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Title:The undeserving poor: poverty and the politics of service delivery in the poorest nodes of South Africa
Author:Everatt, DavidISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies
Volume:35
Issue:3
Pages:293-319
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:poverty
government policy
African National Congress (South Africa)
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589340903017932
Abstract:Fourteen years into democracy, the poor in South Africa have moved from being central to postapartheid reconstruction to being depicted by political leaders as lacking moral fibre and depending on 'handouts' - from deserving to undeserving poor. This has occurred within the ruling African National Congress, even though sympathy for the poor remains constant outside of government. To explain how this has come about, the paper starts in mid- and late-nineteenth-century England, where Victorian intellectuals and policymakers grappled with the challenge of a growing urban proletariat and the emergence of what Disraeli described as 'two nations', a recurrent theme of the ANC government under President Mbeki. As two newly democratizing countries grappled with the 'revolutionary threat and humanitarian disgrace' of poverty, the comparison reveals some interesting differences in approach between England then and South Africa now. The paper then analyses recent ANC discourse around the poor and anti-poverty interventions. It is argued that the unresolved tensions within the ANC-led tripartite alliance are directly implicated in its failure adequately to conceptualise poverty. Fourteen years into democracy, South Africa lacks an anti-poverty strategy, targets, or target groups. The paper ends by suggesting a method for identifying the 'ultra-poor', which is critical in place of the 'spray and pray' approach currently in use if poverty is substantially to be rolled back. App., bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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