Abstract

The post-apartheid government in South Africa has provided increased opportunities for public participation at the local government level. Local party politics tend to bedevil these local participatory processes. This paper discusses ANC party politics and how they impact on public participation. It draws on a case study of five municipalities in the Cape Winelands District of the Western Cape that was conducted through semi-structured interviews and secondary data analysis. Local ANC politics has a huge impact on local government structures and their participatory processes. The ANC is a unitary structure in its policy but there is a lack of uniformity in understanding, commitment, and implementation of participatory policies at different levels of the organisation and government spheres. Some deployed public representatives work to advance themselves and their factions, at the expense of the ANC and the communities they are supposed to be leading. The findings of this study have as much significance for civil society as for the local state and its representatives. They show that it is not always the case that the state is bad and civil society is good as leaders of civil society get involved in clientelist relationships and blatant corruption.

摘要

南非种族隔离后的政府为地方政府层面的公众参与提供了更多机会。地方政党政治往往会扰乱这些地方参与过程。本文讨论了 ANC 政党政治及其对公众参与的影响。它借鉴了西开普省开普酒乡区五个城市的案例研究，该研究是通过半结构化访谈和二次数据分析进行的。地方非国大政治对地方政府结构及其参与过程具有巨大影响。非洲人国民大会在其政策上是一个单一的结构，但在组织和政府领域的不同级别的参与性政策的理解、承诺和实施方面缺乏统一性。一些已部署的公共代表以牺牲非国大和他们本应领导的社区为代价，努力提升自己和他们的派系。这项研究的结果对公民社会和地方政府及其代表都具有同样重要的意义。它们表明，当公民社会的领导人卷入附庸关系和公然腐败时，并不总是国家不好而公民社会好的情况。