CONSOLIDATING SOUTH AFRICAN DEMOCRACY: THE POLITICAL ARITHMETIC OF BUDGETARY REDISTRIBUTION

An absence of legitimacy of an economic dispensation cannotbe overcome by democratization alone. In unequal societies,new regimes also seek to increase economic legitimacy and thereforetheir own political legitimacy through redistribution. Socialspending is the most promising redistributive device availableto South Africa's new democracy to reduce racial inequalities,but there are constraints on increasing social spending or evenredistributing existing spending. To maximize political impact,spending will thus probably be concentrated on the most visibleprogrammes and concentrated in die cities. The impact on blackmaterial living standards of complete redistribution of socialspending is shown to be fairly large, but still may not satisfythe newly enfranchised. Coloureds, Indians and poorer whiteswould lose most from budgetary redistribution. As demands exceedresources, resource allocation then becomes a question of politicalarithmetic. This may assist in consolidating democracy amongsturban black ‘insiders’, but would effectively leavethe unorganized rural poor fiscally disenfranchised.     

COMMISSION OF RESEARCH: AFRICA: COMMISSION SET UP TO STUDY DEFORESTATION AND EROSION UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY

A Note on the psychological aspect of the Desiccation problemcontributed as a Commentary on the proceedings of the Commissionas Summarised in this Journal from October, 1942, to April,1943, by Mr.C.Gillman, C. B. E., former Chief Engineer of theTanganyika Railways and Water Consultant to the Tanganyika Government.     

AFRICAN RENAISSANCE AND NEGOTIATION OF YORUBA IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA: A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN STUDENTS IN CAPE TOWN

ABSTRACT

Drawing on poststructuralist discourse analysis and Hall's (1990) notion of diaspora cultural identities, this article explores the discontinuation and maintenance of Yoruba identity options by students at three Western Cape Province universities. Interviews and observations data are used to consider how different forms of representations and cultural practices associated with Yoruba in Nigeria lead to equally fragmented and hybrid lifestyles and identity options in the Diaspora due to the changed socio-cultural conditions. The argument shows the ruptures and fragmentation of Yoruba cultural elements as students try to fit into the South African socio-cultural contexts while trying to live ‘home’ life away from home. It also shows cultural appropriation by local South Africans who claim Nigerian [Yoruba] affiliation through wearing Yoruba attire and partaking in Nigerian [Yoruba] cuisine. The authors argue that identities are produced across national and ethnic boundaries not only through language choices, but also through dress, food and other semiotic resources, and that to promote the ideals of an African renaissance, there is need to recognise that Africa is a consequence of not just similarities, but more so of various critical points of profound difference and discontinuity. The article concludes that African renaissance entails embracing shared African cultural heritage and differences as the norm; and transnational competition, interdependency and interconnectedness are critical ingredients for the technological and socio- economic development of Africa.     

AID'S CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY: CURRENT PROPOSALS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Aid to Africa is less threatened by the current foreign policyand fiscal pressures than by a complex crisis of legitimacyregarding the enterprise. Despite official rhetoric to the contrary,most aid insiders are disappointed by the current achievementsof aid. The current malaise has resulted in a considerable fermentof thinking about how to make aid more effective. This articledescribes four sets of proposals that have been advanced. Theseinclude proposals to make aid more selective, as well as toadopt a more need-based approach, which includes proposals topromote government ownership, and to focus aid on non-governmentalactors in the private and voluntary sectors. It is argued thateach of these proposals is desirable, but that together theyare probably incompatible, certainly difficult for the donorsto implement and unlikely to address the real problems thathave plagued aid and African development these last thirty-fiveyears. The real challenge, not addressed by most current reformproposals, is to change how donors and recipients manage aid,so that it contributes to a sound development strategy. Thearticle concludes that the main impulse for reform must comefrom African countries themselves, rather than from the donorcountries.     

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN IRAQI KURDISTAN: PARTY RIVALRIES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) possesses many of the traditional hallmarks of political authority and society, such as state institutions (an Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary), political parties, civil society, elections, and local government. Nevertheless, for the past twenty-five years, it has failed to create a unified political system that adheres to a mutually accepted form of government. Political division, in particular, a rivalry between the main parties, has proved to be a real impediment to the political development and stability of the Region.

This article argues that there is a relationship between the nature and structure of the political parties, which reflects interests' political views of party leaders, and the political systems that have been proposed as solutions to a lack of political stability in Iraqi Kurdistan. Specifically, it argues that the individual character of the main parties, the PUK and the KDP above all, explains why they favour one system of government over the one advanced by their rival and is the core political dispute in Iraqi Kurdistan currently. Finally, the article concludes by identifying prospective systems of government available the KRI and the potential consequences of each.     

SOUTH AFRICAN LAND REFORM: CASE-STUDIES IN 'DEMAND' AND 'PARTICIPATION' IN THE FREE STATE

This article offers an ethnographic cross-section in one provinceof South Africa's new land reform programme. ‘Demand’and ‘participation’ are the rhetorical keywordsof the programme. Demand for land redistribution, however, cannotbe understood in abstraction from the political and economicconditions of its supply. Similarly, ‘participation’is a managed process involving many institutional intermediaries.A series of illustrative case-studies is presented, relatingto the allocation of state-owned land; state-facilitated ‘market’access to privately-owned land; the reconstruction and partialprivatization of a para-statal development agency, which havebrought into question the viability of a ‘community conservation’project and also exposed the agency to political cross-fire;and, finally, some intricacies of the possibility of land restitutionto people dispossessed under apartheid, which raises the questionof whether the concept of indirect racial discrimination maybe applied in the South African context. Several contradictionsof the process of land redistribution are analysed: for example,the massive financial costs, direct and indirect, of bringingprojects to fruition in the short term, without resolution ofthe need for long-term support; the divergence between nominaland actual beneficiaries; political and institutional conflicts,both inside and outside the state; and routine incompatibilitybetween the diverse aspirations of beneficiaries and the ‘businessplans’ required by bureaucrats and suppliers of credit.     

DROUGHT: THE ACHILLES HEEL OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Approximately 97% of the country is experiencing drought conditions. Due to gross water mismanagement and its damaging impact on the country, Iran faces the worst situation in water resources of any industrialized nation. Tens of thousands of villages have been deserted and most of the major urban centers have passed their limits to absorb new rural migrants. Some officials predict that in less than 25 years, 50 million Iranians would be displaced from their current homes because of the pressing ecological conditions. This is happening at the time that the gap between the grassroots and the state has widened and there is increasing dissatisfaction with governance plagued by corruption, nepotism, economic mismanagement, unaccountability and a foreign policy which has produced various regional and trans-regional adversaries. This paper evaluates the pressing ecological challenges in Iran and by conceptualizing political resilience it critically evaluates whether the Islamic Republic is prepared to face the devastating ecological crisis and its socio-economic consequences.     

THE GHANAIAN ELECTIONS OF 1996: TOWARDS THE CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY?

Foreign donors expended over $23 million on micro-managing theDecember 1996 Ghanaian elections in an attempt to ensure thatthe process was technically ‘free and fair’. Owingpartly to this expenditure and partly to the efficiency andimpartiality of the Electoral Commission, the conduct of theelections was in fact remarkably technically correct. The losingopposition parties still complained, however, that PresidentRawlings and his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC),exploited the advantages of incumbency to a degree that renderedthe result ‘free but not really fair’. The articleargues that such very limited acceptance of election results,however justified or unjustified, is almost bound to obtainin economically underdeveloped African societies where, partlyfor structural and partly for cultural reason, politics continuesto be very much a zero-sum game characterized by high levelsof distrust. This in turn suggests limits to the likely consolidationof multi-party democracy. The article also analyses the reasonsfor the electoral victory of Rawlings and the NDC, arguing thatit hinged on the rural population's trust in Rawlings' abilityto provide rural development and political stability.     

THE PUNDITS: SURVEYING THE FRONTIERS OF INDIA IN THE GREAT GAME

This article provides an overview of the development of the exploration, mapping and surveying of the frontier territories of India in the 19^th century and the context of the Great Game with Russia. It pays particular attention to the Pundits, the native surveyors trained by British officers who made long surveying journeys into the borderlands of the Himalayas and Tibet. It gives an account of the explorations of pundits including Nain Singh, Kishen Singh, Sarat Chandra Das, Kintup, and Ugyen Gatso.