The politics of numbers: national membership growth and subnational power competition in the African National Congress

Butler, Anthony

doi:10.1353/trn.2015.0008

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…One of the correlates of declining ANC hegemonic stature was its membership decline in the period since 2012, when massive mobilisation was effected in the run-up to the 2012 ANC centenary celebration; during this time, the Zumaists tried to bolster the pro-Zuma provinces to help swell the number of delegates that would vote for Zuma at the Mangaung conference (Booysen 2015). By the time of the ANC National General Council (NGC) meeting of 2015, the figures revealed massive decline: to 767,970 (see also Butler 2015). In contrast with previous conference practice, the ANC did not release updated membership figures at the time of the 2017 policy and elective conferences.…”

Section: Anc Organisational Correlates Signifying Hegemonic Decline Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegemonic Struggles of the African National Congress: From Cacophony of Morbid Symptoms to Strained Renewal

Booysen

2018

Africa Spectrum

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The contemporary condition of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, viewed through the lens of hegemony and by means of four sets of correlates of decline and potential renewal, reveals an organisation that has turned away from lethal decline, yet by 2018 was battling to reconstitute a powerful, united historical bloc to underpin a new hegemony. The assessment is executed across the outward fronts of the ANC in relation to the people, the state, and elections, and on the inward side, the ANC organisationally. The ANC, up to late 2017, had undergone a process of hegemonic decline that appeared irreversible. Manifold morbid symptoms of hegemonic decline were evident. In late 2017 the ANC secured a leadership change that held the potential to reverse the decline and reinvigorate the ANC's prospects for hegemonic hold, even if at best it would be a long-term, incremental process. Yet, at the centre, the organisation remained riven with factionalism that pivoted around power and control over public resources; those entrenched in the status quo ante were fighting back, and the new order was struggling to emerge. By drawing together these symptoms (correlates) of decline and possible reversals, the article synthesises the state of ANC hegemony as the movement approaches 25 years in political power.

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Section: Anc Organisational Correlates Signifying Hegemonic Decline Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegemonic Struggles of the African National Congress: From Cacophony of Morbid Symptoms to Strained Renewal

Booysen

2018

Africa Spectrum

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“…Most analysts have heavily criticised the ANC party and its elected local representatives (in particular ward councillors and political office-bearers such as speakers, mayors and members of the municipal mayoral executive committee) for being embroiled in patronage and rent-seeking (see Staniland 2008;Ndletyana et al 2014;Beresford 2014;Dawson 2014;Butler 2015;Butler and Southall 2015;Ndletyana 2015), neo-patrimonialism (Lodge 1998 and and corruption (Hyslop 2005;Mashele and Qobo 2014;Johnson 2015) that has led to decline in service delivery and failure of ANC councillors in carrying out their representational mandate.…”

Section: Loyal Supporters (See Independent Electoral Elections 2016)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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).…”

Section: Anc Party and State Conflationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been argued by Butler (2015) and Beresford (2014) that this blurred approach between the ANC party and the state processes in dealing with governance issues has a danger of undermining the autonomy of formal state processes when dealing with corruption. It also deters state actors from exercising their representational duty and role of holding those implicated in misconduct to account for their actions.…”

Section: Patchwork Of Ethics Anc Party Loyalty and Bureaucratic Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Nzo

2017

CJLG

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Research over the last decade on local government in South Africa has highlighted that some municipal councils under the political leadership of the Africa National Congress (ANC) have shown weak political leadership, coupled with strong patronage systems, rent-seeking and corruption which have had an impact on the institutional functionality of municipalities in South Africa. Although patronage politics have been predominantly used to analyse the dynamics of post-apartheid local government ANC politics and councillor representation, this prevents us from understanding the representational focus of ANC councillors in decision-making processes. This paper offers an ethnographic insight into experiences of ANC councillors and the political complexities involved in council decision-making. Using ethnographic research, this paper will analyse how a political decision by the ANC provincial party, which was supported by the ANC regional party at local level – to erect a statue of Nelson Mandela in one of the municipalities in the Northern Cape – generated tensions amongst ANC councillors who strongly viewed their primary role as promoters of better ‘service delivery’ rather than approving the allocation of scarce municipal resources for erecting a statue. The paper reveals how the dominant presence of ANC sub-regional structures at local level contribute to the complex interaction of both ANC party political and municipal organisational rules and norms that influence and shape councillors’ choices in decision-making.

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“…The most important one noted in the literature is factionalism. Factions play a role because the ANC’s ‘official factions’ (that is, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions) have to be accommodated in the candidate selection process (Mac Giollabhuí 2013) or because ‘unofficial factions’ (that is, Jacob Zuma vs. Thabo Mbeki, Zuma vs. Kgalema Motlanthe, Zuma vs. Julius Malema, or even more localized factions) attempt to influence the selection procedures, for example, by adding members to the local branches (Butler 2015; Cooper 2015). The importance of factionalism for candidate selection is, however, not a problem for this study.…”

Section: Empirical Approach and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Local-Level Accountability in a Dominant Party System

Wegner¹

2016

Gov. & oppos.

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This article investigates accountability in South Africa’s dominant party system by studying how the African National Congress (ANC) reacts to electoral incentives at the local level. It compares the ANC’s degree of responsiveness to voters across municipalities with different levels of political competition. The analysis focuses on whether and under which conditions the ANC is more likely to renominate better quality municipal councillors. It examines the relationship between renomination as ANC municipal councillor and local government performance – as measured by voter signals, service delivery and audit outcomes. The results show that the ANC does indeed adapt its behaviour to electoral incentives. In municipalities where the ANC has larger margins of victory, performance matters little for renomination. In contrast, in municipalities with higher electoral competition, local government performance is strongly correlated with renomination. These results suggest the need to expand dominant party research to topics of voter responsiveness and sub-national behaviour.

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The politics of numbers: national membership growth and subnational power competition in the African National Congress

Cited by 7 publications

References 7 publications

Hegemonic Struggles of the African National Congress: From Cacophony of Morbid Symptoms to Strained Renewal

Hegemonic Struggles of the African National Congress: From Cacophony of Morbid Symptoms to Strained Renewal

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

Local-Level Accountability in a Dominant Party System

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