Politics of Transition in South Africa and the Post-1994 Democratic State

Abstract

The historicity of the liberation movements in South Africa is a subject of contestation. This is because their contributions to the post-1994 democratic state is interpreted and understood differently. Often this is influenced by the side of the political stratum of a historian. This article adds to such contestation, but not on political grounds. It is framed on scholarly terms. This article examines the politics of transition in South Africa and determines whether the much bandied about concept of a ‘developmental state’ has any linkages to it. The reason for this is that the concept is used lately as a defining character of South Africa’s post-1994 democratic state. The driving puzzle in the discourse is systematically addressed in the context of the theory of the politics of transition and the evolution and application of the concept of a ‘developmental state’ in the political thinking of the African National Congress (ANC). The article argues that the concept is unrelated to the politics of transitions which, instead, were more focused on building a democratic state rather than a ‘developmental state’ in South Africa. It concludes that it is inappropriate to characterize South Africa’s post-1994 democratic state as a developmental state because it is a long way from that.