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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Politics of Economic Policy-Making: Substantive Uncertainty, Political Leverage, and Human Development |
Author: | Habib, Adam |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa |
Issue: | 56 |
Pages: | 90-103 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | political science economic policy Politics and Government Economics and Trade Development and Technology |
External link: | https://muse.jhu.edu/article/181644 |
Abstract: | The combination of progressive policy in some arenas and a conservative macroeconomic policy in others has led to the deracialization of the apex of South Africa's class structure. Black professionals and entrepreneurs have particularly benefited, but poor and marginalized people are really struggling. So why did government adopt such a conservative macroeconomic policy? The author suggests that President Mbeki and other State elites were confronted with two diametrically opposed sets of interests with contrary political choices: foreign investors and the domestic business community advocated neoliberal economic policies. Their leverage: investment. The broader citizenry demanded poverty alleviation, service delivery, and transformation. Their leverage: the vote. The latter, however, was compromised given the racial structure of party formation and the lack of a viable opposition. In this context, foreign investment served as a more real leverage with the result that Mbeki was prompted to make concessions to the investor economy. The author argues that a sustainable shift in the State's economic programme will occur when substantive uncertainty - which is about the perceptions of ruling political elites in a democratic system as to whether they will be returned to office - is reintroduced into the political system. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |