Introduction
South Africa is a democratic nation
located in the Southern region of Africa and has a population of more than 44
million people. It borders Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe in its north and
borders Swaziland and Mozambique on its eastern side. It has a coastline from
its western side through the south to the east side along the South Atlantic
Ocean and Indian Ocean.
South Africa gained its independence
from the Dutch settlers in 1994 and there has been tremendous improvement in
its quality of democracy. There are many variables that have contributed to its
democracy, like the reconciliation act which was vehicled by the late Nelson
Mandela, South Africa’s first black democratic president when it gained its independence
in 1994. Mandela instilled reconciliation between the white minority and the
South Africans as a way for the country’s progression and also to focus more on
development. If nothing had been done about reconciling with the white minority
who ruled the South Africans in an inhumane manner during apartheid, South
Africa would probably be in the sphere of illiberal democracy.
South Africa can be regarded as a
country that undertook the Golden path to democratization. A golden path
requires a state and a strong bourgeoisie/ balanced economy which leads the
country to the country’s democracy through bargaining between the two variables.
One intervening variable that led to South Africa’s democracy is its economy.
Another essential variable basically
required for a country to be democratic and furthermore have good quality of
democracy is institutionalization. Since South Africa gained independence, the
dominant party, African National Congress (ANC) has introduced some government
institutions: Public Protector, Commission for the Protection of Human Rights
of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, Commission for Gender
Equality, Audit General and South African Human Rights Commission. These
institutions play a major role in providing services for the citizens. However,
with the reconciliation act in place, a stable economy, and numerous government
institutions, there have been results of poor service delivery to the citizens
which causes the country to have a low and/or poor quality of democracy.
Theory: Democracy and
Quality of Democracy
Democracy
is the type of government system whereby the citizens have the utmost right to
participate by electing their constituent representatives in the government. For
this to occur, there are certain requirements that have to be met which are:
alternative sources of information for citizens, multiple political parties, free
and fair elections, divided rule of law/vertical and horizontal ties and competition
or universal participation. There are certain aspects that the government has
to take into consideration as well in order for there to be democracy, the country’s
economic performances, institutionalisation, and the vast cultures it has. However,
ones definition of democracy may be different to another depending on their own
historical backgrounds. Indonesia’s democratic meaning may totally be different
to that of Democratic Republic of Congo’s.
Most
developed countries like South Africa are democratic but differ on their
qualities of democracy. Quality of democracy is the extent at which a government
provides services to its citizens in terms of its responsiveness, level of
freedom, rule of law, participation, vertical and horizontal accountability and
competition (Diamond & Morlino, 2004). A country may provide efficient
educational services but there are no alternative sources of information to its
citizens or free and fair elections. In other words, it practically won’t be a
democratic nation henceforth the quality of democracy becomes low. In most
instances, these aspects which make up a good quality of democracy have to work
hand in hand and link with one another for there to be the best quality of
democracy.
A
government may have democracy but does not have a good quality of democracy,
meaning that it is not responsive in providing information to its regional
offices or even members of the public. It automatically becomes an unreliable
source of information or even lender of last resort. Government institutions
may bring up ideas on how to respond to certain societal issues, but the vital
strand is on implementing those ideals. Idealism alone is not effective if
there is no action. Democracy and quality of democracy are linked together in
the sense that they both have the fundamental characteristics which are rule of
law, alternative sources of information, free and fair elections and universal
suffrage. The difference is that, quality of democracy goes way beyond
obtaining these fundamentals but it’s the rate at which the government is
responsive to the ideas they would have brought up.
When
South Africa gained its independence in 1994, it became a democratic nation
meaning that every citizen now had the opportunity to vote for free and fair
elections. There has been a tremendous improvement if we compare the country’s
quality of democracy today with that it had in 1994 when it obtained its
independence. However on the other hand, there have been complaints from its
citizens about the poor service delivery the ruling party African National
Congress (ANC) is now providing. It comes to the fact that people now compare
qualities of democracy between nations rather than comparing the rate it has
attained chronologically since it gained its independence. Since South Africa
gained its independence, there were government institutions that were launched
like Public Protector, Commission for the Protection of Human Rights of
Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, Commission for Gender Equality,
Audit General and South African Human Rights Commission.
There
must be effective institutional performances to bring out a good democratic
state. One of the government institutions that has contributed to the now good
quality of democracy in South Africa is the Public Protector. This institution
works to strengthen the country’s democracy by investigating and redressing
unethical actions and prejudicial conduct, misadministration and abuse of power
in state affairs, advising and investigating violations of the Executive
Members. There is a basic model for government institutions which is: societal
demands > political interaction > government > policy choice >
implementation (Putnam, 1993.p 9) Members of the society submit their complaints
to the Public Protector which involves political interaction with the
government causing to implement their ideas and laws according to the policies
in the constitution. This keeps the ruling party in the government on the right
path in providing good governance. Henceforth it provides people the most
efficient services as well as good living and working conditions.
Governments
must be reliable, comprehensive and also correspond to the objectives and
evaluations of the institutions. If it doesn’t, the citizens lose their trust
on the institutions performances. If there is misadministration and abuse of
political power by the ruling party and if the Public Protector does nothing
about it, a nation becomes undemocratic. They would then be suspected of
corrupt activities or working together with the ruling government than
performing their duties effectively.
This basically shows the importance of such institutions to make
democracy work and furthermore to obtain a good quality of democracy.
South
Africa is a multi-political party state with about thirteen political parties
but only three of them are vibrant. These are the African National Congress
(ANC), Democratic Alliance (D.A) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). ANC was
founded in 1912 and has been the ruling party since South Africa gained its
independence. What has brought ANC to remain in power is that it has an
alliance with two political parties, Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU) and South African Communist Party (SACP). Basically these two
political parties had the same ideal with that of the ANC and rather joined
together to meet their objectives which was to fight for freedom and defend
their human rights, not only that but also to eradicate political violence between
the three parties’ supporters. ANC now
controls eight of the countries nine provinces.
In
May 1994, South Africans obtained their first universal suffrage, free and fair
elections with African
National Congress (ANC) having 62 percent of the votes, National Party (NP) 20
percent and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) with 10 percent. This is the time
Nelson Mandela was declared the president of the Republican of South Africa. It
was the rise of democracy in South Africa due to universal-suffrage/participation
of the citizens. People could now elect their constituent representatives in
the government, which is basically one of the principles of democracy. ANC won
the 1999 elections again acquiring a 66.4% win over the other parties and Thabo
Mbeki was sworn in as South Africa’s second democratic president succeeding
Nelson Mandela. The ANC won 266 seats and the number of votes increased
compared to prior elections in 1994 due to more participation and equality of
the citizens.
Democratic
Alliance founded during apartheid in the early 1970s formerly known as the
Democratic Party, became the main opposition party in 1999 winning more votes
than The National Party which was the governing party during the apartheid era.
It changed its name in 2000 when it merged with the New National Party
Democratic Alliance. The National party changed its name to New National Party
in 1997 when the Government of National Unity was disarmed. The cause of it
changing its name was actually a way of eliminating its element of apartheid
and start new as a whole non-racial political party. It then split in 2005 because its policies were
however still in support of the apartheid ideologies and this was one of ANC’s
objectives: to go against it and fight for freedom and defend their human
rights.
The
DA increased the number of its votes from 1.8% in 1994 to 9.6% in 1999 (then
called Democratic Party). 12.4% in 2004. From 16.7% in 2009 to 22.2% in 2014. The
slow increase in the DA’s votes can somehow signify the decrease in service
delivery from the ANC. People are no longer receiving the services they expected
to have, that is why they are slowly drifting away from ANC to other political
parties like DA.
Putnam
explains his theory of what makes democracy work with his case study on Italy’s
transition to democracy due to institutions, culture and money. South Africa is
one other country that gained its democracy through this theory.
DATA:
CASE STUDY
Information
for this research was obtained from a review and analysis of the South African
constitution by comparing its laws and rights to its citizens and the services
it provides. More was obtained from official South African and international
organizations statistics and experts in quality of a country’s democracy. This
research of the quality of South Africa’s democracy is essentially qualitative
research. The reason for this type of research on such a particular topic is
that, qualitative research is much more subjective and uses many different
methods of collecting information like individual, in-depth interviews and
documents analysis.
This
type of research is exploratory and open-ended henceforth providing a broad
amount of factual information. It basically generates, rich detailed
information that provides an in-depth of the understanding of the quality of
South Africa’s democracy. In 1996 a large number of countries praised and
admired South Africa’s constitution as it was referred liberal because it holds
a lot of both political and socio-economic rights. The Republic of South Africa has improved
tremendously on development and its quality of democracy as a result of free
and fair elections, strong institutionalisation, well improved participation of
women in politics, engagement of vast media in providing information to its citizens
and comprehensive political and socio-economic rights.
In
order to see the type and quality of a country’s democracy, there basically has
to be an audit of that country’s democratic state through a thorough research. Since
South Africa gained its independence in 1994, it has improved on its level of
democracy as compared to how it was before it was an independent state.
Comparing it with other global states, it may be one of the countries that
still needs to improve well on the quality of its democracy due to some
factors. Both South African citizens and international governments foresee a
weakening and crumbling quality of democracy in South Africa. Citizens are
slowly drifting out of the political sphere and participation because of lack
of trust towards the ruling party African National Congress (ANC) and its
government.
There
has been an increase in violent criminal activities which have also contributed
to massive xenophobic attacks against foreigners in the year 2008 and 2015 due
to lack of education, a high unemployment rate which is at 25%, poor service
delivery, unscrupulous corruption activities by both government officials and
citizens, a concern over the wide
dominance of the
ANC party in government, economic gap between societies and racialization, (Assessing quality of democracy WWW digi space)
South
Africa’s apartheid era is one variable that shaped its future and also led to
its democracy. Before South Africa gained its independence, the then ruling
party, National Party (N.P) under apartheid rule institutionalized racial
segregation towards the black majority. However, after independence, there was
now an act of reconciliation which was vehicled by the newly elected president
Nelson Mandela. In this theory, the independent variable is Nelson Mandela. In
a way, if Nelson Mandela was not there, there wouldn’t be reconciliation and if
there was no reconciliation, there wouldn’t be development or any successful
production towards the movement for a democratic change in the country.
What
then followed was that Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s successor was more focused on
Black Economic Empowerment which was actually a way of removing the white
minority’s economic and political influence. He did not realise that this would
later trigger hatred by the Zulu people towards the white minority and other
foreigners as well. Mandela had sort to reconcile with their former white
rulers and find a path for the country’s democracy but it seems like that
ideology was not really favoured by other ANC members. One of the end results
of the Black Economic Empowerment are the 2008 and 2015 xenophobic attacks on
foreigners. This clearly shows that South Africans no longer have that culture
within themselves of reconciliation that Mandela tried to instil within them.
South Africa is regarded as, or rather, it was regarded as a rainbow nation,
but with such inhumane acts, the quality of its democracy is slowly crumbling
down like a deck of cards.
We
can refer to Nelson Mandela as one intervening variable which drove to South
Africa’s democracy. For South Africa to have been democratic, there somehow was
the need of reconciliation between the blacks and the whites despite the
injustice acts towards the blacks during apartheid. However this does not mean
justice should not prevail, it should be instilled and probe those who were
involved in inhumane activities. People should not forget what occurred in
their past in order for them not to repeat the same mistakes that others did.
What occurred during apartheid is becoming similar with the activities that are
happening in the xenophobic attacks.
This
literally disrupts the good quality of democracy because the human rights are
simply being violated. If Nelson Mandela had decided to revenge for apartheid,
South Africa would be under-developed and probably be one of the worst and
undemocratic nations in Africa.
South
Africa has been in a dominant party system since its first elections in 1994
overly being ruled only by African National Congress (ANC). Dominant party
system is a hegemonic party system – a restrictive system where opposition
parties are legal but have little chance of seriously competing, (Diamond & Morlino, the quality of
democracy). South Africa has a political system marked not only by free and
fair elections, but also by the rule of law, a separation of power and the
protection of the basic liberties of speech, religion, assembly and property.
The ruling party has a majority of traditionalist Zulu ethnic people hence it
being the dominant party because of its support.
South
Africa’s population of 44 million people comprises approximately 75% black, 13.6%
whites, 8.6% coloured and 2.6% Indian. This is the advantage of the ANC as it
has gained votes through this way. Political analysts argued that voters in
1994 and 1999 elections voted on the basis of race or ethnicity. So culture,
tradition and history plays a huge roll on the country’s quality of democracy.
(Lawson et al, 2010, p.107) “Democracy is an ever changing system susceptible
to the whims of the people. With its source of authority being inconsistent, it
is a volatile system of government, which changes its colours according to who
is in office.” According to the chart on figure 1.0, since independence there
has been a decline of percentage votes for ANC until 2014 elections. At the
same time, there has been an increase in votes for the Democratic Alliance
(D.A).
African
National Congress’s ideologies have been changing and some of the people’s
services are not being delivered. The rate of unemployment low education
service and poor health service is increasing resulting in people lacking trust
on ANC. Few people are now participating in politics as they find no use in
doing so because their needs which they requested for are not being met.
Quality of democracy ensures that there is a high level of universal suffrage,
free and fair elections, rule of law, service delivery, human rights, multiple
political parties and alternative sources of information. A lack of one of
these, shows a poor quality of the country’s democracy.
South
Africa has been on a long journey towards liberal democracy, however, it is
still in the process of democratic consolidation. (Jervis, 1999, p. 75) “Democratic
consolidation means little or no probability that a country will abandon
regular free and fair multi-party elections as a way of selecting its rulers.” A country’s structure is sometimes influenced
by its past events. History sometimes repeats itself and in other ways, it
shapes the country’s future.
South
Africa’s economy has grown tremendously. Its stable economy is one intervening
variable that brought up democracy in the country. Usually, one of a country’s
way of gaining democracy is using the Golden Path (Putnam, 1993, p. 75). This
is when a sovereign state is accompanied by a stable and increasing economy
which has an output of a democratic nation.
Sovereign
State + Bourgeoisie =
Democracy
(Capitalism/stable economy)
A country with a weak economy means
it cannot afford to provide adequate basic human services like healthcare and
education. When services are not being driven to the people, it means it is
undemocratic and service delivery is one of the pillars of democracy and a
fundamental variable for the quality of democracy. Diamond stated that “deep
cumulative social inequalities represent a poor foundation for democracy.”
Discussion
While
researching on South Africa’s quality of democracy, I noticed that almost all
governments in most national states have institutions, but they still need to
have good institutions in order to have good quality of democracy. Culture also
contributes to how democracy is formed and shaped, because history shapes the
future. This brings out the reason why governments encourage citizens to create
associations. Associations and local governments cause people to gather up
ideas which would be passed to government officials for the services that need
to be improved within a community.
In the case of
association building, it was positive on one side and negative on the other.
The good thing about South African associations is that they have brought
people together which has made use of the vertical accountability to keep checks
and balances on the government and institutions. Associations are regarded as a
good thing for building up of a democracy, but too much of a good thing can be
bad. South Africa has an increasing rate of unemployment. This also creates
people to form up different kinds of associations; prostitutes, illegal
vendors, drug cartels and also small petty criminals. Xenophobia was caused by
an insignificant number of people from within these kind of associations.
Associations are good but not all associations bring out positive outputs for
the democratization of a country.
Culture is very
important for a nation’s build-up, it leads to cooperation and collective
action which creates associations. When associations are formed, there are two
types of links which can be formed, either horizontal links or vertical links.
These are hierarchical links in which a constituent’s request can reach the
president through the mayor, governor or members of the parliament. Putnam,
referring to Italy’s civic associations, stated that “Councillors in
Emilia-Romania, the most civic regions, reported seeing fewer than twenty
Constituents in an average week as compared with fifty five contacts in the
least civic Regions.” This results in services in the less civic societies
being low, for example education, health care and transportation in the
Southern regions of Italy like Naples which performs dismally. So culture is
important as it contributes to making democracy work within a nation.
Conclusion
With the use of qualitative research,
I have learnt that what is needed in order to gain the quality of democracy in
one country may not work for another country. This brings out the explanation
as to why a country with a strong and sufficient economy may not bring out the
proper services to its citizens. Putnam states that “institutionalisation is
vital for the democracy of a country to stand at a good level however that same
theory may not work for another country due to cultural differences.”
In the case of South Africa,
culture, history and tradition played a major role to bring up democracy at the
time it gained its democracy in 1994. Other intervening variables like great
government institutionalization also brought up to the theory of democracy in South
Africa. When it attained its democracy in 1994 instilling Nelson Mandela as the
first South African president, it made an impulsive move to democracy by
firstly having free and fair elections where every citizen above the age of
eighteen was given the privilege to vote. There was universal suffrage/participation,
an eruption of different independent political parties and creation of
government institutions.
South Africa is a medium level
democracy. The ruling party, African National Congress has maintained dominance
through four elections, posing threat to competitiveness of the party system.
Although the party has not used its authority to change any laws, it seems as
if its responsiveness towards citizen’s needs and services is now lowering. In
order to ensure political, social development security, and growth as a
democracy, they must address their governmental accountability and performance.
South focused more on its apartheid issue, culture and tradition of the Zulu
dominance hence losing focus on its institutional responsiveness towards the
citizen’s services.
Bibliography
Assessing the
quality of democracy in South Africa 1999 - 2012. (2013). Retrieved from https://ujdigispace.uj.ac.za/handle/10210/8293
Democracy
assessment South Africa. (2013). Retrieved from
February, J. &
Neeta, M. D. (2010). Testing democracy:
Which way is South Africa going. Cape Town: Institute for
Democracy in South Africa.
Hamel, E., &
Brodie, M. (2006). A survey of South Africa ten years into the new democracy. International
Journal of Public Opinion Research 18. (3), 351 – 363.
Impact of
democracy on development: The case of South Africa. (2009). Retrieved from
Jervis, D. (1999).
Global economy and democracy in South Africa. The American Political Science
Review 93. (3), 70 - 761
Lawson. K et al
(2010) Political parties and democracy. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Media Club South Africa (2014) Retrieved from
Putnam. R (1993) Making democracy work. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Quality of
democracy (2004) Retrieved from
