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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Civil Society Theory and the Politics of Transition in South Africa
Author:Fine, R.ISNI
Year:1992
Periodical:Review of African Political Economy
Volume:19
Issue:55
Pages:71-83
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:political systems
opposition parties
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Ethnic and Race Relations
Politics and Government
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056249208703969
Abstract:The recent emergence of 'civil society theory' within opposition politics in South Africa poses an important supplement to the prevailing political perspectives of the antiapartheid movement. The perspective of civil society declares that the new South Africa will be built by a combination of good government on one side and dynamic community, trade union, women's, youth and other associations of civil society on the other. To show what lies behind the self-representation of civil society theory in South Africa, the author locates its origins in a wider political context. It is read as an attempt to build a 'third road' distinct from the two paradigms which have dominated South African politics in the postwar era, viz. neoclassicism and neomarxism. The author argues that in terms of building a 'third road' the main difficulty facing civil society theory lies in neglecting or rejecting the question of political mediation in favour of an exclusive focus on the associations of civil society. If political parties, which represent the interests of civil society, are not democratized from below, they will still perform their mediative functions - but determined 'from above'. Ref.
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