From consensual decision -making to conventional politics: Popular participation in contemporary South Africa

This dissertation is an examination of the democratization process in South Africa and the reorganization of state/society relations in post-apartheid society. It seeks to explain how and why there occurred a Shift from the popular politics espoused during the anti-apartheid struggle to conventional liberal politics being consolidated by the African National Congress (ANC) government today.;The analytical heart of this dissertation revolves around the continuing dialectic between the African National Congress as vanguard party and the spontaneous, revolutionary, popular democratic organizations that emerged during the anti-apartheid struggle outside the liberation movement but in alliance to it. A crucial aspect of this dialectic is the interplay between spontaneous, decentralized mass action and coordinated, coherent leadership and organization. Understanding this dialectic in continuous rather than dichotomous terms reveals that the balance between mass action and leadership is not fixed, but varies under different circumstances. By showing where various actors fall on this dialectical continuum and what factors precipitate a shift in emphasis with the dialectic a much clearer picture emerges of the process of democratization and the ways in which the revolutionary leadership interprets and acts upon the structural conditions that contextualize the struggle they lead.;My research focuses on this political debate and struggle largely through the lens of a debate in the Welfare sector concerning the new Child Support Grant. The analysis shows that despite the ANC's radical ideology and rhetoric of popular participation and people-driven transformation, it shares) with most elitist, liberal political parties a similar understanding of the role of leadership, representation and participation, and hierarchical understanding of the relationship between rulers and ruled. However, given South Africa's history of mass mobilization and popular participation during the anti-apartheid struggle, where civil society was politicized from below and focused on not simply opposing the state or seizing state power but redefining the form of the state and its relationship to society, the dominant approach currently promoted by the ANC leadership remains highly contested.