IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/padxxx/v41y2021i4p169-179.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Capturing South Africa's developmental state: State‐society relations and responses to state capture

Author

Listed:
  • Isaac Khambule

Abstract

Under the leadership of the governing African National Congress, the South African government has long touted the idea of becoming a developmental state as the country's ultimate response to rising unemployment, poverty and inequality. This idea aligns with the rapid economic growth and industrialization experienced by the East Asian developmental states through directing the state's administrative capacities, resources and policies towards attaining national developmental goals. Similarly, the National Development Plan pins South Africa's developmental state ambition on creating a capable developmental state and the formation of dynamic institutions capable of utilizing the state's administrative powers, resources and policies to pursue developmental goals. However, the country's state institutions, administrative capacities and resources have been challenged by the state capture debacle that shed light on the corrupt relationship between the political elite and the business elite. This article explores civil society's response to state capture and analyzes the impact of civil society's responses on South Africa's developmental state ambition. The article reveals that the state‐society relations had a significant effect on fighting the state‐business corrupt arrangement by mobilizing nationwide protests that solidified South Africa's emerging democratic developmental state framework embedded in state‐society relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaac Khambule, 2021. "Capturing South Africa's developmental state: State‐society relations and responses to state capture," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 169-179, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:41:y:2021:i:4:p:169-179
    DOI: 10.1002/pad.1912
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1912
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pad.1912?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elizabeth Thurbon, 2020. "The Future of Financial Activism in Taiwan? The Utility of a Mindset-centred Analysis of Developmental States and Their Evolution," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 320-336, April.
    2. Robert H. Wade, 2018. "The Developmental State: Dead or Alive?," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 518-546, March.
    3. Roger Southall, 2014. "Democracy at Risk? Politics and Governance under the ANC," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 652(1), pages 48-69, March.
    4. Wade, Robert H., 2018. "The developmental state: dead or alive?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87356, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Peter Evans & Patrick Heller, 2018. "The state and development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-112, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. World Bank, 2015. "World Development Indicators 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21634.
    7. Jennifer Hsu, 2018. "The developmental state of the twenty-first century: accounting for state and society," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 1098-1114, June.
    8. Mkandawire, Thandika, 2001. "Thinking about Developmental States in Africa," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 25(3), pages 289-313, May.
    9. Jewellord Nem Singh & Jesse Salah Ovadia, 2018. "The theory and practice of building developmental states in the Global South," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 1033-1055, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Temirlan T. Moldogaziev & Christopher Witko, 2023. "Revisiting the role of civic organizations in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan: Confidence, membership, and democratic practice," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 26-37, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniela Gabor, 2021. "The Wall Street Consensus," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 429-459, May.
    2. Gabor, Daniela & Braun, Benjamin, 2023. "Green macrofinancial regimes," SocArXiv 4pkv8, Center for Open Science.
    3. Pape, Fabian & Petry, Johannes, 2023. "East Asia and the politics of global finance: a developmental challenge to the neoliberal consensus?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118296, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Gabor, Daniela, 2020. "The Wall Street Consensus," SocArXiv wab8m, Center for Open Science.
    5. Ben Fine & Seeraj Mohamed, 2022. "Locating Industrial Policy in Developmental Transformation: Lessons from the Past, Prospects for the Future," Working Papers 247, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    6. Gary Gereffi, 2020. "What does the COVID-19 pandemic teach us about global value chains? The case of medical supplies," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(3), pages 287-301, September.
    7. Naseemullah, Adnan, 2023. "The political economy of national development: A research agenda after neoliberal reform?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    8. Fu-Hsuan Chen & Hao-Ren Liu, 2021. "Evaluation of Sustainable Development in Six Transformation Fields of the Central Taiwan Science Park," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-14, April.
    9. Kelecha, Mebratu, 2022. "A critique of building a developmental state in the EPRDF's Ethiopia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Ioanna Kastelli & Lukasz Mamica & Keun Lee, 2023. "New perspectives and issues in industrial policy for sustainable development: from developmental and entrepreneurial to environmental state," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, April.
    11. Münch, Florian Anselm & Scheifele, Fabian, 2023. "Nurturing national champions? Local content in solar auctions and firm innovation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    12. Reda Cherif & Fuad Hasanov, 2019. "The Return of the Policy That Shall Not Be Named: Principles of Industrial Policy," IMF Working Papers 2019/074, International Monetary Fund.
    13. John Weiss & Adnan Seric, 2021. "Industrial policy: Clarifying options through taxonomy and decision trees," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 39(5), pages 773-788, September.
    14. Jakub Szabó, 2022. "Political Economy of Illiberal Capitalism in Hungary and Poland," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2022(5), pages 617-637.
    15. Stöllinger, Roman & Leitner, Sandra M. & Zavarska, Zuzana, 2023. "Functional specialisation and working conditions in Europe," Working Paper Forschungsförderung 284, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    16. Calabrese, Linda & Cao, Yue, 2021. "Managing the Belt and Road: Agency and development in Cambodia and Myanmar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    17. Klingler-Vidra, Robyn & Wade, Robert, 2020. "Science and technology policies and the middle-income trap: lessons from Vietnam," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100712, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Daniela Gabor & Ndongo Samba Sylla, 2023. "Derisking Developmentalism: A Tale of Green Hydrogen," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(5), pages 1169-1196, September.
    19. Andrés Madariaga, 2020. "Targeting Industrial Policy on Business Services: Rationales and Design for the Case of Chile," SPRU Working Paper Series 2020-06, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    20. Önder Nomaler & Danilo Spinola & Bart Verspagen, 2024. "Demand‐led industrialisation policy in a dual‐sector small open economy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(3), pages 339-376, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:41:y:2021:i:4:p:169-179. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0271-2075 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.