonstrate reciprocal accountability during governance.

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“…In Zambia, Frederick Chiluba evoked anti-establishment populist sentiments, and so did Michael Sata (Fraser, 2017). In South Africa, disgruntled by internal party politics, Julius Malema established the populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party (Mbete, 2015; Nyenhuis, 2020). The literature on party politics indeed underscores how party leaders emerge under the crest of populist mobilizations.…”

Section: Party Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Movement for Democratic Change and the Rise of Nelson Chamisa

Mwonzora

Hodzi

2021

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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Nelson Chamisa is central to the political terrain of contemporary Zimbabwe. Post the soft coup of November 2017 and the death of Morgan Tsvangirai in early 2018, Chamisa became president of the Movement for Democratic Change party and contested the July 2018 presidential election. The tempo of changes in the Movement for Democratic Change presidency is not related directly to the shift from Mugabe to Mnangagwa. However, broader politics formed an important context for Chamisa’s contested claim for the Movement for Democratic Change presidency. In examining Chamisa and the Movement for Democratic Change, the article highlights linkages between personality politics and electoral mobilization, and how this relates to political party institutionalization.

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The political struggle for ‘the people’: populist discourse in the 2019 South African elections

Cited by 8 publications

References 42 publications

Failure to launch? The lack of populist attitudinal activation in the 2019 South African elections

Failure to launch? The lack of populist attitudinal activation in the 2019 South African elections

Coalition Governance: Unchartered Waters in South African Political Landscape

Movement for Democratic Change and the Rise of Nelson Chamisa

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