The State, Capture and Revolution in Contemporary South Africa

” We will see that the struggle against corruption in South Africa is really a struggle about the form of the state. In this sense the term shows a field of ideological contestation. On the one side are proponents of a liberal idea of the state. On the other are those who defend patronage in the name of ‘state transformation’ or the ‘theory of national democratic revolution’. We will see that it is difficult to appreciate the tenacity of corruption in South Africa and elsewhere unless we appreciate that corrupt practices are also discursive practices, that is, that they express political-ideological commitments.”