The symposium, State, Democracy and the Promise of Development: South Africa in comparative perspective is taking place at Wits University on 15 and 16 May, in collaboration with Brown University.
In the 2024 national elections, the African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority for the first time, and post-apartheid South Africa was launched into an era of national coalition-building with a ‘Government of National Unity’. Despite significant expansion of public service delivery in the first two decades of democracy, recent regression in water and other service provision, deteriorating infrastructure, increasing inequality, and perceptions of high levels of corruption, have produced a decline in trust in the state, especially in local government. The country is at an inflection point. The ANC has been pushed into governing nationally alongside its erstwhile opponents, the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party.
Starting from this new political situation, this symposium investigates the past and the future of democracy and the state in South Africa. This includes the state’s role and capacities in social and economic transformation, the social and political costs of failure to deliver public goods, and how this might shift attitudes to the state and democratic institutions. The symposium adopts a comparative approach, examining how other countries face similar challenges, and identifying key parallels and differences with reference to the future of the state and democracy.
The event, a joint Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and Brown University two-day symposium, will be held at the University of Witwatersrand. Panels will be organised around the following themes:
• State building and state capacity
• Local government and urban crisis
• Democratic and anti-democratic practices
• Social activism, contentious politics, and claim making
• Development and redistribution
