The second volume of the New South African Review (NSAR) continues a tradition of debate and critical, analytical scholarship about contemporary South Africa. Drawing on authors from academia and beyond, it aims to be informative, discursive and provocative.

In this volume, the New Growth Path (NGP) adopted by the South African government in 2010 provides the basis for a debate about whether ‘decent work’ is the best possible solution to South Africa’s problems of low economic growth and high unemployment. Rising inequality is explored against the backdrop of the failings of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). The NGP’s proposals for ‘greening the economy’ are discussed, with emphasis on the creation of ‘green jobs’ and biofuels.

The volume also includes investigations into the crisis of acid mine drainage on the Witwatersrand, and other persistent environmental challenges. Possibilities for participatory forms of government are surveyed, and civil society activism is explored in relation to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and environmental campaigns.

The crisis in child care in public hospitals, the difficulties that characterise attempts at building relationships between the police and a township community, and the problems related to the absence of legislation to govern the powers of traditional authorities over land allocation (through the experience of the Eastern Cape) are also featured.

Asking whether the NGP reflects a set of new policies or an attempt to re-dress old (com)promises in new clothes, this volume brings together different voices in debate about possibilities for alternatives to neo-liberal and capitalist development in South Africa.

John Daniel is from the School of International Training (Durban ); Prishan i Naidoo, Devan Pillay and Roger Southall are lecturers in the Department of Sociology, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Prishani Naidoo

DOMESTIC AND REGIONAL POLITIC

The ANC-SACP-Cosatu Alliance and its Discontents: Contesting the ‘National Democratic Revolution’ in the Zuma era by Devan Pillay

The African National Congress and the Zanufication debate by James Hamill and John Hoffman

The Democratic Alliance and Opposition Politics in South Africa by Neil Southern and Roger Southall

Democracy and Accountability: Quo Vadis South Africa? by Paul Hoffman

Civil Society and Participatory Policy Making in South Africa: Gaps and opportunities by Imraan Buccus and Janine Hicks

Bring Back Kaiser Matanzima? Communal Land, Traditional Leaders and the Politics of Nostalgia by Leslie Bank and Clifford Mabhena

South Africa and ‘Southern Africa’: What relationship in 2011? by Chris Saunders

ECONOMICS AND SOCIETY

“The wages are low but they are better than nothing”: The dilemma of decent work and job creation in South Africa by Edward Webster

The crisis of childcare in South African public hospitals by Haroon Saloojee

The Worker Cooperative Alternative in South Africa by Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams

Street level policing in South Africa: A view from Gauteng by Knowledge Rajohane Matshedisho

BEE Reform: The Case for an Institutional Perspective by Don Lindsay

Bokfontein amazes the nations: Community Work Programme (CWP) heals a traumatised community by Malose Langa and Karl von Holdt

ENVIRONMENT

Above and Beyond South Africa’s Minerals-Energy Complex by Khadija Sharife and Patrick Bond
Corrosion and externalities: The socio-economic impacts of acid mine drainage on the Witwatersrand, South Africa by David Fig

Food versus Fuel? State, Business, Civil Society and the Bio-fuels Debate in South Africa, 2003 to 2010 by William Attwell

MEDIA

The print media transformation dilemma by Jane Duncan

The South African Broadcasting Corporation – the creation and loss of a citizenship vision and the possibilities for building a new one by Kate Skinner

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