The latest volume of the New South Africa Review is a testimony to how this series has established itself as an important touchstone for informed debate about South Africa’s volatile present; poised between the country’s full-fledged recolonisation by global capital, on the one hand, and attempts to revitalise resistance and a fresh struggle for a more meaningful liberation, on the other.
— John S. Saul, author of A Flawed Freedom: Rethinking Southern African Liberation

This fifth volume in the New South African Review series takes as its starting point the shock wave emanating from the events at Marikana on 16 August 2012 and how it has reverberated throughout politics and society. Some of the chapters in the volume refer directly to Marikana. In others, the infl uence of that fateful day is pervasive if not direct. Marikana has, for instance, made us look differently at the police and at how order is imposed on society. Monique Marks and David Bruce write that the massacre ‘has come to hold a central place in the analysis of policing, and broader political events since 2012 …’.

The chapters highlight a range of current concerns – political, economic and social. David Dickinson’s chapter looks at the life of the poor in a township from within. In contrast, the chapter on foreign policy by Garth le Pere analyses South Africa’s approach to international relations in the Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma eras. Anthony Turton’s account, ‘When gold mining ends’ is a chilling forecast of an impending environmental catastrophe. Both Devan Pillay and Noor Nieftagodien focus attention on the left and, in different ways, ascribe its rise to a new politics in the wake of Marikana.

The essays in Beyond Marikana present a range of topics and perspectives of interest to general readers, but the book will also be a useful work of reference for students and researchers.

CONTENTS
Introduction by Prishani Naidoo
PART 1: NEW POLITICAL DIRECTIONS?
1 Post-Marikana Reconstituting and Re-imagining the Left: Prospects and Challenges Noor Nieftagodien
2 Labour and Community Struggles in Post-apartheid South Africa Marcel Paret
3 The Numsa Moments and the Prospects of Left Re-vitalisation in South Africa Devan Pillay
PART 2: ECONOMY, ECOLOGY AND LABOUR
4 The South African Economy Samantha Ashman
5 Between a Rock and a Hard Place: State-business Relations in the South African Mining Sector Ross Harvey
6 From Wiehahn to Marikana: The Platinum Belt Strike Wave and the Breakdown in Institutionalisation of
Industrial Confl ict Crispen Chinguno
7 Pulling a Rabbit from the Proverbial Hat: Dealing with Johannesburg’s Slow Onset Uranium Disaster
Anthony Turton
PART 3: THE STATE AND SOCIETY
8 Constitutionalism in South Africa: An ‘Unqualifi ed Human Good’? Pierre de Vos
9 People’s Parliament? Do Citizens Infl uence South Africa’s Legislatures? Samantha Waterhouse
10 Corruption in South Africa: Perceptions and Trends Ivor Sarakinsky
11 Groundhog Day? Public Order Policing Twenty Years into Democracy Monique Marks and David Bruce
12 ‘In December We Are Rich, in January We Are Poor’: Consumption, Saving, Stealing and Insecurity in the Kasi
David Dickinson
PART 4: SA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA
13 The Evolution of South Africa’s Foreign Policy: A Thematic Essay Garth le Pere
14 South Africa, the BRICS and Human Rights: In Bad Company? Karen Smith
15 Trading with the Frienemy: How South Africa Depends on African Trade Rod Alence

Gilbert M Khadiagala is the Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits). Prishani Naidoo, Devan Pillay and Roger Southall are all based at the Department of Sociology at Wits.

The latest volume of the New South Africa Review is a testimony to how this series has established itself as an important touchstone for informed debate about South Africa’s volatile present; poised between the country’s full-fledged recolonisation by global capital, on the one hand, and attempts to revitalise resistance and a fresh struggle for a more meaningful liberation, on the other.
— John S. Saul, author of A Flawed Freedom: Rethinking Southern African Liberation