Progressive academic economists & the Challenge of development in South Africa's decade of liberation

This article examines the relationship between progressive academic economists and anti‐apartheid social movements in the period that has come to be known as South Africa's decade of liberation, roughly the mid‐1980s to the mid‐1990s. It does so through a critical examination of the interaction of progressive economists with social movements in South Africa since 1985, an interaction which occurred in the main via policy research networks and think‐tanks. The article also explores the major trends in the relationship between progressive economists and social movements over the decade of liberation and attempts to provide some tentative answers to the controversial question of why many of South Africa's progressive economists underwent a sea change in their economic thinking by the mid‐1990s. The argument is that South African academics and intellectuals (like those elsewhere) are far from independent; they are the creatures and creations of their time. Their positions depend upon their shifting circumstances and the demands placed on them. Ultimately, the explanation for the change in economics thinking rests on the politics of the transition itself, although other factors may contribute to explaining why the shift was so extreme and so pervasive.