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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Policy processes within the African National Congress and the Tripartite Alliance
Author:Lodge, TomISNI
Year:1999
Periodical:Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies
Volume:26
Issue:1
Pages:5-32
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:African National Congress (South Africa)
economic policy
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589349908705068
Abstract:Notions of popular democracy constituted an important ingredient of activist culture within the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies preceding the 1994 general elections. Comparative experience in democratic political systems elsewhere suggests that despite its historical commitment to people's power in South Africa, the ruling party's activist community will play a declining role in the government's decisionmaking, while party links with extraparliamentary organizations fail to increase their capacity to shape policy. This article tests this general tendency of increasingly technocratic and bureaucratic decisionmaking by examining the role of the tripartite alliance of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and COSATU in the formulation and implementation of the (ANC) government's macroeconomic policy as reflected in the main policy documents, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP, 1992), and the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Programme (GEAR) (1996). The article deals with structured consultation processes, the quality of organizational democracy in the genesis of ANC strategy and policy, and the capacity of the ANC's junior partners to contribute to government policy. It shows that activist influence on policymaking has declined since 1994. The predisposition of individual ministers is now the most important determinant of how widely the (macoeconomic) policymaking process is shared. Notes, ref., sum.
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