Limits to liberation in southern Africa
Subtitle: the unfinished business of democratic consolidation
By: edited by Henning Melber.
Contributors: Melber, Henning.
Publisher: HSRC Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Cape Town, South Africa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 231
Subjects: Democracy -- Africa, Southern -- Congresses.; Democratization -- Africa, Southern -- Congresses.; Africa, Southern -- Politics and government -- 1994- -- Congresses.
Genres: Congresses.
Description: The analyses in this collection provide a basis for a debate that is becoming increasingly necessary: has the politics of liberation in southern Africa run its course. With chapters on Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana and South Africa, the contributors pose a number of critical questions: Why is it that 'post-liberation' politics, rather than leading to participatory democracy, seem to be leading to political oppression and decay? -- Are liberation politics inherently undemocratic, or are current tendencies towards authoritarianism an outcome of other forces? -- Is the model of liberal democracy adopted by post-liberation societies inherently elitist, lending itself to the effective suppression or containment of popular opinions and aspirations?
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Revised versions of most of the papers originally presented at the conference on '(Re-)Conceptualising Democracy and Liberation in Southern Africa', July 2002, Windhoek.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Henning Melber; title: Democracy and the control of elites / Kenneth Good; title: Liberation and opposition in Zimbabwe / Suzanne Dansereau; title: In defence of national sovereignty? : urban governance and democracy in Zimbabwe / Amin Kamete; title: As good as it gets? : Botswana's "democratic development" / Ian Taylor; title: Chieftaincy and the negotiation of might and right in Botswana's democracy / Francis B. Nyamnjoh; title: Between competing paradigms : post-colonial legitimacy in Lesotho / Roger Southall; title: From controlled change to change control : the case of Namibia / Henning Melber; title: Armed struggle in South Africa : consequences of a strategy debate / Martin Legassick; title: Culture(s) of the African National Congress of South Africa : imprint of exile experiences / Raymond Suttner; title: Liberal or liberation framework? : the contradictions of ANC rule in South Africa / Krista Johnson.