Liberal Democracy and Peace in South Africa: The Pursuit of Freedom as Dignity

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Liberal Democracy and Peace in South Africa

Kotzé

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Kotzé

LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH AFRICA THE PURSUIT OF FREEDOM AS DIGNITY PIERRE DU TOIT AND HENNIE KOTZÉ

Kotzé

LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Copyright © Pierre du Toit and Hennie Kotzé, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–10888–2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Du Toit, P. van der P. (Pierre) Liberal democracy and peace in South Africa : the pursuit of freedom as dignity / Pierre du Toit and Hennie Kotzé. p. cm. ISBN 978–0–230–10888–2 (alk. paper) 1. Democratization—South Africa. 2. Toleration—South Africa. 3. Peace-building—South Africa. 4. South Africa—Politics and government—1989–1994. 5. South Africa—Politics and government— 1994– I. Kotzé, H. J. (Hendrik Jacobus), 1947– II. Title. JQ1981.T65 2010 320.968—dc22

2010019215

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: January 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

List of Figures and Tables

vii

Acknowledgments

xi

Introductory Comments 1 Introduction

xiii 1

2 Democratization, Liberalization, and Pacification

13

3 The State as Guardian?

35

4 Society in Transition: An Overview

69

5 Interpersonal Relations: Trust, Tolerance, and Gender

91

6 Religion, Evil, and Liberalization

133

7 Outsiders

159

8 Conclusion

173

Technical Appendix: Technical and Methodological Notes and Explanation

207

Notes

221

Index

243

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Kotzé

Figures and Tables

Figures 3.1 3.2

Political fatalities in South Africa, 1984–1998 Public confidence in central state institutions by race, 1981–2006 3.3 Elite confidence in state institutions, 2000–2007 3.4 Public confidence in civil society by race, 1981–2006 3.5 Elite confidence in civil society, 2000–2007 3.6 Public perception of the legitimacy of democracy, 1995–2006 3.7 Elite and public perceptions of the legitimacy of democracy 3.8.1 “Legal” public protest propensity by race, 1981–2006 3.8.2 “Illegal” public protest propensity by race, 1981–2006 3.9 “Legal” protest propensity of elites and the public by race 4.1 Number of serious crimes reported, 1990–1997 4.2 International murder and attempted murder rates, 2004 (rate per 100,000 of population) 5.1 Generalized trust among the public by race, 1981–2006 5.2 Generalized trust among the public by religiosity, 1981–2006 5.3 Free-rider index of the public by race, 1981–2006 (Percentage very intolerant) 5.4 Permissiveness index of the public by race, 1981–2006 (Percentage very intolerant) 7.1 Public tolerance toward immigrants/foreign workers by race, 1995–2006 8.1 CART analysis – death penalty (dependent variable) 8.2 Importance plot – death penalty (dependent variable) 8.3 CART analysis – elimination of evil threats (dependent variable) 8.4 Importance plot – elimination of evil threats (dependent variable) 8.5 CART analysis – immigration policy (dependent variable) 8.6 Importance plot – immigration policy (dependent variable)

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41 44 46 48 49 53 54 57 58 59 82 83 94 96 105 109 164 178 179 182 183 186 187

viii

FIGURES AND TABLES

Tables 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8.1 3.8.2 3.8.3 3.8.4 3.8.5 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10

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Public confidence in state institutions by social class, 2006 Public confidence in civil society by social class, 2006 Public confidence in state and non-state institutions, 1981–2006 Elite confidence in state and non-state institutions, 2000–2007 Public perceptions of the legitimacy of democracy by race, 1995–2006 Elite and public rankings of essential characteristics in a democracy Elite and public support for aspects of liberal democracy Liberal (first choice) priorities of the public, 1990–2006 (first battery) Liberal (first choice) priorities of the public, 1981–2006 (second battery) Liberal (first choice) priorities of the public, 1990–2006 (third battery) Elite and public assessment of democracy in South Africa Public assessment of government delivery by race, 2006 Elite and public perceptions about the death penalty, by race Elite perceptions about the death penalty, by sector, 2007 Elite perceptions about the death penalty, 1991–2007 Elite and public perceptions about the death penalty, by race and level of education Public perceptions about the death penalty, by social class, 2006 Personal disposable income per head by race, 1960 and 2007, at 2000 constant prices Changes in living conditions by household (actual numbers), 1996–2007 Contact crimes: Actual reported cases 1994/95 to 2007/08 Affirmative action and racial representativity in the SAPS and SANDF, March 2007: Actual employment and equity targets by race (Percentages) Generalized trust among the public, 1981–2006 Generalized trust among elites by sector and religiosity, 2007 Interpersonal trust of elites and the public Interpersonal trust of the public by race and social class, 2006 Interpersonal trust of elites by sector, 2007 Free-rider indicators of the public, 1981–2006 Free-rider index for the public, 1981–2006 Free-rider indicators of elites, 2000–2007 Permissiveness indicators of the public, 1981–2006 Permissiveness index for the public, 1981–2006

47 49 50 51 55 56 56 60 60 61 62 63 64 64 65 66 66 78 80 82 87 94 97 98 99 100 104 104 107 108 109

FIGURES AND TABLES 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 5.21 5.22 5.23 5.24 5.25 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5

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Permissiveness indicators of elites, 2000–2007 Permissiveness index for elites by sector and religiosity, 2007 Indicators of tolerance of people by the public, 1995–2006 Indexes for the public’s tolerance of people, 1995–2006 Permissive outsiders index for the public by religiosity, 1995–2006 Permissive outsiders index for the public by race, 1995–2006 Tolerance among the public by social class, 2006 Public attitudes toward women wanting children as single parents, 1981–2006 Public attitudes toward men being given preference for jobs during employment scarcity Public attitudes toward gender equality, 1995–2006 Public attitudes toward gender equality by race, 2006 Public attitudes toward gender equality by gender, 2006 Public attitudes toward gender equality by race and gender, 2006 Gender equality index by race and social class, 2006 Trust-tolerance matrix of the public toward people of a different race, 2006 Attendance at religious events by the public, 1981–2006 Religiosity of the public, 1981–2006 Practice of prayer/meditation among the public, 1981–2006 Importance of God among the public, 1981–2006 Religiousness index among the public by race and social class, 1981–2006 Public response pattern to items on Evil, 2006 Religious threat and religious policy support, public responses, 2006 Elite response pattern to items on Evil, 2007 Religious threat and religious policy support of the elites, 2007 Elite and public attitudes toward Evil Religious threat and religious policy support (Percentage with high threat perception and low support for policy) Religious threat perception of the public by social class, race, and religiosity, 2006 Public tolerance toward immigrants/foreign workers by social class, 2006 Policy preferences of the public toward foreigners, 1995–2006 Policy preference of the public toward foreigners by social class, 2006 Policy preferences of the public toward foreigners by race, 1995–2006 Elite tolerance toward immigrants/foreign workers, 2007

ix 110 111 112 113 114 115 115 118 119 119 120 121 122 123 131 136 136 136 137 138 146 147 147 148 149 149 150 163 165 165 166 166

x

FIGURES AND TABLES 7.6 7.7 8.1 8.2 8.3

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Elite attitudes toward migration issues, 1995 and 1997 Elite preferences of authorities’ actions against illegals, 1995 Multivariate regression: Attitudes toward the death penalty relative to trust, tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics Multivariate regression: Attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats relative to trust, tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics Multivariate regression: Attitudes toward immigration policy relative to trust, tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics

168 170 176 180 184

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to a number of institutions. Without their interest and assistance, this study would not have been possible. Our thanks go to the Open Society Foundation (OSF) whose generous support made possible the leverage funds for the fifth leg of the World Values Survey in South Africa in 2006. In many ways, the WVS has guided the elite survey and served as the foundation of this study. We would also like to extend our thanks to the National Business Initiative (NBI) for its recognition of the importance of values research. The NBI was instrumental in helping us to identify South Africa’s top companies and putting us into contact with their CEOs and directors. In this vein, we wish to express our deep appreciation to the South African corporate sector and especially to Xstrata, Goldfields, and South African Breweries Limited for their financial support and contributions to the World Values and Elite studies. We are much indebted to the National Research Foundation (NRF) for their financial assistance and support for research initiatives such as this undertaken in South Africa. (Reference numbers: IFR2008052300019 and IFR2008051600007). Our thanks go to our colleagues in the international research unit, the Transformation Research Initiative (TRI) led by Prof Ursula van Beek, sponsored by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation in Stockholm. We also wish to acknowledge the financial support for the Elite study offered by Daimler-Fonds in Germany, which made it possible for us to include Sweden, Chile, Poland, Turkey, Germany, and South Korea in the study. A special word of mention and gratitude is extended to our colleagues: Prof Martin Kidd, Center for Statistical Consulting, who undertook the CART analysis for this study; and Prof Edwin Hees, who was responsible for language editing. With a data base comprising many surveys conducted over a number of decades, this project has been assisted by many researchers in a variety of ways. The decisive work was that of merging all the data sets into two manageable units for the Elite and Public surveys. Many have contributed to this effort; however, we single out Cindy Lee Steenekamp, researcher at the Center for

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

International and Comparative Politics, as first among equals for her outstanding contribution to this project. Finally, we extend our thanks to the University of Stellenbosch, which not only functions as a home for the Center for International and Comparative Politics but also continues to financially support our research efforts.

*

*

*

Please note that any opinion, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the authors and not of the abovementioned institutions and/or organizations, and they do not accept any liability in regard thereto.

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Introductory Comments

This book is an overview of the attitudes of both elites and the public before, during, and after South Africa’s transition to democracy. This transition is both a process of democratization and of peace, and its success hinges on the establishment of a peaceful society in a consolidated democratic regime. Although analytically distinct, in practice these two objectives are intertwined, with the expectation that the structural changes that comprise the transition from the White authoritarian apartheid regime to the new democratic regime will yield changes in values and attitudes necessary for domestic peace. It is a widely held conviction that the spread of liberal values and attitudes are conducive to the pacification of societies emerging from civil conflict. We track some of these essential changes in values and attitudes that mark the transformation of South Africa to a more liberal society.

*

*

*

At the outset, it is necessary to mention three points of clarification regarding the Elite and Public attitudinal surveys. First, a note on terminology is appropriate. The race categories of Black/ African, Colored, White, and Indian/Asian were legal categories developed as cornerstones of the apartheid regime and legally defined in the Population Registration Act of 1950. These categories came to assume huge descriptive significance as they emerged through the years of apartheid rule to also connote disparities in wealth, social standing, and power. Even before the democratization of the regime in 1994, the legal standing of these categories was scrapped with the repeal of the Population Registration Act in 1991. The new rulers, the African National Congress (ANC), however, continue to use these categories in legislation, such as in the Employment Equity Act of 1998. In this study we therefore use the categories as listed above as descriptive categories only and not as an endorsement of any policy whatsoever. In the World Values Surveys the categories used are Black/White/Colored/Indian. Second, any interpretation of the 1981 data is done with caution as that data set was not representative of the adult population of South Africa and limited to mostly urban inhabitants and excluded those in the homelands.

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INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

Lastly, it should be stressed that this book incorporates an opinion-leader study, which implies that generalizations should not be made from elite opinion to the broader South African public. Generalizations are only possible from the World Values Surveys to the South African public.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

On May 24, 1994, newly inaugurated President Nelson Mandela opened South Africa’s first democratic parliament. This was an auspicious moment not only for the country, which had been ruled by colonial powers up to 1910 and a White racial oligarchy since then, but also for many outside South Africa who yearned for an end to racial dominance and a future of freedom and peace. The moment was also significant for the promise it held. In his address to Parliament, President Mandela expressed the goal of establishing a political order that would build on the freedom just achieved. And he defined this goal in these terms: “Our definition of freedom of the individual must be instructed by the fundamental objective to restore the human dignity of each and every South African.”1 In defining freedom as dignity, he envisioned the prospect of a liberal democratic future. Liberty, or freedom, is a core value of liberalism. When tied to dignity, other core values also get linked to it. Dignity encompasses, among other things, the rights to life and equality, and in Mandela’s definition these rights became inextricably intertwined. Furthermore, Mandela extended the horizon of freedom beyond the perimeters of state and regime. By making the human dignity of “each and every South African” the yardstick of success, he explicitly made space for the whole society to be considered part of this vision. Has Mandela’s liberal democratic political order been achieved, and if so, to what extent? The answer to this question is relevant for a number of reasons. First, what counts is that democracy in South Africa was established as the outcome of a peace process, and the democratization of the previous authoritarian apartheid regime was a vital, decisive, and indispensable ingredient in securing peace after decades of low-intensity violent conflict marked by cycles of revolt and repression. The South African experience has been hailed as a surprising and unexpected success among a few other African successes, such as Namibia in 1991 and Mozambique in 1994. There were also some ghastly failures

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2

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA

of other similar peace processes (an example being the failure of Rwanda’s Arusha peace accord in 1992 and its subsequent descent into genocide by 1994, which is acknowledged as the worst case in the post-cold war era). Other acknowledged successes in establishing democratic governments, according to Thomas Carothers’ work of 2002, include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia, Chile, Uruguay, and Taiwan. Hovering on the fringe of inclusion were Slovakia, Mexico, Brazil, Ghana, the Philippines, and South Korea. Many others had mixed results in democratization, being either less than fully democratic or having moved into what Carothers called the Gray Zone.2 (The nature of regimes in the Gray Zone will be discussed more fully with examples in the next chapter.) The body of work and policy prescriptions that convey the expectation of democracy being able to deliver peace can be broadly labeled as the theory of the liberal democratic peace. At its core is the proposition that democracies do not make war against one another, and that when a large number of such democracies coalesce into a system of interdependent trading partners guided by international law and international institutions, they constitute a zone of peace. Furthermore, such democracies also tend to shy away from making war on their own citizens, thus securing domestic peace as well. Extrapolating from this trend of democratic governance, it can be argued that the ever-elusive goal of global peace can realistically be pursued by steadily adding to the membership of states within this liberal democratic zone of peace—hence the deliberate foreign policy goal of major democracies and international institutions is to promote the process of democratization on the turbulent periphery of the democratic zone of peace. This periphery acquired a distinct label after Portugal, Greece, and Spain returned to civilian rule in 1974 as the so-called Third Wave of entrants into the democratic ranks. After the end of the cold war in 1989, this wave exhibited another forward surge with more countries stepping into the democratic zone. Active facilitation of peace processes in this Third Wave by agencies such as the UN and countries such as the United States, the post-cold war hegemon, and its willing allies invariably proceeded from the assumption that “If states can be democratized, then they will be pacified.”3 However, the various aspects of democracy that yield the pacification of society and the causal sequences that are subsumed within this proposition remain contested issues and subjects of ongoing debate, revision, and analysis. Of decisive importance in this debate are arguments over the sequential and indeed causal relationship between democratization, liberalization, and the pacification of society. The relevant aspects of these theoretical debates will be presented in the next chapter. A second reason why this discussion is important lies in the fact that South Africa occupies a significant position within the peripheral world of the Third Wave democracies. It was a racially polarized society with an affluent and powerful White oligarchy ruling over a mostly poor Black majority. The

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INTRODUCTION

3

ruling Whites held the disenfranchised Blacks in a subservient position with explicit racially defined policies of spatial separation in all social, cultural, and political spheres. In symbolic and emotive terms alone, this represented a highly charged conflict situation in the early 1960s, ready for rapid escalation into a very violent and protracted civil war.4 Considered a least likely candidate for even inclusion in the negotiating process in the search for peace through democracy, South Africans confounded many skeptics by achieving precisely that, that too with minimal third-party intervention, and they have held on to their negotiated regime for more than fifteen years to date. Reasons abound for considering South Africa as a least likely candidate for democratization. Jan Smuts, the famous Boer War General, Prime Minister, Field Marshal, and founding member of both the League of Nations and United Nations Organizations, once remarked that in South Africa “the worst, like the best, never happens.”5 We can modify this claim to state that some of the best and some of the worst happen in South Africa, making it a rather intricate society to understand. Two examples will illustrate this aspect. First, more than 20,000 people died in political violence during South Africa’s transition to democracy, yet the country successfully formed a Truth Commission that was hailed as one of the most extensive ever, which only a few other transitional democracies have dared to emulate. Second, South Africa still remains one of the most unequal societies in the world in terms of living standards, yet it has succeeded in providing social grants to almost one quarter of the population. Numerous analysts have pointed to weaknesses in the South African democratic regime and to its uneven democratic performance.6 Precisely because its successful democratic transition has not (yet) been matched by equally successful democratic consolidation, South Africa is a highly relevant case to consider in the context of Third Wave democratization. It is still possible for South Africa to successfully consolidate its democratic regime, but it could also slide into the so-called Gray Zone of hybrid regimes. As a candidate for entry into the ranks of the democratic zone of peace, the unevenness in South Africa’s democratic progress presents significant conditions that can generate potentially illuminating answers to the questions regarding the extent to which society has become peaceful or otherwise with the transition to democracy.

Delimitation We aim here to examine the above question, albeit within a delimited framework of analysis. Our first concern is with the domestic aspect of the democratic peace proposition, that is, the extent to which democratization curtails the use of lethal organized violence within the state, and not with any international

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dimension. Thus, the extent to which democracies are inhibited in the use of such violence in the form of war against one another is not a matter of concern to us. Domestic peace is achieved to the extent that societies succeed in establishing sustainable and inclusive relationships that are nonexploitative and in which direct and indirect violence, as well as the threat of such violence, is absent.7 Pacification is the process whereby actors who are potential agents of such lethal organized violence become increasingly less disposed to engage in such actions, do in fact engage less in such actions eventually, and become more amenable to establishing and maintaining relationships of peace, as described above. Pacification is a broad concept, with institutional, behavioral, and attitudinal dimensions. The institutional dimension of pacification entails rules, structures, and organizations that are geared to contain, limit, inhibit, or discourage the use of violence. Democratization is largely about a process of structural change, and this is why investigating the rules that limit or inhibit the use of violence is important for this study. In liberal democracies, a particular set of fundamental rules, usually contained in a Charter of Human Rights, provides the core prescriptions for pacification. While we do not want to describe in detail the process of regime change (which has received adequate attention in many other studies),8 we do aim to take note of these new regime rules in South Africa. The behavioral dimension of pacification is linked to the presence or absence of domestic violence, as opposed to international violence, which can be placed into a number of categories. The first entails socially organized violence against the state. This can range from civil war, insurrection, and organized protests, to terrorist attacks.9 Certain forms of violent organized crime also fall into this category. The second, civil violence, comprising individual or communally organized lethal actions against other civilians, varies widely, ranging from assaults to feuds, pogroms, lynching, genocides, terror, gang attacks, ethnic fights, ethnic riots, and certain types of murder.10 The last category includes instances of violence by the state against civilians. At one extreme end of the spectrum can be placed democide, the mass murder of civilians by the state.11 States can also be active parties to genocides, insurrections, and civil war. At the opposite end of the spectrum of state violence is law enforcement, where democratic states exercise their legitimate monopoly to partake in organized violence. This can also take lethal forms, especially with the exercise of the death penalty for specific crimes. We do not intend to describe the violent activities that characterize the absence of peace, or the decline in such activities that in itself indicates a move toward peace. Our interest here is rather in the third dimension of pacification: the values, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions that inhibit potential perpetrators of violence from committing violent actions, and the values that are conducive to motivating such actors to engage in building peaceful relationships.12 We are therefore interested in describing the presence or absence of attitudinal

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INTRODUCTION

5

components of a civic and political culture that can serve as a justification for violence, or even a call for violence, rather than the description of the acts of violence. There are three clusters of attitudes and opinions that are relevant to such a study. The first concerns views of the public at large toward selected aspects of the state and society. The state holds a monopoly on the use of public violence. With the democratization of the South African regime in 1994, this monopoly became legitimate.13 Not only does the state have the ability and rightful mandate to execute violence on behalf of its citizenry, but it also has the obligation to use its coercive force to protect the public against any rival organization that intends to use violence against its citizens. And it is also necessary that the democratic state itself is kept in check, through the rule of law, so that its coercive capacities are not used against its own citizens unlawfully. We measure and report on how members of the public judge key coercive agencies of the state, such as the police, military, the courts, and their political superiors in the regime, under an executive presidency. And we also report on the assessment by the public of the capacity of the state to ensure their physical safety and the public’s concomitant demands for state action in this regard. The institutions of society, and more particularly of civil society, are those that occupy the social space between the individual and the state.14 These include churches and labor unions but exclude institutions of marriage and traditional bodies that organize cultural rites of passage for new adult members of society. As with the institutions of the state and regime, civil society and its standing in the eyes of the elite and public are important for democracy, and for liberal democracy in particular, as these bodies offer a countervailing site of power to that of the state. The second cluster comprises attitudes that citizens hold toward one another. Hostility, prejudice, enmity, and aversion are bedrock attitudinal orientations that can dispose people toward violence. By contrast, attitudes of tolerance and interpersonal trust, along with norms of equality and reciprocity, favor the emergence and maintenance of the kind of cooperative and inclusive nonviolent relationships that define peace. We report on how measures of trust and tolerance among the South African public have shifted and changed with the process of democratic transition, which has continued into the protracted and ongoing attempt at democratic consolidation. Interpersonal relations are shaped by cultural values, and religion has served as the original source of values for most societies throughout history. We report on religiosity in South Africa and how it relates to other values and attitudes. One pervasive dimension of interpersonal relations is that of gender. The evolution of equality in gender relations is one of the leading indicators of liberalization in societies, and we track this trend in South Africa. The third cluster we are interested in consists of attitudes that relate to threat perceptions. Violence and the threat of violence within a democratic state and society are inimical to the establishment and maintenance of norms

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relevant to a stable peace. People who sense their physical safety to be under threat can respond in a variety of ways, many of which are not compatible with the notion of democratic peace. One defensive response may be to withdraw from the public domain and to seek security within the social units of the family and community, and/or the spatial domain of the walled suburb, the homogenous village or communal cluster, or the mono-ethnic region. Another may be to respond by meeting aggression with aggression on a collective selfhelp basis, such as by establishing vigilante groups or private security companies to patrol the physical and social domain of the social unit under threat. A third response would be to counter the threat with belligerence by demanding that the state step up its protection, with more stringent law enforcement, police action, and even military intervention against the perceived threat. None of these actions can be considered to be indicative of the pacification of society. Many of the attitudes mentioned above indicate that peaceful actions are favored when they reflect the values and beliefs of liberal thought. But liberalization is not identical with pacification. The theory of liberal democratic peace generally holds that liberal democracies are only peaceful in dealing with their own citizens and other liberal democracies. They have not been loath to go to war against authoritarian and totalitarian states. By making this distinction between democratization, liberalization and pacification, we will be able to trace whether there is compatibility or incompatibility between public attitudes and the actual constitutional rules of the newly democratic South Africa. Incompatibility or inconsistencies in rules, attitudes, and actions would be theoretically significant and also have policy relevance. They also reveal something of the nature of the society in transition and of the process of transition. In the case of South Africa, the first ingredient of transition is found in new rules, many of which are contained in the Bill of Human Rights of the constitution. It is of interest for this study to track how public attitudes have changed to become compatible with these rules, and how political and social actors have responded by their actions. We have selected three indicators to identify if there is a move toward a peaceful society. These are attitudes toward the death penalty, attitudes toward evil threats deemed lethal to the community, and attitudes toward foreign work-seekers. The death penalty was a feature of political life in predemocratic South Africa, and it was outlawed by the Constitutional Court on the basis of the right to life and the right to dignity, which are core values in the liberal doctrine of rights. The other two indicators are justified on empirical grounds as attitudinal dispositions that relate to instances of sustained and widespread lethal public violence, and hence they measure the violation of the very rights mentioned above: the right to life and right to dignity. Another delimitation is to draw a distinction between the values and attitudes of the elites and that of the general public in South Africa. The views of elites are important, according to Robert Dahl writing in his classic text

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INTRODUCTION

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Polyarchy, as they are more likely to have (moderately) elaborate and systematic sets of political beliefs compared to their counterparts among the general public, and they would be more likely to use these beliefs to guide their political actions than would be members of the general public. Lastly, and highly relevant to this study, the elites are considered to be more likely to shape political events, including events that bear on the transformation of regimes.15 In this South African study we identify positional elites, comprising those individuals occupying positions at the apex of the organizational grid within various sectors of society. We identify five such sectors in the 2006 survey, namely, the political, media, business, religious, and state bureaucratic sectors.16 For the purposes of this study the elite/public distinction holds additional analytical merit. It does matter if elites and the general public share perceptions of threat, because then those in the leadership positions can be expected to act in tandem with public concerns. It is equally important that elites and the general public share attitudes of trust and tolerance, as well as confidence in public institutions such as the police and courts, so that policy initiatives can be taken from a shared perspective on crucial aspects of the social world the society inhabits. Large degrees of incongruence between elites and the public, or between some sectors of the elite and some sectors of the public, inhibit effective public policy and the enlargement of democratic peace. The aims of this study are both descriptive and explanatory. Our intention is to track the attitudinal changes in liberalization and pacification that have accompanied the structural change as South Africa transformed from a racial oligarchy to a liberal democracy. Our interest is to find both consistencies and inconsistencies in democratic constitutional rules, on one hand, and liberal and pacific attitudes among both elites and the public, on the other. We can then identify which dimensions of liberalization are the strongest factors in shaping pacific attitudes among the general public in South Africa. Over and above the delimitations listed above, we have to alert the reader to an inherent limitation to this study. The study undertook secondary analysis of survey data obtained from the World Values Surveys and the South African Elite Surveys. We use these existing data bases to address research questions that are independent from the research interests of the principal investigators who constructed the World Values Surveys and the South African Elite Surveys. This entails that we were not in control of the construction of data items used for the root questionnaire, with the result that at times the questionnaire items we report on may only enable partial operationalization of the conceptual interests we are trying to analyze. The result at times may be somewhat blunt or less than precise empirical indicators. This lack of fit is inherent to all forms of secondary analysis of survey data, not only our own, and has to be borne in mind by the reader. Our research question directs us to the values and attitudes of the South African society in general, and not to the party-political subunits thereof, which have been thoroughly studied elsewhere. This aspect guides us in the

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selection of the independent variables that measure liberalization within society. Liberal democratic peace is driven by pacified citizens, and it is as much a social expression of sentiment as a political one, rather it is more of the former. Our interest is definitely more focused on the general social, as opposed to the specific political, objects of affinity, aversion, like and dislike, tolerance and intolerance, and so on. We use race, class, religiosity, and region mostly as descriptive rather than inferential statistics to trace aspects of the South African society at specific points during the transition. In this study we find that while the institutionalization of democracy has been largely successful, the growth of concomitant liberal values has been uneven, exhibiting some of the best and the worst dispositions. South Africans generally tend to trust one another less and less, and they are especially wary of strangers. At the same time, they are increasingly tolerant of some kinds of people, such as people of another race, those who have AIDS, and foreign work-seekers, even though they dislike these foreigners. Yet they tend to be socially conservative, being very intolerant of some forms of permissive behavior, and don’t approve of heavy drinkers and drug addicts. We conclude by arguing that South Africans are inhibited from becoming more liberal by their almost pervasive sense of existential insecurity, that is, a persistent, generalized sense of threat and unease, sometimes expressed in the notion that malevolent, evil forces are to be found within South African society.

The Surveys We have at our disposal two separate data sets that measure values and attitudes of the elites and the public over time, from the apartheid era, through the era of negotiations, to the current democratic phase. The first is the World Values Survey, “the largest cross-national investigation of social change that has ever existed,”17 and the only longitudinal survey of its kind in South Africa, tracking the pulse of the public over a period of 25 years. Evolving from the European Values Survey conducted in 1980, the World Values Survey emerged in 1981 with the aim of determining whether “mass belief systems are changing in ways that have important economic, political and social consequences.” These pioneering surveys found that “predictable cultural changes” were taking place and that these changes had “important political and social consequences.” The monitoring of these changes became the focus of subsequent waves of the survey. Subsequently, four more waves of the World Values Survey were conducted in over 80 societies that are representative of all six inhabited continents in the world. Because it is longitudinal in nature, the World Values Survey has been carried out at approximate intervals of five years in 1990/91, 1995/96, 1999–2001, and most recently in 2005–2007.

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From 1991 onward the South African World Values Surveys have been conducted by the Center for International and Comparative Politics (CICP) at Stellenbosch University with principal investigator Hennie Kotzé, in conjunction with the market research company IPSOS-Markinor.18 The samples were area-stratified, with probability samples of adults living in residential homes in South Africa, with N=3000 (in 2001 and 2006), which were the largest samples in the world. Markinor interviewers used a face-to-face methodology in conducting the interviews. On average, the margin of error ranged from 1.5 percent to 2 percent. With regard to the questions asked, all World Values Surveys make use of the same root questionnaire,19 thereby ensuring that they are comparable over time and space. Principal investigators within each country are free, depending on funding, to add items to this generic questionnaire for a particular country on the basis of their own research interests. Since 1990 the Center for International and Comparative Politics has conducted a series of in-depth analyses of the social, political, and economic transformation taking place in South Africa. A longitudinal study on the attitudes and values of the country’s opinion-leaders (elites) formed one of the core elements of this project. Seven opinion-leader surveys (1990, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, and 2002) have allowed us to build up an extensive database on the perspectives of South Africa’s elites. The eighth such survey, the 2007 Opinion-leader Survey, was completed in June 2007. With the exception of the parliamentarians (who were randomly sampled),20 a positional sample was employed to select respondents for the elite survey. The remarkable overlap in the distribution of power vested in organizations and individuals served as motivation for this approach.21 Such a procedure entailed that individuals holding the most influential positions in important institutions were approached to participate as respondents in the survey. For the 2007 elite survey, five sectors were identified for our sample: parliamentarians, media, civil servants, business, and church. Although no explicit non-governmental (NGO) sector was included, it is apparent that the three non-state sectors included in the sample are more critical to the study and also form a part of civil society. A number of analysts have commented on the relative decline in influence of the NGO sector, which is also affected adversely by the centralizing tendencies within the ruling alliance of the ANC, South African Communist Party (SACP), and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The market research company IPSOS-Markinor was contracted by the CICP to conduct face-to-face interviews based on a structured questionnaire for the 2007 elite survey. This methodology was a departure from previous elite surveys, where Markinor distributed questionnaires to each sector and collected them,22 while the parliamentary and agricultural sectors received their questionnaires by mail. For the 2007 study the response rate (N=303) achieved ensures that relatively reliable deductions from the data are possible.

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Unlike public surveys, opinion-leader surveys should not be used to draw conclusions about the attitudes of a whole population. The value of such surveys lies in their ability to discern particular trends among the most influential decision makers in both the public and private spheres. The fact that some political parties and segments of the population are over- or underrepresented in this sample should therefore not detract from the usefulness of this study.

Chapter Outline In chapter 2 we provide a more comprehensive overview of the theory of liberal democratic peace as it evolved in various historical eras of war and democratization, highlighting the most relevant theoretical issues relevant to this study. Of particular importance for countries such as South Africa, which can be described as a “late democratizer,” is the theoretical dispute over the relationship between liberalization and democratization necessary to form a peaceful democratic state and society. In chapter 3 we present data on both elite and public expressions of levels of confidence (and changes in these levels) in the crucial agencies of state that are required to execute its democratic obligations. We likewise report on attitudes relating to key institutions of civil society during the same period, 1981 to 2007. In chapter 4 we provide an overview of the socioeconomic changes to South African society that have accompanied democratization. The aim is to provide the reader with an overview of those changes in social life relating to the deracialization of public space, and the way the agencies of the state have set about dismantling racially demarcated socioeconomic inequalities. A consistent theme is the extent to which deracialization has led to an increase in social contact between members of different race groups, the very opposite of what was attempted under apartheid-style social engineering. Chapter 5 presents attitudes of both elites and the public about gender relations, which is a key aspect of interpersonal relationships. The chapter also contains findings on changes to elite and public attitudes of both interpersonal and generalized trust and of various dimensions of tolerance in the new context of greater interracial contact. Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to threat perceptions. In chapter 6 our entry into this topic is via the concept of evil, which can be understood in both secular and religious terms. We present data on religiosity in South Africa and how it compares with other global trends in religiosity and secularization as measured by the global set of World Values Surveys. In chapter 7 we examine attitudes toward outsiders, especially foreign migrants, most of whom enter South Africa as work seekers.

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In chapter 8 we conclude with a summary description of the findings and an identification of the salient dimensions of liberalization that can account for attitudes of pacification among South Africans. We also discuss what it will take for the new democracy of South Africa to become a full member of the democratic zone of peace.

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Chapter 2 Democratization, Liberalization, and Pacification

Introduction The “most important fact of our time,” according to R.J. Rummel writing in 1997, is the recognition that democracy is “a method of non-violence.” By this is understood that “liberal democracies do not make war on each other . . . that the more two nations are democratic, the less violence between them . . . that the more democracy, the less collective domestic violence, such as riots, rebellions, guerrilla warfare, and the like . . . that the more democracy, the less democide (genocide and mass murder).”1 This correlation between liberal democracy and pacific relations in both domestic and foreign spheres has been well documented through a variety of studies using databases that stretch over a number decades,2 and it has acquired a very high standing for its intellectual rigor within the academic community.3 In the most emphatic statement of this correlation, the 1993 study by Russett4 showed that between 1946 and 1986 there were no wars between democracies. A later study by Russett and ONeal covers the years 1885–1914, 1921–1939, and 1950–1992.5 Rummel’s own analysis of the inter-democratic peace proposition covers data from 1900 to 1980,6 and the data for testing the proposition about democratic rule and domestic violence uses a data set that covers events from 1900 to 1987.7 Further studies confirming the domestic democratic peace proposition have been undertaken by Krain and Myers, who used data for 1816–1992,8 and by Henderson and Singer,9 who covered events between 1946 and 1992. In this chapter we present the theoretical rationale for what has come to be known as the democratic peace proposition, and we also carry out an overview of the Third Wave of democratization, of which South Africa is an important example.

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The Core Thesis A central feature of the democratic peace proposition is that it is presented as emerging not only from the dynamics of political decision-making within particular regimes, but also as the outcome of a systemic process in which states are the crucial component units, but not the only ones. The “zone of peace” comprises democratic states that cluster together in dense trading networks, thus establishing relationships of mutual dependence and cementing these relationships in bilateral and multilateral agreements established in terms of international law. This liberal democratic peace is a “separate peace,” one that exists within the ranks of democratic states only, and wars with non-liberal outsiders, some initiated by the democracies themselves, can and do occur.10 A further layer of collaboration between democracies is established through their joint membership of international organizations who act as supranational interest groups on behalf of member states. This model is best explicated in the work of Russett and ONeal,11 which represents an updated version of the view expressed by Immanuel Kant in his 1795 essay titled Perpetual Peace. In the essay Kant argued that global peace could emerge from a system anchored in republics, where nations establish a treaty of “pacific union” codified in terms of international law and actively engage in commerce and free trade.12 This “triangle of peace,” it is argued, can and does create a virtuous circle of collaboration and compromise, because there is increased mutual interest in avoiding violent conflict within the ranks of member states and also increased rewards for cooperation through trade. The process of European integration that culminated in the establishment of the European Union and the Euro zone is considered a prime example of the successful creation and functioning of such a triangle of peace. The actual membership of states within such zones of peace fluctuates continually and needs to be regularly updated. The annual Freedom House rating is considered by many analysts as an authoritative count of states that qualify as being both liberal and democratic.13 The rankings by Freedom House are presented in a threefold typology. Countries are ranked as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free based on combined scores awarded for Civil Liberties and Political Rights.14 In the latest available rankings (those for 2008), 89 countries out of a total 193 have been deemed to be Free. This represents 46 percent of the total number of countries in the world and also 46 percent of the world’s population. The number of countries ranked Partly Free stood at 62, comprising 32 percent of the total countries and 20 percent of the global population. The countries ranked as Not Free number 42, representing 22 percent of the total number of countries and 34 percent of the world’s population. Both China and Russia are considered Not Free; India and the United States are both ranked as Free, as is South Africa.15

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The variable nature of freedom is evident from the fact that Freedom House also identifies a number of states as being “electoral democracies,” some of which are Free (such as Botswana) and some Partly Free (such as Malawi). In the Freedom House rating system, electoral democracies have all the attributes of liberal democracies but fall short in terms of certain civil liberties.16 In their survey, all Free countries have all the features of both electoral and liberal democracies. Some Partly Free countries, however, do qualify as electoral democracies but not as liberal democracies. These electoral democracies have the potential to improve their ratings and move up into the ranks of fully Free democracies; however, they could also slip back into a lower category. The yearning to secure peace by extending democracy has persistently surfaced and resurfaced in global policymaking. At the end of the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson made a call for extending democracy, a project that floundered with the League of Nations. It was again revived with the establishment of the United Nations after the Second World War, and yet again at the end of the cold war in 1989, with strong support from the ranks of scholars such as Rummel: “If democracy is a method of nonviolence, if it is a solution to war, domestic collective violence, and democide, then we should foster democratic freedom.”17 The post–cold war call to nonviolence through democracy was backed by empirical evidence provided by scholars such as Rummel. But even when policy makers accepted the basic thesis for such change, they still needed policy guidelines on how to proceed, especially when ruling elites in authoritarian regimes resented such policy prescriptions and resisted such policies, and particularly so when their subject populations were not favorably disposed to liberal values and beliefs.

From Correlates to Causes Having established a clear link between democratic regime characteristics and domestic and inter-regime peace among established democracies, what remains is to explain why this link reflects causation. What is it about democracy that brings about peace? Two analytically distinct arguments are advanced: the first, a structural explanation, focuses on the democratization of the regime, and emphasizes the role of formal rules and procedures; the second, a cultural one, focuses on the liberalization of society, and considers the role of norms and values.18 The structural argument about restraint in the use of organized lethal violence by the democratic state points to the fact that democratic regimes operate under institutional constraints that make it difficult, cumbersome, and time-consuming to reach decisions that commit the state to such organized violence. Checks and balances, the division of powers, human rights charters, and the requirement of special legislative majorities

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all inhibit belligerent decisions being taken hastily. Furthermore, policy makers are constrained by the popular will of the people. Popular support (and domestic coercion) is required for waging war. Careful cost-benefit analyses of the policies of violence have to be made publicly by the public about the conceivable benefits of the policies of violence, as opposed to the obvious costs in the form of battle deaths, civilian loss of life, damage to physical infrastructure, and financial burden. In the likelihood of conflicts between democratic nations, leaders will be aware of the constraints on their democratic opponents, which will enable them to anticipate incentives for restraint by the opponent, and their similarity in motives will help find a mutually acceptable amicable solution. The rule-based inhibitions on the use of violence are thus buttressed by an interestbased incentive: citizens want to avoid the costs of violence, and rulers want to retain popular support so as to remain incumbents. The rewards of restraint are magnified by the fact that democracies cluster into a system of cooperation: continued and expanded trade yields mutual material benefits that further skew the cost-benefit calculation in favor of peace. Most authors expect that this popular cost-benefit calculation will discourage the use of violence; however, Rummel perceives that a vengeful majority could realistically vote for or endorse domestic violence against a loathsome minority, constitutional restraints notwithstanding, especially if a favorable outcome is envisaged.19 The structural explanation alone, according to Rummel, is therefore not adequate in explaining the prevalence of domestic peace in democracies. If peace is threatened by democratic systems of representation where belligerent citizens can vote like-minded rulers into government, then the theory of democratic peace requires that these belligerent democratic citizens themselves be pacified. The consensus among scholars in this field is that the values, norms, and attitudes broadly considered to be of liberal disposition have to find general acceptance within societies if such pacification is to be effected. Furthermore, there is also consensus that the optimistic liberal beliefs about the essential equality of humans, about the human capacity for rationality, and their concomitant endorsement of the rights to life, liberty, and property, are the roots of the norms of liberal conflict resolution.20 These norms, drawing on the belief of the inherent reasonableness of all, emphasize the virtues of forbearance, compromise, accommodation, and fair-mindedness that loosely coalesce into a culture that can be typified as one of “live-and-let-live.”21 These values, norms, and beliefs in turn foster the emergence of specific attitudes of trust and tolerance that inhibit the growth of hostility and enmity between peoples. They also prohibit the use of violence by citizens against fellow citizens, by the state against citizens, and by the state against other societies. While the structural and cultural/normative explanations can be identified as being analytically distinct, it is generally accepted that they can mutually affect one another: institutions are shaped by preexisting cultural dispositions,

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but they can also shape new cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes in the long term. This complicates policymaking by benevolent third parties intent on building democracy. Which process should be facilitated first, the liberalization of society or democratization of the regime? The sequence of events in the liberalization and democratization of the current core countries in the liberal democratic zone of peace has varied considerably and with widely divergent outcomes. In the classic typology presented in his 1971 book Polyarchy, Dahl has mapped out three distinctive routes to democracy, or to polyarchy (that is, incomplete democracy). All three routes start from closed hegemonies, which have low levels of democratization and are highly restrictive in giving access to participation in politics. These regimes are also non-liberal and permit only very little opposition to the rulers from within the ranks of the few who are allowed to participate in politics openly. The European monarchies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were typical examples. The first route to democracy, historically taken by Britain and Sweden, involved making their monarchies more liberal by first acquiring more freedom by the select few within the arena of public participation so that they could openly contest for power. This changed such closed hegemonies into what Dahl called competitive oligarchies. For democratic politics, such freedom was especially significant insofar as it was used to oppose the incumbent monarchs. After these regimes ceased to be closed hegemonies and became competitive oligarchies, the next stage was to make them more inclusive by broadening the strata of society that gained access to politics. Dahl considers this a least risky route, as liberalization establishes the rules of competitive politics first among the ranks of a small elite group comprising like-minded people sharing the same interests, with the same social standing, and similar commitments. Democratization that follows liberalization can then be accompanied by perceptions of mutual security among rulers and those in the opposition who are already in agreement about the proper conduct of politics. This agreement about the rules of the game establishes mutual security, as neither sees the other as a threat to their vital interests because of the security provided by the already established norms, rules, and procedures of liberal contestation. The second, more risky route is for democratization to precede liberalization. The closed hegemony becomes an inclusive hegemony by expanding the realm of formal politics by including the general citizenry. Mutual security in this case is more difficult to establish because the new participants are not only greater in number but also more diverse in terms of class, interests, and affiliation. When liberalization follows, greater competitive freedom has to occur in an arena where the relative costs of toleration, compared to the costs of repression, are unknown at best. Anticipating whether an opponent will abide by the new rules of the game and assessing mutual security then becomes ever more difficult. This was the ruinous route taken by Germany when it moved from the Empire to the Weimar Republic.

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The third route entails a direct move from a closed hegemony to polyarchy, a shortcut where liberalization in the form of new rules for contesting politics, with its implied attendant liberal norms, is put into operation at the same time as political participation is opened to the general citizenry. The French Revolution (1789–1792) is taken as a brief but spectacular example of this shortcut. Dahl ranks this as the most risky route, as mutual security becomes exceedingly difficult to establish. Strangers and socially distant interest-based communities are required to deal with one another in terms of the subtle norms of civility, to tolerate one another, and coexist under the rule of law. This is very risky in societies emerging from protracted civil conflict, especially if the immediate past is one of political turbulence, filled with easily recalled atrocities, perceived historical wrongs, and unsettled scores. In such situations, with no previous track record, reputation, or historical example to fall back on, it is difficult to find reasons for political actors to honor the rules of the game, especially when they are on the losing side of the democratic contest for power. Dahl, writing in 1971, favors the first path and commented that “there seem to be few if any unambiguous cases in which the shortcut has been taken successfully.”22 Liberal peace theorist Bruce Russett echoes this view when he argues that although structure can shape culture, the earlier emergence of the said liberal cultural norms is likely to provide the basis for more secure democratic institutions than when the institutions are established prior to, and in the absence of, such norms.23 Likewise, Owen explicitly placed liberal ideas as the logically prior independent variable in the sequence.24 In this sequence, liberal ideas gel into liberal ideology, which shapes the emergence of liberal democratic institutions, which in turn constrain the initiation of violent aggression in foreign and domestic politics and promote peace. In a recent overview of the theory of liberal democratic peace by Azar Gat,25 the full significance of the sequential impact of liberalization as a force for pacification has again been restated in a more comprehensive framework. He starts by refining the question of what it is about democracies that makes for peace by asking what it is about the liberal character of democracies that contributes to peace. The broad answer is found in the effect of the liberal format of modernity that has emerged in these democracies, especially in the post-Second World War era, which has pacified both elites and citizenry in a very specific way. The most important factor of pacification, according to Gat, and not adequately appreciated by earlier theorists, is found in the changing levels of affluence within these societies and the way in which such affluence could be acquired. Trade and industrial development along capitalist lines have not only increased interdependence (the critical factor in the Kantian triangle of peace) but, even more significantly, produced higher levels of wealth and prosperity that is spread equally enough so that they are experienced tangibly by most citizens.26 This rising tide of affluence accelerated gradually during

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the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and rapidly during the twentieth, and corresponded closely with the decline in wars between democracies and increasing pacific dispositions, with Germany being the notable exception. According to Gat, affluence as the product of capitalist modernity is intertwined with a raft of social, technological, cultural, and economic factors, which in combination produced pacific inclinations within these modern societies. First, consider how capitalist modernity changed the cost-benefit calculation in favor of peace. Modern industrial technology, as applied to the technology of war, greatly increased the costs of war. The prospect of war with nuclear weapons, with mutually assured destruction as the likely outcome, is the most obvious example of the dampening effect of such technology. The possible effect of full-scale deployment of chemical and biological weapons can only be imagined, but its significance is precisely this: the liberal imagination recoils from this prospect, even with only the limited experience of poison gas in the First World War as a point of reference. The conventions limiting these weapons are, according to Van Creveld, buttressed by cultural rather than tactical aversions to the way enemies are eliminated.27 Industrial modernity through global capitalism has also greatly increased the benefits and rewards of peace. Sustained trade, at ever higher levels of comparative advantage, increases mutual prosperity, and industrial technology has converted this wealth-generation process into a positive-sum exchange for entire societies. The rewards of war have also declined markedly from the premodern era. With the state system having become global, the prospect of gaining territory in the form of colonies has virtually disappeared. The rewards of war in the form of booty and tribute, as practiced in the ancient days, have also receded as realistic ingredients of a cost-benefit calculation in favor of war. Likewise, the idea of waging war to gain dominance of trade routes via land or sea appears to be anachronistic in this era of globalization. The second factor is that capitalist modernity shaped by technology and the ideas of economic and political liberalism have dramatically reshaped general popular values.28 Gat has argued that the values of modernity have profoundly affected the specific popular and elite cultural dispositions regarding the use of organized violence against both foreigners and fellow citizens. The first casualty has been the culture of war, associated with the ethos of the warrior elite in which military prowess is recognized as a badge of honor, a mark of distinction, and indicator of social standing.29 In its extreme form, the culture of war represents a culture of violence in which war becomes an end in itself. It represents the ultimate test of both metal and mettle, in which humans (mostly young men) have to face up to risk, uncertainty, and danger that is unmatched in any other domain of social life. In this perspective, war, unlike mob violence, is a rule-driven social activity that serves as the ultimate test of worthiness and draws on the highest qualities: comradeship, courage, and altruism.30 With the gradual ascendancy of the liberal values of life, liberty, equality, and human dignity, the social deference to those who excel in

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exercising this kind of public violence declined, and the legitimacy of such violence in various forms, ranging from the forceful maintenance of empires to the institution of the death penalty, came to be increasingly questioned. Above all, the idea that a life could and should be dedicated to prosperity and the pursuit of happiness made people increasingly averse to risk, especially regarding life in the military, with its discipline, drudgery, discomfort, and danger, where sacrifice—especially the ultimate sacrifice of one’s own life—is considered paramount. One of the most widely held and most resilient norms of war defined in these terms is that the conduct of war is a male preserve. Women, throughout time and across cultures, have tended to be excluded from the ranks of the military.31 At best they have, along with the elderly and children, been consigned to the ranks of noncombatants and have acted as spectators. They have also been considered prized objects of war and at times the victims of war. With the ascendance of liberal values in many societies, the role of women in the armed forces has also changed. The application of the norm of equality has allowed women to perform most of the roles previously assigned exclusively to men in the formal military establishments of liberal states. They have also become more prominent in the military formations of non-state organizations as guerrilla fighters, terrorists, and suicide bombers. A second concomitant change in the way affluence could be achieved worked to further bolster pacific popular culture. Capitalist market economies, driven by high technology, created mass societies in which rule-bound competitive enterprise was rewarded with ever-rising standards of living. The social and physical context in which this modern consumer lifestyle was enjoyed also contributed to pacification. Urban and suburban populations, largely sedentary and employed, in the later stages of capitalism, within a service economy, made people less willing and less able to cope with the physical hardships of war and less inclined to find it attractive. Relatively prosperous office workers tend to make weak soldiers, as opposed to poor farmers and lowly paid factory laborers. Furthermore, stable populations, with low or even negative population growth rates, have smaller cohorts of young people, especially young men, who are weakly integrated into society (that is, poor, with low social status, without spouses, and without permanent employment). Historically it has been easiest to recruit these young men into military institutions and draw them to the warrior culture. The decline of such “surplus” male populations in liberal democracies, in tandem with the rising status of women and changing male/female relationships, represents another powerful contextual factor in the pacifying effect of capitalist modernity.32 In sum, the joint impact of liberal values and beliefs, capitalist modernization, rising standards of living, the materialism expressed in a consumer culture and lifestyle, and the democratization of regimes have pacified societies in such a way that the endorsement of war, even as a means to certain ends, is

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considered ludicrous, and even as deranged thinking. In a mature liberal society, being labeled as “militaristic” is an expression of contempt and ridicule, not admiration. Earlier theorists of liberal democratic peace found that the pacification of liberal societies applied only to their own citizens and to other democracies with a similar worldview to their own. However, Gat found that restraint on violence is more widespread, and that the ready enthusiasm for internal violence against domestic populations and for engaging in conflict with nondemocracies dissipated after the Second World War: “liberal democracies have ultimately proved to be a complete failure in forceful repression.”33 Even when they have engaged in conflict with nondemocratic enemies, it was done with the utmost circumspection, starting with strategies of isolation, followed by appeasement, containment, and eventually, when all else failed, limited war.34 The Western powers followed this path in their confrontation with the German and Japanese totalitarian threat in the 1930s and committed themselves to the Second World War only with the greatest reluctance and only after all the other options had been exhausted. Likewise, in its confrontation with communist totalitarianism after the Second World War, the West took a similarly cautious approach. Containment, in the form of the cold war, with limited wars (many times by proxy) on the periphery, was the preferred form of confrontation.

Getting There: Preconditions, Peace Processes, and the Third Wave In his analysis of the historical record of successful routes to stable democracy, Dahl has identified the most favorable domestic conditions for successful democratization.35 Each condition has an impact on the sense of mutual security experienced by each of the major actors in society. The first condition is the historical sequence mentioned earlier, where liberalization precedes democratization. It would also be favorable to establish a socioeconomic order where resources that can be used to threaten or coerce opponents are dispersed, rather than remaining concentrated in regions or under the control of specific social formations. Relatively higher levels of socioeconomic development coupled with correspondingly lower levels of inequality and lower levels of relative deprivation also contribute favorably toward democratization. Mutual security can be more easily established in societies with low levels of cultural pluralism. However, when significant cultural pluralism is present, a pattern of cultural diversity emerges. In such societies mutual security can be enhanced if there is no single numerically dominant group, groups are geographically dispersed rather than concentrated, and no single group perceives itself to be more or

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less permanently excluded from access to power. These conditions inhibit the emergence of ethnic power bases that may undermine the sense of security of other social formations. Dahl was keenly aware of the policy implications of his analysis. He recognized that the process of regime change where liberalization preceded democratization, typified by Britain and Sweden, took about two centuries to complete, and that such a time frame was just no longer available to contemporary societies in transition. But, according to him, they would not necessarily need such a long time frame. In his view, with the available comparative evidence on successful and failed democratization, the process could be speeded up in newly democratic regimes by finding adequate constitutional devices for establishing mutual security among hitherto deadly rivals. This, however, did not mean that the impact of favorable and unfavorable preconditions for successful democratization would be nullified. What would also take center stage, alongside the new democratic regimes, would be the process of regime change. Dahl firmly favored a slow evolutionary process of change and felt it to be more likely to deliver stable democracies, rather than a rapid revolutionary one; however, he felt that the process would still “be measured in generations.”36 This early influential work by Dahl implied that enlargement of the liberal democratic zone of peace would be gradual, slow, and selective. Success would more likely be found in states with favorable preconditions where intense polarization did not build up under a hegemonic regime (whether of the closed, competitive, or inclusive type) and where effective mutual security measures are implemented within the process of change, as well as in the institutional framework of the new regime. This expectation was thoroughly tested in the global Third Wave of democratization that started in southern Europe in 1974, barely three years after the publication of Dahl’s Polyarchy. The very unexpected nature of democratization in Portugal, Greece, and Spain prompted analysts to rethink the likelihood of success in establishing new democracies and their subsequent prospects. The transition that started in Portugal in April 1974 has been described by Huntington37 as both implausible and unwitting. He considered this transition implausible because the military coup d’ état was to overthrow a dictatorship, whereas the usual trend was for the military to overthrow democracies. And it was unwitting because the instigators of the coup did not have any plans to establish a democratic regime in the place of the Caetano dictatorship. Many subsequent democratic transitions had similar unexpected precipitants, with authoritarian rulers (many of them from the military) initiating democratization, or willingly and sometimes grudgingly participating in such a process rather than attempt outright coercive repression. This new expansion of democracies and the analyses of the processes were of immediate relevance to policy makers’ intent on expanding the democratic zone of peace.38

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For Huntington, this series of transitions, which he called the Third Wave, was distinctively different from the previous two waves. The impetus for each wave, according to him, was a distinct set of preconditions. (By inference, the list identified by Dahl would then be relevant only to the First and Second Waves of democratization.) Writing in 1989 and 1990, fifteen years into the Third Wave, he identified four specific and distinctive factors (what he classified as independent variables) that precipitated this transition process. The legitimacy problems of authoritarian regimes, especially relating to performance legitimacy, were steadily mounting. Democracies were becoming more prosperous, while the dictatorships, military juntas, and ethnic oligarchies were stagnating. Closely tied to this was the global economic growth of the 1960s that expanded the power of the middle classes in many countries. The dramatic reversal in policy by the Roman Catholic Church played a decisive role in bringing about change in many Latin American countries as well as southern Europe. Until the Second Vatican Council, the church within these countries were staunch supporters of the status quo, but after the Council they became catalysts of reform. And lastly, the role of external actors and the changing international landscape, especially the role of the USSR under the leadership of President Gorbachev, favored further democratization.39 Another distinctively different feature of the Third Wave was the processes of transition. In the Second Wave that followed the Second World War, democracies emerged mostly from outright occupation of the vanquished (Japan and Germany) by the victors or through decolonization. The Third Wave was characterized by three distinct processes.40 The first, described as transformation, occurred when the incumbent elites took the initiative and managed to maintain direction, if not full control, of the process of regime change. Hungary, Spain, Chile, and Brazil are significant examples of such transformation. The second is known as replacement, where the opposition to the authoritarian rulers gained ascendancy and took control of the process, resulting in the collapse or overthrow of the authoritarian government, as happened in East Germany in 1989 and in Portugal and Greece in 1974. The third type of process, described as transplacement, occurred when neither the regime nor the opposition could gain the upper hand, and they ended up negotiating a compromise outcome to the process. Huntington cites transitions in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, and South Korea as the most clear-cut examples of such a process, with regime changes in Bolivia, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua being cases having strong elements of transplacement. He also noted that South Africa and Chile were (at the time of his writing) engaged in the processes of transition by transplacement.41 Transplacement has emerged as a highly significant process of regime change. The end of the cold war brought about the collapse of communism, which was until then considered a viable ideological counterpoint to liberal

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capitalist democracy. Many long-standing conflicts seemingly embedded in the bipolar global power structure then appeared to become amenable to resolution with the active intervention of the newly dominant international actors under the auspices of the United States, the only remaining superpower. The process of transplacement, augmented by powerful third-party intervention in the form of the UN, or coalitions of the willing assembled from among the big powers, came to be known as peace processes. Such peace processes soon developed a distinct theory in which peace would be delivered through democratization and the formulation of a concomitant set of policy prescriptions for peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. The peace sought would indubitably have to be a liberal democratic peace, and the road to democracy would take the form of a shortcut, where new structures would be needed to mould civic and political culture into the required liberal shape. The intertwined body of work on democratization and peace processes displayed some features directly relevant to the policy for broadening the liberal democratic zone of peace. One such feature was the recognition of the importance of the process of transition, a variable that is analytically distinct from the outcome and usually referred to the structure of the new democratic regime. Three approaches can be identified here. One approach argues that the nature of the process would affect the quality of the outcomes. The dynamics of the process of bargaining and negotiation, the skills of the parties and third parties, the size of the contract zone, the relative bargaining power of the adversaries, and the impact of the norms of good faith would all feature as important factors in shaping the quality of the outcome, which would be a peace accord and the formation of a democratic regime.42 A second, more refined approach adds to the first by considering in minute detail the specific kinds of constitutional rules that would be able to deliver stability and peace to previously conflicting communities divided along ethnic lines. Institutional choices, between various types of executive systems, electoral systems, kinds of regional governments, and hierarchies of human rights, with which to effect power-sharing arrangements are the variables considered in this approach.43 This approach expressed in its strongest form the conviction that (power-sharing) structures (under certain preconditions) can and will shape culture and behavior and veer it away from conflict and toward moderation and accommodation. A third approach was the emergence of so-called transitology, or the transition paradigm. Some influential scholars, such as Huntington, did recognize the importance of the dynamics of the process of transition, but unlike him they did not grant equal weight to the role of specific contextual factors (preconditions) that were either favorable or detrimental to such processes.44 So taken were they with the unexpected and unforeseen emergence of democratic regimes that they argued for granting almost complete precedence to processes over preconditions. An explicit and comprehensive example of this

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is provided by Schmitter in his 1994 work.45 He was nonetheless prepared to acknowledge the importance of these conditions for the consolidation of democracies once they are established, but he declared that such conditions are bound to emerge from the effective functioning of democracy.46 This points to another feature of the transitology literature, which relates to the question of sequencing. In Dahl’s terminology, these transitology theorists were also advocating the shortcut route to democracy (and peace). Rapid democratization with immediate contestation under new liberal rules by all citizens, usually with founding elections, or referenda, was recommended. Liberalization and pacification could, and would, follow. In its most direct form, what emerged was the proposition that “(i)f states can be democratized, then they will be pacified.”47 The expectation, of course, was that the democratic regime would prevail long enough to effect such pacification and that the new incumbents of power would themselves be intent on pursuing such actions. The necessary pacific intent could only be created in the process of negotiations, which invariably involved only the leadership of the rival negotiating parties. The general citizenry, standing outside the formal and informal dynamics of peace talks, would have to be pacified elsewhere later. By the early 1990s the link between democratization and peace was made explicit as a policy prescription in the agenda of UN Secretary General BoutrosGhali, who described it as an “obvious connection.”48 The UN then rapidly developed a more or less standardized approach to peace making, which would culminate in the inauguration of a democratic regime in societies wracked by long-standing and deep-rooted civil conflicts.49 Where the UN or other major powers did not intervene directly in transition by transplacement as third parties, in countries such as Russia and South Africa, pressure was nonetheless exerted indirectly by other major actors to fulfill the same global expectation: that democracy without preconditions would deliver peace. By the early 2000s the debates as well as policy prescriptions had shifted. The early successful UN interventions in places like Namibia in 1989 and Mozambique in 1992 were followed by more complicated measures (Bosnia in 1993) that achieved less clear-cut successes. Early optimism about quick fixes rapidly dissolved and skepticism emerged about the prospects of imposing the liberal democratic format of peace.50 At the same time, a renewed appreciation for the relevance of sequencing emerged. Some scholars increasingly argued for the importance of building adequate state institutions by third-party agencies prior to or alongside liberalization of society and the opening up of political participation as key to peacebuilding.51 As mentioned above, the South African peace process was executed with minimal third-party intervention and followed the shortcut of rapid democratization of institutions along with liberalization. The question then is to what extent has the democratized South African regime delivered a more peaceful society?

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Democracy and Society In order to answer this question, we need to have a yardstick against which to assess changes in South African society. Changing values and attitudes need to be assessed against a set of criteria in order to decide whether such change can be counted as a notable and significant success in pacification or whether it is trivial and of lesser consequence. At worst, changed values and attitudes could be early indicators of a setback and impending failure. To discern the direction of change, we need to examine the relevant theories of society that specify the roots of social conflict and indicate to us the obstacles to be overcome to pacify societies. Cultural theories of conflict that build on the notion that conflict results from incompatible values are rooted in the “plural societies” approach developed by Furnivall, Smith, and Kuper. Where cultural diversity produces different social institutions that are mutually incompatible and have roles that are not interchangeable, such as those of kinship, education, language, and religion,52 the cultural units tend to insulate themselves into relatively closed social units, which tend to reinforce differences: “Under these conditions the boundaries of cultural and social sections correspond, and the discontinuity of value systems is most extreme.”53 In a society thus configured, the “moral axioms of one section are not the axioms of another,”54 and value incompatibility becomes a root cause of conflict. Such societies tend to move toward instability as one sociocultural group attempts to dominate the others. The core proposition here is that cultural incompatibility generates conflict, and thus the expectation is that the greater the incompatibility between two cultural entities, the greater the likelihood of conflict and the less the prospects of tolerance. The depth of cultural incompatibility is found in the extent to which basic axioms, assumptions, and values of a particular entity are at odds with those of another. This variance may range from mild inconsistency to absolute contradiction and may even be mutually exclusive in nature. The roots of such incompatibility are located within the core components and artifacts of the cultural beliefs. In the case of a cultural entity based on religion, for example, its incompatibility with other religious entities would be located within the basic sacred texts and the interpretations that adherents draw from these texts. In terms of the cultural perspective, it is religious doctrines, and not material interests or status or power differentials, that are the root cause of hostilities. How people read and understand the Koran or Bible, for example, is very critical. The extent and depth of incompatibility of the truth claims that are derived from such readings, in relation to another religion, are the core independent variables that affect levels of intolerance, hostility, and antipathy. In this perspective, then, societies are held together and function in a stable way when a normative consensus prevails, a community of values exists

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as a common denominator, and shared institutions can be constructed on that basis.55 This consensus can only emerge from societies with more or less homogenous cultures, or where cultural diversity can be expressed in institutions that are compatible and in roles that are interchangeable. Pacification, then, is a function of value consensus. In the classic liberal paradigm, this consensus has to be built on the specific values of liberty and equality, buttressed by beliefs about the autonomy of the individual, the reasonableness and inherent goodness of humanity, and the inalienable rights to life, dignity, and opportunity. Although this analytical construct of the cultural theorists is a model, their inductive empirical base at the time was the British and Dutch colonies of East and West Indies, and the African colonies such as Nigeria, where extreme racial and religious pluralism were found. The highly influential “Clash of Civilizations?” thesis by S.P. Huntington is a contemporary example of this kind of theory of cultural conflict.56 A second approach, rooted in social identity theory, also recognizes cultural diversity as being part of the obstacle to be overcome, but interprets it differently. Generally the theory holds that the dynamics of group identity and group formation are driven by the need of individuals to acquire and sustain positive self-esteem. This is the primary antecedent variable. Social status rankings (that is, hierarchies of prestige) are the outcome of the dynamics of comparative evaluations between groups competing for collective esteem. The stability of social status rankings is dependent on a number of factors. These include the legitimacy of the system of ranking (i.e., the yardsticks for evaluation), the acceptance of lower status positions by the subordinate group, the strategies employed by lower status groups to improve their rankings, and the strategies employed by higher status groups to maintain their rankings. Any action by any agent (inside or outside the specific social status ranking system) that has the potential of lowering the collective esteem of any group is considered a threat to the status of that group. Such status threats are the immediate independent variables used in explaining antipathy, intolerance, hostility, and outright violent conflict. Social identity theory addresses the dynamics of group competition and conflict as they bear on relative group status. The theory develops propositions on how both low and high status groups respond (the dependent variables) to the psychological stress of low status and/or the threat of moving from a positive self-evaluation (higher) to a less positive (lower) one. More specifically, the theory starts with the assumption that individuals invest in upholding their self-esteem.57 Esteem is acquired by living up to the standards of value that are set by a particular cultural worldview.58 The need for esteem is considered a universal human need because esteem is a crucial ingredient of personal identity, and identity helps, along with a sense of selfefficacy and self-consistency, the individual cope with anxiety.59 Esteem, like respect and honor, and unlike dignity, is acquired and cannot be assigned, or be born into. It is acquired by living up to the standards of value embedded

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within a particular culture.60 These standards may range from moral codes (such as religion), to competitive success of any kind, to material prosperity, which is one of the pervasive criteria in contemporary materialist societies. Positive social identity is based on, and is achieved through, the favorable comparisons that can be made between the in-group and some relevant outgroup(s). Positive comparisons yield high prestige, while negative ones lead to low prestige. Everything else being equal, positive comparisons can be “manufactured” in the eyes of the beholders by favorable in-group bias and unfavorable out-group bias (usually in the form of prejudice, racism, etc.) in order to produce a result that shows the in-group to be positively different on some shared dimension compared to the out-group. Culture is an ingredient of social identity and is readily available to contrive comparative evaluations showing the in-group to be positively different from the out-group. Religion is a cultural component highly suited to such use as it provides explicit moral yardsticks for evaluating people and their actions in a positive or negative light. Being unable to assert one’s collective worth by demonstrating plausible signs of being positively different is considered to be psychologically stressful and is perceived as a threat to psychological well-being. The prospect of having to migrate downward in the ladder of social status is even more stressful, and individuals and groups are likely to respond to such threats in a variety of ways. One is to exercise individual mobility and migrate from the group under threat, either physically or socially, or both. A second is to try to alter aspects of the comparative framework so as to configure a more favorable outcome for one’s own group. A third option is to reengage in the competitive arena and strive to achieve more favorable competitive outcomes. Critical to this option are the rules of competition, which, if appropriate, can produce both winners and losers in the competition for relative group status. The appropriate rules of political competition, in the form of power-sharing devices, electoral systems, executives, or regional governments, are of crucial importance in this regard. A final, less creative option is to resort to violence against the source of egothreatening comparisons. The cultural and social identity perspectives offer two widely contrasting interpretations in comparison to the standard liberal worldview as to the significance of two of the most troublesome obstacles to the creation of the liberal open society, namely, cultural diversity and poverty. First, these perspectives offer different views on the question of what it is about culture that produces conflict. Classic liberals in the Lockean mould would argue that their values are universal and that cultural diversity can and should be accommodated within this normative framework. Contemporary liberals such as Dahl have argued that such cultural diversity can be accommodated within an open pluralistic society, where the conflict potential of cultural identity can be ameliorated by the presence of crosscutting social affiliations, albeit still within the framework of liberal human rights doctrines.61

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Cultural theories of conflict claim that incompatible cultural values are the source of conflict, and the expectation is that the greater the incompatibility (“value dissensus”) the more intense and hostile the confrontation. The claim in social identity theory, however, is that comparisons are more likely to be made between groups who regard one another as being similar enough to make the comparative evaluation plausible, relevant, realistic, and persuasive. According to this perspective, cultural differences are important not for the intrinsic differences of custom, value, tradition, language, or religion that each embodies, but rather to the extent that these differences impact on matters of perceived prestige. So, when an in-group and an out-group are differentiated by clearly visible cultural markers, then it can be expected that the comparative evaluation by the in-group will be not so much about substantive differences of culture between itself and the relevant out-group, but rather about the relative merits of one’s own group over those of the out- group, and how cultural differences exhibit, demonstrate, and even facilitate this ranking. Being “different” is one thing, but being different and at the same time “superior” or “better,” rather than “inferior” or “worse,” is quite another matter, especially when the said cultural differences can be shown to be the source of such a positive or negative evaluation. Second, the issues of poverty and material inequality also yield different interpretations. This is of relevance to many Third Wave democracies with deep socioeconomic inequalities, and none more so than South Africa, widely acknowledged as having some of the steepest gradients in material inequality. For liberals this is, first and foremost, a human rights issue, as it has a direct bearing on the core value of equality. Poverty reflects inequality and provides the basis for the perpetuation of such inequality. It also undermines the dignity of people and is a source of material deprivation and potential revolt. Social identity theory will easily agree that poverty, squalor, and the overall conditions of being on the losing side of global capitalism can serve as destabilizing factors. For these theorists, however, it is not the physical threat to survival posed by such conditions that count, but rather the humiliating implications associated with being perennial losers in the capitalist system that such a marginalized position implies. The long causal sequence from deprivation to marginalized social identity, to intolerance, and eventually to violent conflict starts with the intangible, nonmaterialist aspects found in status anxiety. The brutally compact formulation by Amy Chua is apt: “Poverty by itself does not make people kill. To poverty must be added indignity, hopelessness, and grievance.”62 Poverty as a badge of backwardness, as an indicator of low esteem, galvanizes people to respond and try to escape from the odious status ranking indicated by chronic underdevelopment. For theorists of cultural conflict, then, not just any form of democratization will pacify culturally diverse societies. The root cause of the conflict, which is found in dissensus about core values, will have to be addressed. Value consensus has to be established along with democratization. If the liberal value

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of tolerance is to contribute to pacification, then it would have to be through tolerance of cultural differences, and of people from different cultures, within an overall consensus about the value of tolerance itself. Fundamental axiomatic cultural incompatibilities, however, are considered beyond remedy. From the perspective of social identity theory, the pacification of ethnically divided societies does not so much require that the building blocks of social identity, in the form of cultural diversity, be dismantled. Nor does it require that one particular set of liberal values, as reflected in human rights charters, be imposed on society. It does argue that in the process of democratization and liberalization the root cause of social conflict, found in the contest for relative group status, be effectively addressed.

At the Edges It is of little surprise, therefore, that in many cases of the Third Wave, rapid democratic transition has not delivered the expected desirable outcomes. By 1996 the question being asked was whether the Third Wave had run its course.63 Using the 1994/1995 Freedom House Survey, Larry Diamond found that many of the celebrated cases (notably Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Pakistan, and Nigeria) of Third Wave democracies were stagnating and showing signs of “increasing shallowness.” By this was understood that they were moving away from being liberal democracies (as gauged by the range and extent of political rights and civil liberties) into other categories, notably electoral and pseudodemocracies. Electoral democracies, unlike liberal ones, often had regular elections, but these were not fully authentic contests for power, as so-called reserve domains of power existed in such systems where incumbents (often the military) held sway without being directly or indirectly accountable to the electorate. In addition, in these cases, certain sectors of the electorate were often put at a disadvantage in competing at the ballot box, thus undermining effective political equality. Diamond identified Guatemala, Turkey, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Colombia as examples during that period. An even more degenerate form of democracy that emerged was that of pseudo-democracy. In this system elections are held, but they constitute an empty ritual being contested on a playing field hugely tilted in favor of the incumbent dominant party, or a hegemonic party. Ten such cases were identified in Africa: Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Gabon, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ethiopia.64 These “illiberal democracies,” according to Fareed Zakaria, were the result of inappropriate sequencing: they were rapidly democratized without having an adequate prior inculcation of the values and practices of liberal constitutionalism.65 But this matter of pseudo-democracy remains contested because the frontiers of democracy shift continually. Other authors, using new data sets,

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reached different conclusions from those of Zakaria and Diamond. Based on the 1998 Freedom House surveys, Karatnycky argued that the apparent trend identified earlier was indeed being turned around. Citing yet other success stories of countries formerly ranked as “Not Free” and which later moved up into the category of “Partly Free” (Indonesia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone), a new assessment was made on the basis of the overall statistical picture. He claimed that the sequence can and will work in the other direction as long as both internal and external support for liberal democracy is maintained.66 Finally, a comparative study by Diamond with data of Third Wave transitions up to 2001 concluded that democracies increased from 39 in 1974 to 104 in 2001, from an overall set of 192 countries. Seventy-three of them were classified as liberal, a sharp rise from the 39 in 1974, and 31 of them were classified as electoral democracies. Of the remaining 88 regimes, 25 were considered entirely nondemocratic, with the remaining 63 being hybrid regimes, most of them pseudo-democracies, a distinct increase from about six such regimes in 1974. Completely closed regimes have declined from 29 to 21 in the world.67 So, some countries have successfully traversed the divide via the shortcut from authoritarian to democratic and liberal, while others have failed. In the survey just cited, only 5 of the 48 sub-Saharan states make the grade into the ranks of fully liberal democracies, of which three are island countries (Mauritius, Sao Tomé and Principe, and Cape Verde), and only two are continental states: Botswana and South Africa.68 The momentum of positive thinking that was generated by the start of the Third Wave eventually dissipated, as soberly assessed by Thomas Carothers in 2002.69 In reviewing the outcome of the Third Wave, he found fewer than 20 out of more than 100 transitions having been successful in delivering stable liberal democracies. (Some of these are listed in chapter 1.) The rest end up in a “Gray Zone” characterized by either feckless pluralism or dominant-power politics. In the former, elites can and do circulate through the corridors of power. Though replaced in regular elections, they all tend to share in a political culture of corruption, inefficiency, and self-serving policymaking. The state remains weak, corrupt, and inefficient, and the public tends to be disaffected with the political life and the elites that dominate it. Nicaragua, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, and Bolivia are listed by Carothers in this category, along with Moldova, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and Ukraine. In the dominantpower configuration, one party succeeds in establishing an ascendant position with little prospect of being voted out. The state/party lines are deliberately blurred, if not erased, and state resources are used for partisan advantage. The state is thus not only stripped of its autonomy but also weakened through patronage, corruption, inefficiency, and bureaucratic decay. As in the former category, elite/public relations are poor, public participation is limited to elections only, and they are alienated from their rulers; their reign is characterized by corruption, excesses, and crony capitalism. The ruling elites, in command of the state, exhibit intolerance to any but formal opposition and continuously

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threaten civil liberties. Examples of this regime type in Asia include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan; in North Africa it includes Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, and Egypt; and in sub-Saharan Africa it includes Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Gabon, Kenya, and Mauritania. This assessment and evaluation by Carothers effectively signals the end of the transition paradigm and its attendant assumptions. According to Carothers, these outcomes showed that, first, it could no longer be assumed that transitions away from authoritarian or dictatorial rule necessarily entailed movement toward democracy. Second, it also showed that shortcuts to democracy tend to fail. The most enduring transitions, according to him, were found in Taiwan, South Korea, and Mexico, where regime change was gradual and incremental. Third, the assumption that elections are founding events where process and outcome necessarily converge in establishing new rules of the game is questionable. Elections have proved extremely vulnerable to subversion by dominant parties and to institutionalizing exclusion rather than inclusion. Fourth, the assumed irrelevance of preconditions, especially as it relates to levels of economic development, institutional legacies, and histories of accommodation, has been shown to be invalid. Fifth, one of the most decisively important preconditions for successful transition remains the existence of a strong autonomous state capable of acting as the custodian of the new democratic regime. In Carothers’ 2002 analysis Russia and South Africa are identified as being important to the Third Wave, yet they remained marginally outside the Gray Zone of dominant-power regimes. Since then, Russia has moved decisively into the Gray Zone, as confirmed by the highly flawed election of December 2007. It is now ranked as “Not Free” in the Freedom House ratings,70 which empirically and symbolically benchmarks the end of the Third Wave. In Russia, democratization has not succeeded in liberalizing the ruling elites, while the public, albeit in principle in favor of human rights and liberal constitutionalism, appear ambivalent at best about the role of their country as an agent for promoting democracy on a global scale.71 An illiberal political culture amenable to the use of organized violence, both domestically and internationally (currently in the form of a generalized xenophobia), appears to be in the making.72 Is South Africa following a similar trajectory into the Gray Zone, or is it on track to join the successfully consolidated and peaceful liberal democracies such as Poland, Hungary, Chile, and Taiwan? In the next chapters we explore this question.

Conclusion The key to peaceful domestic and international relations is found in the combined effect of democratic regimes, which are embedded in societies in which liberal values prevail and where the general citizenry live in conditions of relatively large-scale material wealth. Furthermore, this wealth is acquired within

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modern capitalist economies that are primarily geared to high technology and metropolitan service economies, where the wealth-generation process is an overall positive-sum competitive process driven by domestic production and consumption and by international trade. These pacified regimes and societies converge into a zone of peace, where trade networks are buttressed by their shared membership in international institutions. In countries that are neither affluent, liberal, nor democratic, entry into the zone of peace, it is proposed, can be initiated by a process of democratization of the regime. This in turn will lead to the liberalization of society, and democratization can also generate an economic peace dividend that can contribute to the material upliftment of such a society. The success record of countries in the Third Wave of democratization in achieving all three of these goals is mixed, and South Africa remains one of the test cases of this proposition.

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Chapter 3 The State as Guardian?

Introduction Contemporary democracies are located mostly within the broader institutional framework of the nation state. Some small island societies such as Mauritius and a few democratic city-states such as Monaco remain as exceptions. The state by definition holds a monopoly on violence; in the evolution of liberal thought the state has therefore been singled out as a primary threat to liberty and other cherished liberal rights. What has not always been adequately appreciated within liberal thought is that democracy can only flourish within the security offered by the state. With a few exceptions, this omission is also found in analytical studies of democratic transition and especially so within the Transition Paradigm.1 And, as can be expected, it also barely features as a factor in identifying the roots of the liberal democratic peace. The contemporary liberal democratic regime cannot prosper when rivals to the state exist alongside and in deadly competition with the state. Warlords, drug lords, and criminal syndicates, all of whom have coercive means in the form of private armies and militias with which to challenge the monopoly on violence claimed by the state, can represent equal threats to the human rights valued by liberals, in the same way a state threatens the rights of its citizens. The most important of all public goods is that of physical safety, and the state has become the preeminent organization in providing this good. If it fails in this duty, then not only will liberal democracy be at risk but also the continued existence of the state itself. Indispensable preconditions for liberal democratic regime stability are therefore found in state strength (i.e., compliance to the laws of the state by the citizenry, legitimacy of state institutions in the eyes of these citizens, and voluntary participation in these institutions by the citizens of the state) and

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state capacity (i.e., the ability to extract resources, regulate social relationships, reappropriate resources, and penetrate society).2 States can be, and have been, democratized with success. They can also be, and have been, liberalized with success. The hallmark of the liberal state is not that it relinquishes the claim to, and exercise of, its monopoly on violence. The exercise of this monopoly within the boundaries of the liberal democratic state has evolved in such a way that the state is increasingly seen as the guardian of a society against actors from within or from outside the borders who threaten it with violence. And the state thus becomes an upholder of the social and political space within which public contestation for power can be conducted according to liberal rules of the game. The general expectation therefore is of the liberal state as a neutral umpire, providing a level playing field for all citizens, and equally so. The extent to which the state succeeds in this role should then be measured in the even distribution of high levels of confidence in state institutions. It is increasingly considered that the use of state violence is legitimate only for threats against the entire system of society, regime, and state, whether launched from within (in the form of terror) or from outside the boundaries of the state (in the form of hostile acts of war by other states or non-state actors). In this chapter we report on public and elite perceptions of the South African state, analyze the extent to which they consider it as a guardian of the liberal domain of public contestation, and to what extent they endorse and/or deplore the use of state violence within and outside its borders. We track the data on public attitudes from the time of the authoritarian apartheid regime (1980–1990), through the era of transition (1990–1996), and into the democratic era (1996–2006). For the elites, the data cover the transition and democratic eras only. As contextual background, we give a short overview of the South African state in the democratic transition. This is intended to provide the reader with a framework with which to assess the likelihood of various South Africans considering the state as a threat to their liberties or as a guardian of liberties during the different stages of the transition. From this we derive a specific expectation about South Africa as a liberal(izing) state.

The Context: The South African State in Transition The modern South African state emerged from the various British colonies and Afrikaner republics that had formed in southern Africa by the end of the nineteenth century. The Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), in which the two Afrikaner republics were defeated by the forces of imperial Britain, made it possible for them to be assembled into one political and geographical unit, the Union of South Africa, in 1910. This Union became the basic mould of the South African state. Two features of this Union were decisive in shaping

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the character of this state. The first was the war of 1899–1902 and the way in which it was won by the British. Toward the latter half of the war, with the defeat of their conventional forces, the republics started a guerrilla offensive. To counter this, the British moved all the civilians (women, children, and farm laborers) from their farms into concentration camps. Conditions in these camps were of appallingly malign neglect; thousands died from disease and exposure. The emptied out farmsteads (about 30,000) were burnt to the ground in a scorched-earth policy, as were twenty whole villages.3 Having lost their war of liberation, and having lost it in such a calamitous way, the surviving Afrikaner nationalists who gained citizenship in the new British Union were not only deeply embittered and humiliated but also determined to regain some sense of security and control over their political future. The apartheid state eventually became the instrument in securing this goal. The second feature of the Union was that the basic premise of European imperialism, namely, racial and cultural superiority, served as the starting point for all forms of state building. In all British colonial possessions in southern Africa, such as in the vanquished Afrikaner Republics, the indigenous Black population was deprived of civil and political rights. This situation was carried over to the new dispensation and formalized in the Act of Union, thus perpetuating the subjugation of Black people in South Africa, and the essentially Whites-only parliament provided Afrikaner nationalists with an almost ideal arena within which to achieve their objectives. The Union (which became a republic in 1961) was therefore from the very outset a competitive oligarchy, with access to public participation determined by racial criteria. The blueprint of the apartheid state was provided in the report of the South African Native Affairs Commission established by Lord Milner in 1903. The report recommended spatial separation between Black and White populations, both within towns and cities and also in the rural areas. It also advised that there should be separate educational systems in which Blacks were to be trained in industrial labor skills and Whites were to receive the classic liberal education. Lastly, it made out a case for political separation, with racially defined voting rolls, separate representative institutions, and jurisdiction over different sections of land inhabited by their respective communities.4 It was only in 1948 that the National Party gained ascendancy in the Union parliament and implemented its apartheid policies, fundamentally reshaping state, society, and regime in terms of racially based spatial and institutional separation. Black South Africans were to be relocated into eight distinct geographical zones, initially called “Bantustans” and later renamed “homelands.” These linguistically defined ethnic rural enclaves were to serve as embryonic territorial ministates, eventually to be given the formal trappings of statehood, in which Blacks would acquire citizenship and be forcibly deprived of their South African citizenship. Coloreds and Indians would retain their citizenship, but they were to be segregated from the core White towns by relocation into separate living areas, with separate schools and public amenities.

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The cornerstone legislation was the Population Registration Act of 1949, which defined South Africans as either Black, Indian, Colored, or White. The coercive nature of the state can be gauged from the fact that urban separation was executed mostly in terms of the Group Areas Act, with about 80,000 Colored families and 38,000 Indian families being forcibly relocated between 1950 and 1980, as opposed to only 2,000 White families.5 Control over the movement of the Black population was primarily through the so-called pass laws, with about 1.4 million people being resettled in the so-called homelands between 1950 and 1990.6 It has been calculated that a total of 3.5 million people were removed from their homes by various apartheid legislations between 1960 and 1983.7 Differential and discriminatory policies in virtually every other sphere of society, the economy, and the state accompanied this vast social engineering project. Apartheid, as a comprehensive project of racial engineering, required a very strong state. The project was challenged in every one of the dimensions of state strength (i.e., compliance, legitimacy, and voluntary participation)8 by the extra-parliamentary opposition spearheaded by the ANC.9 The laws regulating the physical movement of people ran almost entirely against the logic of capitalist development. Apartheid required that the Black population be in the rural “homelands,” while socioeconomic development entailed the process of rapid urbanization.10 By the end of the 1970s the state could no longer contain the flow of people to the cities, regardless of the penalties imposed (fines, jail sentences, and forced repatriation).11 Other forms of civil disobedience followed, such as organized protests against the pass laws, tax revolts, and illegal strikes. The fundamental challenge, that of armed revolt, was initiated by Nelson Mandela and his associates in the late 1950s, for which Mandela received a life sentence. The military campaign was formally launched on December 16, 1961 when the ANC announced its armed struggle against the South African state. This strategy and doctrine evolved into the concept of a “People’s War,” where combat roles and civilian roles would merge into one. The tactical centerpiece of the resistance was the plan to make the country “ungovernable.”12 Throughout its existence the apartheid state served effectively to deliver the public goods Afrikaner nationalists sought: power, status, and wealth.13 But it failed to accumulate legitimacy for the regime. Collaborators from the subjected race groups were chosen to fill the subordinate representative institutions, but they were always challenged from within their own communities. The apartheid state was also increasingly confronted by external actors, loosely described as “global public opinion.” The strategic argument, never settled, was whether the regime could be challenged more effectively from within, through reform, or brought down from the outside through an insurrectionary takeover. The state faced up to its challengers with a wide array of security legislation and the formidable armed forces at its disposal. The “People’s War” would

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be met by the “Total Strategy.” By the 1980s the antiapartheid campaign became thoroughly internationalized and enmeshed in the proxy wars that characterized the superpower rivalry during the later stages of the cold war. The security legislation effectively stripped the apartheid state and regime of even the few remaining liberal features that existed within the realm of White parliamentary politics, making it less of a competitive oligarchy and more of a closed hegemony. The state never had enough resources to apply its restrictions fully; nonetheless, under the existing law civil liberties even for white South Africans came to be heavily circumscribed. Lawful opposition against the system was narrowed down to a very small arena, which was exploited by the small liberal parliamentary opposition, and masterfully so by the late Helen Suzman, who came to embody the letter and spirit of liberal values. Although it was a distinctly illiberal regime, this small enclave of parliamentary politics could have served as a nursery for establishing networks of mutual security among the elites, who then could in principle democratize the regime with relatively low risks of increasing mutual insecurity. This was the case with Britain, which in the early part of the twentieth century had a similarly restricted franchise.14 But such a development did not occur in the case of South Africa. Given its explicit racial character, a bridge to the un-enfranchised race groups could not be established incrementally without effectively changing the fundamental nature of the regime itself. The limits of racially defined liberalization were reached with the introduction in 1983 of the so-called Tricameral Parliament that contained separate chambers for Whites, Coloreds, and Indians. On matters of joint concern they would vote together, but the racial ratio of representation between the chambers was 4:2:1 in favor of the White chamber, which ensured continuing White domination. An entirely new regime devoid of entrenched White supremacy was needed to democratize the state, with all the security risks entailed in taking the shortcut to democracy. The opportunity to do so arrived in the early 1990s. The historic breakthrough came on February 2, 1990, when President F.W. de Klerk announced the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela after serving 27 years of his life term in prison. A number of factors conducive to motivating these leaders to successfully negotiate regime change emerged more or less at the same time. (These factors should not be confused with the preconditions for successful democratic consolidation.) The factors included, first, the end of the cold war, which recast international politics away from continued proxy wars between the superpowers and toward the implementation of the democratizing agenda of the remaining superpower, the United States. This made it possible for the Third Wave of democratization to take another forward surge. Second, new leadership appeared on both sides of the conflict, most notably F.W. de Klerk as the leader of the ruling National Party and Nelson Mandela who took over the leadership of the ANC after the death of Oliver Tambo. Third, a mutually

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hurting stalemate had set in with neither side seemingly able to dislodge or eliminate the other, and with both sides bearing the rising costs of continuing low-intensity conflict. Fourth, both sides recognized their mutual dependence as they realized they were contesting for power in a single indivisible modern society and economy. Fifth, a win-win outcome seemed achievable at the time, even if this was more a case of misperception than accurate assessment. Finally, once talks got under way, innovative negotiating rules served to keep up the momentum and contributed to clinching a successful peace accord in the form of a highly liberal democratic constitution, with some interim powersharing features.15 In December 1993, almost four years after the release of Mandela, the negotiators agreed to a new democratic constitution, which was inaugurated with the first democratic elections in April 1994. There were two aspects of the peace talks relevant to the prospects of a successful transition and an eventual liberalization of society. The first related to the concerns of mutual insecurity experienced by major parties and how they went about dealing with them. The second had to do with the role of violence in the talks. The escalation of vicious cycles of revolt and repression accelerated in the 1980s, thus increasing mutual insecurity. In September 1984 widespread civil unrest broke out in the urban Black townships across the country. In 1985 the ANC declared “People’s War” at their Kabwe Conference. And the state responded with successive states of emergency in 1985 and 1986. Breaking this spiral of confrontation required innovative thinking and actions. These took place initially in the form of secret pre-negotiations with Nelson Mandela, who was still being held in jail at Pollsmoor prison in Cape Town. During the 1980s Mandela had written many letters to the government requesting formal talks between the ANC and government, but to no avail. Their reluctance was broken, however, when he took ill and was hospitalized. Minister of Prisons Kobie Coetzee visited him a number of times in hospital as a gesture of compassion, but this direct contact also effectively set in motion a process of talks about talks. After his release from hospital these meetings became formalized, with the National Intelligence Service (NIS) taking the initiative. More than 40 such meetings were held between 1985 and 1989. The objective of the state was to assess Mandela as a potential negotiator, to find his fallback position, to search for middle ground, and to probe for flexible bargaining positions. The NIS finding by 1989 was that “Mandela was a man of integrity, and a man with which the government could deal, keeping in mind that he was immovable on some issues. This served an important role later in convincing the government to engage Mandela in talks, without having to worry that he would continuously shift between positions.”16 With this the first building block of mutual security, the foundation of any successful transition, was constructed. Other developments followed rapidly. After the unconditional release of Mandela from prison in February 1990, a period of confidence building ensued.

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Substantive negotiations about a new democratic constitution were preceded by a series of nonaggression pacts, all of them intended to build mutual security. At the heart of the matter was the issue of violence and its use as a negotiating tactic. The initial Groote Schuur Minute of May 1990 dealt ever so gingerly with the release of prisoners and immunity for returning exiles. The extreme caution in moving away from entrenched positions toward accommodating sworn rivals in a new arrangement can be gauged from the Pretoria Minute, where the ANC undertook to suspend violence but not to renounce the use of it, nor to reveal and hand over arms caches. The DF Malan Accord and the comprehensive multilateral National Peace Accord of 1991 completed this process of pact building in search of mutual security.17 Some vital aspects of security, such as the integration of the military forces of the state and the forces of the liberation movements, were deliberately left to the incumbents of the new regime to sort out, a huge gamble by any measure but indicative of the daring of the negotiators, on one hand, and the pressure on them to deliver a peace accord, on the other. The second issue was that of overt violence. All these attempts at building mutual security within the ranks of the elites still failed to thwart the escalation of political violence during the transition. At the start of formal talks, political fatalities escalated from less than 1500 in 1989 to almost 4000 in the very next year. It was only after talks had been concluded and the peace accord signed and implemented in 1995 that fatalities subsided again to below 1000 per annum (see Figure 3.1). 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

Figure 3.1

Political fatalities in South Africa, 1984–1998

Note: The figure for 1984 only includes the months of September–December. Source: Adapted from H. Forgey, et al (eds.), South Africa Survey 1999/2000. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1999, 71. Used with Permission.

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In all, 24,111 people lost their lives in political violence between September 1984 and December 1998.18 In the major study to establish the causes of these atrocities, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found in 1998 that virtually all the major actors who had coercive means at their disposal did use them to lethal effect during the negotiated transition. These include the state and its various agencies, that is, police, army, and the National Intelligence Service; groups affiliated with the state as incumbents of subordinate positions within the apartheid institutional grid, such as the Inkhata Freedom Party (IFP) and its self-protection units; White right-wing organizations such as the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB); the liberation movements, especially the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress,(PAC), with their private armies such as Umkhonto we Sizwe, and their self-defense units; and the internal wings of these liberation movements such as the United Democratic Front (UDF).19 The successful founding election of 1994 was followed by a remarkably rapid decline in overt political violence. The new transitional constitution that was agreed to in late 1993 outlines a liberal constitutional regime characterized by the rule of law, with an extensive set of checks and balances, a human rights charter, and a series of measures for the protection of minorities. Moreover, the process of transition allowed for legal and constitutional continuity by having the apartheid parliament sign the new constitution into law and making a provision for continuity of the legal system and the system of public administration of the state.20 The inaugural elections of 1994 established the first democratic parliament of South Africa with Nelson Mandela as President. The 400-member National Assembly regrouped as a constitutional convention, this time as a legitimately elected body, and renegotiated the final constitution, a thoroughly liberal document, which was duly enacted by parliament in 1996. This successful clinching of a peace agreement at the negotiating table seemingly counts as a triumph of an effective process over unfavorable preconditions. The negotiators at times came up against some very difficult obstacles, including one breakdown in 1992, when talks were shelved for some months, and the murder of Chris Hani, leader of the SACP by a White right-wing group in 1993, yet the decisive momentum toward reaching an agreement was maintained. Democratic transition was accomplished by exemplary negotiating tactics, innovative rules and procedures, decisive, even heroic, leadership, and firm, if distant, support from the international community. The new regime that was launched lacked many preconditions for democratic success. In 1994 the country had only a very small and racially defined middle class, large-scale poverty and unemployment, extreme inequality, a weakened state, illegitimate state agencies, sharply divided public opinion, and weak economic growth. A large number of civic bodies occupied the space between state and society, but they were polarized along partisan lines.21 Could this regime proceed to consolidate itself and inculcate liberal values within society?

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In the heady conditions of the mid-1990s, the transition, in the words of some commentators, was adjudged to be something of a miraculous event.22 It generated a momentum of positive thinking that inhibited many from examining and exposing the weaknesses in the peace process, some of which had a direct bearing on the consolidation of the regime and on the liberalization of society. For a start, it was evident that the major parties (ANC and the National Party (NP)) went through the process without clarifying what they meant by negotiations.23 Another weakness in the process was that the parties failed to clarify the meaning of democracy. The liberal meaning stresses a procedural notion of democracy, while the so-called liberationist interpretation places heavier emphasis on the substantive element.24 In a society marked with poverty, unemployment, and inequality, support for this interpretation is substantial. Coupled to the vanguardist tradition of the ANC’s longtime ally, the SACP, and its own idea of its role in South Africa awarded to it by “history,” the ANC’s view of democracy evolved into one where meeting substantive needs was essential to the definition. In the words of one analyst, derived from a study of the ANC’s own official documents: for them democracy then becomes not so much a system of government by the people but rather of government over the people.25 Concerns about the illiberal character of the new rulers surfaced in 1997 at the ANC’s 50th National Conference held at Mafikeng. Documents of the Conference explicated the agenda of “transformation,” which would guide subsequent ANC policies. Defined in the very racial terms of the (by then defunct) apartheid regime (which stated that everyone is either Black, Colored, White, or Indian), the policy entailed the following: • The achievement of hegemony for the ANC by asserting control over all the agencies of the state, primarily through “cadre deployment”; • Achieving hegemony for Black people in general, and indigenous Blacks (that is, Africans) in particular within the ranks of black South Africans, by racially preferential policies and the displacement of White people, primarily through affirmative action policies; • And third, achieving the hegemony of ideas by containing the free press and the judiciary, and dominating public debate.26 With the ANC having asserted its policies of transformation as the overall guiding norm of public policy, the question is then to what extent has the democratized state emerged as a neutral umpire? Our expectation for South Africa, informed by the above context, is that in the early stages of the transition those state institutions most closely associated with the authoritarian past would instill the least confidence in the newly enfranchised citizens, while the newly created institutions would generate the most confidence. We expect that in later stages public confidence in various state institutions will be shaped by the policies of the new incumbent rulers.

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The State as Guardian of Liberty Few South Africans other than those designated as White had reason to consider any agency of the apartheid state as being a guardian of their interests, liberty, or other rights such as property and safety. The state served to implement apartheid rule, which was inherently discriminatory, favoring Whites over everybody else. These policies were enforced when needed and the coercive agencies of the state (army, police, courts, and other agencies of the criminal justice system) were deployed to this effect. For many, the state represented a threat, not a benevolent guardian. How has the transition to a liberal constitutional state affected public attitudes? The change in confidence in the central state institutions27 among the four race groups over a period of 25 years is shown in Figure 3.2. The spread of confidence levels among the race groups in 1981 is entirely as expected. Apartheid was a racial oligarchy with a differential and invidious incorporation of race groups into the state and society, which also maintained a specific hierarchy that 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Black White Colored Indian Total

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

31 87 45 50 44

70 81 69 71 72

78 40 51 62 69

74 22 43 43 51

73 33 52 38 66

Figure 3.2 Public confidence in central state institutions by race, 1981–2006 Note: Central state institutions index include police, armed forces, parliament, civil service, and courts. The question read as follows: “I am going to name of number of institutions. For each, could you please indicate whether you have a great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or no confidence in them?” The confidence percentages are based on combining the “a great deal” + “quite a lot” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS. Kotzé


45

is accurately reflected in the figure. Whites, the racially privileged group, had the most confidence in the central state institutions, followed by Indians and Coloreds who, although deprived, were less stringently excluded from access to modern society. Blacks, who were the most severely discriminated against, had the least confidence in the central state. The picture is one of a racially polarized society in which the central state itself is an object of dispute. The contrast between the data for 1981 and 2006 is vivid. The confidence levels of Whites and Blacks have virtually reversed, which represents a hugely significant perceptual change. The other two minorities remain in between the two outliers, but Indians have moved closer to Whites in expressing lower levels of confidence. This is not what a consolidated liberal democracy should look like, and although the “confidence gap” (between the group with the highest and the one with the lowest expression of confidence) narrowed from 56 percent in 1981 to 40 percent in 2006, this still represents a racially polarized state, with the cluster of central state institutions as an object of polarization. The liberal state by definition is one that serves, and is perceived to serve, as a guardian for all citizens equally. Although the total level of confidence in central state institutions shows a marked improvement from 1981 (44 percent) to 2006 (66 percent), it is questionable whether this is indicative of a successful transition as far as the deracialization and liberalization of this aspect of the state is concerned. The highpoints and low points in Figure 3.2 require some consideration. The 1990 highpoint is something of a surprise, as it was preceded by civil unrest that had already started in 1984, as well as two states of emergency (1985 and 1986) in which both the police and armed forces were widely deployed to suppress dissent. Why then is there this dramatic rise in confidence levels from the subordinate race groups? We interpret this as an indication of the different expectations about the democratic transition. For some South Africans the release of Mandela and his compatriots from prison, and the mainstreaming of the ANC, the PAC, and the SACP, heralded the start of liberation and emancipation from their position of political subordination—hence the prospect of becoming owners of the state and therefore the display of greater confidence in these agencies. For others this historic moment inaugurated the transition to democracy, and, given the fluid political environment, the uncertainty of moving over new political ground, and, above all, the inclination of all politicians to gain support for their own agendas with the notion of a “win/win” outcome to the negotiations, every interpretation of democracy was tilted in favor of a positive assessment of the state. The low point of 2001 is explicable in terms of the downward trend that had already commenced in 1990. We interpret it as the culmination of a perceived decline in public safety, especially under threat from agents of organized political violence and organized violent criminals in the early 1990s (see Figure 3.1). Some of the violence explicitly targeted the agents of the state, such as the police, which contributed to lower confidence levels especially in the coercive agencies of the state as protectors of the physical safety of the general public. All three groups of racial minorities experienced a significant decline in

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60%

A great deal

Quite a lot

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% 2000

2002

2007

Figure 3.3 Elite confidence in state institutions, 2000–2007 Note: The question read as follows: “I am going to name of number of institutions. For each, could you please indicate whether you have a great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or no confidence in them?” Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2000, 2002, and 2007 elite surveys.

confidence levels, with the Black majority holding a steady high level of confidence. The gradual improvement in overall levels of confidence from 2001 to 2006 among all racial minority groups except the Indians is also notable. The measures of elite confidence in the central state institutions (see Figure 3.3) do not cover the same 25-year range, but, as in the public surveys, they do show a rising trend in confidence levels after the turn of the century, although it continued to remain lower than the overall levels of the public (50 percent for the elites in 2007, compared to 66 percent for the general public in 2006). Why these lower confidence levels for the elites? Part of the answer is found in considering the confidence levels of the different social classes in South Africa, as shown in Table 3.1.28 As can be seen, the confidence levels vary substantially, with the lower-class respondents having far higher confidence in the institutions of the central state than found among the higher classes, of which the elites are part. We interpret this in part as a function of information availability. The elites and higher classes have more data at their disposal about the actual performance of state agencies than do respondents from the lower classes. The many instances of weak performance are therefore far better known to them, and even if they are not directly adversely affected by this, the mass media make it a continuous vicarious experience for their consumers. Those from the lower ranks experience state weakness, such as poor service delivery, only intermittently, and that too only when it affects them directly. With fewer personal resources at their Kotzé

THE STATE AS GUARDIAN? Table 3.1

47

Public confidence in state institutions by social class, 2006 Social class

Level of confidence Lower class

Middle class

TOTAL Upper class

A great or fair deal Little or none

72.0 28.0

40.9 59.1

33.7 66.3

66.3 33.7

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

Note: The percentages are based on combining “a great deal” + “a fair deal” response categories and “little” + “none at all” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS.

disposal to compensate for the low capacity of the state, and with a presumed lower sense of efficacy, they are more dependent on the state to provide public goods. This would make them less willing to express lower confidence in the state, regardless of any possible misgivings they may harbor. In a deeply divided society where political adversaries are embedded in communities, civic bodies are prone to be drawn into the polarized structure of political conflict. This was certainly the case in South Africa under apartheid, where civic bodies either positioned themselves voluntarily along the racial demarcations of social conflict or were forced by law, if they wanted to be multiracial bridge builders, to redefine themselves in racial terms. As we show in the next chapter, the state invested large amounts of effort into directing interest-group formation along racial lines.29 As the conflict against apartheid intensified, a racially segmented civil society emerged, with each political formation drawing on its corresponding set of civic bodies as a social and political resource. In the liberalization of such a segmented society, the general liberal expectation would be that the core elements of civil society will de-racialize and depoliticize and coalesce into a single cluster of institutions that is perceived to occupy the space between the state and the individual. Such a cluster would promote the values and norms of civility rather than those of racial exclusion and political polarization.30 The liberal state is required to provide the institutional space for this to occur. It is also required to provide the organizational space for these civic bodies to establish themselves as autonomous from the state, able to promote the interest agendas of their respective members and not be bound by the state’s ideological strictures. South African liberals expected as much from a de-racialized post-apartheid South Africa: shared interests across the color-line resulting in cross-cutting affiliations that would rapidly emerge and form the basis for a new civil society.31 To the extent that this occurs, public confidence in the institutions of civil society can be expected to rise. How far has South Africa progressed in this direction? In Figure 3.4 we track public confidence in the cluster of bodies in the civil society index32 from 1981 to 2006. The figure shows that in 1981 a very wide “confidence gap” (39 percent) existed with respect to the racial perceptions of Kotzé

48

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% Black White Colored Indian Total

Figure 3.4

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

62 64 77 38 62

92 60 81 70 83

82 60 74 75 77

90 61 71 84 84

82 71 76 80 80

Public confidence in civil society by race, 1981–2006

Note: Civil society index include press, church, major companies, and labor unions. The question read as follows: “I am going to name of number of institutions. For each, could you please indicate whether you have a great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or no confidence in them?” The confidence percentages are based on combining the “a great deal” + “quite a lot” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

core civic bodies, and that the Coloreds and Indians were at the top and bottom outliers, respectively. We attribute the low levels of confidence among the Indian community to the presence of “bonding” social capital and the perception that family relationships and resources were considered more valuable under conditions of apartheid than were civic bodies within the public domain.33 As the transition proceeded, the overall level of confidence in these institutions rose and a distinct convergence also took place in the confidence level of the four races. By 2006 the confidence gap had narrowed to 11 percent, and the overall level of confidence had risen from 62 percent in 1981 to 80 percent in 2006. This trend is far more compatible with the ideal process of liberalization than is the case with confidence in state institutions. As can be seen from Figure 3.5, elite confidence in civil society complements the trend of public opinion, but again it does so at markedly lower levels of confidence.

Kotzé

THE STATE AS GUARDIAN? 60%

A great deal

49

Quite a lot

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% 2000

2002

2007

Figure 3.5 Elite confidence in civil society, 2000–2007 Note: The question read as follows: “I am going to name of number of institutions. For each, could you please indicate whether you have a great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or no confidence in them?” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2000, 2002, and 2007 elite surveys.

Table 3.2 Public confidence in civil society by social class, 2006 Social class

Level of confidence Lower class

TOTAL

Middle class Upper class

A great or fair deal Little or none

82.2 17.8

69.8 30.2

69.6 30.4

79.9 20.1

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

Note: The percentages are based on combining “a great deal” + “a fair deal” response categories and “little” + “none at all” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS.

This divergence is again noticeable from the different levels of confidence accorded to the institutions of civil society by different social classes within the general public, as can be seen from Table 3.2. The difference is not as marked as is the case with confidence in state institutions, but the trend is still the same: lower-class respondents have more confidence in these civic bodies than do the upper-class respondents. We take this to reflect, in part, the personal sense of efficacy experienced by the upper classes. Being the winners in the new democratic

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50 Table 3.3

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Public confidence in state and non-state institutions, 1981–2006

Institutions

1981

1990

% Rank % Churches President

1

Rank % Rank

83.8 58.4

1 6

84.2 1 72.8 2

Television

66.8

6

74.9

2

71.2

3

SA government

68.7

5

57

9

69.4

4

66

5

2 9 3

83

Rank %

2006

1

57.6 34.8 51.2

1

%

2001

84.7

Constitutional Court Courts Parliament Major companies Charitable/ humanitarian organizations Armed forces Police Press Environmental organizations Civil Service United Nations

70.7

Rank

1995

73.8 3 66 4 76.4 2

63.6 68.8 74.5

7 4 3

58.4 58.6 74.8

6 5 3

64.7 6 63.7 7 63.3 8 62.5

9

10 11 12 12

42.3 46.4 48.9

8 5 4

60.5 7 63.7 5 58.4 9

56.7 10 74.8 2 53.9 14 56 12

53.7 11 52.7 12 66.5 4 50.9 13

61.2 61 57.4 57.4

45.3

6

60

58.7 58.4

8 9

55.3 10 58.3 8

52.5 14 47.3 15

55.1

13

African Union (OAU) Labor unions 43.7 Political parties

7

61.3

8

6

43.6 16 46.9 15

46.5 16 49.5 14 40.7 15

42.2 17 42.2 17

Note:. The percentages are based on combining “a great deal” + “a fair deal” of confidence response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

society, they have a sense of self-sufficiency and personal control that is lacking among the lower classes and hence feel that they can take care of themselves. The difference between elite and public attitudes on this dimension of liberalization can also be illuminated by examining differences in confidence levels in specific institutions, as is shown in Tables 3.3 and 3.4. Since 1981 the public consistently ranked churches as those institutions they have the most confidence in. For elites the churches ranked 3rd in 2000, 5th in 2002, and 6th in 2007. The consistently high levels of confidence in churches among the public

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51

Elite confidence in state and non-state institutions, 2000–2007 2000

Institutions

% Rank The Constitutional Court Charitable or Humanitarian Organizations The President Environmental Organizations Women’s Organizations Churches The South African Government Parliament The Courts The Press The IMF/World Bank The United Nations The Armed Forces Police Television The African Union Political Parties The Civil Service

2002 %

Rank

2007 %

Rank

88.4 80.2

1 2

– –

– –

–

74.6

2

77.9

3

52.0

4

52.5

10

75.5

4

47.4 58.3 59.1

6 3 2

55.5 63.2 76.1

8 5 1

73.9 67.0 66.3

5 6 7

60.7 44.4 40.4 32.6 28.5 38.3 21.6 30.1 19.0 35.6 26.1

1 7 8 12 14 9 16 13 17 10 15

67.0 67.1 45.1 43.3 59.4 39.8 44.2 40.3 54.2 36.2 41.3

4 3 12 14 6 17 13 16 9 18 15

64.4 60.0 52.8 48.2 44.2 43.6 42.9 39.0 38.0 34.6 32.3

8 9 11 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 20

Note: The percentages are based on combining “a great deal” + “a fair deal” of confidence response categories Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2000, 2002, and 2007 elite surveys.

throughout the transition to democracy, with even a rise in confidence by 1990 to a new plateau, is striking. The transition was a time of political as well as social turmoil, and churches, like many other civic organizations, were also split—along with the communities in which they were embedded—along the salient lines of conflict. (See the discussion in chapters 4 and 7.) We interpret this consistent confidence to be a reflection of their function as a source of inspiration and reassurance, whatever the substance of the theology, or the partisanship of the politics that was received by the public from the pulpit. Elites, being more successful in coping with this transition and at the very apex of their respective institutions, would in our view be less in need of such reassurance and more critical of the received wisdom from other elites in the church. The key institutional elements of economic society, organized labor and organized business (“major companies” and “labor unions”), are both initially

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ranked highly by the public. But the ranking of labor unions slid downward in a striking way from 1995. By 2006 the public had least confidence in them, and they were then ranked lowest and placed on a level equal to political parties. The public also expressed a loss of confidence in organized business, but not as dramatically. Elites also rated business higher than labor. They showed little confidence in labor unions in 2000, and it declined with every subsequent survey. The comparative rankings for the individual components of the central state by elites and the public are also relevant. The armed forces receive an average confidence rating from the public throughout the transition, but the rating awarded to the police is interesting. In 1981 they were the agency of the state with instructions to apply the hated apartheid laws to the subject communities, and hence were the most visible tangible and symbolic target of resistance and revolt. During the armed struggle they were also prime targets for lethal assault. Yet, in 1981 they did not receive the lowest ranking among the agencies of the apartheid state from the public, and by 1995, midway in the transition, their ranking had risen to 2nd position, just below the churches! Thereafter confidence in the police slumped badly. By contrast, in 2000 the elites had far more confidence in the armed forces than in the police, but by 2007 both of them were ranked low. The courts, also part of the coercive agencies of the state assigned to implement and enforce apartheid laws, received high ratings from the public before, during, and at the end of the transition. Elite confidence was similar, but their support for the Constitutional Court is noticeable. This court stands at the very apex of the legal and constitutional structures tasked to protect and extend core democratic values in South Africa, some of which are essentially liberal, but the most important is the rule of law. The level of elite (and public) support for this institution can be taken as an endorsement of this protective role of the court. Democratic transition entails that the institutions of the old regime be replaced by new ones. The old parliament has been replaced, a Presidency with a new role has been established, a legitimate government has taken office, and new political parties have been formed since 1994. Not all of these developments have been received with equal levels of confidence. The President and the new government certainly have received high confidence levels, but the political parties have not. Elites rank them lowest, along with the civil service, and the public too ranks them as the lowest, along with the labor unions. These differences in confidence in institutions again demonstrates how differently elites and the public experience and judge their social and political world and the major structures that are embedded in state and society.

Democracy and Liberal Values The effective transplacement of a racial oligarchy with a liberal democracy of course requires, as its bedrock, a prior commitment to democracy itself,

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irrespective of the finer aspects of liberalism it contains. The general expectation for any successful transition, including in South Africa, is that the virtues of a democratic regime over other nondemocratic regimes will be widely accepted by all citizens across whatever lines divided them in the pre-democratic era. Fortunately, on this perceptual dimension, overwhelming majorities of South Africans of all races concurred. Even Whites, arguably those with the most significant privileges to give up, endorsed democracy over its alternatives by a large margin. Figures 3.6 and 3.7 and Table 3.5 present the data. The above survey items are, at best, very blunt indicators of regime preference, and, as was argued in the previous chapter, the details of the specific constitutional rules to be selected by this kind of society are of vital importance. Liberal and illiberal democracies are considered to be very different regime types and are expected to generate different responses to the question of organized public violence. It is therefore important to establish what meaning South Africans invest in their conception of democracy. The 2006 version of the World Values Survey contained survey items that probe for such content for different concepts of democracy held by the public 100%

1995

2001

2006

43.7

24.6

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 34.4

32.7

20.8

32.4

49

49.8

59.8

91.1

90.1

90.2

0% Having a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with parliament and elections

Having the army rule

Having experts and not government make decisions according to what they think is best for the country

Having a democratic political system

Figure 3.6 Public perception of the legitimacy of democracy, 1995–2006 Note: The question read as follows: “For each four types of political system described, please state whether you think each is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad, or very bad way of governing this country.” The percentages presented are based on combining the “very good” + “fairly good” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Elite

Public

14.3

43.7

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 2.0

32.4

29.8

59.8

99.0

90.2

0% Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections

Having the army rule

Having experts and not government make decisions according to what they think is best for the country

Having a democratic political system

Figure 3.7 Elite and public perceptions of the legitimacy of democracy Note: The question read as follows: “For each four types of political system described, please state whether you think each is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad, or very bad way of governing this country.” The percentages presented are based on combining the “very good” + “fairly good” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

and it was then also used in the 2007 elite survey. Table 3.6 presents data on ranked items that both elites and the public identify as essential characteristics of democracy. These items (18 for the public and 16 for the elites) can be broadly placed into three categories: those that relate to rules of representation (i.e., procedural criteria of democracy); those that bear on human rights (i.e., liberal values); and those that relate to socioeconomic conditions (substantive outcomes). From the table it is apparent that elites place a higher value on liberal rights than the public do, with items ranked two to six being rights issues. One significant difference is with respect to human dignity, arguably the preeminent right in the liberal world view. Elites rank this as third in importance, while the public ranks it as only thirteenth. When the responses to the individual items are correlated with race, only one item elicits a strong difference of opinion. The statement that one of the essentials of democracy is that “governments tax the rich and subsidise the poor” is agreed to by 71.1 percent of the Black public and by 70.4 percent of the Coloreds, but only 47.6 percent of the Whites and 50.8 percent of Indians (table not shown).

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Table 3.5 Public perceptions of the legitimacy of democracy by race, 1995–2006 Indicators of legitimacy of democracy

Year

Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections Having the army rule

1995 2001 2006

30.6 31.6 42.8

43.7 34.5 47.9

47.5 34.7 39.3

41.6 41.5 70.0

34.1 32.7 43.7

1995 2001 2006 1995 2001 2006

26.1 22.3 35.4 44.7 46.0 60.4

15.5 18.3 18.5 63.3 67.9 59.4

31.1 14.7 22.6 51.2 46.6 49.5

24.3 19.2 29.6 60.5 63.7 71.0

24.6 20.8 32.4 49.0 49.8 59.8

1995 2001 2006

94.3 92.5 90.6

74.2 76.8 88.0

91.9 91.8 87.6

91.2 91.2 94.9

77.8 90.2 90.2

Having experts, and not government, make decisions according to what they think is best for the country Having a democratic political system

Race

TOTAL

Black White Colored Indian

Note: The percentages are based on combining “very good” + “fairly good” ways of governing response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1995, 2001, and 2006 WVS.

In general, the public tends to rank socioeconomic outcomes (shelter, food, water, and jobs) higher, and are not as intensely insistent about the liberal characteristics of democracy as the elites are, with the exception of “equal opportunity in education,” as can be seen from Table 3.7. Respondents in the World Values Survey tend not to cluster these three types of characteristics in terms of ranked priorities, but the Alpha scores for both elite and public surveys show a very high level of clustering in response patterns.34 Individual respondents do treat liberal characteristics differently from the other items, but this still does not warrant a conclusion that South Africans necessarily endorse an illiberal democracy stripped of human rights, in which elected majorities prevail without constraint over individuals or minorities. A last dimension of social and political space that the liberal state provides for its citizens relates to the liberty to protest against public policies. The World Values Survey uses a set of items that is combined into an index measuring what we call protest propensity. In Figures 3.8.1 and 3.8.2 the trends over 25 years are presented, and in Figure 3.9 the breakdown by race for the last elite and public surveys are compared.

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Table 3.6

Elite and public rankings of essential characteristics in a democracy

Essential characteristics of democracy

Elite

People choose their leaders in free elections Equal opportunity in education The individual Human Right to dignity Women have the same rights as men Complete freedom for anyone to criticize government Civil rights protect people’s liberty against oppression Basic necessities like shelter, food, and water for everyone The economy is prospering Equality to vote in elections Elected officials try to do what people want Minority rights Jobs for everyone Political parties in parliament engage in political compromises People receive state aid/help for unemployment People can change the laws in referendums Governments tax the rich and subsidize the poor Criminals are severely punished Majority rule Religious authorities interpret the laws The army takes over when government is incompetent

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 – – – –

Public 5 1 13 7 14 12 2 6 3 8 – 4 – 10 16 15 9 11 17 18

Note: The question read as follows: “Many things may be desirable, but not all are essential characteristics of democracy. Please tell me for each of the following items (18 for public and 16 for elite) how essential you think it is as a characteristic of a democracy. Use this scale where 1 means not at all characteristic and 10 means an essential characteristic.” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

Table 3.7

Elite and public support for aspects of liberal democracy Elite

Liberal characteristics of a democracy

Civil rights protect people’s liberty against oppression Equal opportunity in education The individual Human Right to dignity Women have the same rights as men Complete freedom for anyone to criticize government

Public

Very

Fairly

Very

Fairly

73.2

20.1

44.2

30.7

79.8 74.9 82.1 72.8

15.6 19.8 12.1 20.9

73.8 47.6 54.4 48.4

15.2 29.2 26.6 25.8

Note: The percentages are based on combining 9+10 “very essential” and 6–8 “fairly essential” response categories on a ten-point scale, where 1 means not at all essential and 10 means an essential characteristic of democracy. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

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90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Black White Colored Indian Total

Figure 3.8.1

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

47.7 41.0 42.7 41.2 45.3

77.6 58.3 33.5 50.0 67.9

60.6 41.7

69.5 43.9 59.9 48.0 64.3

51.5 34.7 54.7 67.9 50.1

49.5 45.0 56.0

“Legal” public protest propensity by race, 1981–2006

Note: “Legal” protest includes boycotts and attending lawful demonstrations. The question read as follows: “I’m going to read out some forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one, whether you have ever done these things, whether you might do it or would never, under any circumstance do it.” The percentages presented are based on combining the “have done” + “might do” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

The survey item presents respondents with three response categories to each of the respective protest actions: “have done”; “might do”; and “would never do”; which are grouped into legal and illegal actions. The “have done” response allows us to include respondents who have actually made use of the space available to them to protest, whether legalized by the state or not. The measure is therefore interpreted as a predisposition to political action. The “might do” option probes the extent to which the respondent calculates the presence of social space to engage in such actions and the cost-benefit calculation of doing so. A restricted legal space, with heavy penalties for protest action, is likely to inhibit the likelihood and propensity for such action, and a wide legal space, with attractive cost-benefit outcomes, is likely to increase such a propensity. The latter is the hallmark of a liberal state. What makes South Africa different, of course, is that before 1990 legal space was heavily circumscribed by security legislation in general, and also by the State of Emergency that was in force from June 12, 1986. Only in June 1990 did President F.W. De Klerk lift this prohibition, but still retaining it in Kwa-Zulu and Natal, the most violence-prone regions. Another factor is that it was mostly

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Black White Colored Indian Total

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

36.1 8.0 13.6 18.8 25.0

51.4 17.0 17.8 23.3 38.7

28.6 9.6

40.5 14.1 32.8 10.3 34.6

21.9 7.2 16.2 21.4 19.8

23.4 11.6 24.3

Figure 3.8.2 “Illegal” public protest propensity by race, 1981–2006 Note: “Illegal” protest includes joining unofficial strikes and occupying buildings. The question read as follows: “I’m going to read out some forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one, whether you have ever done these things, whether you might do it or would never, under any circumstance do it.” The percentages presented are based on combining the “have done” + “might do” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

the racially subordinate groups that protested, legally but increasingly also illegally, informed by the ANC strategy of making the country “ungovernable.” As can be expected, in 1981 few South Africans were likely to protest against the repressive apartheid state through illegal action. By 1990, however, a highpoint of protest propensity was reached for both legal and illegal action with the opening up of the system and the termination of the State of Emergency. From then on the protests gradually declined and by 2006 the levels were only marginally above those of 1981. The different distributions of protest orientation by race group is notable. As expected, Blacks indicate the highest protest propensity throughout, both prior to and after democratization. The divergent response patterns for legal protest action expressed by the Colored and Indian minorities are remarkable. Indian respondents, along with Blacks and Whites, interpreted the release of Nelson Mandela and the advent of negotiations as an era more favorable to legal protest, while the Coloreds alone thought otherwise. Ten years later, by 2001, every race group showed a decline in protest propensity, except the Coloreds, who moved from the lowest

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THE STATE AS GUARDIAN? 100%

Elite

59

Public

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 78.0

51.5

64.1

34.7

92.9

54.7

87.5

67.9

73.9

50.1

0% Black

White

Colored

Indian

Total

Figure 3.9 “Legal” protest propensity of elites and the public by race Note: “Legal” protest includes boycotts and attending lawful demonstrations. The question read as follows: “I’m going to read out some forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one, whether you have ever done these things, whether you might do it or would never, under any circumstance do it.” The percentages presented are based on combining the “have done” + “might do” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

to the second highest ranking for both types of protest. Another five years on, by 2006, Indians overtook the Coloreds and had moved from the lowest to the highest ranking, and Whites had declined to the lowest position as far as legal protest is concerned. There is a significant convergence of racial dispositions toward illegal protest at a low and declining level, which is compatible with the expectation of a successfully liberalizing state. The same trend is to be found with respect to legal protest actions at a higher level, with the notable exception of Indian respondents. It is also notable from Figure 3.9 that all the elites are more inclined to participate in protest action than their fellow rankand-file citizens. It must be emphasized that these items in the World Values Survey that probe for support for the various dimensions of democracy are part of the generic questionnaire and are not sharp enough to expose attitudes toward all the particular and peculiar dimensions of the debate on democracy in South Africa. The question of what the implications are for democracy, with a dominant ruling party that is committed to hegemony in its many forms, including

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“the hegemony of ideas,” is not captured in its entirety at all. As noted in the Introduction, this is one of the inherent limitations of secondary analysis.

The State and the Monopoly on Violence The last aspect of the liberal state that can be considered with the data at our disposal is the substance of priorities that the public assigns to those in power, Table 3.8.1 Liberal (first choice) priorities of the public, 1990–2006 (first battery) Liberal priorities

Year

A high level of economic growth Seeing that people have more say about how things are done at their jobs and in their communities Making sure this country has strong defense forces Trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful TOTAL

1990

1995

2001

2006

53.8 25.9

61.8 18.1

58.2 20.9

59.5 22.6

12.5

14.1

16.0

10.1

7.8

6.0

4.9

7.8

100

100

100

100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

Table 3.8.2 Liberal (first choice) priorities of the public, 1981–2006 (second battery) Liberal priorities

Year 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

Maintaining order in the nation Fighting rising prices Giving people more say in government decisions Protecting freedom of speech

56.1 12.9 27.8

38.4 28.9 27.3

49.2 24.5 19.6

39.0 33.1 20.0

32.6 36.9 21.8

3.2

5.4

6.7

7.9

8.7

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

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Table 3.8.3 Liberal (first choice) priorities of the public, 1990–2006 (third battery) Liberal priorities

Year 1990

1995

2001

A stable economy The fight against crime Progress toward a less impersonal and more humane society Progress toward a society in which ideas count more than money

45.6 23.5 17.3

51.2 32.0 10.3

47.3 40.2 6.1

42.1 42.9 6.6

13.6

6.5

6.4

8.4

TOTAL

100

100

100

2006

100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

because this has a bearing on the use of the monopoly on violence at the state’s disposal. The general expectation, according to the theory of the liberal democratic peace, is that liberal democratic regimes are likely to curtail, or heavily circumscribe, the use of organized violence by the state against its own citizens and against other liberal democracies. Liberal values that reflect this pacific domestic tendency can be expected to be prevalent in preferences about public policy priorities and the decisive coercive deterrent available to the state against its citizens, such as the death penalty. In Tables 3.8.1 to 3.8.3 we are able to ascertain public priorities about the use of the armed forces and police, about matters of law and order, and about the deployment of the police force. The question posed is as follows: “People sometimes talk about what the aims of this country should be for the next ten years. I am going to read out a list of some of the goals which different people would give top priority. Would you please say which one of these you yourself consider most important?” The priorities were presented to the respondents in three separate batteries of four items each, asking them to rank each item within each battery in terms of priority. Our interest in the first battery is to find how they rank the need for a strong defense force, the primary coercive agency of the state. The data show a consistently low priority given to the defense force and a rising importance for economic priorities. In the second batch the policy task of “maintaining order in the nation” is weighed up against other priorities, and again economic concerns (“fighting rising prices”) are given the first priority by 2006. Only in the third batch does the exercise of the coercive capabilities of the state (“the fight against crime”) gain a higher priority over economic matters (“a stable economy”), but it is only marginal. In every battery the more peaceful “quality of life” priorities rank lowest.

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Table 3.8.4 Elite and public assessment of democracy in South Africa Assessment of current political system35

People have freedom of association People have freedom of speech People have the freedom to choose who to vote for without being pressured Nobody needs to be afraid of arbitrary arrest Ordinary people have an influence on government Competition between political parties never leads to violent conflict People are safe from crime Everyone can decide individually whether or not to take an interest in politics Everyone has freedom of choice in religious matters Government treats everyone equally and fairly People have an adequate standard of living

Strongly agree

Agree

Elite

Public

Elite Public

47.7 44.0 34.2

46.8 41.2 43.1

47.7 48.9 47.5

44.6 45.4 41.8

20.8

17.3

44.6

39.1

8.7

21.5

37.2

34.2

4.9

15.1

24.0

31.7

2.0 –

11.8 41.6

9.2 –

18.2 45.1

–

46.6

–

43.9

–

18.9

–

34.1

–

12.1

–

27.6

Note: The question read as follows: “Here are a number of things people often say about our current political system. For each of the following statements, please indicate whether you strongly agree, strongly disagree or something in between.” Responses were measured on a Likert-scale (five-point scale). Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

Priorities are one thing, actual government performance in delivering these public preferences is quite another matter. In Tables 3.8.4 and 3.8.5 we present findings on the extent to which the elites and the public perceive the state and its agencies to have succeeded in meeting their demands, which has been prioritized into liberal rights, and other needs. From the data in table 3.8.4 we can see that there is general agreement that some core liberal rights (freedom of association, speech, and voting) are well protected, so is religious freedom and the right to engage or disengage in politics. Both elites and the public sense, however, that crucial socioeconomic claims pertaining to standards of living and physical safety (protection against criminals) are not met. The assessment presented in table 3.8.5 underscores the prevailing trend, with some socioeconomic targets being adequately met, others less so, and the

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Table 3.8.5 Public assessment of government delivery by race, 2006 Race

Government Deliverables

Managing the economy Addressing educational needs Improving basic health services Combating HIV/Aids Promoting access to land Delivering household water Resolving conflict between communities Controlling inflation Fighting corruption in government Keeping skilled people in South Africa – Stopping the “brain drain” Ensuring everyone has enough to eat Narrowing the gap between rich and poor Keeping prices stable Creating jobs/ reducing unemployment Reducing crime

TOTAL

Black

White Colored Indian

76.4 78.7 74.3

59.8 42.5 40.1

58.6 52.9 40.0

61.2 40.8 51.1

73.0 72.2 67.9

68.4 65.1 61.7 64.7

36.4 45.8 56.2 31.4

44.9 48.8 65.2 31.5

48.7 49.3 59.2 42.4

62.9 61.5 61.3 58.3

62.5 53.6

40.9 18.0

43.7 22.8

37.6 20.2

58.1 46.8

53.1

18.8

27.4

26.9

46.0

46.0

27.1

29.3

26.6

42.5

43.2

24.4

19.1

30.1

39.2

40.3 40.6

35.0 25.0

36.2 26.1

26.1 22.7

39.2 37.5

37.4

12.7

13.3

7.0

32.4

Note: The question read: “How well or badly would you say the current government is handling the following matters?” The responses were measured on a four-point scale ranging from very well to very badly. The percentages are based on combining “very well” + “fairly well” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 wave of WVS.

target of crime control being least met. The three racial minorities rate the state exceptionally low on this item, which is indicative of the state’s perceived inability to contain violent challenges within society. The public execution of its own citizens is one of the most explicit ways in which the state exercises its monopoly on violence. And it has become one of the benchmarks in gauging pacification of liberal democratic societies. The more liberal a society, the less likely it is to subscribe to the death penalty. In South Africa this is an aspect of public policy where we can track the changes in the attitudinal, behavioral, and institutional dimensions quite distinctly.

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The death penalty was one of the many controversial aspects of the apartheid regime. The death sentence could be awarded to not only those guilty of civil crimes but also to those who committed the crime of treason against the state. During the 1980s more than 1100 people were executed in South Africa, which was at the time, according to one report, the third highest lethal conviction rate after Iraq and Iran.36 The specific expectation for South Africa is that the issue of the death penalty would linger as a source of racial divide for some time, given the extent to which it was politicized in the apartheid era. Table 3.9

Elite and public perceptions about the death penalty, by race Perceptions about death penalty

Race

Justifiable

Black White Colored Indian TOTAL

Uncertain/Neutral

Unjustifiable Elite

Elite

Public

Elite

Public

8.8 37.6 14.3 29.4 24.1

21.7 53.3 49.1 38.5 27.4

12.4 16.3 10.7 11.8 14.0

19.1 17.4 18.0 22.6 18.9

78.8 46.1 75.0 58.8 61.9

Public 59.2 29.3 32.9 38.9 53.7

Note: The question read as follows: “Please tell me whether you think the death penalty can never be justified (1), always be justified (10), or something in between (2–9).” The percentages presented combine responses 1–4 (unjustifiable); 5–6 (neutral/uncertain); and 7–10 (justifiable). Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

Table 3.10

Elite perceptions about the death penalty, by sector, 2007

Sector

Perceptions about death penalty

TOTAL

Justifiable Uncertain/Neutral Unjustifiable Parliamentarians Media Civil servants Business Church TOTAL

21.0 8.0 12.2 58.8 22.4 24.1

9.0 16.0 22.4 11.8 16.3 14.0

70.0 76.0 65.3 29.4 61.2 61.9

100 100 100 100 100 100

Note: The question read as follows: “Please tell me whether you think the death penalty can never be justified (1), always be justified (10), or something in between (2–9).” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2007 elite survey.

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The politicians moved swiftly to try and depoliticize this issue. One of the first steps taken by President F.W. de Klerk after initiating the democratic transition in 1990 was to place a moratorium on all executions. Since 1991 nobody has been executed. The 1993 constitution recognized the right to life (section 9), which in June 1995 was interpreted by the Constitutional Court to mean that the death penalty was unconstitutional. The 1996 constitution retained the exact formulation of the earlier one, and the new status quo was thus upheld.37 This was apparently not in line with public opinion at the time, and a survey conducted in June 1996 showed that 71 percent of South Africans were in favor of reinstating the death penalty.38 In Tables 3.9 to 3.13 we present data on preferences regarding the death penalty. This item was introduced into the World Values Survey for South Africa only in 2006, but it featured in a number of the elite surveys. The results show (in Table 3.9) that elites express significantly lower levels of support for the death penalty than the general public, and they can be considered distinctly more liberal in this regard. Among the elites too there are very strong differences (see Table 3.10). The media elites are by far the least supportive of capital punishment (8 percent), with the business elites most supportive (58.8 percent). The church elites, notably, are the second most supportive among the various elite sectors, with about one in every four of these elites (22.4 percent) expressing the view that the death penalty was justified. The racial divide in the response patterns among both the public and the elite is also clearly visible. Blacks and Coloreds have invariably been at the Table 3.11 Year

Elite perceptions about the death penalty, 1991–2007 Perceptions about the death penalty

TOTAL

Justifiable Uncertain/ Neutral Unjustifiable 1991 1992 1993 1995 2000 2002 2007

59.7 67.5 64.0 70.7 32.1 22.0 24.1

9.7 6.3 4.3 5.5 13.9 20.8 14.0

30.6 26.2 31.7 23.8 54.0 57.2 61.9

100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Note: The question read as follows: “Please tell me whether you think the death penalty can never be justified (1), always be justified (10), or something in between (2–9).” The percentages presented combine responses 1–4 (unjustifiable); 5–6 (neutral/ uncertain); and 7–10 (justifiable). Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 2000, 2002, and 2007 elite surveys.

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Table 3.12 Elite and public perceptions about the death penalty, by race and level of education Perceptions toward the death penalty Always justifiable

Never justifiable

Race

Elite

Public

Elite

Public


3.5 11.3 10.7 5.9

7.3 25.3 25.9 26.1

67.3 33.3 67.9 58.8

37.1 16.7 22.9 14.6

Always justifiable Level of education

Elite

No schooling Some/complete primary school Some/complete high school Post-matric qualification

0.0 0.0 13.3 7.5

Never justifiable

Public

Elite

Public

7.1 7.8 10.9 18.5

100 100 56.7 49.6

33.7 38.2 33.6 25.3

Note: The question read as follows: “Please tell me whether you think the death penalty can never be justified (1), always be justified (10), or something in between (2–9).” The percentages presented include responses 1 (never justifiable) and 10 (always justifiable). Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2006 WVS and 2007 elite survey.

Table 3.13 Social class

Public perceptions about the death penalty, by social class, 2006 Perceptions about the death penalty Justifiable

TOTAL

Uncertain/Neutral Unjustifiable

Lower class Middle class Upper class

24.5 40.1 50.5

19.0 18.7 18.7

56.5 41.3 30.8

100 100 100

TOTAL

27.4

18.9

53.7

100

Note: The question read as follows: “Please tell me whether you think the death penalty can never be justified (1), always be justified (10), or something in between (2–9).” The percentages presented combine responses 1–4 (unjustifiable); 5–6 (neutral/uncertain); and 7–10 (justifiable). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of WVS.

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receiving end of the death penalty. In 1988, for example, 117 people were executed, of whom 76 were Blacks, 38 Coloreds, and three Whites, with not a single Indian inmate on death row. Furthermore, in October 1989, just three months before the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, there were 88 political prisoners on death row, most of them black South Africans.39 The response pattern in Table 3.9 tends to mirror this historical context: Blacks (both elite and public) are the least inclined to consider the death penalty justifiable, and Whites are the most inclined. What is noticeable, however, is that the Colored public is only marginally less supportive of the death penalty than Whites. The percentages presented combine responses 1–4 (unjustifiable); 5–6 (neutral/uncertain); and 7–10 (justifiable).What is significant, however, is the decline in overall support for the death penalty from the 1996 survey. For the general public it decreased from 71 percent to 27.4 percent ten years later (see Table 3.9). Elite support for the death penalty was even lower at 24.1 percent. The data in Table 3.11 show a similar trend among the elites in greater detail and over a longer period. In Table 3.12 we present the responses at only the two endpoints of the response scale: those who express the most intense preferences of “never justifiable” (1) and the opposite end of “always justifiable” (10). The Black public are again the least inclined to consider the death penalty as unconditionally justified. What is striking, though, is that all three racial minorities register an almost identical response, with about one of every four respondents supporting the death penalty unconditionally. Also noticeable from Table 3.12 is the distinct correlation between levels of education and increasing support for capital punishment. Table 3.13 presents the correlation by social class. Upper- and middle-class South Africans are markedly more supportive of the death penalty than members of the lower class, which is indicative of these two classes being less liberal in this regard. This is in line with the structural interpretation of what the theory of liberal democratic peace predicts and is consistent with the general expectation of successful liberalizing societies. After more than a decade of democracy, with a written human rights doctrine that is not only part of the formal constitution but also a part of the living constitution, respect for the right to life and human dignity has risen and support for capital punishment has declined. This trend bolsters the hypothesis that structure has shaped culture in this aspect of public attitudes and that democratization seems to have contributed to pacification.

Conclusion To recap briefly, given the historical record of conflict and division in South Africa, a liberalized state in South Africa would in the first instance be one

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that narrows, if not closes, the gaps in perceptions about the state among various races, veering it away from being seen as partisan and converging on the perception of the state as being neutral. The second yardstick of liberalization would be the extent to which the state is deemed a benevolent guardian of liberal rights, rather than a threat to these rights. The third would be the extent to which the state is considered an active agent for the promotion of liberal and peaceful goals rather than as an agent of public violence. The results reported thus far show that little headway has been made in narrowing the racial gap in perceptions about the state as far as confidence levels are concerned, and also as far as potential protest action is concerned. What has occurred, however, is that the racial rankings have been reversed in both cases. Although the racial gap in perceptions about the desirability of democracy has closed, a clear gap between elite and public opinion about the preferred liberal character of democracy has emerged. For the public, basic economic or “bread and butter” issues receive higher priority. Lastly, neither the elite nor the public are strident in requiring the state to exercise its monopoly on violence, except for the containment of crime; economic priorities again trump liberal quality of life policy objectives in the minds of the public. A significant move toward both liberalization and pacification has been measured in the decline in support for the reinstatement of the death penalty. The most significant positive change has been the convergence of rising confidence in selected civic institutions, particularly those that operate in the social space between the individual and the state. This may be the most telling, although oblique, indicator of public perceptions about the post-apartheid state. With lower confidence in some agencies of the central state, the public may be more inclined to turn to these civic institutions to provide the public goods they demand. The question relevant to this study is whether social life in South Africa is conducive to demand-generation that supports the development of liberal values. In the next chapters we consider this question by examining public and elite views of fellow citizens and noncitizens as expressed in attitudes about interpersonal relations.

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Chapter 4 Society in Transition: An Overview

Introduction The organization of social life among race groups in southern Africa has been subjected to intensive engineering by political authorities since the advent of colonialism. Apartheid policies were the culmination of official attempts at separating groups, while democratization now represents the most comprehensive attempt thus far to reverse such separation. These two eras of state intervention embody two distinctly different ideological approaches to race relations: one that argues that good fences make good neighbors, and another that argues the very opposite. Both claim to deliver peaceful race relations and stable societies. South Africa under apartheid was a testing ground for the first proposition, and democratic South Africa has become a testing ground for the second. Both ideologies profoundly shaped and reshaped the social context within which ordinary citizens engaged with one another. In this chapter we provide a short overview of South African society under apartheid, a topic that has been dealt with in great detail in previous studies. We then describe in more depth some of the salient changes in dismantling enforced racial separation and racial inequalities after the inauguration of the democratic regime in 1994. This de-racializing of society provides the social context within which the values, attitudes, and beliefs of liberalism enter into the marketplace of ideas.

Apartheid Society The ideology of apartheid emerged as a more or less coherent system of thought in 1948. Its intellectual roots can be traced to the practices of slavery,

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initially under Dutch colonial authority, and to the British form of colonial rule that emphasized the norms and values of trusteeship and the practical politics and administration of indirect rule. To this must be added the historical experience of Afrikaner nationalism rooted in a history of military defeat by the British, mass poverty in the 1920s and 1930s, and the political system of Union, all of which provided White political movements a platform to gain control over the state. The argument for setting up fences between race groups as a way of ordering society was driven by White, and especially Afrikaner, fears about survival. The devastating Boer War left them impoverished, and in the new Britishdominated Union they feared renewed subjugation by political forces beyond their own control (in this case, Black nationalism). They also feared renewed economic impoverishment in the modernizing economy, through labor market competition between Afrikaners and Blacks. And these nationalists felt the need to escape the humiliation of Lord Milner’s cultural imperialism by asserting their own collective worthiness through cultural and political nationalism.1 In successfully asserting this new hierarchy of social and political prestige, they relegated black South Africans to a position of relatively lower status, a hierarchy that was expressed through prejudice and experienced by the subordinates as racism. The blueprint for this was one of separating race groups spatially and minimizing contact situations between individuals and communities as far as possible. The rationale was at times explicitly stated as one of eliminating points of “friction and humiliation” between the obviously dominant White community and the subordinate Black, Colored, and Indian groups.2 Much thought was devoted to the problem of how to conceive a policy that would maintain separate but still equal groups. This was envisaged in such a way that the new social and political space would allow the previously subjugated groups to ascend in social standing but continue to be nonthreatening to the still very fragile prestige of the Afrikaner nation. In the end the nationalist ideologists failed to square the circle, so to speak, and many conceded that an inescapable trade-off had to be made between survival and justice. One of the finest of that post-1948 generation of Afrikaner intellectuals, N.P. van Wyk Louw, made the choice in favor of justice, even if it meant that survival had to be sacrificed.3 On the implementation aspects of policy, the one serious attempt to set the benchmark for distributing resources on a separate but equal basis (that is, if one could accept that enforced separation could ever go hand in hand with equality) was contained in the Tomlinson Report of 1956. These recommendations were rejected outright by apartheid implementers,4 thus placing the policy firmly into the mould of one that keeps people both separate and unequal. In practical terms the policy sought to further elaborate and extend existing policies of racial separation and discrimination in favor of Whites. The basic macro-demographic dimensions of the state-building framework were

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described in chapter 2, but of relevance for this chapter are the micro-level policy stipulations and how this shaped interaction at the personal level between members of the various race groups. The apartheid blueprint was influenced by the concern of Afrikaner nationalists to mould the Afrikaner nation to their liking. Their ambition was to construct a social space within which Afrikaners would be insulated and be able to build internal social cohesion. Their model was the Dutch policy of verzuiling (that is, social encapsulation), comprising institutional segmentation at every possible level of social engagement. This required, first, that racially mixed-interest organizations be unmixed, so to speak, and second, that (White) Afrikaans speakers be separated from their English-speaking counterparts. While racial separation was largely enforced by law, the language separation often proceeded as a function of social policy, and other kinds of separation followed from social friction. Verzuiling was highly successful, and by the early 1970s the socialization of Afrikaner youth could proceed in single-language-medium (Afrikaans) institutions from nursery schools through to universities, in Afrikaans churches, interest groups, and cultural organizations. In some instances, what was not enforced by law stemmed from social distance and racial and ethnic animosity.5 The all-inclusive student body National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), for example, split through internal combustion, which led to the formation of a rival White Afrikaans-only body (ASB), and then later in the 1970s to the establishment of yet another rival exclusively Black organization (SASO). In other social domains, racial separation was enforced by law, especially with respect to labor unions, sporting codes, and professional associations.6 However, some racially mixed bodies prevailed, such as the South African Institute of Race Relations. In any society, religious organizations represent vital institutions of socialization, places of voluntary engagement and free association, and sites for the development of social capital. As is the case with other interest groups, the apartheid system had a decisive impact on the internal structure of churches and church alliances and their political orientation. By the 1970s and 1980s the various churches had coalesced into three recognizable groupings. The first comprised passive participants who focused on spiritual matters and shied away from direct engagement in politics. These included the various Pentecostal churches, conservative gospel churches, charismatic churches, and the Independent African/Black churches, which included what was by then the largest Black church in South Africa, the Zion Christian Church. The second grouping comprised critical churches, who increasingly confronted the state, arguing against apartheid on biblical grounds. Key formations in this group were the Roman Catholic Church and the various churches affiliated to the South African Council of Churches. These included many of the established English churches, including the Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches, as well as those with a mostly

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Afrikaans-speaking Colored and/or Black membership, such as the NG Sendingkerk and NG Kerk in Afrika. The last grouping comprised Protestant churches with predominantly White Afrikaans members, who for many decades endorsed apartheid policies, the most prominent of these churches being the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk. It was within these Afrikaans churches that their opinion leaders pursued the tortuous arguments on how to reconcile the quest for Afrikaner security through apartheid with the requirements of justice.7 In 1986 these Afrikaner clerics finally capitulated, conceding that no biblical justification for apartheid could be established. The overall result of successful encapsulation and separation was a number of generations of youths who experienced the “socialization of isolation.”8 With few, if any, social contact situations where young people from the various groups could meet and mingle, the opportunity to establish friendships and shared interests, the basis for establishing later networks in social, business, and political life, was effectively forestalled. Members of different race groups grew up in isolation and in ignorance of one another and based their preconceptions of one another on the stereotypes generated by the opinion leaders in their own communities. Most importantly, the privileged White youths knew little of the deprivation that their Black counterparts experienced and had very little opportunity to gain such insights. Contact situations that did arise, as in any modern integrated economy, were further regulated by laws that enforced not only separation but also invidious status hierarchies. While social encapsulation secured social stability and cohesion for white South Africans, apartheid relocation and population removals resulted in the very opposite for black South Africans. The enforced relocation of Coloreds and Indians entailed the uprooting of entire urban communities from their communal settings and their being dumped in hostile new settings on the very periphery of the cities. The entire social fabric of these communities was destroyed in the process; a severe example being the forced removal of the Coloreds from District Six in the heart of Cape Town in the late 1950s and 1960s (another one being Sophiatown in Johannesburg). From being stable, though poor, but socially well-knit and cohesive communities, they were dispersed to a collection of individual dwellings where they experienced social decay and breakdown in the form of gangsterism and criminal violence, which has not been curbed to this day.9 In the case of black Africans, their stay in the large cities was regulated on the basis of a migrant labor system, which allowed their temporary presence on short-term contracts. This resulted in the repeated separation of fathers from their families, with adverse social consequences, and the formation of unstable social units in both the cities (male-only hostels) and in the rural areas (female-only families). In the major urban centers, everybody used the same public facilities. But apartheid regulations specified separate and unequal use of them, thus institutionalizing humiliation and insult. In Durban and Johannesburg, for example, bylaws specified that Blacks could use the same buses for commuting as

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Whites, but they were only allowed to use the upper decks of the buses, and then also only the back row of seats. In 1957 the Cape Town City Council had to apply for special permission to allow Coloreds to attend symphony concerts at the City Hall, but this was granted subject to special conditions: separate booking offices had to be supplied, as well as separate entrances, exits, seating, and restroom facilities. Even ambulance services were segregated on a racial basis, except for emergencies.10 The zeal of the racial ideologues did not stop there. Arguably the most infamous apartheid laws were those aiming to impose racial separation on the most intimate of social relations, those of sex and marriage. The Immorality Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act prohibited such intimacy across the color line. The Immorality Act in particular proved to be extremely difficult to police, and this Act was traumatic for defendants in courts to face up to. The success rate in securing convictions usually fell far below the rate of prosecution. Even without convictions, the mere prosecution of individuals under this Act created severe stigmatization, social rejection, and lead to almost intolerable psychological stress. This was more often the case than not, as persuasive evidence of transgressions was elusive. In 1972, for example, 1108 people were prosecuted under the Immorality Act, and only 515 were convicted. The South African Institute of Race Relations commented in their annual Survey of Race Relations: It is, once again, noteworthy how many of those who have to face the stigma of prosecution are, apparently, not convicted. Again, there have been suicides since the last Survey was compiled. A White policeman who probably faced prosecution hanged himself, and another White man, who had been charged, flung himself from the top of a skyscraper the day after being released on bail.11

The deliberate preferential treatment of Whites and the concomitant slighting of Blacks under apartheid was widely practiced in the distribution of public goods and the provision of access to economic opportunities, thus reinforcing the status differentials established along racial criteria.12 The compound effect of these measures was to ensconce Whites at the upper level of socioeconomic prosperity, with Coloreds and Indians in the middle, and Blacks at the very lowest levels. The fact that, overall, South Africans of all race groups experienced rising standards of living during the decades from 1960 to 198013 did little to dissipate the resentment that built up against the system. Arguably the final aggravating factor that adversely affected amicable race relations was the comprehensive security legislation and its strict application by the apartheid authorities. The legal cornerstone of the system was the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, which built on security legislation established in 1914 and provided the state with ample scope to act against opponents. The Unlawful Organizations Act of 1960 made it possible for the

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state to ban organizations outright, and subsequent legislation made it possible for the state to declare a national state of emergency. The various bureaucracies that dealt with security matters were consolidated under the National Security Management System of Prime Minister P.W. Botha, who later became President.14 Many of these laws allowed for tight legal restrictions on individuals, such as being placed under house arrest or being detained for long periods without trial. Eventually, this system provided scope for security bureaucracies to act with impunity, which lead to gross atrocities and death in detention of leading resistance figures, such as the death of Steve Biko in 1977. By the 1970s there was strong aversion between race groups, as had been measured in numerous studies,15 and this exploded in June 1976 with the Soweto riots. Although suppressed, the revolt against the system again surfaced in September 1984 and was sustained until the new democratic constitution was established in 1994.

Apartheid Society in Transition The apartheid regime never managed the complete partitioning of society along racially demarcated lines. And it never completely polarized society into watertight racially antagonistic compartments. For a start, the modern industrial economy was always multiracial, even if racially stratified, and the large urban areas were always multiracial, even if residentially demarcated in terms of race. Throughout the years from 1948 to 1990 there were dissenters to the regime and opposition to its ideology from within the White population, just as there were willing collaborators from within the subject race groups. The apartheid state itself, with its myriad bureaucracies and subordinate representative institutions, was comprised of multiracial personnel. In the 1950s the state already had more Black than White members working in its various institutions, and by the 1980s only one-third of the public sector comprised of White people.16 In addition, the system showed itself to be far more flexible than its opponents had expected.17 Being a legalistic system with minority domination, relying on fixed race categories described by law, the expectation was that a rigid system of domination would result. However, for Afrikaner nationalists, apartheid was only a means to an end, which was the survival of Whites, which became, by the late 1960s, securing White privilege. As the system ran up against internal and external opposition, a new dimension called “reform apartheid” was initiated. The pressure for adaptation arose on account of various factors. These included the decline in the number of Whites as a proportion of the overall population, growing organized militancy among black South Africans, pressure from the international community, changes in the class composition of the ruling Afrikaners, and the economic and fiscal crisis

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of the state.18 The state’s response to pressure was to reform the regime and some selected aspects of society, while at the same time holding on to White power. The relevance of reform, for the purposes of this study, was not so much for its immediate power implications, but that it reopened opportunities for interracial contact and engagement that had previously been closed down. One of the first casualties of reform was the apartheid planners’ attempt to channel sport activities into racially exclusive enclaves with separate sporting leagues. In the case of large sporting arenas, separate and inferior entrances and exits, ticket booths, toilets, and seating facilities were also envisaged. This led to rapid and comprehensive international isolation and provided critics with ample material to ridicule and mock the state’s ideology. By the mid-1970s many other social contact areas were de-racialized: hotels and restaurants, public parks, post offices, trains, buses, theatres, and libraries. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, tertiary education institutions were de-racialized, and in 1988 the principle of mixed residential areas was accepted. Economic restrictions on trade union activity and trading freedoms also fell away in the 1980s. From incremental changes to the nonessential aspects of the system the shift moved inexorably to have an impact on fundamental areas. Next to go were some of the pillars of the apartheid system. In 1985 the laws prohibiting sex across racial boundaries were scrapped, and the pass laws were scrapped in 1986. This was a major move in the ending of apartheid, because with it came the acknowledgement that all South Africans were citizens of one country and had to live together within a single democratic regime. The apartheid dream of separate nations, each one a racially segregated territorial ministate, had evaporated. Then followed the lifting of restrictions on mixed political parties. What remained for the National Party was to try to strike a deal to secure “power-sharing without losing control,” instead of succumbing to outright majoritarian democracy.19

Democratic Society The formal process of democratic transition started on February 2, 1990 with the announcement of the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela by President F.W. de Klerk and the unbanning of the ANC, SACP, and PAC. One of the initiatives undertaken by De Klerk was to repeal all apartheid legislations that continued to exist while the talks for a new constitution were still underway. By the end of June 1991 the remaining legal pillars of apartheid were removed. These included the Groups Areas Act of 1936, the Black Land Act of 1913, the Development Trust and Land Act of 1936, and the most fundamental one of them all, the Population Registration Act of 1950, which defined the race categories of Colored, White, Black, and Indian population. An additional set

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of 60 laws was scrapped entirely with the adoption of the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act of 1991.20 This effectively cleared the way for the integration and reintegration of many areas of social life in South Africa even before a new democratic constitution was installed. In liberal thought in general, and in South Africa in particular, the ideal liberal society is conceptualized in terms of the metaphor of the “common society” or “open society.” In this model, freedom of association allows rational people to develop and pursue their interests and to form voluntary associations based on the multiplicity of such interest-based joint ventures. Contact between individuals from different race or ethnic groups is thus not a source of friction and confrontation, but rather one of finding or creating common ground and establishing cooperative interest-based networks that can transcend all existing divisive forces. Liberals in South Africa were keenly aware of the polarized nature of society, and they argued that historical enmity was exacerbated by apartheid-style social engineering that forced race groups into separate camps. The explosive character of race identification in South Africa was, in their view, not rooted in incompatible cultural values but in the fact that it formed the basis for racial stratification. Thus, race coincided with, rather than crosscut, differences in wealth, status, and power, and thus these factors mutually reinforced social divisions.21 Once such barriers were taken down, the liberal expectation was that interestbased formations would assert themselves across imposed race groupings. The continued presence of groups that used cultural and ascriptive markers as criteria of social identity in South Africa after the end of apartheid was not expected. Few, if any, liberals asserted that the particular criteria set out in the Population Registration Act would outlast the laws of apartheid as salient social markers. Lawrence Schlemmer, writing in 1987, eloquently expresses the liberal conviction about the virtues of, and need for, the fostering of crosscutting loyalties and overlapping organizational memberships.22 This process is inextricably linked to the creation of social contact situations between members of the race groups hitherto separated under apartheid. For Schlemmer, “[t]his requires, above all, the desegregation of facilities and of residential areas.”23 One of the first such desegregated social contact points were the schools. Within the framework of the interim policy measures of the De Klerk government, 205 previously White schools were opened to all races at the start of 1991. A total of 6059 Black pupils, comprising 0.6 percent of the total population of White schools in 1990, were enrolled into these schools. In addition to this small number of scholars in a multiracial mix there were also 15,767 Black pupils at predominantly White private schools (in 1990).24 By the end of 1991 the total number of such former White schools that became multiracial had risen to 809, out of a total of 2082 former White schools, registering a total of 7923 Black pupils in their schools. This still represented only 0.9 percent of all pupils in these schools.25

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By 1993 the number of pupils in racially mixed schools had risen again to 60,000,26 and in November 1996 the South African Schools Act was signed into law, prohibiting any racial discrimination in the admission of pupils to any public school. The few remaining social contact points not yet formally de-racialized under the former White regime also opened up rapidly in the first few years of democracy. Data on the subsequent national profile of school integration could not be found, but there are data on trends in the Gauteng Province up to 2002. Schools that previously admitted Black students in this province have remained overwhelmingly Black (more than 99 percent so). Schools reserved for Coloreds experienced an in-migration of black Africans, and by 2002 these schools had 43.7 percent black African students and 56 percent Colored students. A similar trend has been found in former Indian and White schools.27

Socioeconomic Conditions Formal equality in South Africa was achieved by constitutional ruling. Actual socioeconomic equality, however, was not. Apartheid society was racially stratified, and much was done to change this. The overall result was that both wealth and poverty got distributed multiracially. A new affluent Black elite and middle class came into being, and a new White underclass emerged. The end of apartheid also meant the end of economic sanctions and the reentry of the South African economy into the rapidly globalizing economy. Every year from 1994 to 2007 saw a positive growth rate in the economy, with a peak of 5.4 percent in GDP growth in 2006. Growth in real GDP per head also kept pace throughout this period. The long-term trend in rising incomes also continued, with increases in the income of Black, Colored, and Indian groups accelerating faster than those of Whites, albeit from a very low base, as can be seen from Table 4.1. The race gap in income levels, although narrowing, did persist, but the gaps between the rich and the poor, overall and also within race groups, widened. The overall Gini coefficient for South Africa increased from 0.62 in 1996 to 0.67 in 2007.28 The largest increase occurred within the Black population, where the Gini coefficient increased by 14.27 percent, from 0.54 in 1996 to 0.62 in 2007. Coloreds followed the Blacks very closely, with an increase in Gini coefficient from 0.49 to 0.56. Indians were third with a smaller increase, from 0.50 to 0.53, over the same period. However, in the case of Whites, the gap decreased from 0.49 in 1996 to 0.46 in 2007.29 These data describe the rise of the Black elite and middle class, and by 2000 an equal number of Black as well as White households found themselves in the top income quintile.30 The data also describes a process of increasing horizontal inequalities, which, according to Stewart, is an often overlooked major source of conflict.31

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Table 4.1 Personal disposable income per head by race, 1960 and 2007, at 2000 constant prices Race

Black Colored Indian White

Personal disposable income per head 1960

2007

2832 5160 5969 33,228

9495 15,370 31,330 58,926

% Increase 235 198 425 77

Note: Income includes income after income tax, in cash and kind, from all sources including government and government contribution to hospital services, but not education. Source: Adapted from J. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 238. Used with permission.

The Gini measures also point to the people at the bottom end of the income ladder. The number of people living in relative poverty rose by 20.5 percent between 1996 and 2007; by 2007 there were 42.9 percent of the South African population still living in poverty, which comprised about 20.5 million people. A distinct race differential is still visible in this poverty profile. In 2007 there were 51.8 percent of Blacks still living in poverty, as opposed to 18.3 percent of Coloreds, 6.6 percent of Indians, and 3.7 percent of Whites. The most rapid increase in poverty, although from very low numbers, was seen among White people. In 1996, only 98,599 Whites were in relative poverty, which was about 1.9 percent of the White population. This is testimony to the thoroughness of the safety net provided for Whites even in the pre-apartheid system, which was erected in the early twentieth century to deal with the problem of poor Whites. By 2007 this figure had almost doubled to 180,235.32 The number of people living on the brink of absolute destitution, however, have decreased. In 1996 there were about 1.8 million South Africans living on less than US$1 per day. This rose to 2.8 million by 2002 and declined to 942,731 in 2007.33 Many of the poorest of the poor were saved from such absolute deprivation by the institution of social grants. These grants were consolidated into seven categories by 2007 and included old-age pensions, child-support grants, war veterans grants, and foster-care grants. According to figures supplied by the Office of the President, in 2001 the number of people who benefited from this grant system stood at 3.7 million, rising rapidly to more than 12.3 million in 2007/08, accounting for about a quarter of the total population, with the child-support grants comprising the largest category.34 Additional support from the state was available in the form of social wages.

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These comprised state-subsidized (either partially or fully) public goods that included water supply, electricity, sanitation services, solid waste disposal, housing, education, and health care. A last indicator of living standards is the level of (un)employment. Both employment and unemployment levels have risen during the past decade. Total employment rose from 11.1 million in September 2001 to 13.2 million in September 2007. A narrow definition and also an expanded definition of unemployment are considered here. According to the narrow definition, South Africa had an unemployment rate of 29.4 percent in 2001. This rose steadily to a peak of 29.7 percent in 2002 and then subsided to 23.0 percent in September 2007. According to the expanded definition, South Africa experienced a 40 percent unemployment rate in 2001, which peaked at 42.5 percent in March 2003 and then went down to 34.3 percent in September 2007.35 The race differential is again present in these data. In 2007 the unemployment rate among Blacks (according to the narrow definition) stood at 30.2 percent, among Coloreds at 19.8 percent, Indians at 13.8 percent, and Whites at 4.3 percent. The difference between the two measurements is that the expanded definition includes those jobless people too discouraged to continue to actively seek employment.36

Health, Welfare, and Living Conditions One of the immediate objectives of the first democratic government under President Mandela was to reverse the decades of inequitable provision of public goods under apartheid. Arguably, one of the most successful aspects of the new democracy is the extent to which this has been accomplished. Table 4.2 provides data on how many people have experienced improved living conditions through greater access to electricity, formal houses, water, sanitation, and refuse removal. Another aspect of the inequity of apartheid was the forced removal of people from their residences, mostly done in terms of the Groups Areas Act (see data in previous chapter). Land restitution policies have made it possible for people to get their land and homes back, or to gain fair and adequate financial compensation for it. By the end of March 2007 a total of 74,417 claims had been settled, benefiting more than 250,000 households comprising a total number of 1,273,043 individuals.37 Land redistribution, where ownership of commercial agricultural land without any historical claim attached to it is transferred from White to Black people, has progressed much more slowly, and this falls far short of achieving the set target of placing 30 percent of commercial farm land in the hands of Black owners by 2014.38 One of the most intrusive factors shaping social life in democratic South Africa is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The scale of this disease is outlined briefly

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Table 4.2 Changes in living conditions by household (actual numbers), 1996–2007 1996

Formala 5,834,819 Informalb 1,453,015 Traditional 1,644,388 Population 40,583,573 Average household size 4.6 Use of electricity for lighting 5,218,813 Use of electricity for cooking 4,267,058 Use of electricity for heating 4,031,509 Access to piped waterc 7,234,028 Access to piped water in 3,976,855 dwelling Access to piped water on site/ 1,491,228 in yard Access to flush or chemical 4,552,854 lavatories onlyd Refuse removal by local 4,837,811 authority Communal refuse removal/ 289,906 dumps Own refuse dumps 2,908,122 Telephone in dwelling/use of 2,591,249 cellular phone

2007

Increase/decrease 1996–2007 (proportion) %

8,819,521 1,804,432 1,459,380 48,502,863 3.9 10,010,271 8,298,984 7,336,707 11,082,223 5,894,170

51.2 24.2 –11.3 19.5 –15.2 91.8 94.5 82.0 53.2 48.2

2,785,630

86.8

7,265,208

59.6

7,696,137

59.1

269,486

–7.0

3,602,715 11,408,690

23.9 340.3

Notes: a Formal refers to house/brick structure on separate stand or yard, a flat in a block of flats, town/cluster/semidetached house, unit in a retirement village, and a room/house/ dwelling in a backyard. b Informal refers to dwelling/shack in a backyard. c This includes piped water in dwelling, on-site/yard, or on a communal tap/access point outside yard. d This includes in-dwelling, on-site, and off-site access, also includes flush lavatories connected to sewerage system and those with septic tank. Source: Adapted from J. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 484. Used with permission.

here. The disease rapidly established itself in the South African population in the latter decades of the twentieth century, and by 2008 the number of HIV infections already stood at over 5.6 million. The HIV infection rate is highly uneven between race groups, with the Black population having the highest

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rate of infection, 11.6 percent in 2008, followed by Coloreds at 4.4 percent, Indians at 2.7 percent, and then Whites at 1.3 percent. People were dying at a daily rate of 1086 in 2008, and the accumulated number of AIDS deaths was estimated to stand at 2,535,835 by July 1, 2008. By 2005, AIDS already accounted for about half of all deaths in South Africa. The immediate social impact of AIDS can be gauged from the following figures. The total number of AIDS orphans in the country in 2007 was estimated to be between 1.1 and 1.4 million, and estimates for the number of households headed by children ranged from 236,000 to 719,000. Partly as a consequence of AIDS fatalities, life expectancy declined from about 54.6 years in 2001 to 50 years in 2007.39 About 18.8 percent of the South African workforce is considered to be infected, with the infection rate among farm labor being as high as 45 percent and among truck drivers 59 percent.40 Thus the disease does not only create poverty, because it debilitates and ultimately kills breadwinners, but also dislocates households, the core social unit of every society.

Criminal Violence Some aspects of interpersonal contact in democratic South Africa are savagely brutal and even lethal, mainly occurring in the form of criminal violence targeted at ordinary citizens. Direct comparisons with rates of criminal violence in the apartheid era are not drawn easily, as the statistical unit of apartheid South Africa excludes the Black “homelands,” in which about 44 percent of the South African population were residing. The reincorporation of these ministates into South Africa could have had a considerable effect on the upward trend in the reported number of serious crimes41 (see Figure 4.1). The levels of violent crime experienced by South Africans since the inauguration of democracy have been entirely at odds with what can be expected from a civilized society. The total number of victims in the 14 years of democracy, as shown partially in Table 4.3, reflects the fact that, in general, one out of every four South Africans experiences some form of crime every year. The murder rate, in particular, is worth considering. In 1995, one year into full democracy, more people (25,965) were murdered than the total number of people who died in political violence (24,111) in the entire period of 1984–1998. Fourteen years of effort by the state has brought the number of murders down to 18,487 in 2007/08, a decline of 28.8 percent. In comparative international terms, however, South Africa still outranks every other country in the world in murder rate (see Figure 4.2). On average, a South African is eight times more likely to be murdered than is the general average likelihood for such an event in all other countries.42 The state has managed to bring down the instances of violent crime in every case

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA 2400000 2300000 2200000 2100000 2000000 1900000 1800000 1700000 1600000 1500000 1990

Figure 4.1

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

Number of serious crimes reported, 1990–1997

Source: Adapted from the data presented in Martin Schonteich, Unshackling the Crime Fighters. Increasing Private Sector Involvement in South Africa’s Criminal Justice System, Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1999, 11. Used with permission.

Table 4.3

Contact crimes: Actual reported cases 1994/95 to 2007/08

Category

Reported cases of contact crimes Number

Murder Attempted Murder Aggravated Robbery Rape (including attempts) Assault (GBH)* Common Assault Indecent Assault** Common Robbery

310,079 377,506 1,475,011 711,698 3,774,855 3,015,206 98,864 1,002,836

Notes: * GBH refers to the intent to do grievous bodily harm. ** Indecent assault does not include rape. Source: Adapted from data contained in J. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 556, 557. [The calculations are our own.] Used with permission.

to below their peak rates, although the instances of indecent assault, common robbery, and aggravated robbery still remain above the 1994/95 rates. Moreover, it is claimed that many crimes go unreported for a variety of reasons, including fear of further victimization and lack of confidence in the state. (See

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110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Algeria Australia Canada Chile Costa Rica Denmark Ecuador England and Wales Finland France Georgia Germany Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Mauritius Mongolia Norway Philippines Poland Portugal Singapore South Africa Sri Lanka Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Turkey Uganda Ukraine

0

Figure 4.2 International murder and attempted murder rates, 2004 (rate per 100,000 of population) Source: Adapted from J. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08, Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008, 580. Used with permission.

Table 3.3 for declining confidence in the police, and tables 3.8.4 and 3.8.5 for public assessments of government performance in containing crime.) Aggregate data still fail to adequately capture the impact and nature of criminal violence in society. According to police data, for example, 81 percent of people who are victims of murder are killed by someone known to them, 89 percent of those assaulted know the perpetrators, as do 76 percent of rape victims,43 indicating that something is seriously amiss in interpersonal relationships among South Africans. The changing patterns of other types of criminal violence are also revealing. Aggravated robbery, for example, can be broken down into a number of subcategories. One of these, robbery at homes, rose by 59.8 percent between 2002/03 and 2006/07, while robbery at business premises rose by 79.4 percent over the same period. And violent crimes against children under the age of 18 rose by 34.7 percent in this period.44 Criminal violence, then, is something that has penetrated deeply into the private domain of social life in South Africa. Various causes of such violence have been identified, but the most grizzly possibility is the link with AIDS. In his book The Mbeki Legacy, Brian Pottinger mentions a study that showed that up to 8 million people in southern Africa may be suffering from AIDS-induced dementia, with up to one million of them being in South Africa.45 Many of them could be involved in violent crimes against those closest to them.

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These acts of violent crime, whether experienced directly, indirectly, or vicariously, have had an impact on South Africans’ sense of physical security. In the 1998 Victims of Crime Survey, 56 percent of respondents had indicated that they felt safe when walking alone in their area after dark. By 2003, only 23 percent (less than one in every four) of respondents felt safe after dark, and this level remained the same in the 2007 survey.46 There are other specific kinds of violence subsumed within these aggregate statistics, which deserve mention for being so completely at odds with the liberal concept of a civil society. These include the instances of attacks and killing of people accused of being witches, which flared up immediately before and after the 1994 election; lethal violence at schools, where pupils have attacked and in some instances also killed other pupils; lethal attacks against police officers, which has increased to a higher level than in the predemocratic era; and the outbreak of xenophobic violence throughout South Africa in 2008. During the course of the transition to democracy, the Northern Province (later renamed the Limpopo Province) became a site for repeated acts of violence against elderly women accused of being witches. According to official data, there were more than 3000 cases of witch-related violence in the Northern Province between 1990 and 2000, with more than 587 suspected witches killed between 1990 and 1997. While all the victims were older than 50 years, the perpetrators were said to be generally between 16 and 25 years of age.47 Incidents of school violence, some of them with fatal consequences, occurred in a number of schools in 2006 and 2007.48 According to a survey undertaken in 2006, less than one quarter (23 percent) of pupils in South Africa felt safe at their school premises. This is far below the international average of about 46 percent.49 Another persistent form of violence involves attacks on the police. Before 1994 such attacks were part and parcel of the process of violent revolt against the apartheid regime and an essential part of the armed struggle of the ANC. These attacks escalated along with the general rise in political fatalities and reached a high point in 1993; it declined rapidly thereafter and seemed to have stabilized at a higher level than that before 1990. What is puzzling about the data, therefore, is that in the eleven years preceding 1994 there were 1152 officers killed in action, while in the eleven years after democratization a considerably higher number of 1894 officers were killed on duty.50 Finally, attacks on foreign nationals erupted during 2008. Generally depicted as xenophobia in the media, these attacks started in January 2008 and spread throughout the country. By May 2008, over 50 people had been killed in civil violence, mostly after being attacked by crowds within townships, and about 30,000 had been forcibly displaced.51

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The Re-racialization of Society The material inequalities that had been established under apartheid took many years to accumulate. By any measure, it would take a long time to ameliorate this condition, let alone eliminate it, in a liberal democratic society with constrained state intervention. According to the classic liberal view, the racial disparities could be addressed under conditions of liberty: where a free enterprise system of capitalism would provide for the growth of affluence; free association would ensure that the enforced, contrived, and imposed race group identities would weaken, if not dissolve; and state policies would ensure that individuals and self-defining communities receive an equitable share of public goods. But the leadership of the ruling ANC had a different view of the matter. In 1998 Vice President Thabo Mbeki expressed the view that the structure of the South African society consisted of “two nations.” One nation, according to him, was White, affluent, and empowered to exercise their democratic rights. The other, Black and poor, was unable to do so.52 This formulation was quite problematic for South African liberal thinking. Few, if any, would argue about the persistence of material inequalities even after formal equality of citizenship had been achieved in 1996. What they would object to is the notion that the respective White and Black social formations comprise distinct nations. For them the configurations are but entities manufactured by the impositions of apartheid legislation that enforced separation of people, which was based on mostly arbitrary racial criteria written into the Population Registration Act and applied by successive generations of apartheid bureaucrats. For liberals, to refer to this bifurcation as two different nations was to concede to one of the essential cornerstone assumptions of the so-called grand apartheid: that South Africa is inhabited by a number of different racially defined nations. From that premise, it followed for apartheid ideologues that the logic of the global state system be applied within the country: that the ultimate conflict-regulating device for conflict between nations is to ensure that each nation is relocated onto its own territorial state, where good fences would ensure good neighborliness. Evidence of intergroup polarization, as found in social distance measures, yield interesting results. One survey, conducted in 1996, the year in which the final democratic constitution was negotiated and inaugurated, found that Black respondents indicated that they had the least in common with “White Afrikaans speakers,” Whites indicated that they had the least in common with “members of trade unions,” Coloreds felt the same with “Zulus,” and Indians with “Xhosas.” All four race groups identified “immigrants from Africa” as their second choice in terms of the least liked out-group.53 Democratic South Africa clearly entered the new era with a perceptual landscape in which race, ethnicity, and dislike of foreign work-seekers was salient. Could the liberal

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formula for working toward an open society, by depoliticizing race, be used to deal with this matter? Mbeki and his associates had other plans, and they went ahead by re-elevating race as the salient social criterion of group identity. For them it was to be the cornerstone of a massive program involving the racial reengineering of society.54 The negotiated constitution of 1996 established the liberal values of human dignity, equality, and liberty, in that order of importance. Given the history of apartheid, in which the differential allocation of public goods according to racial criteria was a defining feature of the regime, it was to be expected that the constitution would address this issue explicitly. The general stipulation on equality and redress is contained in section 9 of the Constitution, and the stipulation on the field of employment in the public service is contained in section 195. In the first place, the ruling ANC interpreted these constitutional provisions to refer to redress in racial terms, and they referred to the racial aspect of the national demography for dealing with representativity. Given the twonation thesis of Thabo Mbeki, President from 1999 (up to April 2008), this gave rise to a series of laws that were specifically geared for redress to be executed in terms of the by then defunct race categories devised and used by the apartheid ideologues. The first was the Employment Equity Act of 1998, which had divided the South African labor force into two categories. The first, described as the so-called designated groups, comprised all women, all physically disabled people, and all categories of people not previously defined as White, that is, Black, Indian, and Colored. They were singled out for preferential treatment in employment over the remaining South Africans, who comprised the second category of “non-designated groups,” that is, able-bodied White men. Equity was reached when the workforce of any particular unit of measurement broadly represented the racial demography of the country. Some leeway was provided in the application of these principles, such as that employers who had fewer than 50 people on their payroll were exempted, regional demographic ratios may be applied, and the availability of skilled people in the potential workforce may be considered. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 was even more specific in requiring Black people to be advanced, and it excluded White women. This act aims at extending ownership among Black people and does so by requiring firms to submit scorecards indicating equity in terms of racial criteria. The Skills Development Act (1998 and 2003) also uses the racial identities of trainees as a criterion for awarding state subsidies. With these laws in place, a massive process of racial reengineering was undertaken. This applied to the workforce of large private firms but was most visible in the public service, where the ruling party had more control over labor practices. This process is quite visible in the agencies that comprise the central state (military, police, and criminal justice system) described in the previous chapter, and which is so crucial to the liberalization of the democratic state

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Table 4.4 Affirmative action and racial representativity in the SAPS and SANDF, March 2007: Actual employment and equity targets by race (Percentages) Race

South African Police Service Population (%)

Black Colored Indian White

80 9 2 9

68.3 11.1 3.1 17.5

79.0 8.9 2.5 9.6

South African Defense Force

Race Population (%) Black Colored Indian White

Employment: March 2010 Equity Targets 2007

80 9 2 9

Employment: 2006/07 Equity Target (Date not Given) 66.78 12.72 1.19 19.31

64.68 10.22 0.75 24.35

Source: Adapted from J. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey, 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 590, 622. Used with permission.

and society. As can be seen from Table 4.4, the police and the military have moved decisively to gain such racial representativity. Other aspects of the criminal justice system are less amenable to racial engineering, though, and the process of change has slowed down. The appointment of justices to the higher courts, for example, has to proceed in terms of a specified process with an aim to ensure judicial autonomy from partisan political influence. In July 2003 the racial profile of these courts was 23.4 percent Black, 4.2 percent Colored, 6.1 percent Indian, and 66.4 percent White. By 2006 this had changed to 31.2 percent Black, 7.3 percent Colored, 8.7 percent Indian, and 52.8 percent White.55 The reassertion of the salience of race in the politics of redistribution is also reflected in post-apartheid interest-group formation. In many instances, economic interest groups have emerged with a “Black” prefix to the title, such as the Black Management Forum and the Black Journalists Association. This indicates the extent to which racial and ethnic criteria have become (or have remained) the primary perceptual framework through which interests are defined. Again, this offends the liberal imagination, as it conforms to the apartheid vision that race coincides with interest and with social identity.

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Conclusion: The Peace Dividend The conflict-generating aspects of apartheid, according to liberal analysis, are derived from racial divisions, which were reinforced by the cumulative impact of differential allocations of social, economic, and political privilege. This precluded shared interests from developing across the color line and polarized South Africa into two mutually exclusive camps: Whites as the haves, Blacks as the have-nots. The liberal yearning is for social conditions that allow for social cleavages to develop that cut across race group identities and, hence, for interest-group formation to crosscut through one another rather than to mutually reinforce racial distinctions. This, they argue, forms the basis for establishing multiracial interest groups and for dissolving the contrived, artificial, and bureaucratically manufactured false identities of the Population Registration Act. By lifting the apartheid racial grid, so the argument goes, racial polarization will dissipate and individuals, through the process of voluntary association in an authentic civil society and free from the deformation created by imposed racial identities, will be able to find reasons for getting along with one another in joint, interest-based, endeavors. Such positive engagement is made possible by, and in turn generates, new levels of cordiality, trust, and tolerance, and break down mutual hostility, resentment, anger, and loathing generated by apartheid. The first fourteen years of democracy in South Africa have in some ways delivered conditions conducive to establishing such interests that cut across racial divides. Generally, the socioeconomic, political, and symbolic rewards of a peace process for society are described as the “peace dividend.” How they accrue in the new regime, compared to its distribution to previous winners and losers under the defunct authoritarian apartheid regime, is of decisive importance. The data presented in this chapter can be interpreted in these terms. The most visible and obvious new winners who have gained most from the peace dividend are the new political and bureaucratic elites who now occupy the seats of power. In second place are the multiracial economic elites and the multiracial middle class. The Whites who fall in this class are those who were at the center of the modern economy under apartheid and who were well placed to benefit from South Africa’s reentry into the modern global economy in the mid-1990s. The deals of empowerment that enabled the ascendance of the new Black elite also contributed to this new multiracial class. There were, of course, “organic entrepreneurs” from every race group who prospered without direct state aid, but they succeeded by virtue of astute utilization of new opportunities as these came along. Among this affluent and successful cohort of South Africans new bonds of affinity and new organizational cohesion across racial boundaries, on the basis of the shared interest that lies in their stake in the economy, could be expected. In the salaried ranks of

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the workforce, however, racial contestation for jobs was reintroduced, thus reinvigorating the old racial divisions. The notable exception is that, with affirmative action, White women now join everybody else as a group to gain preferential treatment over White men, thus neatly splitting the ranks of the White race group (and many families) down the middle into two opposing interest groups. In a sense, all South Africans benefited from the symbolic peace dividend through direct or vicarious engagement in global events and networks, most visibly in the form of sporting events such as the Olympic Games, the FIFA Soccer World Cup, and their counterparts in the fields of rugby, cricket, athletics, as well as minor sporting codes. Formal political equality also gave every South African a constitutional order to identify with, even if only in its written form, and Nelson Mandela, the first South African President, came to be revered across the world. These all-inclusive shared sentiments could conceivably also serve as a new common basis for multiracial solidarity. There were also other beneficiaries of the peace dividend. They include the more than 250,000 households with successful land restitution claims, the 2.9 million new homeowners, the 3.8 million households who now have access to piped water, and the more than 12 million people who gained from the distribution of social grants. Although these benefits largely went to black South Africans, liberals endorsed this process because it at least blunted the sharp racial division between the haves and have-nots that existed under apartheid. And in that sense alone, such redistribution of public goods contributed to lowering the conflict potential in society. Against the above beneficiaries are ranged the losers who gained little from the peace dividend. These include the many victims of violent crime and their families. For some, the loss is irretrievable, especially for the families of the 310,000 murder victims, while for others the damage is near permanent, such as the more than 700,000 rape victims. South Africans of all races have been victims of crime, but some evidence shows that the racial minorities are more vulnerable to such treatment.56 In this category can also be included the households of the more than 2.5 million people who have thus far died of AIDS, and the many households who still have to care for their ill. Again, AIDS has affected all South Africans, but prevalence is much higher among Blacks than the other race groups. At the very bottom of South African society there are still about 900,000 people, as of 2007, surviving on less than US$1 per day. This deprivation again provides a new basis for interest-group formation and group solidarity that can breach the racial walls created under apartheid and soften the lines of antagonism created under that system. South Africans now mutually interact on very different terms than they did in 1960, 1985, and even 1994. When they do interact now, do they mingle, mix, and then form the kind of civil society anticipated in the liberal prognosis? What do the data show in terms of attitudes of trust and tolerance among both elites and the general public? We will discuss these questions in the ensuing chapters.

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Chapter 5 Interpersonal Relations: Trust, Tolerance, and Gender

Introduction The evolution of a liberal “open society” in South Africa was thwarted for many decades by the imposition of apartheid rules and laws. In the liberal perspective the separation and hierarchical ordering of society has inhibited the development of political trust among virtually every South African not classified as White, and this distrust has channeled the development of social cohesion into narrow racial and ethnic enclaves. But most severely affected, according to the liberal critique, has been the development of trusting and tolerant relations between strangers, as apartheid rules enforcing spatial separation of people prevented individuals across the racial divisions from meeting, mixing, and establishing amicable interpersonal relations. The 1996 constitution, described as the epitome of liberal constitutionalism in every way, with its elaborate human rights charter, has provided a new social arena for citizens to build such relationships. The proposition upheld by the theory of the liberal democratic peace is that structure can shape culture, and the proposition central to the transition paradigm is that structure will shape culture, and that the constitutional rules adopted in 1996 will in time liberalize South African public attitudes. In this chapter we examine three key components of civic culture relevant to liberalization, those of trust, tolerance, and gender relations. In the section on tolerance we will use a comparative yardstick with which to gauge South Africa’s progress in liberalization. Data from a seven-nation comparative study on tolerance, using the same World Values Survey data set of 2006 and a similar process of measurement and index construction, allows us to compare South Africans’ levels of tolerance with that of the established

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democracies of Sweden and Germany, with the fellow Third Wave democracies of Chile, South Korea, and Poland, and also with the unique outlier, Turkey.1

Interpersonal Relations and Liberal Democracy Trust is a key disposition in the effective functioning of a liberal society and in the maintenance of liberal democracy. Trust in any person emerges from a prior conviction that the particular person holds no malevolent intentions, is not intent on willful exploitation, or on inflicting harm or damage. Trust is a disposition toward others that follows from their reputation for reliability, honesty, and integrity: “A person is trusted by others to the extent that these others have confidence about the commitments made by the said person, that is, when predicted, expected and promised outcomes do in fact materialize accordingly.”2 Such trust can be directed or dispersed. If dispersed, it is referred to as generalized trust, which is indicative of an individual’s overall worldview of other people. If directed, trust is a disposition that addresses clearly demarcated categories of people. Interpersonal trust is of vital importance to the maintenance of liberal democratic regimes. As is the case with political trust, interpersonal trust entails having confidence that certain expectations about the behavior of others will actually materialize. In interpersonal relations, such a reputation for reliability is usually vested in the knowledge people have of each other, and in the personal traits that are attributed to others on the basis of such knowledge or are explicitly or implicitly derived from it. It is therefore not a generalized but a directed form of trust. People who know one another personally and meet on a daily basis have the best opportunity to gain the knowledge necessary for establishing trustworthiness. Relationships among family, friends, and community form the inner core of interpersonal relations from which reputations for reliability and the “thick trust” can be established. Slightly less intimate relations in the form of shared values and cultural practices (such as religion), as well as presumed kinship relations that together form the basis of ethnic identities, provide the next source of knowledge for “thick trust.” “Thin trust,” on the other hand, is established between strangers, who may not even have the typical overt socially shared denominators such as language, religion, or heritage. Such trust is established on the basis of ongoing joint engagement in projects and/or more formally shared identities such as corporate membership or, at the national level, citizenship. Both these kinds of trust are required for the maintenance of liberal society. Thick trust cements families and households, the core social units from which overall social cohesion is constructed and also the primary units of general and political socialization. Thin trust is

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needed to bridge larger social divisions in society and for very large projects of collaborative endeavor, such as socioeconomic development, which typify modernizing societies.3 Tolerance is an equally essential requisite for liberal democracy. In the classic liberal perspective, tolerance is required for effective functioning of the competitive processes of representative democracy, as well as effective maintenance and deepening of the doctrine and practice of human rights. Rights, as special claims against the state or other civic bodies or citizens, function alongside one another, and unless a clear hierarchy of rights is established, such rights hold equal claims in relation to one another. The advancement of any right by a citizen then becomes contingent upon it not being infringed by the claims advanced by other rights holders. Constant litigation becomes one way of dealing with rival claims, but for the effective functioning of society on a regular basis, tolerance becomes essential as an operating norm. While increasing levels of trust and tolerance are expected to accompany liberalization, one would be hesitant to expect such trends early in the South African transition. The racial polarization that was created by apartheid would, in our expectation, be whittled away only gradually, as the institutions of democracy worked to the benefit of all and came to be seen as doing so. Gender relations that measure up to the liberal value of equality have become definitive of the mature liberal society. The evolution of gender equality in established liberal democracies has been inhibited by many factors, including formal political rules that discriminated in terms of rights, historically favoring men over women. The elimination of these discriminatory structures have proceeded through the process of constitutional reform, and it took West European states the better part of the twentieth century to establish such gender-based political equality. Cultural norms have served as another less tangible structural source of gender discrimination that cannot be scrapped through formal legislative action. Under the Union in 1910, formal constitutional discrimination against women prevailed in the South African state as well as in the patriarchal cultures of both Whites and Blacks. The transition to democracy made great strides in establishing formal equality, but it left behind cultural obstacles to gender equality to be addressed. Constitutional rules as well as public attitudes to gender are therefore equally significant measures of this dimension of liberalization.

Generalized Trust The standard interview item presented to respondents in the World Values Survey for measuring generalized trust is the following statement: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to

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be careful in dealing with people?” The response set consisted of a scale ranging from 1 to 10, with one representing the answer “need to be careful” and ten representing “most people can be trusted.” These were recoded into two categories (1–5 and 6–10) and relabeled as “need to be careful” and “can be trusted,” respectively. The overall response pattern is presented in Table 5.1. In Figure 5.1 we present the responses (totals, as well as by race) from 1981 to 2006 for the response category “most people can be trusted.” Table 5.1

Generalized trust among the public, 1981–2006 Year

Generalized trust 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

Most people can be trusted You need to be careful

30.5 69.5

28.3 71.7

18.1 81.9

11.3 88.7

18.8 81.2

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS. 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Black White Colored Indian Total

Figure 5.1

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

32.5 30.1 22.0 21.1 30.5

30.4 33.1 11.6 16.3 28.3

20.4 12.3 12.6 9.2 18.1

11.0 16.0 6.2 13.6 11.3

18.1 22.1 19.9 21.7 18.8

Generalized trust among the public by race, 1981–2006

Note: The question read as follows: “Generally speaking, would you say most people can be trusted or that you need to be careful in dealing with people?” The percentages are based on those that indicted “most people can be trusted.” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

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The 1981 survey shows South Africa under the apartheid regime, with a low overall level of generalized trust and low levels of mutual trust among every race group. The lowest levels were recorded among Coloreds and Indians, who—as the smallest of the race groups and potentially the most vulnerable—had few reasons to trust people in general. Whites, who were the dominant and privileged group and held this ranking by virtue of being part of a coercive authoritarian state, were next to Coloreds and Indians in the trust they had in others. Again, as the beneficiaries of an illegitimate regime, they had little reason to be trusting of others. Blacks, the largest group and the most severely hurt by apartheid, had marginally higher levels of trust than Whites but notably more than Coloreds and Indians. Democratization has been accompanied by a distinct decline in trust. Overall levels of generalized trust in 2006 (18.8 percent) were almost 12 percent below the 1981 levels of 30.5 percent. This meant that fewer than one in five South Africans found reasons to be generally trusting of one another. This was, however, an improvement on previous conditions, as the low point was reached in 2001 when the average level dropped to 11.3 percent, with only about one in every ten South Africans trusting one another. This general trajectory has been followed by every race group, with different low points. For Whites and Indians the low points were reached in 1995, and for Blacks and Coloreds, in 2001. The Coloreds experienced the lowest point among all race groups in 2001, with trust levels at 6.2 percent. Whites seem to be the only race group whose levels of trust were positively affected by the 1990 breakthrough in the politics of negotiation, which was symbolically so well represented by the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. But they also happened to be the group that experienced the steepest decline in trust levels in the years immediately thereafter, plummeting from 33.1 percent in 1990 to 12.3 percent in 1995. Arguably the only positive pointer to be taken from the data in Figure 5.1 is that the differences in levels of generalized trust between different race groups have narrowed. In 1981 the gap between the group with the highest and the one with the lowest score stood at 10.5 percent, but in 2006 it had narrowed to 4 percent. Whether the general rise in levels of trust from 2001 to 2006 indicates a long-term trend is still unknown. In Figure 5.2 we present data on mutual trust by religious orientation. (In 2006, about 81.3 percent of the respondents identified themselves as being religious, 17.5 percent identified themselves as nonreligious, and 1.2 percent as atheists. See the Technical Appendix for the survey items and coding.) It can be expected that religious orientation will affect notions of trust, as trust is a cherished positive orientation within the broad sweep of religious values that put empathy and compassion at the apex of their normative order. As can be seen, religious people were more trusting than nonreligious people and atheists in 1981, and it remained so in 1990. The levels of trust of religious and nonreligious people declined sharply from 1990 onward, and in both their cases a low point was reached in 2001. Atheists, by contrast, became more trusting of each other from 1981 to 1995, and thereafter they experienced a

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35%

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5% 32 30 18 12 19

27 21 19 9 19

22 24 30 12 13

31 28 18 11 19

Religious

Not Religious

Atheist

Total

0%

Figure 5.2 Generalized trust among the public by religiosity, 1981–2006 Note: The question read as follows: “Generally speaking, would you say most people can be trusted or that you need to be careful in dealing with people?” The percentages are based on those that indicted “most people can be trusted.” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

major decline in their levels of trust, similar to that of other religious groupings. The trust level of the atheists continued to remain low in 2006, while slightly higher levels of trust did appear in the other two groups. When comparing the response patterns in mutual trust by social class, few significant differences were found. Lower-, middle-, and upper-class respondents tended to have similar levels of low generalized trust (table not shown). We do not have data about elite views on generalized trust that go back as far as 1981, but the 2007 elite survey did present the same item to the respondents as the one that appeared in the World Values Survey. The findings, correlated with elite sector and with religious orientation, are given in Table 5.2. When comparing the elite response pattern with those of the general public in the 2006/07 surveys, the elites are seen to be somewhat more trusting (31.5 percent) than the public (18.8 percent). This is again consistent with the data on their respective views on the death penalty (Table 3.6). Elites were in that sense more liberal than their counterparts among the general public. The findings in Table 5.2 show that the media elite are the most trusting, marginally more trusting than the civil servants. This is compatible with an earlier finding, reported in chapter 3, Table 3.10, that the media elites have the

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Generalized trust among elites by sector and religiosity, 2007

Generalized trust

Most people can be trusted You need to be careful TOTAL

Elite sector

Most people can be trusted You need to be careful

TOTAL

MPs

Media

20.2

44.0

41.2

34.7

28.6

31.5

79.8

56.0

58.8

65.3

71.4

68.5

100

100

100

100

100

100

Civil Business Church Servants

Religiosity

Generalized trust

TOTAL

97

TOTAL

Religious

Not Religious

Atheist

29.1

41.7

28.6

31.5

70.9

58.3

71.4

68.5

100

100

100

100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2007 elite survey.

strongest opinion against the death penalty. This serves as another indicator that the media elites are the most liberal of all the elite sectors. The correlation of this finding with religious orientation (Table 5.2) suggests that religiosity does not sway these elites, as the atheist elites are as cautious about other people as are the religious ones. What is surprising, however, is that elites from the religious sector are notably less trusting (28.6 percent) than elites of other sectors, except for Members of Parliament (20.2 percent).

Interpersonal Trust The findings on directed trust, as opposed to generalized trust, allow us to gauge aspects of thick trust and thin trust not possible with the data presented above. For this we used a measure of interpersonal trust. Respondents were presented with the following question: “I’d like to ask you how much you trust people from various groups. Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much, or not at all?” In Table 5.3 the elite and public responses to this item are contrasted with respect

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Interpersonal trust of elites and the public Degree of interpersonal trust

Interpersonal trust

Trust

Your family Your neighborhood People of a different race People you know personally People you meet for the first time People of another religion People of another nationality

Do not trust

Elite

Public

Elite

Public

100 87.7 86.7 92.9 59.7

97.7 72.8 48.5 79.3 30.7

0.0 12.3 13.3 7.1 40.3

2.3 27.2 51.5 20.7 69.3

85.6 86.4

63.4 49.0

14.4 13.6

36.6 51.0

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 WVS and the 2007 elite survey.

to their levels of trust (“trust completely” and “trust somewhat”) and distrust (“not very much” and “no trust at all”) in specific categories of people. As can be seen, elites are again, in every instance, more trusting than the public. They do have similar priorities though. Both elites and the public have the highest level of trust in their own families, followed by trust in the people they know personally. Both also have the lowest levels of trust in people they meet for the first time, that is, strangers. Elites have more or less equal levels of trust in the remaining categories of people, but the public are notably more trusting of people from their neighborhood and people of different religions than people of a different race and nationality. This indicates that in both elite and public opinion “thick” trust is more prevalent than “thin” trust. When the views of different race groups about trusting others are considered (Table 5.4), many similarities and some differences emerge. They all share a lack of thin trust. Respondents from every race group show the lowest level of trust in strangers (people they meet for the first time). Blacks have the next lowest level of trust in people of a different race; Whites, Coloreds, and Indians have the next lowest level of trust in people of a different nationality. Indians record the highest level of trust (outside of the family) in other people they know personally, which is indicative of what one would expect within a very tightly knit minority community. Significant differences emerge when interpersonal trust is measured by social class. The data in Table 5.4 show that the lower- class South Africans hold far lower levels of trust in people of a different race (30.8 percent difference) and people of another nationality (27.5 percent difference) than

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Interpersonal trust of the public by race and social class, 2006 Race

Interpersonal trust Black Your family Your neighborhood People of a different race People you know personally People you meet for the first time People of another religion People of another nationality

White

TOTAL Colored

97.9 71.3 44.0

97.3 80.1 67.2

96.3 80.4 66.3

96.1 70.2 65.0

97.7 72.8 48.5

76.9

88.9

87.0

93.4

79.3

29.0

43.9

29.6

29.7

30.7

62.1

70.5

64.6

74.4

63.4

46.0

66.1

53.9

60.5

49.0

Interpersonal trust

Social class Lower Class Middle Class

Family Neighborhood People of a different race People you know personally People you meet for the first time People of another religion People of another nationality

Indian

TOTAL Upper Class

97.5 72.8 46.1

98.1 70.6 56.9

100 86.3 76.9

97.7 72.8 48.5

77.7

85.1

95.3

79.3

29.8

32.7

46.7

30.7

62.8

64.1

77.5

63.4

46.9

56.6

74.4

49.0

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of the WVS.

do the middle- class and especially upper- class South Africans. They are also less trusting of people they meet for the first time, people of a different religion, and even people they know personally and those who live in their neighborhood. Clearly the poor live not only in a different material world but also in a different social world from that of more affluent South Africans.

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100 Table 5.5

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Interpersonal trust of elites by sector, 2007 Elite sector

Interpersonal trust

Your family Your neighborhood People of a different race People you know personally People you meet for the first time People of another religion People of another nationality

TOTAL

MPs

Media

Civil Business Church Servants

100 88.9 83.3

100 84.0 95.8

100 84.3 78.4

100 86.3 85.7

100 94.0 93.9

100 87.7 86.7

87.8

98.0

90.2

95.9

98.0

92.9

51.0

66.7

66.7

64.0

58.3

59.7

81.7

89.4

88.0

83.0

89.6

85.6

83.9

93.5

86.0

83.7

87.5

86.4


Within the elite sectors (Table 5.5), few notable differences emerge. One of these is that in most of the categories the media and church elites are the most trusting. The exception is with respect to people from their neighborhood, who are most trusted by the church elites.

Tolerance To tolerate something is to allow something to happen that one would recoil from, consider unacceptable, and would prefer not to identify with.4 It is a disposition directed at an object of aversion, dislike, and even disgust: “One cannot tolerate something one likes.”5 Tolerance entails the forbearance to admit, accommodate, put up with, and overcome the hostility generated by dislike. Intolerance emerges when revulsion finds expression in prejudice and hostility. Within a democracy, tolerance requires of one to accept that one’s political opponents, even one’s enemies, have the right to participate in a contest for power under the principled assumption that they might win the contest and assume power, albeit limited and constrained by the rule of law. The liberal democratic peace is driven by pacified citizens and is as much a social as well as a political expression of sentiment, probably more of the former. Our interest

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is therefore definitely more focused on the general social, as opposed to the specific political, objects of aversion and dislike. Within a liberal society, then, tolerance is the ability to accept as fellow and equal citizens those people who hold beliefs and practices rooted in values that may be unfamiliar to, even incompatible with and offensive to, one’s own cultural beliefs. Such allowance may take the form of negative tolerance, which amounts to forbearance by way of ignoring, avoiding, and disengaging with the object of tolerance. In this case tolerance entails having to grit your teeth and to “grin and bear it.” Positive tolerance, on the other hand, is based on the principled assumption of being able “to agree to disagree,” which allows opponents to engage with, rather than shun, one another. Apartheid planners worked with the twin assumptions of cultural incompatibility of race groups and their ingrained hostility to one another. As an empirical base, they reflected on some two and a half centuries of colonial wars of conquest, which was interpreted to endorse these assumptions. Given the presumed presence of intolerance, expressed in prejudice and hostility, social contact situations were deemed combustible sites of friction and conflict. Separation of people by territory, so that distinct social enclaves (defined by race and culture) were formed or maintained, was considered the appropriate device for effective conflict management. The liberal retort to this line of thought was that contact situations could become vital signs of interracial amity where negative stereotypes could be dismantled and positive relationships across the racial divide could germinate. This proposition within liberal thought is conditional, however, on the social circumstances of such contact. One of the most well established propositions about the contextual requirements for positive interracial contact where prejudice can be broken down is contained in the social contact hypothesis of Gordon Allport, formulated in 1954. In this view, sustained and close interpersonal contact between members of different cultural groups leads to more tolerant attitudes under conditions of equal status, where the contact is made in a shared endeavor between parties who collaborate rather than compete, and where this contact is legitimized and endorsed by institutional authority, law, and/or custom.6 Applied to the South African context, the liberal argument was that the end of apartheid and the inauguration of democracy will establish the first of such conditions: formal equality as citizens of a democratic state, freedom from the contrived and invidious race categories into which they were forced by apartheid, freedom to associate with one another on the basis of shared interests, and freedom to engage in collaborative projects within the social space of civil society. In chapter 4 we have described the emergence of these contact situations at the end of apartheid. Our data presented below sheds some light on how increased contact has correlated with changing patterns of tolerance. In the surveys held, two items were presented to respondents with which to gauge various aspects of tolerance. These comprised two batteries in which respondents were asked to respond to a series of actions and to different

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categories of people. The respondents were presented with the following two items: • First, “Using the card, please tell me for each of the following actions whether you think that it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between.” • Second, “On this list are various groups of people. Could you please mention any that you would not like to have as neighbors?” Upon running a factor analysis (on the 2006 World Values Survey data) on both batteries of questions, it became apparent that five different components existed within these two batteries. Within battery 1 (tolerance of actions), two clear components became apparent: • Component 1, which was labeled the “Free Riders”; • Component 2, which was labeled “Permissiveness.” In every one of the indices for the tolerance of actions the coding was done in such a way that two extreme positions could be identified: very tolerant, which is scored when a respondent finds every indicator to be justifiable; and very intolerant, when a respondent indicates that every action is unjustifiable. The scoring then allows us to identify a range of mid-positions, which we describe as “floaters,” people who hold neither of the extreme positions but can be influenced to move either way.7 Within battery 2 (tolerance of people), three clear components became apparent: • Component 1 was labeled “Cultural Outsiders” as it appears to refer to those who may be different to many, if not most, of the respondents in terms of ascriptive or culturally derived criteria; • Component 2 was labeled “Lifestyle Outsiders” because it appears as though this group may have different living patterns than most of the respondents; • Component 3 was labeled “Permissive Outsiders” because homosexuals and those who have AIDS may be considered as having lifestyles that are not only different in terms of living patterns but also are ethically different from what many of the respondents subscribe to. The coding of these three indices was again done in such a way that two extreme positions, very tolerant and very intolerant, could be identified, with “floaters” in between.8

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Tolerance of Actions When considering the findings on tolerance toward certain actions, we can first examine the individual actions contained in the Free-Rider index. The public responses are presented in Tables 5.6 and 5.7. Three of these items measure public and elite perceptions about actions that have a direct bearing on the state. These relate to circumventing laws that have a bearing on paying taxes and paying for public goods (government benefits and public transport). The last item refers to accepting bribes for duties performed and services rendered, which is an unlawful and/or unethical action that could occur within either the private or public domain. Tolerance of such actions could then undermine either the laws of the state or social norms. Tolerance of free riding on obligations to the state and benefits received from it can be understood as a reflection of state weakness, in the sense that the respondent public considers the state to be illegitimate (i.e., with no rightful claim to raise taxes) or weak in its ability to enforce compliance (i.e., one could get away with nonpayment of taxes and not paying for public goods). Free riding, once practiced widely, also affects the capacities of the state to extract resources (i.e., its tax base), which it needs to be able to reappropriate in order to deliver public goods. As argued in chapter 3, state strength and state capacity are essential conditions for the maintenance of any democracy, including liberal democracy. Intolerance of free riding therefore counts as a disposition favorable to liberal democracy. The obvious finding presented in Table 5.6 is that the public showed low tolerance toward every one of the four indicators of free riding at all stages of the survey. These views have remained fairly consistent for the public and have changed little during the democratic transition. This runs counter to our expectations and is a bit surprising. The apartheid state and regime were, if anything, legitimate only in the eyes of those who gained most benefit from its discriminatory racial policies, that is, white South Africans. Free riding, especially as described in the first three indicators, all involve actions against the state, which is the party that will suffer and at whose expense the action is undertaken. It was presumed that an illegitimate state, one of the hallmarks of which was the differential allocation of public goods to the detriment of black South Africans, would be considered a fair target for exploitation when the opportunity arose, especially from those who have gained the least equitable share of public goods. This was the very assumption that underpinned the ANC’s campaign of “making the country ungovernable” during the late 1980s, which entailed, among other things, tax boycotts (in the form of rent and service charge boycotts in the townships). A high tolerance of such actions was expected, especially from the racially subjected groups. The data in Table 5.7 and Figure 5.3, regarding the composite Free-Rider index, do not confirm this expectation. The data show a very intolerant South Africa with respect to free riding, with very few floaters. The 1981 measurement,

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Table 5.6 Free-rider indicators of the public, 1981–2006 Year

Free-rider indicators

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

Justifiable Unjustifiable

10.0 90.0

11.4 88.6

9.5 90.5

14.3 85.7

13.9 86.1

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100


12.0 88.0

– –

8.9 91.1

11.6 88.4

13.9 86.1

TOTAL Cheating on your Justifiable taxes if you had Unjustifiable the chance TOTAL Justifiable Someone Unjustifiable accepting a bribe in the TOTAL course of their duties

100 15.5 84.5

– 15.4 84.6

100 8.7 91.3

100 12.9 87.1

100 12.4 87.6

100 11.8 88.2

100 8.6 91.4

100 5.6 94.4

100 12.3 87.7

100 10.5 89.5

100

100

100

100

100

Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled Avoiding a fare on public transport

Note: The percentages presented combine responses 6–10 (justifiable) and 1–5 (unjustifiable) on a ten-point scale, where 1 means never justifiable and 10 means always justifiable. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

Table 5.7

Free-rider index for the public, 1981–2006 Year

Free-rider index

Very tolerant Fairly tolerant Neutral Fairly intolerant Very intolerant TOTAL

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

2.6 3.8 5.3 14.8 73.5

4.3 4.9 0.0 11.3 79.4

1.1 2.5 4.6 10.9 80.9

3.7 2.9 7.1 13.3 73.0

5.5 3.3 5.2 7.9 78.1

100

100

100

100

100

Note: The Free-rider index combines all four free-rider items; please see Technical Appendix for recoding. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

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100% 95% 90% 85% 80% 75% 70% 65% 60% 55% 50% Black White Colored Indian Total

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

69.0 83.7 83.0 61.9 73.5

74.4 86.7 92.3 77.6 79.4

78.9 83.9 89.4 85.7 80.9

68.5 78.9 90.5 88.5 73.0

76.1 88.6 83.5 79.4 78.1

Figure 5.3 Free-rider index of the public by race, 1981–2006 (Percentage very intolerant) Note: Free-rider index includes claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled, avoiding a fare on public transport, cheating on your taxes if you have a chance, and someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties. The question read as follows: “For each of the following actions, please tell me whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between?” The percentages are based on those that indicated they were “very intolerant.” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of WVS.

taken in the heyday of apartheid, was expected to show a polarized South Africa, with free riding at the cost of the hated apartheid state being endorsed by all black South Africans and rejected by Whites. Whites do show the least tolerance for free riding, but less than 1 percentage point separates their level of tolerance from that of the Coloreds, the very group that bore the brunt of expulsions under the Group Areas Act and suffered separate and unequal treatment from the state throughout. The fact that such intolerance of free riding prevailed under apartheid requires interpretation and further investigation. Blacks showed the next level of tolerance to free riding, and the least intolerant to it was the Indian minority. The intolerance gap (between highest and lowest values) was 21.8 percent. This high level of intolerance to free riding continued through the democratic transition, with the largest shift in tolerance levels being found among the Indians, who by 2006 joined the other race groups at a very high level of intolerance. By 2006 the intolerance gap between the highest and lowest values had narrowed down to 12.5 percent, which showed some interracial convergence of opinion. This finding is consistent with the findings

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in other Third Wave democracies of Chile, Poland, and South Korea, and even in the established democracies of Sweden and Germany.9 Our findings about low tolerance for free riding is starkly different from the findings of a similar study done in 2007. The 2007 National Victims of Crime Survey reports on a study known as the Government Performance Barometer Survey of 2007, which was undertaken by IPSOS-Markinor and conducted among a nationally representative sample of 3500 South Africans. In this survey, four free-rider items identical to those of the World Values Survey were used, along with another eight items on free riding. For these four items the 2007 survey registered mean scores far above those that we measured. For the item “cheating on taxes if you had the chance,” their mean score was 6.8, whereas ours in 2006 was 2.5; for “avoiding a fare on public transport” their mean score was 4.9, and ours was 2.7; for the item “claiming government benefits . . . ” their mean score was 4.7 while ours was 2.6; and for the item “someone accepting a bribe . . . ” their mean score was 4.3 compared to our score of 2.3. For more severe actions such as “child abuse” (not used in the World Values Survey), they register a low mean score of 3.0. On the basis of these high scores, the Victims of Crime Survey concludes, in sharp contrast to our findings, that South Africans are tolerant of free-riding.10 We cannot vouch for or indicate shortcomings in any aspect of the methodology of the Government Performance Barometer Survey, as we do not have access to the research process. We have calculated the mean scores for our measures back to 1981 and find them to be consistent. On the basis of demonstrable reliability, therefore, we are confident of our own measurement, coding, and interpretation of the findings. Free riding is not just a political matter of law abidance and compliance with the authority of the state, it also entails an ethical dimension, as it relates to questions of fairness and equality. Free riding, whether by individuals or groups of people, privileges some people over others and undermines the concept of citizenship of equal value, a core ingredient of liberal democracy. By not tolerating such actions, a major attitudinal pillar for liberal democracy has been upheld by South Africans. Given the ethical dimension of fairness, we examined whether aspects of religiosity have shed any light on tolerance of free riding. The data (table not shown) for public responses reveal that religious and nonreligious people hold very similar views on the matter, but that atheists tended to be slightly less intolerant. In 1990 atheists felt there was very low justification for free riding, measured at just above 2 percent. By 2006, however, this had risen to above 4 percent. We did not find any contextual factors with which to interpret this finding. The data in Table 5.8 show that the elites are less tolerant than the public to free riding, which again indicates that they are more liberal than the public. When these indicators are combined into an index and correlated by elite sectors, no notable differences are found between sectors (table not shown). Similarly, elite intolerance does not co-vary with different religious orientations (table not shown). Elites from all sectors indicate an almost blanket

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Free-rider indicators of elites, 2000–2007 Year

Free-rider indicators

Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled Avoiding a fare on public transport

Cheating on your taxes if you had the chance Someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties

2000

2007


3.8 96.2

1.7 98.3

TOTAL

100

100


4.3 95.7

3.0 97.0

TOTAL

100

100


4.3 95.7

2.6 97.4

TOTAL

100

100


2.6 97.4

1.3 98.7

TOTAL

100

100

Note: The percentages presented combine responses 6–10 (justifiable) and 1–5 (unjustifiable) on a ten-point scale, where 1 means never justifiable and 10 means always justifiable. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2000 and 2007 elite surveys.

intolerance to free riding, which is a positive attitudinal support for liberal democracy. The second set of actions examined in the surveys comprised tolerance toward actions that cluster together and which we labeled the Permissiveness index. In this instance, greater tolerance is indicative of being more liberal. Table 5.9 shows a fairly stable and high level of intolerance of these actions. The low level of tolerance of homosexuality is consistent from 1981 to 2006, despite the 1996 constitutional regime’s Bill of Rights that explicitly outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation. The 2001 survey does show some decline in intolerance levels, but in 2006 it returned very close to the previous levels. Tolerance of prostitution did in fact decline and was deemed less justifiable in 2006 than in 1981. The case of abortion is also important to assess the proposition that structure can shape culture. The Bill of Rights in the 1996 constitution contains three rights that strengthens claims for abortion on demand. These are the right to equality, the right to health care, and the right to freedom and security. These could be used to argue for the right to reproductive health care and the right to make decisions regarding reproduction. Consistent with these claims, the

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Permissiveness indicators of the public, 1981–2006 Year

Permissiveness indicators 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

14.1 85.9

11.0 89.0

12.9 87.1

21.4 78.6

16.6 83.4

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100


16.6 83.4

9.2 90.8

8.0 92.0

11.2 88.8

12.4 87.6

Homosexuality Justifiable Unjustifiable Prostitution

Abortion

Divorce

Euthanasia

Suicide

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100


22.5 77.5

14.9 85.1

12.0 88.0

19.4 80.6

14.4 85.6

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100


28.3 71.7

22.0 78.0

23.0 77.0

27.2 72.8

26.6 72.4

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100


34.4 65.6

22.6 77.4

17.2 82.8

24.0 76.0

19.8 80.2

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100


15.0 85.0

8.6 91.4

7.9 92.1

8.5 91.5

11.2 88.8

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100

Note: The percentages presented combine responses 6–10 (justifiable) and 1–5 (unjustifiable) on a ten-point scale, where 1 means never justifiable and 10 means always justifiable. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

ruling ANC passed the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1997, which allowed abortions after obtaining consent of the pregnant woman.11 As the data show, intolerance of abortion rose from 77.5 percent in 1981 to 88 percent by 1995. In 2001 this level declined to 80.6 percent, but by 2006 it had resumed its upward trend and reached 85.6 percent, which was the level before the passage of the new Constitution and the law legalizing abortion. For the remaining items under consideration, the table below shows that intolerance of divorce and suicide remains steady at a high level, while tolerance of euthanasia declined markedly. If one considers the overall levels of the combined index (Table 5.10), then the indication is that the South African public has become less tolerant with respect to this cluster of permissive actions than they were under apartheid. The very small number of highly tolerant individuals remains

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Table 5.10

Permissiveness index for the public, 1981–2006 Year

Permissiveness index 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

Very tolerant Fairly tolerant Neutral Fairly intolerant Very intolerant

3.2 10.1 8.6 29.6 48.5

2.6 4.5 4.8 27.9 60.1

1.5 4.2 6.2 26.0 62.1

1.0 12.1 5.9 27.9 53.1

3.6 6.6 4.7 25.3 59.9

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100

Note: The Permissiveness index combines all six permissiveness items; please see Technical Appendix for recoding. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS. 100% 95% 90% 85% 80% 75% 70% 65% 60% 55% 50% 45% 40% Black White Colored Indian Total

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

42.4 54.3 67.4 70.0 48.5

59.3 48.1 89.2 58.7 60.1

62.9 53.1 70.8 70.1 62.1

50.7 44.2 73.8 74.9 53.1

62.2 47.5 55.1 54.0 59.9

Figure 5.4 Permissiveness index of the public by race, 1981–2006 (Percentage very intolerant) Note: Permissiveness index includes homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, divorce, euthanasia, and suicide. The question read as follows: “For each of the following actions, please tell me whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between?” The percentages are based on those that indicated they were “very intolerant.” Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

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almost constant, while the floaters have decreased and the very intolerant respondents have increased by more than 10 percent. In this sense, South Africans can be described as being socially conservative. On a comparative frame, South Africans ranked, in 2006, at the same level as the Polish, Chilean, and South Korean public, but still less socially conservative than the Turkish public. The Swedish and German public, by contrast, were the least conservative.12 As is evident from the data in Figure 5.4, social conservatism was present under apartheid, although there was a difference of 27.6 percentage points between the least (black African) and most (Indian) intolerant groups. The very large changes in the levels of intolerance among the Coloreds is striking. In 1990, at the formal start of transition from apartheid to democracy, the Coloreds became highly intolerant, and the overall gap between the highest and lowest levels of intolerance widened to 41.1 percent. As of 1995 the Table 5.11

Permissiveness indicators of elites, 2000–2007 Year

Permissiveness indicators 2000

2007

60.6 39.4

39.6 60.4

Homosexuality

Justifiable Unjustifiable TOTAL

100

100

Prostitution


48.5 51.5

20.7 79.3

TOTAL

100

100

Abortion


62.8 37.2 100

30.7 69.3 100

Divorce


74.4 25.6

41.9 58.1

TOTAL

100

100

Euthanasia


58.4 41.6 100

35.7 64.3 100

Suicide


28.7 71.3

11.3 88.7

TOTAL

100

100

Note: The percentages presented combine responses 6–10 (justifiable) and 1–5 (unjustifiable) on a ten-point scale, where 1 means never justifiable and 10 means always justifiable. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2000 and 2007 elite surveys.

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Permissiveness index for elites by sector and religiosity, 2007

Permissiveness index

Very tolerant Fairly tolerant Neutral Fairly intolerant Very intolerant TOTAL Permissiveness index Very tolerant Fairly tolerant Neutral Fairly intolerant Very intolerant TOTAL

Elite sector MPs

Media

1.1 19.6 6.5 35.9 37.0 100

14.9 31.9 12.8 31.9 8.5 100

TOTAL

Civil Business Church Servants 4.5 15.9 4.5 29.5 45.5 100

0.0 16.3 14.3 28.6 40.8 100

2.1 6.4 4.3 21.3 66.0 100

Religiosity Religious 2.2 14.5 7.0 32.5 43.9 100

3.9 18.3 8.2 30.4 39.1 100 TOTAL

Not Religious

Atheist

12.2 36.5 12.2 24.4 14.6 100

20.0 40.0 20.0 20.0 0.0 100

3.9 18.3 8.2 30.4 39.1 100

Note: Permissiveness index includes all six permissiveness indicators; please see Technical Appendix for recoding. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 2007 elite survey.

Coloreds have also shown a similar pattern as the other groups and the same levels of intolerance as the Indian minority. By 2006 some convergence of opinions had taken place, and the gap was down to 14.7 percent. No liberalizing tendency can be found with respect to these indicators. The correlation with tolerance of permissiveness and religious orientation within the public is again similar to that of tolerance of free riding. Religious and nonreligious people tend to hold very similar dispositions, whereas the atheists showed some marked increases in tolerance, rising from just over 2 percent in 1995 to almost 10 percent in 2006 (table not shown). Table 5.11 presents the elite responses for the same actions. The two surveys in which this battery of items was presented are the 2000 and 2007 surveys only, which precludes description over the entire period of the democratic transition. If one takes the 2007 data only, it is again apparent that the elites are substantially more tolerant than the general public on every item, except the instance of suicide, where the responses are almost identical.

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Table 5.13 Indicators of tolerance of people by the public, 1995–2006 Year

Tolerance indicators 1995

2001

2006

People of a different race

Tolerant Intolerant TOTAL

88.7 11.3 100

77.3 22.7 100

91.9 8.1 100

Immigrants/Foreign workers


78.9 21.1 100

70.5 29.5 100

75.1 24.9 100

Drug addicts


25.1 74.9 100

36.2 63.8 100

8.7 91.3 100

Homosexuals


49.5 50.5 100

55.5 44.5 100

54.1 45.9 100

Heavy drinkers


39.5 60.5 100

48.5 51.5 100

31.1 68.9 100

People who have AIDS


56.1 43.9 100

74.4 25.6 100

92.7 7.3 100

Note: Percentages presented are responses “not mentioned” (tolerant) and “mentioned” (intolerant). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

When considering the Permissive index for elites as a whole, some marked differences were found within the ranks of the elite. As Table 5.12 shows, the media again stands out as being far more tolerant than any other sector. The church elites are by far the least tolerant of permissive actions. And in terms of religious orientation (see Table 5.12), those elites who consider themselves religious are far less tolerant than those who consider themselves nonreligious or are atheists.

Tolerance of People Tolerance of people was measured in the surveys through the battery of items listed in Table 5.13. The elites were not surveyed on this dimension of tolerance

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Indexes for the public’s tolerance of people, 1995–2006 Year

Tolerance indicators

Cultural Outsiders: Different race and immigrants Lifestyle Outsiders: Drug addicts, homosexuals, and heavy drinkers Permissive Outsiders: Homosexuals and people with AIDS

1995

2001

2006

Very tolerant Partial Very intolerant TOTAL Very tolerant Fairly tolerant Fairly intolerant Very intolerant TOTAL Very tolerant Partial Very intolerant

73.0 21.7 5.4 100 14.0 17.7 36.7 31.6 100 36.1 33.5 30.4

61.2 25.5 13.4 100 19.0 23.5 36.2 21.3 100 45.4 39.2 15.5

70.4 26.2 3.4 100 2.4 19.5 47.7 30.4 100 51.4 44.0 4.6

TOTAL

100

100

100

Note: Please see Technical Appendix for factor analysis, index construction, and recoding. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

with an identical battery of items; and for the public the period of data goes back to 1995 only, leaving us with a smaller database for assessing changes in tolerance toward different categories of people. As mentioned previously, respondents were presented with a list of groups, each group comprising different categories of people, and asked to identify those groups that they would not like to have as neighbors. Table 5.13 shows the South African public to be generally tolerant of people of other races. By 1995 there was already a high level of tolerance, which declined somewhat in 2001 but rose to a new high point by 2006. This finding is of considerable importance for liberal democracy and for the pacification of South African society, given the history of racial conflict that stretches back through the apartheid era into colonial times. Tolerance of immigrants/ foreign workers remained steady at a high level but at a notably lower level than tolerance of fellow South Africans of a different race. Drug addicts were the least tolerated social category within this list, and this tolerance level was

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also in decline. Tolerance for homosexuals was not high at all, but it remained fairly steady. Tolerance for heavy drinkers, like that of drug addicts, remained low and continued to decline. The greatest attitudinal shift, however, was the very sharp increase in tolerance for people who had contracted AIDS. When the overall response pattern of the public is taken into account, it reveals, through factor analysis, that three clusters of opinion are formed, as described earlier. In Table 5.14 the changing response patterns of these clusters are presented. Generally the public shows a steady and high level of tolerance of cultural outsiders, decreased tolerance of lifestyle outsiders, and increased tolerance of permissive outsiders. The sharp divergence in tolerance toward lifestyle outsiders, as opposed to the other two, is striking. Increased tolerance levels for cultural and permissive outsiders bode well for the liberalization of South African society, with its socially visible race differences and large immigrant population. But South Africans are intolerant of certain kinds of neighbors, that is, those who indulge in substance abuse that causes socially adverse behavioral effects. An important aspect of the data in Table 5.14 is that the coding allows us to identify a significant number of floaters, respondents who are neither tolerant nor intolerant but are open to be swayed to either side. Changes in tolerance levels caused by any such movement within any of the three indices would significantly reshape the tolerance profile of the South African public. This tolerance distribution places South Africa in a very similar position to that of Chile and Poland on all three indices but significantly less tolerant than Sweden and Germany. In all three instances, however, South Korea and Turkey are even less tolerant than South Africa, especially with regard to Permissive Outsiders.13

Table 5.15

Permissive outsiders index for the public by religiosity, 1995–2006 Year

Permissive outsiders index Religiosity

Very tolerant

Partial

Very intolerant

Religious Not religious Atheist Religious Not religious Atheist Religious Not religious Atheist

1995

2001

2006

35.6 34.9 43.6 33.0 35.6 43.1 31.4 29.5 13.3

46.1 44.1 42.3 38.9 39.2 47.0 15.0 16.7 10.7

52.8 46.5 31.4 42.6 48.7 62.4 4.6 4.8 6.2

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

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Given that tolerance relates to religious values, we examined the correlation of religious orientation with tolerance of people for the three indices. We found that tolerance of cultural outsiders or of lifestyle outsiders did not differ markedly with religious (religious/nonreligious/atheist) orientation (tables not shown). In the case of permissive outsiders, religion did seem to have a correlation on tolerance, as shown in Table 5.15. Religious people tend to be more tolerant of people with AIDS and who are homosexuals than nonreligious and atheist respondents. And this tendency was seen to be on the rise. Atheists, by Table 5.16 Permissive outsiders index for the public by race, 1995–2006 Permissive outsiders index

Very tolerant

Partial

Very intolerant

Year

Race

Black White Colored Indian Black White Colored Indian Black White Colored Indian

1995

2001

2006

30.0 54.9 49.3 49.0 35.9 26.3 24.9 37.4 34.1 18.8 25.8 13.6

42.5 56.0 51.5 45.5 42.7 21.6 38.0 37.1 14.8 22.3 10.4 17.3

48.9 67.3 56.9 53.5 47.2 24.5 39.4 29.1 3.9 8.2 3.7 17.4


Table 5.17

Tolerance among the public by social class, 2006 Social class

Tolerance indices

TOTAL

Lower class Middle Class Upper Class Free riders Permissiveness Cultural outsiders Lifestyle outsiders Permissive outsiders TOTAL

9.8 10.2 68.5 21.9 49.3 100

4.2 9.7 78.9 20.8 61.1 100

2.4 9.4 87.1 26.8 68.2 100


Kotzé

8.8 10.2 70.4 21.9 51.4 100

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contrast, show a distinct decline in tolerance for permissive outsiders and tend to converge in the “partially tolerant” category. Given the salience awarded to race in the apartheid regime, as well as by the Mbeki government, we also examined the correlation between race and tolerance of people. As is the case with religiosity, race does not appear to have an impact on tolerance of the categories of people subsumed within the cultural outsiders index or the lifestyle outsiders index. This contrasts with the findings of earlier studies on racial tolerance by Kotzé14 and by Gibson and Gouws.15 With respect to permissive outsiders, however, race does appear to be significant. As can be seen from Table 5.16, by 2006 Indians tended to have the lowest level of tolerance for people with AIDS and for homosexuals. Although the battery of items on tolerance toward people was not presented to the elites, we do have another measure of tolerance toward people of another race, analyzed by race, for the elites in the 2007 survey. The findings show that across all sectors the elites have an almost 100 percent tolerance of people from a different race (table not shown). Lastly, we present an overall correlation between the five indices of tolerance and social class in Table 5.17. The most visible difference on display in this table is the extent to which the lower-class respondents differ in their levels of tolerance of cultural outsiders and permissive outsiders, compared to the middle and upper classes. The low tolerance of cultural outsiders by poor South Africans is especially relevant to the civil violence directed against foreign work-seekers in many of the poor urban areas of South Africa in May 2008. This issue will be taken up in chapter 7.

Gender The value of equality is fundamental to liberalism, and the application of this liberal principle in many sectors of public life has come to define contemporary liberal societies. Many instances in which equality has been applied, such as the right to vote, have become acceptable and legitimate norms throughout the world and in many different cultural and socioeconomic settings, thus losing its quality as a differentiator between liberal and illiberal societies. The extension of the norm of equality to the relationships between men and women in the public domain and the liberalization of sexual relationships, however, remain a definitive aspect of liberal societies; in fact, by the end of the twentieth century it became one of the most significant global indicators that distinguished Western liberal societies from Islamic societies.16 The movement toward gender equality in South Africa has proceeded in incremental steps. The initial franchise in the Union of South Africa, established in 1910, was for White males only, with a limited franchise for Colored

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men in the Cape Province. Following international trends, the racial oligarchy extended the right to vote to White women in 1930.17 Social and cultural relations, however, proscribed to women distinctly subservient roles in society in all the different cultural communities in South Africa, which was more acute in some cultures than in others. The principle of patrilineality is clear and well established in African customary law. This left black African women in a far weaker position with respect to crucial matters, such as the right to inheritance, than the rights accorded to White women, which had already prevailed under the Roman-Dutch law established by the Dutch colonial powers at the Cape Colony in the seventeenth century.18 Under apartheid, African customary law was maintained as a secondary system of law, subject to the laws of the White Parliament. This cultural subjugation of women has led, as is the case with formal racial discrimination, to the cumulative buildup of socioeconomic inequalities between men and women, as is evident in access to education and labor markets, and through that to income levels and standards of living. The formal breakthrough in achieving gender equality came with the new democratic regime. The right to equality (section 9) expressly forbids discrimination on the basis of a range of personal attributes, including “gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status . . . sexual orientation,” thus setting up a constitutional framework of rules within which equality in gender relations could be pursued and sexual liberalization could evolve. The Constitution also provides other avenues for the advancement of women. The requirement that the public service should have a broad representation of the South African people (section 195(1)(i)) introduces the element of gender as well as racial representativity. Furthermore, the Employment Equity Act specifically includes women (of all race groups) in the category of the “designated group,” which enables women to become beneficiaries of preferential treatment in the form of affirmative action policies. A provision for setting up a Commission for Gender Equality is also included in chapter 9 of the Constitution to facilitate the promotion of gender equality.19 An initial overview of the state of relations between men and women in South Africa after fifteen years of democracy will easily conclude that little progress has been made toward improving the status of women, despite structural changes to the constitutional framework. The data on the incidence of rape, for example, as reported in Table 4.3 in chapter 4, in which women are the victims and men the perpetrators, are shocking indicators of the breakdown in gender relations. The position of men in general, with respect to their role in public violence and law breaking, is not at all positive. In 2007, for instance, men comprised 97.9 percent of the prison population of the country,20 which shows that there are major instances of social dislocation within South Africa and a distinct gender-related dimension to this situation. On the other hand, political parties, led by the ruling ANC, have made great strides in advancing the position of women in formal representative positions. After the 2009 national elections, 178 of the 400 members of the lower house

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of parliament (44.5 percent) were women, as were 16 of the 54 members of the upper house. The generic version of the World Values Surveys has at various times used a variety of indicators to measure gender equality and sexual liberalization. The items on sexual liberalization include views on abortion, homosexuality, prostitution, and divorce. These have already been reported in this chapter and the general finding was that South Africans have not joined the so-called sexual revolution, which the Western world have been undergoing since the 1960s. The World Values Surveys have used six items with which to measure attitudes toward gender equality, but this was not consistently done in every wave of the survey. We have only one item that has been consistently used as far back as 1981. Respondents in the survey were presented with the following statement: “If a woman wants to have a child as a single parent but she doesn’t want to have a stable relationship with a man, do you approve or disapprove?” The responses are in Table 5.18. The table shows that the public holds a fairly steady set of opinions on this matter, but that it has become slightly more polarized over the years, with an overall rising tendency of disapproval of single mothers. This response is important for South African society, not only as a measurement of preference about family structures but also because more and more single-parent families, many run by women, are in fact emerging, a great many of them out of necessity and not by choice. This has occurred because of the historic role of family disruption under the migrant labor system of apartheid, followed by the deepening impact of AIDS. What the data in this table show is that these singleparent families are embedded in a relatively inhospitable social landscape that does not favor such an arrangement, which makes the task of raising children in that environment so much more daunting.

Table 5.18 Public attitudes toward women wanting children as single parents, 1981–2006 Attitudes toward women as single parents

Year 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

Approve Depends Disapprove TOTAL

26.7 24.7 48.6 100

18.9 22.5 58.6 100

21.7 19.4 58.9 100

27.9 13.3 58.8 100

28.9 16.1 55.0 100

Note: The total of each column is 100 percent (except for rounding errors). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

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There are three indicators of gender equality that go back as far as 1995, one that was used only in 2001 and 2006, and a sixth one that was used only in the 2006 survey. The item for 2001 and 2006 reads: “When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women.” The response categories Table 5.19 Public attitudes toward men being given preference for jobs during employment scarcity Attitudes toward job preference for men

Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree TOTAL

Year 2001

2006

36.2 11.2 52.5 100

37.1 13.4 49.5 100

Note: The total of each column is 100 percent (except for rounding errors). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2001 and 2006 waves of the WVS.

Table 5.20 Public attitudes toward gender equality, 1995–2006 Year

Gender equality indicators

1995

2001

2006

Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay

Agree Disagree TOTAL

54.8 45.2 100

64.6 35.5 100

50.9 49.1 100

On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do


54.9 45.2 100

41.1 58.9 100

50.6 49.4 100

A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl


16.6 83.4 100

17.2 82.9 100

20.5 79.5 100

On the whole, men make better business executives than women do


– – 100

– – 100

43.5 56.5 100

Note: The question read as follows: “For each of the following can you please tell me how strongly you agree or disagree with each.” On a four-point scale, agree is the combined percentage for “strongly agree” + “agree” response categories, and disagree is the combined percentage for “disagree” + “strongly disagree” response categories. The total of each row is 100 percent (except for rounding errors). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

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for this statement are not identical with the items in Table 5.20, so we report it separately in Table 5.19. A very stable response is evident for this category, which unambiguously favors gender equality. The responses to the four remaining indicators are given in Table 5.20. As is apparent, South Africans are fairly evenly divided over the first two statements, while a large majority of them rejects the third one and a small majority rejects the last statement. What is of interest for this study of democratic transition and the question of whether structural changes have also been accompanied by a liberalization in attitudes is the stability of these attitudes since 1981. A small positive attitudinal shift can be detected in the responses to the first two statements, and an equally small negative movement is found in respect of the third statement. However, given the enormously significant changes in constitutional rules up to 2006, one would have expected greater attitudinal shifts.

Table 5.21 Public attitudes toward gender equality by race, 2006 Gender equality indicators

Race Black

TOTAL

White Colored Indian



47.0 53.0 100

63.4 36.6 100

69.9 30.1 100

71.7 28.3 100

50.9 49.1 100

On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl On the whole, men make better business executives than women do


53.6 46.4 100

36.3 63.7 100

39.6 60.4 100

40.2 59.8 100

50.6 49.4 100


21.0 79.0 100

19.4 80.5 100

19.4 80.5 100

8.2 91.8 100

20.5 79.5 100


45.2 54.7 100

35.9 64.1 100

37.9 62.2 100

37.3 62.7 100

43.5 56.5 100

Note: The question read as follows: “For each of the following can you please tell me how strongly you agree or disagree with each.” On a four-point scale, agree is the combined percentage for “strongly agree” and “agree” response categories and disagree is the combined percentage for “disagree” and “strongly disagree” response categories. The total of each column is 100 percent (except for rounding errors). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of the WVS.

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When we examine the responses by race and gender, the following pattern emerges. The responses of the different race groups to the four items on gender equality (Table 5.21) show that they tend to have similar views on the last two items (relating to university education and men as business executives, where clear majorities disagree with each statement) but differ on the first two. When responding to the first statement, “Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay,” the Black respondents disagreed by a small majority, but the three racial minorities tended to agree by notably larger majorities. The biggest difference is between the Black and the Indian race groups. The same pattern is repeated with respect to the statement, “On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do,” but the responses had less pronounced divergent preferences. Responses of men differ from that of women (Table 5.22). There is, however, some measure of similarity noted, but not on the same items as was the case with the race groups. Men and women tend to share their views on items one and three (the role of housewives and university education), while the race groups agreed in their views on items three and four. Strong disagreement Table 5.22 Public attitudes toward gender equality by gender, 2006 Gender


Male

Female

TOTAL



52.1 47.9 100

49.9 50.2 100

50.9 49.1 100

On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do


61.9 38.1 100

39.1 60.9 100

50.6 49.4 100

A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl


23.7 76.3 100

17.2 82.7 100

20.5 79.5 100



53.3 46.7 100

33.7 66.3 100

43.5 56.5 100

Note: The question read as follows: “For each of the following can you please tell me how strongly you agree or disagree with each.” On a four-point scale, agree is the combined percentage for “strongly agree” and “agree” response categories and disagree is the combined percentage for “disagree” and “strongly disagree” response categories. The total of each column is 100 percent (except for rounding errors). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of the WVS.

Kotzé

Table 5.23

Public attitudes toward gender equality by race and gender, 2006


Race and Gender Black

White

Colored

Indian

M

F

M

F

M

F

Agree Being a housewife Disagree TOTAL is just as fulfilling as working for pay

48.1 52.0 100

46.0 54.0 100

67.3 32.6 100

60.1 39.9 100

69.9 30.1 100

70.0 30.0 100

68.0 75.5 32.0 24.5 100 100

Agree On the whole, men Disagree make better TOTAL political leaders than women do

66.0 34.0 100

41.1 58.9 100

40.7 59.3 100

32.4 67.7 100

51.5 48.5 100

27.7 72.3 100

44.0 36.5 56.0 63.5 100 100

A university Agree education Disagree TOTAL is more important for a boy than for a girl

24.1 75.8 100

17.9 82.2 100

20.1 79.9 100

18.8 81.1 100

26.4 73.6 100

11.8 88.2 100

16.0 0.0 84.0 100 100 100


55.0 45.0 100

35.5 64.5 100

43.9 56.1 100

28.5 71.6 100

51.8 48.3 100

23.2 76.9 100

40.7 33.7 59.3 66.4 100 100


M

F

Note: The question read as follows: “For each of the following can you please tell me how strongly you agree or disagree with each.” On a four-point scale, agree is the combined percentage for “strongly agree” + “agree” response categories, and disagree is the combined percentage for “disagree” + “strongly disagree” response categories. The total works out to 100 percent for the two row entries of “agree” and “disagree” in each column (except for rounding errors). Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of the WVS.

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emerges with respect to the statement that “On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do.” A large majority of men (61.9 percent) agree with the statement, while an almost identical percentage of women (60.9 percent) disagree. The same pattern is found with respect to the statement, “On the whole, men make better business executives than women do,” with the majority of men in agreement and a larger majority of women in disagreement. Taken together, the difference centers on the role of men and women in leadership positions, where South African men are not prepared to assign to women roles of equal status. When considering the preferences of men and women within the different race groups (Table 5.23), some similarities remain and some additional differences emerge. The response pattern of racial divergence with respect to the first statement remains consistent for both men and women in each race group. There is also overall concurrence of opinion on the statement about university education, which is present among men and women in all the race groups. The two items on the role of men/women in leadership positions reveal strong differences between the two genders within different race groups. Men Table 5.24 Gender equality index by race and social class, 2006 Race

Support for gender equality No support Low support Medium support High support TOTAL

TOTAL

Black

White

Colored

Indian

2.3 32.1 46.7 18.8 100

0.6 14.6 49.9 34.9 100

0.7 26.3 40.9 32.1 100

0.0 14.8 54.5 30.6 100

Social class

Support for gender equality

2.0 29.5 46.8 21.8 100 TOTAL

Lower class Middle class Upper class No support Low support Medium support High support TOTAL

2.2 32.3 47.0 18.5 100

0.5 16.4 42.5 40.6 100

1.2 8.1 59.2 31.5 100

2.0 29.5 46.8 21.8 100

Note: The gender equality index includes all six gender equality indicators; please see Technical Appendix for recoding. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of the WVS.

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and women among both the White and Indian respondents indicate a similar response pattern to these two items, with consistent majorities disagreeing with both statements. Coloreds and Africans respond differently. In both race groups most men agree with both statements and most women disagree. The largest disagreement is found among Colored women, whom firmly reject the leadership abilities of men over women in both private sector (76.9 percent) and political spheres (72.3 percent). When all six indicators are combined into an index of gender equality, shown in Table 5.24, the results show that in 2006 South Africans in general were favorably inclined toward gender equality by a ratio of about two to one. So, although they are extremely socially conservative and are not part of the sexual revolution, they support equality in gender relations. When correlating the overall index by race in Table 5.24, we find that majorities within all race groups fall within the “medium” and “high” support categories, with the strongest support for gender equality found among the Indian and White respondents. A similar correlation of the index by social class (Table 5.24) shows overwhelming support (both “medium” and “high”) for gender equality among the middle- and upper-class respondents, and significant, but notably weaker, levels among the lower class. Low support for gender equality among the lower class (32.3 percent) is twice as high (16.4 percent) as among the middle class, and four times higher (8.1 percent) than among the upper class.

Interpretation Our initial interpretation is that the decline in generalized trust among the public is in line with an increase in perceptions of risk and uncertainty. Rapid democratization is a destabilizing process because one familiar set of regime rules is replaced by another, hitherto untested and unused, set of rules. In the case of South Africa, this entailed the introduction of an entirely new definition of citizenship and the redrawal of the map of adversarial politics. Although the formal constitutional rules were mostly clear and in writing, their application and outcomes were as yet unknown. Some vital aspects were left ambiguous, and deliberately so, because negotiators intended these to be dealt with by the first set of democratic rulers. These included matters such as the exact racial composition of the public service, the details of the mechanisms for implementing affirmative action policies, the integration of the armed forces, and the measures to secure truth and reconciliation.21 In addition, the process of regime change was one of rapid transplacement via negotiations among elites and pact forming. The problems of mutual security that were experienced by elites were dealt with by the elites themselves through pacts such as the Groote Schuur Minute and the National Peace Accord. To

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what extent these pacts benefitted the actual security of the general public and impacted on their perceptions of insecurity is a moot point. The data on political fatalities given in Figure 3.1 show that violence actually escalated as the negotiations proceeded. Those vital formative years of 1990–1994 were thus experienced as years of ambiguity, instability, and uncertainty. It has been argued that the politics of negotiation increased rather than decreased the levels of uncertainty by dismantling some of the familiar perceptual benchmarks with which the public identified the political landscape.22 While it is essential to the process of negotiation to break down polarizing negative stereotypes of one another held by opposing forces, new cohesive and inclusive social identities have to be constructed in their place so that the public is not left with lingering uncertainties about their place in society. This applies especially to a society emerging from violent confrontation, where knowing your enemy and your allies is imperative and where social categories tend to inform people as to who is to be trusted and who not. If and when the conflict is settled, then new identities to supplant the former ones are needed, from which new trusting relationships can emerge. Democratic South Africa has not yet achieved comprehensive success in this process of socialization. With the inauguration of the new democracy, former Archbishop Desmond Tutu introduced the concept of the Rainbow Nation as a positive metaphor for an inclusive social identity stripped of polarizing properties. Shortly afterward, however, Thabo Mbeki weighed in with his two-nation thesis, thus reasserting a fragmented concept of nationhood. The issue of public goods is also relevant to the extension of generalized trust. Froestad has argued that the growth of generalized trust is impeded by the fact that the state’s provision of public services is highly uneven and has marginalized the poor. He found this to be especially so in the case of public health. Previously deprived people who do not gain access to services are unlikely to build trust in new public institutions and even less likely to become trusting of former enemies who continue to have access to these public goods. Our data show (Table 3.6) that most South Africans rank delivery of socioeconomic outcomes highly as essential characteristics of democracy, which underscores the importance of policy performance in creating conditions favorable to extending generalized trust.23 The very low levels of thin trust expressed by both elites and the public can be interpreted, at this stage of the analysis, as being related to the past history of apartheid. Under apartheid, very few South Africans had reason to trust people not personally known to them. The social and political environment was hostile in many ways. For White people, those on the winning side of the regime, trust had an in-house delimitation. To move beyond the racial boundaries was risky, because the resentment against discrimination experienced by those not classified as Whites had to be overcome before any meaningful interpersonal relationship could be established. One could expect trust to develop only on the basis of many years of mutual contact and a track record of stable exchanges

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that established reciprocal respect. The political and social conditions of an imposed racial hierarchy militated against such relationships. Interracial friendships, which include mutual trust but entail much more, were therefore rare. Within the ranks of the racially subjected groups, the shared experience of being on the losing side of apartheid created a basis for solidarity across the cultural fault lines within black South Africa. But apartheid also created fault lines within these ranks. It differentially discriminated against Black people, as was pointed out in chapter 4. And the regime made ample use of members of the subjected groups as implementers of its policies within the subordinate apartheid bureaucracies. Some who were outside the regime labeled these people as collaborators or “sellouts” and considered them as outcasts. Others saw this as pragmatic politics relevant to the conditions of the time, and not as a sacrifice of the ultimate objective of the open society, or liberated society, whatever the ideological preference was. Added to this social context was the presence, or presumed presence, of the security agents of the apartheid state, which was a direct force of distrust among individuals. These fault lines again obstructed the formation of broad solidarities based on thin trust developing across cultural, ethnic, and race lines within the broad Black population. The democratic era has unfortunately not been entirely conducive to the emergence of interpersonal trust either. The many instances of violent contact crimes inhibit the kinds of positive social interaction from which interpersonal trust can emerge. Bearing in mind that most murders and rapes were committed by people known to the victims, such violence tends to make people more cautious in their interaction with others, more defensive, and prone to withdraw from social engagement. General conditions of hardship and adversity, such as those related to unemployment and poverty, also tend to orientate people inwardly rather than toward acting expansively, thus hindering new social relations being established. The other major finding in need of interpretation is the consistently higher levels of trust among the elites and the members of the upper class than among the general public. Given the background of the transition, we interpret this to be a function of the socioeconomic environment within which they find themselves in post-apartheid society. These elites are the positional elites who find themselves at the organizational apex of the institutional sectors identified in the sampling frame. They are the winners who are enjoying the rewards of the peace dividend. For them, democracy works, and amply so. The economic, social, and political environment in which they find themselves is far less hostile than that of the general public. They are shielded from the worst effects of violent crime, unemployment, poverty, AIDS, and urban decay. Most elites can and do send their children to private schools, live in housing complexes enclosed by security fencing, and mix socially with like-minded and similarly endowed fellow citizens. In such a nonthreatening social environment the

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risks entailed in trusting others is likely to be judged lower than would be the case with the general public. We likewise interpret the changing patterns of tolerance reported in this chapter to be a reflection of how people have responded to the social destabilization of apartheid and the new destabilizing forces experienced during the democratic transition. The socially destabilizing forces under apartheid are well known and have been described in detail. These include the pressure on Black families to meet economic needs while living under the strictures of spatial separation and the restrictions on movement imposed by the apartheid laws. Most infamous were the pass laws that controlled African men’s access, mostly as mine laborers, to the modern economies of the cities while their families had to reside in the rural homelands. This migrant labor system fundamentally undermined the cohesion of the family unit, the core institution of social order and of socialization. As outlined broadly in chapter 4, democratic South Africa has also generated social factors that continue to threaten family cohesion. The compound effect of AIDS, crime, poverty, and unemployment has created conditions that put enormous pressure on the two-parent family, the most basic of social units. Many indicators of this are most poignantly visible in the social circumstances of South African children. For a start, the most recent data show that almost one-fifth of South African children were orphans in 2007, with the highest proportion found among black Africans in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, and this figure is still rising. In 2007 there were 701,000 children who had lost both parents, twice as many as the number in 2002.24 Many of these children end up as heads of what remains of their households. By 2007 there were 148,000 such households (households in which the oldest resident was 17 years or younger), with most of them located in the provinces of Limpopo, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal. There is again a very distinct race profile to this phenomenon, with 146,000 of these households being black African. Overall, in 2007, only one-third of South Africa’s children lived in households with both parents, and this number is showing a declining trend, having dropped from 38 percent in 2002 to 34 percent in 2007. Parents of these children were either deceased, divorced, or alive but missing. Virtually every one of these components of social dislocation has a racial and regional connotation. The highest proportion of children living with only their mother is found among black Africans, the highest divorce rate is found among Whites, and the lowest proportion of absentee fathers is found among Indians, who also have the lowest percentage of women in the 30–34 year age cohort of unmarried mothers.25 Under such conditions of deprivation and social turmoil, it is hardly conceivable that thin trust will develop. It is also not likely that people will find reasons to tolerate (that is, either positively endorse or negatively just endure) conduct such as divorce, prostitution, abortion, and suicide, which further weaken the conventional norms that uphold established personal relations

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and intimate social relations. This social conservatism, extending into gender relations that relate to sexual liberalization, is therefore understandable. The public are also not likely to tolerate people who indulge heavily in drugs and alcohol to the extent that they lose control over their own behavior. Drug addicts and heavy drinkers both reflect and affect social destabilization, and they are a threat, not a contributing force, to social cohesion. Extending the analysis further, tolerance of free riding would be akin to endorsing yet another socially disruptive form of behavior. This would undermine the capacity of the state to provide public goods, especially one of the most sought after of such goods, namely, public order. The overall positive inclination toward gender equality is consistent with the more liberal aspects of social tolerance that we have found. The democratic constitutional order is likely to further endorse such public dispositions. A notable aspect of gender equality that remains a matter of significant disagreement relates to the role of women in leadership positions. It is our expectation that the role of women in actual leadership roles, rather than formal rules and structures, will influence the shaping of public opinion. South Africa’s 2009 national election has brought more women into such leadership positions, and their opinion-forming roles during their term of office may yet prove to be a decisive factor in this respect. The most striking finding on patterns of tolerance reported in this chapter must certainly be the high levels of interracial tolerance expressed in the surveys (see Table 5.13). Given the immediate past characterized by a violent transition, many decades of authoritarian rule, and the preceding centuries of colonial imposition, this finding on interracial tolerance needs to be analyzed once again. It can be argued that the new doctrine of human rights, written into the 1993/1996 Constitutions and applied through the new democratic structures of the regime (Parliament) and state (Constitutional Court), has impacted on established racist attitudes and inhibited their continued presence. Added to this are many other contextual factors such as: positive role models and inspiring examples of interracial tolerance and forgiveness, epitomized above all by Nelson Mandela; the legal and institutional continuity between the old and new regimes; and many instances of successful symbolic politics that was used to lubricate race relations. The most uniquely significant structural factor to consider in shaping attitudinal orientations in favor of greater interracial tolerance is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The South African TRC has been described by one analyst as “the most sophisticated truth commission to date,”26 and by another one as “surely the most ambitious the world has ever seen.”27 The Commission was established in 1995 to examine past instances of gross violations of human rights, and it recorded 21,000 submissions, granted amnesty to 850 violators of such rights, and produced its report in five volumes in 1998. The TRC was not only tasked to establish the “truth” on these matters but also “to promote national unity and reconciliation in a

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spirit of understanding which transcends the conflicts and divisions of the past.”28 The main public goods that the TRC aimed to deliver were therefore the intangible commodities of truth and reconciliation. How much and of what kind of each was achieved? How did the work of the TRC impact on the durability of South Africa’s transition to democracy? How much did the TRC contribute to the liberalization and pacification of society? These questions have been taken up in the empirical research by Gibson,29 who has undertaken the most wide-ranging opinion survey (conducted in 2000 and 2001) on the impact of the TRC thus far in South Africa. According to Gibson, the TRC aimed to establish a particular version of the “truth” about South Africa’s past and to use this interpretation of history to mould public perceptions in a way that facilitated reconciliation. Briefly, the findings of the TRC were that the system of apartheid, with its institutionalized policies of racial discrimination, constituted a crime against humanity, a systemic and gross violation of human rights. The TRC further found that although the ANC and its allies who conducted a low-intensity war against the apartheid regime were justified in taking up arms as a method of last resort (i.e., justness of war), they did not conduct themselves justly in this war. Likewise, the coercive agents of the apartheid regime also defended themselves by unjust means. Both sides were found to have committed gross violations of human rights in the military pursuit of their political objectives. Furthermore, violations on the side of the regime comprised actions of both individuals and institutions of the state. The important point, according to Gibson, is that this set of findings complicates history and makes it difficult for any observer to hold onto an entirely polarized view of the conflict as being one between irretrievably evil people on one side and impeccably noble, good, and morally superior opponents on the other. This becomes the basis for moderating one’s views of the other side, which in turn facilitates reconciliation. This leads to Gibson’s central proposition: “It is difficult indeed to reconcile with ultimate evil. It is less difficult to reconcile with more moderate evil, especially when one’s own side is tainted as well. . . . Those who accept the TRC’s truth, I hypothesize, will be more willing to compromise with, tolerate and reconcile with their former enemies.”30 The crucial concept of reconciliation is defined by the Commission along four dimensions. The first one relates to interpersonal relations, specifically about the ability of individuals to accept one another as equals, to abandon racial stereotypes, and to extend mutual respect to one another. These were of course the essential qualities that the apartheid system denied: the equality of peoples and their ability to live peacefully together. The second dimension comprises tolerance, which involves the willingness of people who disagree with one another, to put up with and to bear with one another, and to grant one another space (social and political) to pursue their own objectives. The third dimension entails a commitment to a set of rules that codifies the rights of all individuals to the above aspects, human dignity, equality, and freedom

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in a system where the rule of law is upheld. Finally, reconciliation requires an orientation where the public institutions of democracy are taken as legitimate and citizens are prepared to accept their functioning, even if at times such institutions produce outcomes that run against their immediate interests.31 The first important finding in the survey is about the TRC’s version of the truth. Its version is that large majorities of South Africans from all races accept apartheid as a crime against humanity, but also that human rights abuses were inflicted by both those who acted to uphold the apartheid regime and those who worked to break it down, thus by implication accepting that their own side was complicit in atrocities.32 Furthermore, a plurality of Blacks, Indians, and Whites concurred with the view that these abuses were the result of actions of individuals who transgressed laid down limits, rather than stemming from the state itself. The second set of findings relates to interracial reconciliation. Gibson argues that if mutual respect and recognition of one another’s dignity, with the attendant breakdown of negative stereotypes, is considered as the core of this dimension of reconciliation, then the start of the process must surely lie in the building of greater interracial understanding. His data show, however, that such understanding was largely absent in the general South African public’s perception of outsider race groups. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of Black respondents found it difficult to understand the “customs and ways” of White people, while most Coloreds and Asians (50.3 percent and 54.3 percent, respectively) felt the same toward the customs and ways of black Africans. Almost half the Whites (48.6 percent) indicated that they did not understand black Africans.33 This pattern was also seen to persist across other indicators, with black Africans being the least racially reconciled of all race groups. Gibson finds the impact of the TRC’s truth about South Africa’s past on reconciliation to be substantial. The finding is that among Whites, Coloreds, and Indians there is a significant causal relationship between acceptance of the TRC’s truth and interracial reconciliation. Among black African respondents, no relationship is found. The explanation for the latter is found in Allport’s social contact hypothesis cited earlier in this chapter. In the study, Gibson found that black Africans tend to report that they have significantly less contact with members of the three racial minorities than Whites, Coloreds, or Asians do.34 Statistical analysis then confirms that interracial contact does correlate positively with interracial reconciliation within every race group. The TRC conducted its proceedings between the World Values Surveys of 1995 and 2001. As can be seen from Table 5.13, no notable improvement in interracial tolerance is registered between these two surveys. In fact, a slight decline in tolerance is found. However, the overall finding by Gibson about the process of reconciliation and the building of tolerance does invite reexamination and reconsideration of our data on the relationship between tolerance and trust within social contact situations. When the data on interpersonal trust were examined (Table 5.4), we found that marginally less than half (48.5 percent) the respondents trusted people from a different race. Our expectation is therefore that high

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Table 5.25 Trust-tolerance matrix of the public toward people of a different race, 2006 Trust of a different race

Low trust

High trust

TOTAL

Tolerance of a different race

% within trust of different race % within tolerance for different race % within trust of different race % within tolerance for different race % within trust of different race % within tolerance for different race

TOTAL

Low tolerance

High tolerance

10.1

89.9

100

63.5

50.6

51.7

6.2

93.8

100

36.5

49.4

48.3

8.2

91.8

100

100

100

100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 WVS.

tolerance of people from another race being one’s neighbor would correlate with low trust in these very neighbors. The data are reported in Table 5.25. This shows that an asymmetrical relationship between trust and tolerance does indeed exist. About nine out of every ten (93.8 percent) South Africans who trust people from another race are also prepared to have them as neighbors, while less than five out of every ten (49.4 percent) who have high tolerance for people of another race as their neighbors also trust them. On the basis of these findings we can revisit an earlier hypothesis we made about the interrelationship between trust and tolerance in South Africa: “Greater tolerance may in the long run become a crucial ingredient in the building of new networks between individuals from across these cultural divides. Such networks hold the potential for binding people into new affiliations, obligations and social identities, which in the long run, may foster new relationships of interpersonal trust.”35 More practically, we suggest that once people of different races come to accept one another as neighbors who live on the same street, many new potential social contact situations open up. There is a likelihood that children of these neighbors living in the same street may go to the same schools and establish friendships. Parents can eventually build shared interests, whether of a civic nature, related to taxes and services at the local government level, or educational, related to school activities. These interests can become the platform for joint engagement in collaborative projects such as rate payers’ associations, lift clubs, or school boards.

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However, these are far more likely to happen among the middle and higher social classes. As the data in Table 5.4 show, lower-class South Africans have far higher levels of distrust of people of a different race to overcome before new networks can be established, and they also have lower levels of tolerance of cultural outsiders than do the middle- and upper classes (see Table 5.17). And the fundamental premise for such an optimistic prognosis, as spelled out by the social contact theory of Allport, Horowitz’s ethnic conflict theory, and by social identity theory, is that the new neighbors and their children meet one another as equals in social status. Where this does not occur, physical proximity may not evolve into amicable social contact. The high levels of tolerance would then persist as negative tolerance, where people of different races shun one another and live in adjacent areas as strangers. Even worse, where social contact is perceived as a threat of some kind, especially as a threat to the social standing of the group one associates with, contact may become a point of friction over relative group status, eventually leading to conflict.

Conclusion Liberal values can be written into the formal structures of democratic constitutions by including them in human rights charters. When the attitudes and behavior of citizens are adjusted to comply with these prescriptions engraved in the charters, then one can argue that democratization has indeed contributed to the liberalization of society. In this chapter and the previous one we described instances where this has occurred and instances where it has not. The new human rights doctrine, as interpreted and applied by the Constitutional Court, outlawed the death penalty. Public attitudes that previously strongly favored the death penalty adjusted accordingly, and after the actions of the Court a sharp decline in support for this policy has been measured. We find a similar increase in tolerance between races and support for gender equality, concomitant with the change to the new human rights doctrine. In the case of abortion, however, this has not happened. South Africans strongly opposed abortion under the apartheid regime and continue to do so under the new regime with its human rights doctrine, despite a Constitutional Court ruling that allows for legalizing abortion and despite enabling legislation to this effect. This is but one instance of the social conservatism that characterizes the South African public. We suggest that the social context within which most South Africans live adversely impacts on their amenability to many of the new human rights stipulations. Threat, as well as the perception of threat, is one of the contextual factors that inhibit the emergence of tolerance, as has been found to be the case in South Africa.36 As tolerance is essential for liberalization and is a key to pacification, a closer examination of threat perceptions is relevant to this study, which is presented in the next two chapters.

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Chapter 6 Religion, Evil, and Liberalization Introduction In the ideal liberal society, individuals are free to pursue their own ideas about the good and proper life. This freedom of choice would be morally and culturally empty if not for the liberal codes of conduct derived from liberal values and written into human rights charters. In culturally homogenous societies this is not problematic, and a cultural as well as moral consensus can emerge with which to invest the range of individual choices available to the citizen in society with substance. Cultural diversity, and especially religious diversity, can complicate the matter. Religion consists of moral codes that tend to prescribe a specific way of pursuing morally sound good life. When rival and contending religions occupy the public space in liberal societies, and when these prescriptions are at odds with liberal codes of conduct, moral dissensus may emerge. The standard liberal conflict-regulation mechanism thus far has been to try and remove religious claims from the public domain. This is done by separating church and state, and by assigning choices about religious matters to the private domain while asserting liberal human rights as the supreme and overarching code within which other moral choices are to be exercised. In societies where rising levels of modernity have been accompanied by trends in secularization, these devices for conflict regulation have been effective in managing religious diversity.

Religiousness and Secularization The so-called secularization thesis holds that decline in religiousness first manifested itself in Western Europe wherever modernization occurred, and

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secularization has since become one of the many yardsticks of liberalization. Secularization refers to a process of change involving three distinct yet interrelated dimensions: a decline in popular participation in the activities of places of worship; decline in the scope, influence, and authority of religious institutions in both private and public life; and a decline in the impact of religious beliefs on popular life.1 The modernization theory of Norris and Inglehart generates propositions about aspects of religiousness, specifically about secularization, and offers a contemporary empirical update of the global trends in secularization and modernization. Their key hypothesis is that “the experience of growing up in less secure societies will heighten the importance of religious values, while, conversely, experience of more secure conditions will lessen it.”2 The major independent variable here is “existential security,” which is interpreted as being provided by material, tangible goods: we believe that the importance of religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially those living in poorer nations, facing personal survival-threatening risks . . . people who experience ego-tropic risks during their formative years (posing direct threats to themselves and their families) or socio-tropic risks (threatening their community) tend to be far more religious than those who grow up under safer, comfortable and more predictable conditions.3

Human development, which is a function of broad processes of societal modernization, and social conditions of economic equality provide the broad parameters of existential security. In the Norris and Inglehart theory, material development provides a physical environment in which religious appeal loses attraction. People internalize the locus of control over their environment and become less prone to submit to religious norms for reassurance. Rising levels of development, according to Norris and Inglehart, should lead to widespread secularization and the decline in salience of religious identity. In the World Values Surveys, up to and including the global data set for 2001, these two authors find ample evidence to confirm this finding. And with a decline in the importance of religion, they find that there is greater tolerance of specific issues such as divorce, abortion, and homosexuality, as well as for cultural change in general.4 Given increasing global inequality, Norris and Inglehart predict a rising importance of religion in international politics, a trend that will pose a challenge to the levels of social tolerance. Once religion attains salience in this way, the forecast by Norris and Inglehart conforms to the sequence spelt out by the cultural theory cited in chapter 2. Value dissensus, especially on matters relating to the status of women in society and sexual orientation, between increasingly affluent secular societies and chronically underdeveloped religious societies will test the social capacity for tolerance. The authors are, however, careful not to predict5

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that intolerance will prevail and violent conflict along religious lines is to be expected. Rather, at the individual level, religious value dissensus within the ranks of secular societies will increasingly become a trivial matter, and as long as the process of global development proceeds, the areas of tolerance can also be expected to expand. This prediction has since been challenged,6 as has the effectiveness of the liberal democratic conflict-regulating devices, by strident claims for the reassertion of cultural values in the public domain. Various authors have predicted that culture, especially religion, will be a more salient criterion of collective identity. Few of them are as insistent about this as S.P. Huntington, who holds that “(T)he twenty-first century is beginning as an age of religion.”7 This development is said to be especially noticeable within Christianity, in which a widespread process of desecularization is said to be taking place,8 with the notable exception of Western Europe.9 Jenkins predicts likewise.10 Militant Islam is already a salient feature of the global political landscape, while the rise of an equally militant Christianity was predicted as long ago as the early 1990s.11 Many contemporary religious movements have been described as being fundamentalist. Fundamentalism, according to Heywood, “is a style of thought in which certain principles are recognized as essential ‘truths’ that have unchallengeable and overriding authority, regardless of their content.”12 In religious movements the literal truth is usually found in certain sacred texts. Fundamentalists are therefore not likely to be tolerant of opinions that diverge from their own, given their commitment to a single concept of the truth. But, as Heywood also notes, “even liberal skepticism can be said to incorporate the fundamental belief that all theories should be doubted (apart from its own).”13 Fundamentalistic opposition to religious convictions may therefore also be found amongst members of highly secularized societies. The reemergence of religious salience presents major challenges to liberal conflict-regulating devices. In terms of the social identity theory outlined in chapter 2, religion may again become a salient standard of value against which individual and collective worthiness will have to be gauged. Liberal constitutional rules will then have to be devised for addressing conflicts over relative group status and for producing outcomes that reflect parity of esteem between religiously defined identity groups. In terms of the theory of cultural conflict outlined in chapter 2, confrontations between religious groups represent a clash between incompatible moral axioms in its most direct and explicit form. South Africa does not have the same national levels of affluence exhibited by the liberal and secular countries of the North. It does, however, have very sharp internal material inequalities and we can expect to find, in terms of the Norris and Inglehart hypothesis, that secularization has taken hold among the upper classes and the elites. Tables 6.1 to 6.4 display data on aspects of religiousness in South Africa that bear on the dimensions of secularization mentioned in the definition above.

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Table 6.1

Attendance at religious events by the public, 1981–2006 Year

Religious attendance

More than once a week Once a week Once a month Only on special holy days Once a year Less often Never, practically never TOTAL

1981

1995

2001

2006

9.5 31.6 17.0 8.3 4.5 17.1 12.0 100

14.9 38.8 16.0 5.4 2.2 13.0 9.6 100

18.7 31.2 16.0 5.8 1.8 16.7 9.9 100

16.6 37.8 14.9 5.9 1.1 10.1 13.6 100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

Table 6.2

Religiosity of the public, 1981–2006 Year

Religiosity

A religious person Not a religious person An atheist TOTAL

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

72.6 18.3 9.1 100

83.3 13.5 3.1 100

80.5 17.8 1.7 100

79.7 17.4 2.8 100

81.3 17.5 1.2 100

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1981, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

Table 6.3

Practice of prayer/meditation among the public, 1981–2006 Year

Prayer/meditation

Pray/meditate Do not pray/meditate TOTAL

1981

2001

2006

86.5 13.5 100

89.6 10.4 100

85.3 14.7 100


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RELIGION, EVIL, AND LIBERALIZATION Table 6.4

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Importance of God among the public, 1981–2006 Year

Importance of God

Very important Important Unimportant Not at all important TOTAL

1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

64.0 25.4 8.4 2.2 100

80.0 10.9 6.5 2.6 100

77.0 16.2 6.0 0.8 100

77.6 12.6 7.1 0.7 100

76.5 18.7 4.1 0.7 100


These dimensions comprise a decline in popular participation within religious bodies, a decline in the authority of religious institutions, and a decline in the impact of religious beliefs. As can be seen from the tables, these items were not consistently used in every wave of the World Values Surveys, but we report the data as far back as they are available. As can be seen from the tables, South Africans are highly religious and have been so consistently over the time covered by the surveys and in every dimension of religiousness.14 If anything, trends show that they are becoming more religious, not less so. South Africa therefore cannot be considered part of the secularized affluent North. We have constructed an index of religiousness similar to that by Norris and Inglehart.15 Table 6.5 presents the data.16 The index is correlated with race and social class in Table 6.5. It is evident that high levels of religiousness prevail in every social category of race and class. The data shows a trend that appears to run directly counter to the hypothesis of existential insecurity presented by Norris and Inglehart: the upper class is even more religious than the middle and lower classes. It must be noted, though, that within their global comparison of societies they found that it is the macro-level type of society that impacts more significantly on religiousness than the micro-level social differences within such types of society. For them, this means that even the affluent professional classes living in secure, gated communities in Johannesburg, San Paolo (sic) or Lagos, located well away from the shanty towns and favelas, with deep pockets for private health care, private education, and private insurance, cannot insulate themselves or their families entirely from the risks of crime, the threat of violence, and the problems of political instability endemic in society.17

At the other end of the socioeconomic scale, they argue that there is a similar pull but in a different direction: the pockets of destitution in affluent

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Table 6.5 Religiousness index among the public by race and social class, 1981–2006 Religiousness index

Religious Secular TOTAL

Race Black

White

Colored

Indian

84.9 15.1 100

89.9 10.1 100

94.9 5.1 100

92.1 7.9 100

Social class

Religiousness index Lower class Religious Secular TOTAL

TOTAL

85.3 14.7 100

86.3 13.7 100 TOTAL

Middle class

Upper class

90.8 9.2 100

93.0 7.0 100

86.3 13.7 100


societies are lifted into existential security by being provided with benefits from the public welfare system that is available to all, and security is thus extended to those inhabiting such pockets even though they themselves are unable to afford it. South Africa is a middle-income country and had a Human Development Index rating of 0.674 in 2005, which was down from the high point of 0.745 in 1995.18 Notwithstanding the mention of Johannesburg in the quote from Norris and Inglehart above, the question therefore remains: should we expect the poorer social sectors to be pulled upward into higher levels of security, or the more affluent sectors to be pulled downward? The data most relevant to the theme of liberalization appear in Table 6.5. According to the Norris and Inglehart thesis, religiousness is a function of deep-seated existential insecurity. They describe such insecurity as rooted in physical conditions of poverty, deprivation, and need. If the high level of religiousness of the South African upper class is produced by existential insecurity, then this insecurity does not take the form of socioeconomic deprivation. Rather, it would probably be found in intangible and nonmaterial conditions that induce a sense of insecurity, and/or in tangible conditions that do not bear on socioeconomic living standards but are still perceived as threatening to their security. One of the most pervasive sources of threat identified by religion is that of evil, which is intangible in its nature but tangible in its destructive consequences.19 A revised and extended hypothesis of existential insecurity is therefore needed to accommodate this dimension of perceptual

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threat. In the section below, we examine data on the concept of evil and the threat it is perceived to pose to South Africans.

Evil and Tolerance The concept of evil can be understood in terms of numerous distinct paradigms, of which three are relevant to South Africa. The first is the one that accommodates monotheistic religions. In these religions evil is associated with rebellion against God, the omnipresent and omnipotent deity, and good is associated with conformity to the prescriptions of God and with actions that aspire to achieve such conformity. According to the conventional view, rebellion against God is triggered by individuals’ succumbing to the influence of Satan, a malevolent transcendental force that is also omnipresent and whittles away the followers of God by way of temptation. Jenkins describes the reemergence of a particular religious definition of the concept of evil that manifests itself in terms of mundane social actors and policy outcomes but that considers these social phenomena as the expression of larger demonic forces of a transcendental nature.20 This reemergence is primarily located within the Protestant movements that are emerging in the global South, as opposed to the post-Christian Protestant establishment of the North. This new movement, as it has emerged over the past half century, is an essentially conservative movement, in contrast to the liberal tendencies of the Protestant North. In the Protestant tradition, people rely on the Bible as the key source of religious authority rather than on the authority of key figures within religious hierarchies, or on church tradition. The Pentecostal movement has emerged as the most prominent of these new Protestant sects, with a number of distinctive features. First, they rely on direct spiritual revelation to supplement or even replace biblical authority. Second, a core conviction is that God can and does intervene directly in the everyday lives of believers. Such intensely held beliefs tend to generate antipathy to, and intolerance of, divergent opinions and beliefs: “For charismatic and Pentecostal Christians, contradicting the straightforward words of the biblical text is intolerable. Liberals judge scripture by the standards of the world; conservatives claim to set an absolute value on scripture and religious sources of authority.”21 Third, the concept of evil as a religious phenomenon is invested with tangible meaning and is considered to be a function of a malevolent spiritual presence, rather than adverse structural conditions, and is therefore, in principle, to be confronted in “spiritual warfare.” Thus, southern churches talk about the “demons of poverty,” which, along with other manifestations of evil in the forms of child mortality, disease, exploitation, pollution, drugs, and violence, can only be confronted with divine intervention.

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Under the impact of the Enlightenment, this Christian/Judaic view on evil came to be rivaled by a second, more secular paradigm that roots evil in humanity itself and not in transcendental forces. Glenna depicts modern liberalism and Marxist-Leninism as belief systems that find the source of human weakness and fallibility in ignorance and/or false consciousness, both of which can be remedied by appropriate scientific knowledge.22 But, as Hannah Arendt has shown, such optimism is not always warranted. The Holocaust, according to her analysis, is a product of evil, even if its origins are entirely ordinary. Her analysis presented in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) illustrates what Glenna describes as a secular definition of evil: the maintenance of a contempt for life that is built into the systemic functioning of institutions.23 The Nazi program of eliminating Jews was constructed on the basis of a highly routinized, legalbureaucratic industrial process of extermination, coupled to very diffuse and dispersed lines of authority, with large-scale acquiescence by both civilians and operatives within German society and fuelled by the malicious intentions of a few key leaders. The result was that individuals (such as Eichmann) could effectively participate in a horrific project by merely implementing the most mundane, ordinary, standardized routine functions of bureaucracy. The point is that human ingenuity and technical knowledge, when coupled to a malicious belief system, can produce evil outcomes. Arendt describes the Holocaust as a “crime against humanity: ‘a crime against the human status,’ or against the very nature of humankind,”24 distinct from the war crimes that were dealt with at the Nuremberg Trials. This episode of evil was divorced from the biblical notion of temptation,25 and it was conducted by otherwise “normal” men under the leadership of Hitler, whose malice drove the entire project. The third paradigm relevant to South Africa is the African spirit-world belief system, largely present among the Black population of South Africa, but with many variations within different linguistic and cultural settings. This paradigm draws on the conviction that we live in and among a wide range of invisible spiritual beings and entities, both malevolent and benevolent, which are generically invisible. These spiritual beings and entities are thought to exist more or less autonomously from human life, with the spirits of the ancestors being considered as one of the most important of such sets of entities. The forces present in this spirit world can impact on individual human lives, often in a very detrimental way.26 This leads to a generalized condition of what Ashforth describes as “spiritual insecurity”: “the doubts and fears arising from the sense of being exposed to invisible evil forces.”27 This spiritual insecurity requires that the optimistic African humanist interpretation of ubuntu, “a person is a person through other persons,” be amended to add its negative corollary: “. . . . because they can kill you.”28 People can and do kill others, in this perspective, because of their malicious intentions against others, of whom they are jealous. What makes spiritual insecurity so pervasive in the urban world of Soweto, Ashforth’s field of

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study, is the presumption that anyone with the motive to harm has access to secret powers with which to inflict damage, and will do so because they can. Jealousy, arising from unflattering, hurtful comparisons, provides the motive to do harm to others. The innocent victims experience such harm in the form of unwarranted misfortune, which may be in the form of premature death, career failures, mishaps in personal relationships, or financial losses. Social agents of misfortune such as poverty, drugs, disease, malnutrition, unemployment, and especially AIDS are seen to be concomitant with evil supernatural forces, but not identical to them. It is believed that such misfortune is brought about by someone, and is not generally accepted as being one’s own doing or thought of as being the result of great impersonal forces beyond the control of the individual or community. A person is deemed to be the cause of misfortune, and if the causal action is not immediately apparent, but remains hidden, secret, and invisible, witchcraft can be assumed. People who engage in witchcraft, defined as “forms of occult assault perpetrated by other persons, usually persons disguising their malicious motives while using secret means,”29 are the likely instigators of evil forces that cause such misfortune. Healers do the very opposite. They defend people against attack from supernatural forces by using the very same occult forces for legitimate purposes. Anyone can become a witch, but healers are called to take up their vocation by the ancestors. Both these agents make use of muthi (potions) in engaging with the forces of the spirit world.30 Any number of substances can be used to manufacture muthi, ranging from innocuous ingredients from plants to human body parts. The power of the muthi follows directly from the supernatural connections of the healer/witch and his/her skill. The true test of a healer is the ability to manufacture muthi capable of defending a person from the malevolent supernatural forces set in motion by witchcraft. In applying his/her craft the healer invariably also makes use of his/her secret powers of divination.

The Response to Evil In the Christian Counter-Reformation movement a critical aspect of religious experience is to identify both benevolent and malevolent spiritual powers in the midst of society. Identifying evil, including those in society who embody it, and spiritual warfare in the forms of both exorcising evil and conducting spiritual healing are central themes of the movement. Many of these themes are also found in indigenous religious beliefs of African cultures, but according to Jenkins the beliefs of African cultures also resonate with the original biblical themes read in their literal form. Finally, it is seen that prophecy has again begun to acquire an exalted status. In most secularized societies prophets have been demeaned and considered to be mere “fortune-tellers,” while

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originally the term was used to refer to someone “who spoke the inspired word of God.”31 Charismatic leaders and prophets who claim direct spiritual revelation are key figures who are venerated in this Counter-Reformation. The classic remedy of confession, followed by forgiveness and restitution, is also rooted in biblical teachings. In the secular paradigm, evil has to be confronted with the existing law. Evil, just like kindness, comes in degrees, and each degree has its appropriate remedy. At all levels, room is made for contrition, where the perpetrators can express remorse and even sorrow at their deeds and the consequences. Appropriate punishment, whether for criminality, crimes of war, or crimes against humanity, is laid down by various codes of law, both nationally within states and recently also internationally, through the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Historically, in some cases lethal punishment in the form of the death penalty has been applied. In the paradigm of the African spirit-world beliefs, the individual who senses that he or she is the victim of witchcraft can gain protection from evil through the help of healers. While both healers and witches resort to muthi, the witch uses it as a poison and the healer uses it as medicine. The essential difference lies not so much in the ingredients used but in the legitimacy of their use. Witches use muthi for illegitimate purposes, which is to cause malicious damage to somebody. Healers use it for legitimate purposes, which is to protect, heal, and defend against evil. But the muthi of the healer can also be used to lethal effect when it is turned against the witch. The healer who works to cure a person from the destructive effects of witchcraft promises to turn the very same forces to work against the witch, killing the witch in the end.32 Individuals can gain protection by using the skills of healers. The community, however, must find durable protection by confronting witches. Witchcraft, which causes unwarranted, unjustified misfortune, calls for justice to be implemented. In precolonial African cultures a fairly standard procedure was established for this purpose.33 First, an impartial adjudicator had to be found, which in precolonial society was usually the chief or king. Second, both the accuser and accused had the right to appear before him to plead their cases. Third, evidence had to be produced. The most convincing evidence of malpractice would be to catch the accused in the act of dispensing dangerous muthi. Failing this, a healer with the powers of divination can be called in to establish whether invisible destructive powers have been set to work. The ultimate, conclusive evidence, however, is for the witch to confess fully. Failing that, false accusations also need to be punished, usually with property being forfeited. The function of full confession is twofold. The first is security. By confessing to the crime the accused accepts responsibility, the source of the evil can be fully exposed, and healing of the victims can be initiated. The confession allows the very source of evil to be attacked, neutralized, and eliminated. Incomplete confession, or none at all, leaves some, if not all, of the secret

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sources of evil masked and hidden, thereby leaving some sources of evil alive and available for further destructive action. The second function is that of justice. Death need not be the only punishment, but it is usually preferred as it is the only way of making sure that evil is not practiced again. Furthermore, witches are presumed to be intent on killing their victims, so proportionality allows for the death penalty. Finally, by unleashing the forces of evil into the community, witches renounce their claims to humane punishment. According to Ashforth, witches lose their very claim to membership of the human community, and with it their claim to human rights enjoyed by the other members of the community.34

The South African Context: Good and Evil The secular, Christian, and African spirit-world paradigms are all relevant to South African society. Some aspects mutually reinforce two or more belief systems and some aspects are decidedly at odds with one another. The general expectation is that a liberalizing society will increasingly adopt the secular paradigm in which formal religion is privatized, and witchcraft is considered to be superstition. The secular interpretation of evil informed the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings. The South African constitutional order, with its founding principles of the rule of law and its human rights doctrine, along with the attendant legal and bureaucratic institutions of the state, are nested within the secular Enlightenment paradigm, which consigns the African spirit-world paradigm of witchcraft to the realm of superstition. This results in two fundamentally opposing approaches to dealing with the matter of witchcraft, thus causing a cultural conflict about irreconcilable moral axioms. This has major implications for liberal values and for the issue of justice that arises from the consequences of the practice of witchcraft. Both the African spirit-world paradigm and Christianity are well established within South African society. Christianity is the major form of organized religion in South Africa. According to the 2002 national census, about 80 percent of the population belong to various Christian denominations. Very small numbers of adherents to the major world religions of Hinduism (1.2 percent), Islam (1.5 percent), and Judaism (0.2 percent) are found. About 15.1 percent of the population indicated in 2001 that they had no religion.35 For the purpose of this chapter, one major distinction between the various Christian denominations is worth noting. As in many other parts of Africa, the mainstream denominations (Presbyterian, Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist) have denied the existence of witches and denounced witchcraft and spirit-healing as superstition. Pentecostal churches and the African traditional churches, by contrast, have tended to acknowledge the existence of these forces and have

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applied Christian ritual and practice (as outlined above by Jenkins) to combating such evil.36 Not surprisingly, they have been among the fastest-growing Christian movements in the latter decades of the twentieth century, with more than 3 million members in 2001. Traditional healers are not compelled by law to register themselves at professional bodies, and estimates of their numbers therefore vary widely and wildly. One estimate was that more than 300,000 traditional healers were operative in South Africa in 2006, generating income of about R250 million annually. One year later it was reported that there were about 200,000 practicing healers. The majority of clients resort to these practitioners first for curing medical ailments. Both the 2006 and 2007 estimates put the number of traditional healers far above the number of doctors and dentists registered at the Health Professionals Council of South Africa, which had 34,687 individuals registered in 2008.37 Public hostility to forces that can be deemed to embody evil in the post1994 South African context has focused primarily on two kinds of targets. The first target for public violence associated with forces considered explicitly evil is witchcraft. The practice of witchcraft was concentrated in a particular region, the Limpopo province, and included so-called muthi murders to obtain body parts for preparing magic potions, and witch purging. In total, about 3000 cases of violence associated with witchcraft were reported to the police between 1990 and late 1998 in this province alone. The violence took a variety of forms, including murder, of which 228 cases were reported in the first twelve months after the inauguration of the democratic regime, but these murders subsided rapidly afterward.38 The second target for public violence was the purported drug dealers within the urban landscape of the Cape Town Metropole, and specifically on the Cape Flats. Communal violence against such individuals took an organized form in 1996 with the formation of PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs). Their act of publicly executing Rashaad Staggie, reportedly coleader of the Hard Livings gang, in full view of the media was a pivotal event in this urban community and an expression of acute hostility toward a malevolent presence in society. The drug lords against whom PAGAD was mobilizing could, for example, serve as the tangible embodiment of evil forces within the conceptual framework of the Christian Counter-Reformation. The public execution of Staggie, however, would go far beyond the Counter-Reformation repertoire of “spiritual warfare.” This action was followed up with numerous public marches against the homes of other reputed drug dealers, public demonstrations, drive-by shootings, and petrol bomb and hand-grenade attacks against such targets. By 1998 the state described PAGAD as an “urban terrorist” group and initiated legal action against a number of their leaders.39 In 2007, public agitation against the presence of drug dealers in the communities of the Cape Flats again resurfaced with marches against the homes

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of reputed dealers in Mitchell’s Plain. This action acquired a high political profile when Helen Zille, the then mayor of the Cape Town Metropole who marched in support of the antidrug campaigners, was arrested at one such gathering. She later appeared in court and was charged for contravening the legal conditions set for the marches.40 These charges were later withdrawn. In both these instances civilians committed violence against other civilians within the public domain without any apparent chances of material gain. These are therefore not instances of violent crime but of uncivil violence, the very antithesis of civil society. And in the case of witch-burning, this violence is explicitly linked to malevolent transcendental forces. These are also expressions of an unpacified society engaging in murderous actions against one another within their own society. This context therefore offers little confidence that the secular paradigm for interpreting forces of evil will be dominant in South Africa. The precise presence of each of the three paradigms in the minds of South Africans is, however, uncharted.

Measurement The World Values Survey, being focused on the theme of values, devotes a large part of its questionnaire items to the theme of religion. Such questions are present in the generic version of the survey, and some responses to some of these items have already been reported in this study. Given the violent incidents mentioned above, we had little hesitation in formulating a questionnaire item that related to the killing of people deemed to be evil for use in the South African edition of the 2006 World Values Survey and the 2007 Elite Survey. In an earlier survey, conducted by Kotzé in 1997, respondents were presented with the following statement: “Although evil is everywhere, it can take possession of some people, and the community must get rid of such people, even if it means that they have to be killed.”41 Respondents were provided with a Likert-type set of response categories, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” In the 2006 World Values Survey for South Africa and in the 2007 Elite Survey this indicator was slightly modified by breaking it down to three separate items, each with a Likert-type response set. In the questionnaire the items read as follows: • “Evil is everywhere.” • “Evil can take possession of some people.” • “The community must get rid of people possessed by evil even if it means that they have to be killed.” The first two items were then combined into an index of Religious Threat,42 and the third item was used as an indicator of Religious Policy Support.43

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These three items have to be considered within the conceptual framework we apply to this study. The first one can be endorsed by subscribers of any one of the three approaches to understanding of evil, as outlined above, including the secular worldview. And it can also be endorsed by a fully liberal person, for whom the secular interpretation would be acceptable, with the proviso that the capacity for good is also to be found everywhere and in equal amounts to the capacity for evil. The second statement would not be acceptable for subscribers to the secular, liberal worldview. For them the notion of evil existing as a force that can take possession of some people would amount to superstition. And the third statement is a justification for public violence on the basis of fictitious threats (i.e., superstition), which would amount to murder, and not acceptable at all to the liberal disposition. Endorsement of such actions therefore represents, as in the case of the death penalty, both a rejection of liberal values and expresses a belief in, and support for, public violence. Table 6.6 presents the frequencies in the response patterns of the respondents to the items as they were presented to them. Table 6.7 shows the data recoded into the indexes and the response categories of “agree/strongly agree” as well as “disagree/strongly disagree,” which are collapsed into single categories. These tables show that South Africans in general tend to overwhelmingly endorse propositions about the presence of malevolent forces within society and that these forces of evil are of a supernatural character, in the sense that they can “take possession” of people. Their sense of Religious Threat is significant. Very few respondents selected the “don’t know” response. Table 6.7 also shows that about three out of every ten (32.5 percent) South Africans support Table 6.6

Public response pattern to items on Evil, 2006 Responses to evil

Indicators

TOTAL

Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Agree Disagree Evil is everywhere

49.9

38.9

5.6

4.8

0.7

100

Evil can take possession of some people

41.7

45

9.2

3.4

0.8

100

The community must get rid of people possessed by evil even if it means that they have to be killed

14.5

18

20.3

27.4

19.8

100


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the grizzly policy option that people possessed by evil must be eliminated from the community, even if it requires lethal action. About half (47.2 percent) of the South Africans disagree or strongly disagree with this statement, and two out of every ten (20.3 percent) are undecided. Further analysis showed that there is a low correlation between the sense of Religious Threat and Religious Policy Support among the general public (table not shown). Tables 6.8 and 6.9 present data on elite responses to the same questionnaire items. It is clear that the elites experience a lower sense of religious threat than

Table 6.7 Religious threat and religious policy support, public responses, 2006 Degree of support Indicators

TOTAL

Low

Moderate

High

2.6

13.8

83.6

100

RELIGIOUS The community must get 47.2 POLICY rid of people possessed by SUPPORT evil, even if it means that they have to be killed

20.3

32.5

100

RELIGIOUS Evil is everywhere THREAT Evil can take possession of some people


Table 6.8

Elite response pattern to items on Evil, 2007 Responses to evil

Indicators

Strongly Agree Agree Evil is everywhere Evil can take possession of some people The community must get rid of people possessed by evil even if it means that they have to be killed

Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree

20.5 18.8

35.6 50.7

12.4 9.7

21.8 14.8

9.7 6.0

100 100

3.4

6.7

6.4

38.6

45.0

100


Kotzé

TOTAL

148 Table 6.9

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Religious threat and religious policy support of the elites, 2007

Indicators

Degree of support

TOTAL

Low

Moderate

High

RELIGIOUS Evil is everywhere THREAT Evil can take possession of some people

14.5

36.1

49.3

100

RELIGIOUS The community must POLICY get rid of people SUPPORT possessed by evil, even if it means that they have to be killed

83.6

6.4

10.1

100


the general public (49.3 percent as opposed to 83.6 percent) and are also far less likely to endorse policies of lethal violence against people considered to be evil (10.1 percent as opposed to 32.5 percent). It is notable, however, that a significant percentage (36.1 percent) of the elites are ambivalent about the extent of religious threat present in society. We then proceeded to examine the differences between the attitudes of religious and nonreligious elites. The data are summarized in Tables 6.10 and 6.11. The tables show that religious elites have significantly different views on the presence of evil forces in society compared to nonreligious elites. The former tend to perceive a far greater sense of religious threat (80 percent), which is almost double that of nonreligious elites (43.1 percent) and is very close to the sense of threat expressed by the general public (83.6 percent). They are still far more averse to lethal violence as a form of community protection than the general South African public, and only 11.5 percent less so than their secular counterparts. Our interest was in finding religious correlates to these dispositions on religious threat and policy. (In all the cross-tabulations the missing values were replaced by the mean, given that the missing values were less than 10 percent of the total N.)44 We found that regional/provincial differences did not exist, which was contrary to our expectations based on the reports in the press about the prevalence of witch-related violence in the Limpopo province. We then correlated the data on religious threat with two variables that have historically tended to shape the South African attitudinal landscape: race and social class, as well as the categories of religiosity. The data in Table 6.12 show that in neither instance is there a notable variation in the response patterns. High levels of threat are found within every race group, every social class, and every religious orientation.

Kotzé

RELIGION, EVIL, AND LIBERALIZATION Table 6.10

149

Elite and public attitudes toward Evil Public

Indicators

Elite

Full sample Full sample Evil is everywhere Evil can take possession of some people The community must get rid of people possessed by evil, even if it means that they have to be killed

Religious Other

88.8 86.7

56.1 69.5

84.0 88.0

50.4 65.7

32.5

10.1

16.0

8.9

Note: Percentages presented combine “strongly agree” + “agree” response categories. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 WVS and the 2007 elite survey.

Table 6.11 Religious threat and religious policy support (Percentage with high threat perception and low support for policy) Indicators

Public

Elite

Full sample Full sample Religious Other RELIGIOUS Evil is everywhere THREAT Evil can take possession of some people

83.6

49.3

80

43.1

RELIGIOUS The community POLICY must get rid of SUPPORT people possessed by evil, even if it means that they have to be killed

47.2

83.6

74

85.5

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 WVS and the 2007 elite survey.

The first significant finding to consider is the very high levels of religious threat experienced by the general public. While not able to capture all the dimensions of the concept of “spiritual insecurity” presented by Ashforth, we argue, nonetheless, that the data items we used and the responses we found confirm Ashforth’s general contention that the perception of “spiritual insecurity” is widespread in Soweto and also among all other South Africans. Religious

Kotzé

Table 6.12 Religious threat perception of the public by social class, race, and religiosity, 2006 Perceptions of religious threat Low perception of threat Moderate perception of threat High perception of threat TOTAL

Social Class

TOTAL

Lower Class

Middle Class

Upper Class

2.6

2.2

4.2

2.6

13.2

17.4

11.9

13.8

84.1

80.5

83.9

83.6

100

100

100

100

Race Black Low perception of threat Moderate perception of threat High perception of threat TOTAL

White

TOTAL Colored

Indian

2.7

1.9

2.5

3.1

2.6

13.2

15.8

15.7

16.9

13.8

84.0

82.3

81.8

80.0

83.6

100

100

100

100

Religiosity

Low perception of threat Moderate perception of threat High perception of threat TOTAL

TOTAL

Religious

Not religious

Atheist

2.5

3.6

0.0

2.6

13.9

12.9

6.6

13.8

83.6

83.5

93.4

83.6

100

100

100

100


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elites share in this attitudinal disposition. On the basis of the triangulation of research strategies, we therefore do make the claim that we have been able to tap into some aspects of the attitudinal dimensions of South African social life hitherto accessible only to anthropologists, who tend to use methodologies of qualitative analysis of data acquired through participant observation. This finding of a pervasive sense of spiritual insecurity prompts us to reconsider the hypothesis of existential insecurity advanced by Norris and Inglehart, cited earlier in this chapter. Their findings confirm this hypothesis on a global scale, with their correlates for existential security being primarily based on measures of material affluence. We do not, however, find such a correlation (see Table 6.5), but a possible interpretation is that the affluent in South Africa are aware that they are not insulated from physical threats in South African society. They do experience existential insecurity, and it is present in tangible forms. These include violent crime in its many manifestations, ranging from rape and armed robbery to murder, car hijackings, and violent assault and murder of school children by other school children on the premises of schools during school hours.45 This threat is therefore pervasive across socioeconomic cleavages. And the data from Table 5.13 show that the middle- and upper-class South Africans also experience insecurity in its intangible form as evil that can take possession of people. This once again supports the argument for the revision and extension of the hypothesis of existential insecurity. Why would respondents conceptualize this threat in religious rather than material terms? One answer would be that this is done because the religious explanatory framework is readily available to all those South Africans who engage directly as practicing members of congregations, or indirectly, as people socialized into communities in which religious concepts are current. The range and scope of religiousness is evident from the data reported in this chapter, as well as in chapter 3, where we report the very high level of confidence in churches expressed by South Africans. Likewise, the paradigm of the African spirit-world is equally available to South Africans who are embedded in traditional African cultures, and it is amenable to a conceptualization of evil forces that can invade the individual’s person and personality and in that sense “take possession” of any of them. The next finding to consider is the levels of support for drastic policy measures among the public. About three out of every ten South Africans state that people who are considered evil ought to be killed for the sake of community protection. Another two out of every ten are undecided on the matter, and only about half of them are explicitly against such lethal actions. One in every ten religious elites is also prepared to endorse such public killings. In analyzing this finding we have to decide what is significant about the data: that as many as three in every ten South Africans endorse such violence, or that only three out of every ten do so. We go for the first interpretation, because support for this policy option represents a general disposition toward public violence that is radically at odds with the liberal political culture required for

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a constitutional state and democracy in which human rights can flourish. It can also have grave implications for the pacification of society. Support for such extreme measures of community protection, however, are congruent with other aspects of South African public life. As shown in chapter 4, South Africa has a very high rate of violent crime in the form of murder, rape, attempted murder, violent assault, and robbery. The Victims of Crime Surveys show that this is one source of pervasive threat experienced by the public on a daily basis.46 The low correlation between Religious Threat and Religious Policy is understandable. People sensing threat from invisible malevolent supernatural forces have a number of other protective options to consider. If they subscribe to the African spirit-world paradigm, they may first consult a healer as a firstorder remedy and acquire muthi in order to protect themselves. The killing of witches is the next step, which serves the larger cause of justice and is a way of conclusively eradicating the source of evil. Should the person be a practicing Christian and member of a Pentecostal denomination, or of one of the traditional African Churches, spiritual warfare as contained in the repertoire of healing through the Holy Spirit, prayer, exorcism, prophecy, and speaking in tongues is available as a remedy.47 The last aspect of the data to note is the difference between the secular and religious elites, and between the secular elites and the general public. Both these differences are very large. The secular elites are not only out of touch with their religious counterparts and the general public but also possibly have very little understanding and appreciation (in the form of both empathy and sympathy) of the paradigms of conservative Christianity and the African spiritworld within which these spiritual insecurities are expressed. This incongruence may have policy implications.

Interpretation: The Conditions for the Identification of Evil Forces In the secular paradigm, the capacity for evil as well as goodness is located in humanity itself and not in an otherworldly, supernatural entity.48 In the formulation developed by Glenna, evil is defined with reference to the related concepts of tragedy, pathos, and irony. A pathetic event occurs when great misfortune befalls someone, but the disaster cannot be attributed to anyone’s actions (such as when people are overcome by a natural disaster). Therefore, pity is the appropriate response. A tragedy occurs when one higher ideal is sacrificed for another, as when one person swims into turbulent water to save another from drowning, and then gets drowned himself/herself. Irony is different. It stems from deliberate choices where, unlike pathos and tragedy, the

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outcome is not deliberately chosen. Furthermore, irony requires a response and, according to Glenna, it is in the choice of the response that evil may be found. Policies and related actions can and do produce unintended and unforeseen consequences, some of which may have drastic negative effects on individuals. Through malicious motives of key individuals, and with the inbuilt momentum of bureaucratic processes, these effects may become magnified to affect the rights and lives of very large numbers of people. According to Glenna,49 once these devastating effects become known, the original policy makers are required to show remorse and to curtail, modify, or terminate the said policy. When this does not happen, or worse, when the policies are still justified as good in the face of substantial evidence that shows otherwise, then evil occurs.50 The structures, institutions, and policies of apartheid can be understood in the terms discussed above. Whatever benign intentions may have fuelled the initial blueprints of these policies, they entailed little more than systemic discrimination. Actual developmental outcomes were not only unattainable but brought misery and deprivation to thousands of people. When evidence to this effect became overwhelming, some advocates of the policy persisted with attempts at legitimizing it. Only in 1986 did the then ruling National Party government publicly concede on the immorality of these policies and start the process of reform. In this vein, the finding of the South African Truth Commission that apartheid constituted a gross violation of human rights and was a crime against humanity also fits in with the secular concept of evil. The secular interpretation allows for various forms of remedial action for crimes against humanity, most of which have to be conducted within the framework of constitutional law. One of the more recent evolutions for remedial action has been the establishment of Truth Commissions. In the South African case the Commission was established explicitly on nonreligious terms, in step with the Constitution, which is also neutral with respect to religious preference. The envisaged processes of ascertaining truth and effecting reconciliation, however, echo many aspects of Christian conflict resolution. Briefly, possible perpetrators of human rights abuse were identified and served with subpoenas to appear before the Commission. There they were tasked to provide full disclosure of the acts under investigation. If sufficient incriminating evidence was found, they were given the opportunity to apply for amnesty, which entailed their showing remorse for their actions and explaining their motives for doing what they did. If amnesty was denied, prosecution could follow, and if successful, conviction with sentencing, entailing lengthy prison terms but excluding the death penalty, could result. Repentant perpetrators, having been granted amnesty, and convicted perpetrators, having duly served their sentences, could then eventually rejoin society as equals with the rest of the citizenry, and victims could extend forgiveness to them. Justice would thus be served and closure achieved.

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In the monotheistic paradigm of Christianity, evil emerges from temptation to oppose the will of God, as made known in the written text of the Bible. If these moral codes can be condensed to the concepts of empathy and compassion,51 then apartheid can be understood as an evil and an unbiblical process of suffering inflicted by a politically powerful minority on a subjugated powerless majority. Reconciliation in this paradigm starts with confession (disclosure), followed by repentance (remorse), and closes with forgiveness. Again, justice in the form of public execution is not part of the process. From this perspective, the apartheid perpetrators had to come to terms with their victims as well as with God, who is the only one able to provide final absolution. The paradigm of the African spirit-world provides a distinctly different view on past and present sources of evil in South African society. Witchcraft mobilizes evil forces whose presence serves to explain the occurrence of undeserved misfortune.52 Apartheid certainly qualifies as being undeserved. It was experienced as a system of institutionalized racial discrimination, where a person’s life chances were virtually predetermined by the accident of birth. For the indigenous people of the land, this system was the last in a long series of misfortunes that started with the colonization of the southern part of the continent of Africa more than three centuries ago. The evil of apartheid, however, was mostly clear and visible for anyone to see. Enforcers, whether in the form of police officers, courts of law, or bureaucrats, conducted their work quite openly and in full view of the public. According to Ashforth, however, apartheid was also interpreted within the witchcraft paradigm to denote a system with some hidden, obscure forces, the machinations of which were secret, and hence a source of evil akin to witchcraft.53 This alone could explain the fact that not all Whites could be equated with the apartheid regime; some form of White resistance was visibly present against apartheid throughout the life of the regime. As the regime crumbled during the transitional negotiations (1990–1994), speculation about the hidden evil dimensions of this system grew stronger. This became apparent with the escalation of the violent conflict between the ANC and the IFP that claimed thousands of lives in the KwaZulu-Natal province and on the East Rand. The phenomenon of Black people killing Black people was just inexplicable in terms of the prevailing liberationist ideology, and someone else had to be identified as being responsible. The witchcraft paradigm does not locate the source of such misfortune in the person of the victim. The explanation of a self-inflicted civil war between two prospective post-apartheid power bases, each with considerable coercive means at its disposal, was too intolerable to contemplate. Therefore, in Ashforth’s view, the answer provided by the witchcraft paradigm that “it has to be someone else” soon took hold. The invisible evil powers of the apartheid system were considered to be behind this ostensible intra-black civil war, and these forces came to be labeled as the “Third Force.”

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The proper task of the Truth Commission, then, in terms of this paradigm was to uncover the evil machinations of this Third Force and to identify the instigators and find the actual individuals who set loose this evil. The ANC insisted throughout the proceedings of the TRC that such a Third Force existed, while the National Party, through its leader and former President F.W. de Klerk, consistently denied its existence. The TRC could not find any conclusive forensic evidence to substantiate the claims of the ANC. In the witchcraft paradigm, however, the decisive evidence consists of a confession by the witch/perpetrator. Only then can the evil be eradicated (mostly through the killing of the witch) and healing (reconciliation) be successful. So the TRC was required to conduct a witch hunt, as properly understood in terms of the paradigm. But De Klerk did not confess. Like each and every other party that had to account for violence, De Klerk explained the atrocities as the result of rogue elements who acted beyond laid down orders and at their own initiative. The TRC failed to expose the evil and therefore failed in its primary task as a witch hunt.54 By inference, it was therefore considered legitimate for the community to inflict lethal violence against these evildoers, once exposed. It is illuminating at this point to contrast this finding with that of Gibson, which we described in the previous chapter. Both Gibson and Ashforth concur that the black African population remain the least reconciled after the apartheid regime was dismantled. But Ashforth offers an interpretation for this that is radically different from that provided by Gibson. For Gibson the reason for this lack of reconciliation is found in Allport’s social contact hypothesis: black Africans are least reconciled because they seldom have social contact with Whites under the positive conditions spelt out by Allport. For Ashforth the reason is cultural: the African spirit-world paradigm informs its adherents about who is evil and what to do about them. And these divergent interpretations hold major policy implications for the prospects of liberalizing South African society, because new and current social problems still remain to be interpreted. Current conditions are also conducive to promote interpretations of evil that can induce violent public responses. The secular paradigm explains the contemporary South African social ills of poverty, inequality, and AIDS in terms of the recognizable effects of human action and inaction, as expressed in public policy, and to the presence or absence of norm-driven behavior. The conviction drawn from the secular paradigm is that correct policy diagnoses by policy makers within the democratic constitutional state, followed by the efficient application of remedial action backed up by adequate resources and skills, can remedy these ills. Failure to do so, especially in the light of extensive evidence crying out for action, would constitute evil. In this sense, the resistance of the government to provide medication to HIV/AIDS patients in the early 2000s is open to be considered as constituting evil. This is especially so because this stubborn policy of governmental inaction led to an estimated

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increase of 330,000 in AIDS-related deaths and the birth of 35,000 babies with HIV, which was avoidable.55 The religious paradigm would find the root cause of these social ills to be sin, whether in the exploitation of the weak by sinful holders of power, or in personal decadence leading to a downward spiral of destitution owing to the irresponsible squandering of opportunities. Norm-driven behavior, as set by religious codes and enacted through spiritual warfare, is the essential starting point for upliftment and eventually for virtuous public policy. Even if powerful sinners and corrupt, evil, policy makers can be identified, justice as lethal violence (the death penalty) has been ruled out in South Africa. Conditions of rapid fundamental change can be conducive to the increase in support for the witchcraft paradigm, and in South Africa three such conditions are present. The first is the increase in actual conditions of hardship, which is open to the interpretation of being undeserved. The second is the spread of conditions favorable to eliciting emotions of envy, resentment, jealousy, and even hatred. The third is the decline in other previously valid explanations for hardships in society.56 South Africa’s democracy has effectively dismantled the formal system of racial discrimination that had characterized the apartheid regime. But this has not given immediate relief from poverty for many. What makes such continued hardship appear so undeserved is the election slogan with which the ruling ANC won every democratic election up to 2004: “A better life for all.” This promise has indeed come true for some select black South Africans, but not for all. The emergence of this new middle class and elite has been one of the success stories of the first fifteen years of democracy. This upward mobility has resulted in greater inequality within all three black race categories (African, Colored, and Indian). However, inequality within the White sector actually declined marginally (as discussed in chapter 4). Such conditions of inequality are prone to increase resentment and jealousy. As Ashforth points out, millions of destitute black South Africans increasingly ask the burning question: “Why are some blacks rich and I am not?” Within the African spirit-world paradigm the answer cannot point to personal responsibility as the cause, because that would substantiate personal powerlessness and weakness.57 Instead, someone else, driven by malicious intent, has to be made responsible for such misery. Before the 1994 regime change, the pervasive system of discrimination of the apartheid regime, even with its presumed secret devices, could have been blamed for the misfortune of poverty. Fifteen years later, this explanation has become less and less convincing. The source of the evil therefore has become more obscure, mysterious, and hidden, and meeting the demand for justice has become correspondingly more elusive. With the legacy of the evil apartheid regime receding, one of the obvious and new plausible external sources of undeserved misfortune is the presence of large numbers of outsiders among those suffering the most: foreign migrant

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workers and their families. Xenophobic sentiments are also highly amenable to incorporation within the framework used for identifying evil forces within the African spirit-world paradigm, not unlike the way in which the racial tensions of living under apartheid were understood in terms of this paradigm. These new immigrants who settle in the townships and squatter camps are culturally different. They tend to be resourceful with a sense of efficacy, have their own tightly knit families, and possess culturally demarcated networks and social capital, which the culturally different locals find difficult to identify with, let alone understand and penetrate. When the outsiders do prosper in the midst of local residents who remain poor, even if they do so by undertaking small enterprises or gaining some access to public services, then the source of their success (social capital) remains almost invisible and questionable. If their success is considered to be beneficial to the locals, then their prowess is attributed to miraculous sources. On the contrary, if their success contributes to the misery of the locals, and therefore a threat, then it is open to be considered as malevolent, evil, or sorcery. The issue of AIDS can also be understood in terms of this paradigm. Even after its cause has been linked to a virus, the questions “Why me?” and “Why now?” have to be answered. Invariably it is not accepted that AIDS is caused by an impersonal virus that acts as the agent. Ultimately the belief is that there has to be a person, someone, who has sent the virus to inflict damage on others.58 Again, the issue of meting out justice against the secret, hidden forces that spread this deadly virus among the population remains problematic and unresolved.

Conclusion This chapter describes levels of religiousness in South Africa and presents data on trends in secularization. The hypothesis of existential insecurity, advanced by Norris and Inglehart to explain trends in religiousness and secularization, is considered and a case is made for further extending this hypothesis. The case is argued on the basis of the finding that South Africans experience a deep sense of threat described as spiritual insecurity. These threats are expressed in religious terms as being forces of evil and may be countered in a variety of tangible ways. The findings are that the South African public perceives very high levels of threat, expressed in religious terms as perceptions about evil, while the South African elites, with the exception of the church elites, are less inclined to do so. A significant minority of the South African public also endorses policies of lethal public violence as a method of community protection, with another significant minority group of floaters who do not take any clear position of endorsement or rejection of such extreme policy measures. As against this, about half the public explicitly rejects such public violence.

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When these findings are interpreted within the paradigms in which evil is understood in South Africa, we find poverty, crime, inequality, and AIDS to be conditions favoring the growth of public dispositions that sense the presence of evil forces and justify violent protective responses of the communities involved. When interpreted within the framework of liberal democratic peace, we find such dispositions endorsing public violence wholly incompatible with a liberal civic culture and political culture, and detrimental to the pacification of South African society.

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Chapter 7 Outsiders Introduction During May 2008, democratic South Africa experienced its most sustained and extensive public violence in which 62 people, mostly foreign nationals, were killed by mobs of civilians. These actions, immediately labeled by the media as xenophobic violence, occurred mostly in and around the large metropolitan areas of Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban. The violence not only cost the lives of individuals but also drove 35,000 people from their homes and led many of them to return to their countries of origin. The liberal ideal considers some human rights as fundamental and universal, and that all categories of people, including foreign work-seekers, are entitled to those rights. The success of a society being liberalized, South Africa included, would be measured in the extent to which the rights of its members are recognized. The instances of ethnic riots in 2008, “the murder of strangers by crowds,”1 constituted democratic South Africa’s first sustained, nationwide outbreak of social violence since 1994 and represent the low point on its journey toward a liberal, peaceful society. In this chapter we examine these events and the most significant studies that describe this form of public violence and try to account for it. We then present data from our surveys that bear on the public and elite tolerance and/or dislike of foreigners, as well as their support for various policy options with regard to foreign work-seekers.

Ethnic Riots The apparently unforeseen violent events baffled many commentators and politicians alike. In his address on national television on May 25, 2009, President

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Mbeki described these outbursts as instances of criminality. Analysts have tended to identify structural causes for these riots, such as relative deprivation, resource competition, and lack of access to state patronage.2 The only study thus far that draws on an extensive theoretical framework to explain these events within the context of ethnic group conflict is that by Bekker, EigelaarMeets, Eva, and Poole.3 They consider these violent outbursts as instances of lethal ethnic riots and use the theoretical framework developed by Horowitz to account for them. The Horowitz theory of ethnic riots builds on the general theory of ethnic conflict derived from social identity theory (outlined in chapter 2), and so the study by Bekker et al. is of specific relevance to this discussion. To recall briefly, the argument is that no configuration of liberal democracy can be expected to pacify every type of society. Specific constitutional arrangements are needed to deal with the root conflicts within particular kinds of societies. Societies divided by culture and ethnicity, as is South Africa, are prone to conflicts about cultural incompatibilities and/or matters of relative group status. By identifying the violence of May 2008 as deadly ethnic riots, Bekker et al. point to a particular weaknesses in South Africa’s liberal democratic constitutional order, namely, an inability to attend to the subordinate group status of the urban poor in South Africa. Lethal ethnic riots entail the sudden attack on civilians of one ethnic group by those of another group. More often than not, lowly ranked groups attack more competitive and successful, and thus higher ranked, groups, as is the case with Assamese attacking Bengalis in India, Pathans attacking Mohajirs in Pakistan, Hausa targeting Ibo in Nigeria, and Khmer attacking Vietnamese in Cambodia.4 The basic psychological mechanism at work motivates a group that fears it is being pushed into a precarious and threatened status position to try and retrieve their social standing by inflicting extreme physical damage on the people they sense to be the cause of their descent into such deprivation. The targets are selected on the basis of their ethnic identity, proximity, degree of threat, and their perceived inability to retaliate. The intent of the attack is to kill and to maim. Torture and mutilation of bodies of victims are not uncommon. The event is filled with acts of extreme emotion. On the side of the perpetrators the predominant emotion is anger, which is followed, after the event, by relief, satisfaction, gaiety, and an almost complete lack of remorse. Unlike genocides, the intention of such violence is not to eliminate an entire group of people, but to redress current or potential grievances regarding social status. Finally, violence represents an end in itself through which the perpetrators send a clear message to the victims.5 These events tend to unfold in a particular sequence. A particular precipitant initiates the first violent outburst. Such precipitants are interpreted as threats that originate in the target group. Every threat holds negative status implications for the eventual perpetrators—a loss of standing or impending subordination. This is followed by an unsettling event, usually in the form of some low-key violence. Then follows the lull. During this time, rumors are

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generated. Rumors are built on fictitious events that serve to demonstrate the threat posed by the target group and to justify the extreme action that is to follow. This initiates the next round of intense violence in the form of riots, which specifically targets male victims and includes atrocities such as mutilation of bodies. In this form of expressive violence, mutilations “help express contempt for the enemy” and serve as a “strategy for retrieving honor.”6 The last stage in the riot is when the violence spreads to other areas where similar events recur, often by way of imitation. Bekker et al. found a number of xenophobic outbursts that can be described in terms of this framework. In the analyses of events at Du Noon, Khayelitsha, Masiphumelele, and Mbekweni (all of them shanty towns in the Cape Town Metropole), they identified precipitating events, unsettling events, lull periods in which rumors circulated, and then eruption of violence against specific targets. In both Du Noon and Khayelitsha, Somali victims were identified and targeted. The most appalling instance of torture in the entire series of outbursts was the burning to death of Mozambican citizen Ernesto Nhamwavane on May 18, 2008 in the Ramaphosa settlement in Johannesburg. His attackers poured petrol over him and set him alight. Then, in order to make sure that he died the most excruciating death possible, they threw his own clothing and blankets in the fire. Press photographers and the police arrived on the scene and doused the flames, but he died on arrival at the hospital.7 The rumors that circulated are instructive of its capacity to incite violence. In many cases the foreigners were accused of having an unfair competitive advantage in the contest for jobs, women, and housing: “the foreigners are not honest . . . they are taking our wives and our jobs”; “they can work for any price even if it is little, unlike South Africans who do not want to work for small salaries”; “Somalis were attacked and not Nigerians . . . because they have shops . . . they sell drugs”; “Somalis are the problem because they are selling food cheaper.” Most tellingly, one rumor had it that the foreigners had supernatural powers, which explained why they had the ability to accumulate capital amidst the overall poverty and destitution of the squatter settlements.8 Finally Bekker et al. refer to the emotions associated with ethnic rioting. They do not present any evidence of their own but point the readers to the photographs that appear in the study by Hassim et al.9 There are a number of photographs depicting young men on rampage, and there seems to be little sign of anguish on their faces. In these lethal ethnic riots, target selection is revealing. Perpetrators may express resentment against groups who are clearly above them in terms of social status (i.e., ranked groups) or against those who are in an ambiguous relative position where the social hierarchy has not been settled (i.e., unranked groups). Ostensibly, innocuous unranked groups may be selected as targets by way of displaced aggression, especially when cultural or institutional inhibitions deter attacks against high-status groups who are the palpable sources of the problems experienced by the perpetrators. This was the case in the riots in Durban in

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1949, when Zulus attacked Indians and not the White electorate who had just voted into power the National Party with its policy of apartheid.10 In the 2008 riots the South Africans in the shanty towns and the foreigners were in an unranked relationship,11 and the anger of the aggrieved South Africans was unleashed on them. However, the actual causes and the people directly instrumental for their deprivation, namely, the ANC government and its failure to deliver services to all the poor, the new multiracial economic elites, and those who benefited most from redistributive policies (referred to earlier in this study as the beneficiaries of the peace dividend), were not targeted. Usually, however, perpetrators are mostly from groups that find themselves unable to compete effectively in a modernizing economy and society, and the targets are often from the ranks of those who do well in such a modernizing economy. Victims are selected on the basis of their group membership and not on the basis of individual attributes or conduct. However, their perceived collective attributes that singles them out for selection as targets include “an excess of enterprise, ambition, energy, arrogance, and achievement,”12 which contrasts heavily with the self-image of the perpetrators, who believe themselves to be inadequate in these very traits. Horowitz has described these contrasting groups of perpetrators and victims as backward and advanced, respectively. In the terms used in this study, this would broadly correspond to the losers and winners in the contest for the peace dividend. Perpetrators single out target groups for their apparently superior competitive abilities, which are feared, resented, loathed, and detested. Violence becomes a desperate but decisive method of last resort with which perpetrators try to compensate for their own shortcomings.13 Although Steinberg does not use the Horowitz framework of analysis, some of the findings in his study can be used to inform this insight. In Steinberg’s analysis, democratic South Africa, as understood in the townships, is about gaining access to the largesse and resources that the state is able to distribute. Wealth is seen as a fixed lump sum, and distribution is seen as zero-sum. Foreigners enter into this competitive arena without rightful claims, being noncitizens, and when they do accumulate some wealth, it means that they have taken it away from a more deserving South African claimant. What angers the locals, therefore, is the sight of foreigners who prosper unrightfully, who compete on an uneven playing field and still do well against the odds.14 The World Values Survey data on public attitudes in 2006, as reported in chapter 5, do not predict an impending outburst of violence against foreign workers. On the contrary, the data in Table 5.13 show South Africans to be generally tolerant of “immigrants/foreign workers.” In 2006, about 75.1 percent of South Africans indicated that they were prepared to accept immigrants/foreign workers as neighbors. In Table 5.17 we also reported that tolerance of cultural outsiders (people of a different race as well as immigrants/ foreign workers) among the lower class was lower (at 68.5 percent) than among the upper-class respondents (87.1 percent). But both levels of tolerance can still be considered relatively high. Such data does not appear to be consistent with

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the violent rampages against foreigners by the poor in the squatter settlements throughout South Africa in May 2008. When we examine the data from Table 7.1, the response pattern again appears to be contrary to the actual pattern of violence experienced in 2008. Figure 7.1 also shows fairly high levels of tolerance. As for class differences, the data in Table 7.1 show that the lower class is less tolerant (26.4 percent) than the upper class (12.6 percent), but this intolerance is still at a very low level. The general hypothesis in the Horowitz theory, that resentment would be found in the ranks of the backward groups against the advanced, does not seem to be substantiated by the survey measurements. Instead, it could be argued that the perceived tolerance of the locals contributed to the fact that thousands of foreigners decided to live among South Africans for many years, and no physical violence was directed at them. However, bearing in mind that the 2008 ethnic rioting in South Africa occurred in very specific pockets of urban shanty towns and that very specific circumstances prevailed in those settings, another conclusion can be drawn. The data in Table 7.1 show that one in four of the poor (lower class) in South Africa did not accept foreigners as neighbors. This hostile disposition was adequately present in areas with a concentration of poverty, which made the conditions conducive (along with all other corresponding factors) to violent actions against foreigners who live there.

Table 7.1 Public tolerance toward immigrants/foreign workers by social class, 2006 Level of tolerance

Tolerant of immigrants/ foreign workers Intolerant of immigrants/ foreign workers TOTAL

Social class

TOTAL

Lower Class

Middle Class

Upper Class

73.6

82.2

87.4

75.1

26.4

17.8

12.6

24.9

100

100

100

100

Note: The question read as follows: “On this list are various groups of people. Could you please mention any that you would not like to have as neighbors?” [Immigrants/foreign workers]. Responses were coded on a two-point scale, tolerant = “not mentioned” and intolerant = “mentioned.” Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 WVS.

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA 100% 95% 90% 85% 80% 75% 70% 65% 60% Black White Colored Indian Total

1995

2001

2006

76 91 77 92 79

68 78 80 75 71

74 85 76 77 75

Figure 7.1 Public tolerance toward immigrants/foreign workers by race, 1995–2006 Note: The question read as follows: “I’m going to read a list of various groups of people. Could you please mention any that you would not like to have as neighbors? [Immigrants/foreign workers].” The percentages are based on those that “mentioned” they do not want to have immigrants/foreign workers as neighbors. Source: The authors’ own compilation from 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

Tolerance is not about affinity or liking. It is about putting up with someone you do not like. So, when we examined other aspects of the attitude of South Africans toward foreigners, a somewhat different picture emerged. South Africans generally do not like the presence of foreigners and tend to support policies that make it more difficult for them to settle in their midst. As can be seen from Table 7.2, very few South Africans have supported an open-entry policy since 1995. Even a restrictive policy that links entry of foreigners to the availability of employment has declining support. Policies stipulating strict limits on entry have consistently been supported by almost half of the general public, while a full prohibition on entry of foreigners has gained increasing support since 1995. Different classes do not appear to have any notable differences with respect to their dislike of foreigners. As the response pattern in Table 7.3 shows, this dislike is found even in the ranks of the upper class, those most able to compete effectively with foreigners and to insulate themselves socially from their unwanted presence. There are also no significant changes in opinion on the basis of race differences, with the exception of the most stringent policy option

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OUTSIDERS Table 7.2

165

Policy preferences of the public toward foreigners, 1995–2006 Year

Policy preferences

Let anyone come who wants to Let people come as long as there are jobs available Place strict limits on the number of foreigners who come here Prohibit people coming here from other countries TOTAL

1995

2001

2006

6.1 26.4 48.6

6.2 25.5 42.2

6.0 16.3 47.6

18.9 100

26.1 100

30.1 100

Note: The question read as follows: “What do you think the government should do about people from other countries coming to work in South Africa?” Respondents were given a list of four options and asked to choose one. Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1995, 2001, and 2006 waves of the WVS.

Table 7.3

Policy preference of the public toward foreigners by social class, 2006 Social class

Policy preferences

TOTAL

Lower class Middle Class Upper Class Let anyone come who wants to Let people come as long as there are jobs available Place strict limits on the number of foreigners who can come Prohibit people coming here from other countries TOTAL

6.8

2.7

0.8

6.0

15.8

17.8

22.8

16.3

45.3

59.8

52.7

47.6

32.1

19.7

23.7

30.1

100

100

100

100


of a complete prohibition. Table 7.4 shows that only one in about ten Indians support this severe option, while as many as one in three Blacks do so. Also noticeable is the rising support for this policy option among Whites. When the second most exclusionary policy option is considered, however, the order is reversed, with 63 percent of Indians supporting it and only 45.7 percent of

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Table 7.4 Policy preferences of the public toward foreigners by race, 1995–2006 Policy preferences

Race

Year 1995

Let anyone come who wants to

Black White Colored Indian Let people come as long as there Black are jobs available White Colored Indian Place strict limits on the number Black of foreigners who come here White Colored Indian Prohibit people coming here Black from other countries White Colored Indian

7.0 3.5 4.0 5.2 22.7 40.7 27.4 36.5 48.4 49.0 51.5 43.0 21.9 6.8 17.1 15.3

2001

2006

7.4 4.2 1.1 4.5 20.2 45.1 33.7 33.5 40.4 42.3 53.4 47.3 32.1 8.4 11.8 14.7

6.9 2.2 2.5 3.6 15.4 18.2 22.2 22.5 45.7 51.9 58.0 63.0 32.0 27.7 17.4 10.9


Table 7.5 Elite tolerance toward immigrants/foreign workers, 2007 Elite sector


MPs

Media

Civil Servants

88.0 12.0 100

96.1 3.9 100

90.2 9.8 100

TOTAL Church Business 84.3 15.7 100

76.0 24.0 100

87.1 12.9 100


Blacks doing likewise. Whites and Coloreds take middle positions on both policy options. There is little difference between men and women in their dislike of foreigners (table not shown). This supports the finding that this is an attitudinal

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orientation that is generally found among the various social strata of the South African public. Our general measure of religiosity also confirms that dislike of foreigners is a general disposition found in most sectors of the South African public. Religious and nonreligious people do not have different views in terms of their preferences about how easy or difficult it should be for foreigners to enter the country (table not shown). When looking at elite attitudes toward foreign workers/migrants, a familiar pattern emerges. Elites are more willing to put up with them as neighbors than are the general South African public. Table 7.5 shows that they are almost identical in their tolerance levels to foreigners as are the upper-class members of the public. And once again the media elites are the most tolerant among the various elite sectors, with 96.1 percent of them responding positively to the prospect of having foreigners as neighbors. It is not surprising therefore that many newspapers interpreted the xenophobic attacks of May 2008 as a human rights issue, with strong sympathy for the victims and making little attempt at understanding the circumstances of the perpetrators. Many prescribed remedies in the form of a more extensive human rights culture, without specifying how this could be attained and how it would diffuse the conflict. One such report read: “We need an extensive national project to instill tolerance, understanding of diversity and acceptance of difference among our people, to enact more humane immigration laws, to end the culture of criminalizing those who turn to us for refuge and to ensure that those cruel and ugly people with blood on their hands pay for their actions.”15 Also notable from the table is the fact that the tolerance levels of business elites are a full 20 percentage points lower than those of the media elites. The 1995 and 1997 elite surveys presented a number of statements with which to gauge their sentiments relating to the more specific aspects of the positive and negative contributions of foreigners, as well as various policy options. The responses are given in Tables 7.6 and 7.7. The range and extent of elite dislike of foreigners is evident from the above data. They tend to sense that foreigners threaten their well-being by contributing to both the drug problem in South Africa and to the unemployment problem by taking jobs that would otherwise have gone to locals. There is also additional evidence about elite support for policies of exclusion in the table. There are only two instances where elites tend to become more lenient in accepting foreigners. These are when the foreigners are refugees from countries under the grip of civil war and when they are fleeing from political and religious persecution in their own countries. The policy option of free movement across the borders of southern African countries is once again opposed by the majority of elites.

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Table 7.6 Elite attitudes toward migration issues, 1995 and 1997 Attitudes toward migration issues

South African policy on immigration should concur with the policies of regional organizations such as SADC Citizens of neighboring states who cross SA’s borders illegally in search of work should be repatriated Legal migrant workers do not deprive the local population of employment SA has an obligation to assist neighboring states in the development of their economies South Africa should give preference to skilled immigrants SA should provide refuge to citizens of neighboring states who are fleeing conditions of poverty

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Year

Response Strongly Agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree Strongly Disagree

1995

6.6

34.6

35.9

15.7

7.3

1995 1997

42.1 47.5

44.1 33.8

6.8 7.8

6.0 9.3

0.9 1.7

1995

3.2

25.9

10.9

40.8

19.3

1995

14.2

49.8

7.7

20.4

7.9

1995 1997 1995 1997

16.5 27.9 1.6 4.6

49.8 43.3 10.9 17.4

9.9 7.2 12.0 16.8

19.2 15.4 41.5 39.9

4.6 6.1 34.0 21.2

SA should make use of a nonlethal electric fence to control the influx of illegal immigrants Illegal immigrants deprive the local population of employment opportunities The SANDF should patrol the borders to control the influx of illegal immigrants SA should provide refuge to citizens of neighboring states who are fleeing conditions of civil and ethnic war Legal migrant workers from neighboring states are indispensable to the SA mining sector SA should accommodate immigrants who are fleeing political and religious persecution in their home country South African employers should be heavily penalized for employing illegal immigrants SA and its neighbors should adopt a policy of “free movement” of people in southern Africa

1995

20.1

38.5

17.9

17.0

6.5

1995 1997 1995 1997 1995 1997

38.9 42.6 28.8 37.1 6.6 14.1

44.0 33.4 55.6 41.9 36.4 44.4

8.2 8.6 8.2 9.7 14.4 12.8

7.9 13.0 5.9 10.1 26.4 20.2

0.9 2.3 1.4 1.3 16.1 8.4

1995

3.5

24.9

25.6

35.1

11.0

1995 1997

8.2 14.5

36.9 43.1

17.2 14.9

25.6 20.0

12.0 7.6

1995

23.7

51.0

14.5

8.1

2.7

1995 1997

3.3 6.1

10.0 13.9

13.0 14.5

40.3 35.3

33.5 30.3

Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 1995 and 1997 elite surveys.

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Table 7.7

Elite preferences of authorities’ actions against illegals, 1995

How should authorities act regarding illegals? Act much more strictly Act more strictly Act less strictly Act much less strictly Uncertain TOTAL

Percentage 60.3 28.1 4.4 1.6 5.6 100


Conclusion In the data analyzed in this chapter, we find a considerable gap between antiforeigner sentiments and antiforeigner xenophobic riots. A large majority of South Africans are prepared to put up with foreigners, even though they do not like these foreigners. This dislike can be gauged from the fact that strong support is expressed for policies that provide more comprehensive restrictions on foreigners entering the country. Dislike is generally evenly dispersed among the South African population across racial, class, and religious divides. Tolerance is not as evenly spread. The strongest intolerance of foreigners is expressed within the ranks of lower-class South Africans, where about one in four will not accept them as neighbors. We interpret these data to mean that, as broad social dispositions, high tolerance levels would be conducive to foreigners and South Africans getting along with one another in various social contact situations in the many urban areas they are located. At the same time, the intolerance among the lower class would be compatible with hostility toward foreigners in centers where the urban poor congregate. However, the Horowitz theory is very specific that this kind of violence against foreigners is likely to emerge only under very specific structural conditions. These include: • Little fear of police protection for victims, i.e., police ineffectiveness or bias in favor of the perpetrators; • Tacit condonation of perpetrators’ actions by the authorities; • Police inaction against perpetrators; • Lack of fear of reprisals from the targets; • Fluctuations in government policy that threaten the status position of the perpetrators, with the prospect of pushing them further down the social ranks.16

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Some commentators have identified a combination of factors within South Africa’s overall policy framework and in the functioning of state institutions that has created conditions conducive to the outbreak of antiforeigner riots. These start with the failure of government to apply a coherent and transparent policy framework for dealing with cross-border migrants. Weak border controls have made it easy for people from neighboring countries to enter South Africa. These “undocumented” people have very diminished legal standing in the eyes of the state and become soft targets for various state agencies. Allegations of brutal police action against them as well as callous and demeaning treatment by the Department of Home Affairs are all too common. Once inside South Africa, as either migrants or refugees, they have to fend for themselves on the margins of society in an economy where wide gaps exist between the winners and losers. They will also have to vie for resources with a stratum of poor people for whom very few benefits accrue at all. Thus they not only have to compete with the poorest of South Africans but also face harassment by the police and government officials, who are brutal, biased, and corrupt. The riots of May 2008 confirmed that government policies had failed to meet the legal and international obligations to refugees, to which South Africa is a signatory. In the view of Steinberg,17 the state has been culpable on both sides of the violence. Owing to their policy failures, they have failed to uplift a critical mass of the poorest of South Africans who have been deprived of collective esteem and have sunk even deeper into destitution. Their policy failures have also allowed the formation of a substantial immigrant community with varying legal standing. And by failing to provide adequate legal protection to these communities, they have created a perception among some South Africans that these foreigners are fair targets for violence without fear of state intervention. These structural conditions have intervened adversely in the generally liberal attitudinal dispositions of tolerance toward foreigners. This aspect of social life has thus thwarted the pacification of South African society.

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Chapter 8 Conclusion

Introduction We are now in a position to summarize the extent to which South Africans have become more liberal and more peaceful in the transition from a racial oligarchy to a democratic regime during the course of the first fifteen years of this regime. On the whole, there are both liberal and illiberal threads of public attitudes running through the South African social fabric. According to available data, elites are the most liberal of the social strata in South Africa, and they are in some ways far removed from the values endorsed by the public. Although the focus of this study is on the liberalization of South African state, regime, and society, and not on political allegiances either as an independent or dependent variable, it is appropriate in the concluding chapter to reflect on how the above findings bear on the ruling ANC government and the dominant-party system that it has established. The ANC elites have been characterized as being drawn from three distinct ideological traditions. The first, and oldest, is the liberal tradition with roots in Christianity, exemplified in the leadership of Oliver Tambo and also by the UDF. The second is the Africanist tradition, with its origin in the pan-Africanist thought, which was brought into the ANC by Anton Lembede and to which Thabo Mbeki closely subscribed. The third is the communist tradition, carried by the SACP and later also, to a certain extent, by COSATU. One interpretation of the leadership change in which Jacob Zuma replaced Thabo Mbeki is that it amounted to the displacement of Africanist elites by communist elites in key positions of power.1 Early optimism that this was a shift away from an Africanist to a more liberal leadership is, according to de Jager, unfounded. Liberal elites may continue to be present in the leadership and to influence policy (as has been the case with immigration policy), but

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not as a dominant force. And the tension between liberal constitutional rules and regime institutions, on one hand, and illiberal rulers, on the other, can be expected to remain, if not increase. A closer consideration of the social forces that may affect future trends in liberalization is therefore justified. The descriptive data presented in the preceding chapters has described certain indicators to measure aspects of liberalization—trust, tolerance, confidence, gender equality, and perceptions of threat as well as aspects of pacification— attitudes toward the death penalty, elimination of evil threats, and immigration policy in relation to a number of socio-demographic variables such as race, social class, and religiosity. The challenge then is to determine the extent to which liberalization influences pacification. In order to identify the strongest predictors of pacification from among our socio-demographic indicators and the measures of liberalization, we need to rely on multivariate analysis. The following section provides a description of the multivariate analyses undertaken and a discussion of the findings. From these results and correlations we will be able to interpret the findings in terms of the theoretical and contextual considerations raised in this study so far.

Description of Multivariate Analysis and Techniques Two types of multivariate analysis, namely, multiple regression analysis and the classification and regression tree (CART) analysis, were utilized. Regression analysis is one of the most commonly used statistical techniques in social and behavioral sciences and identifies the relationship between two or more quantitative variables: a dependent variable, whose value is to be predicted; and an independent or explanatory variable (or variables), about which knowledge is available. The CART analysis,2 however, is a tree-building technique that is unlike traditional data-analysis methods and is ideally suited to generate precise decision rules. In the most general terms, the purpose of the analyses via tree-building algorithms is to determine a set of if-then logical (split) conditions that permit accurate prediction or classification of cases.

Description of the Dependent and Independent Variables A more systematic descriptive summary of the data can be made by drawing a distinction between the variables that can serve as indicators of liberalization, such as tolerance and trust (independent variables), and those that are indicative of pacification (dependent variable). We have three indicators of

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175

pacification, two of which probe respondents’ views on matters directly related to the killing of people. • The first indicator relates to the death penalty, which is usually deemed as a legitimate action against certain criminals either as a form of justice or as a means of protecting the community, or both. • The second set of attitudes bear on the killing of people possessed by evil forces, also in order to protect the community. • The third indicator does not directly confront the respondents with such harsh choices, but it bears on the issue that led to the most extensive outburst of public killings in democratic South Africa, namely, the xenophobic violence of May 2008. As an indicator of pacification most closely related to this issue, we take the measure of dislike for foreign workers/ immigrants, expressed in the various policy options reported in Table 7.2. As indicators of liberalization, we cluster together the various measures used to construct indexes for confidence in the state and civil society, trust and tolerance (some of which we disaggregate), threat from evil forces, religiousness, and gender equality. To this we add the socio-demographic divisions of race and social class. For the regression analysis, four models were constructed so as to group the independent variables into four major themes. 1. The first model—Trust—includes the variable on generalized trust as well as the seven interpersonal trust variables discussed in chapter 3. 2. The second model—Tolerance—includes the five tolerance indexes described in chapter 5 as well as the perception of threat indicator (see chapter 6) and the gender equality index (found in chapter 5). 3. The third model— Confidence—includes the confidence in state institutions index and the confidence in civil society organizations index (found in chapter 3). 4. The last model— Socio-demographics—includes race, social class, and religiousness. For the CART analysis, these 20 indicators or independent/explanatory variables were applied as they were in order to determine conditions that permit accurate prediction.

Description of the Findings Attitudes toward the Death Penalty Table 8.1 shows that the adjusted R² of the multiple regressions, including all four models, is 0.229. Thus 22.9 percent of the amount of variation in the dependent

Kotzé

Table 8.1 Multivariate regression: Attitudes toward the death penalty relative to trust, tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics Model 1

1.488

0.040

–0.036 0.200

0.011 0.030

–0.023

B

S.E.

B

S.E.

1.060

0.051

0.742

0.051

0.562

0.055

–0.030 0.059

–0.040 0.142

0.010 0.029

–0.034 0.042

–0.039 0.127

0.010 0.028

–0.033 0.038

–0.043 0.106

0.010 0.028

–0.036 0.032

0.011

–0.020

–0.018

0.011

–0.016*

–0.032

0.011

–0.028

–0.034

0.010

–0.029

–0.026

0.010

–0.028

–0.026

0.009

–0.027

–0.019

0.009

–0.021

0.004

0.009

0.004*

–0.024

0.012

–0.020

–0.029

0.011

–0.024

–0.021

0.011

–0.017

0.001

0.010

0.001*

–0.072

0.010

–0.073

–0.059

0.009

–0.060

–0.074

0.009

–0.075

–0.082

0.009

–0.083

0.067

0.011

0.067

0.054

0.010

0.054

0.019

0.010

0.019*

0.029

0.010

0.029

–0.113

0.010

–0.120

–0.085

0.010

–0.090

–0.088

0.010

–0.094

–0.082

0.009

–0.087

Tolerance Free-rider tolerance

0.124

0.008

0.169

0.160

0.008

0.217

0.172

0.008

0.233

Permissive tolerance

0.130

0.008

0.181

0.109

0.007

0.151

0.101

0.007

0.140

–0.014

0.008

–0.015*

–0.004

0.008

–0.005

0.009

0.007

0.010*

0.042

0.011

0.036

0.040

0.010

0.034

0.034

0.010

0.029

Cultural outsider tolerance Lifestyle outsider tolerance Kotzé

Beta

Beta

Model 4 S.E.

Trust Generalized trust Interpersonal trust: family Interpersonal trust: neighborhood Interpersonal trust: different race Interpersonal trust: people you know Interpersonal trust: people you meet for first time Interpersonal trust: different religion Interpersonal trust: different nationality

S.E.

Model 3 B

Constant

B

Model 2

Beta

Beta

Permissive outsider tolerance Perceptions of threat

0.022

0.008

0.027

0.022

0.007

0.002

0.009

Gender equality

0.014

0.005

0.020

0.019

0.008

0.018

–0.004*

–0.013

0.005

–0.021

0.256

0.201

0.010

0.194

0.017*

0.015

0.011

0.012*

Socio-demographics Race

0.114

0.006

0.175

Class

0.070

0.009

0.073

–0.002

0.012

–0.001*

Confidence Confidence in state institutions Confidence in civil society organizations

0.017

0.007

0.002*

0.020

0.009

0.022

–0.003

0.005

0.266

0.010

0.021

0.012

Religiousness

0.020

R

0.177

0.356

0.437

0.480

R²

0.031

0.127

0.191

0.230

R² adjusted

0.031

0.126

0.190

0.229

0.028

Notes: B is the unstandardized coefficient and Beta is the standardized coefficient. S.E: standard error. All coefficients are significant at the 0.05 level or higher. * Not significant: p>.05 Source: The authors’ own compilation from the 2006 wave of the WVS.

Kotzé

178


variable is accounted for by variation in the predictor variables. The trust model accounts for only 3.1 percent of the explained variance in attitudes toward the death penalty; the tolerance model accounts for 9.5 percent of variance; the confidence model, 6.4 percent of variance; and the socio-demographic model accounts for 3.9 percent of the explained variation. Thus, tolerance and confidence appear to be the strongest predictors of attitudes toward the death penalty. The CART analysis in Figure 8.1 allowed us to identify four rules when applying the 20 indicators of liberalization and of socio-demographic categories to the first dependent variable, which consists of attitudes toward the death penalty. First, of those respondents who indicated they were intolerant or neutral toward permissiveness, 64 percent believe that the death penalty is justifiable. Second, of those who indicated that they were tolerant of permissiveness and were Black, only 28 percent believe the death penalty to be justifiable. Third, of those who indicated they are tolerant of permissiveness, are White, Colored, or Indian, and have little confidence in the state, 68 percent believe the death penalty to be justifiable. Lastly, of those who indicated they were tolerant of permissiveness, are White, Colored, or Indian, and have confidence in state institutions, only 38 percent believe the death penalty to be justifiable. From the regression analysis it became apparent that the tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics models were the strongest predictors of 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

72%

36%

No of obs

Unjustifiable (59%)

28%

64%

Unjustifiable (59%)

Justifiable (41%)

Terminal: Tolerance: permissiveness in (Tolerant) AND Race in (Black)

Terminal: Tolerance: permissiveness in (Neutral,Intolerant) 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

32% Unjustifiable (59%)

Justifiable (41%)

68%

63%

Justifiable (41%)

Unjustifiable (59%)

Terminal: Tolerance: permissiveness in (Tolerant) AND Race in (White,Coloured,Indian) AND Confidence: state institutions in (no confidence)

38% Justifiable (41%)

Terminal: Tolerance: permissiveness in (Tolerant) AND Race in (White,Coloured,Indian) AND Confidence: state institutions in (confidence) Observed

Figure 8.1

CART analysis – death penalty (dependent variable)

Source: Compiled by Prof Martin Kidd for the authors from the 2006 WVS.

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CONCLUSION

179

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

C

ce

er an To l

on

fid

en

ce

:s

ta

te

in

st itu tio : To pe ns le rm ra is Ra nc si ce e: ve fre ne Tr e s us S -rid s o t: c i m a ers e l Tr us Ge et f clas i n t: an era rst s t Tr us oth lize ime t: er d pe n tru op atio st le n yo alit Tr us u y To kn t: le an o ra ot T w nc h e: G her rea pe en re t rm de lig is r e ion si ve qu ou alit y t Tr us Tru side st t: r s : di ffe fam Tr Re ren ily t C u l To on st: igio rac le fid ne us e ra en ig n To nc ce hb es o s le e: ra lif : civ rho nc es il o e: ty so d c cu le ltu ou iety ra tsi l o de ut rs si de rs

0

Figure 8.2

Importance plot—death penalty (dependent variable)


attitudes toward the death penalty. The importance plot in Figure 8.2 then identified the two strongest individual predictors of attitudes toward the death penalty, namely, confidence in state institutions and race. This is followed by tolerance of permissiveness.

Attitudes toward the Elimination of Evil Threats Table 8.2 shows that the adjusted R² of the multiple regressions, including all four models, is 0.112. Thus, 11.2 percent of the amount of variation in the dependent variable is accounted for by variation in the predictor variables. The trust model accounts for 6.4 percent of the explained variance in attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats; the tolerance model accounts for 4.4 percent of variance; the confidence model, 0.1 percent of variance; and the socio-demographic model accounts for 0.3 percent of the explained variation. Thus, trust and tolerance are the strongest predictors of attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats. The CART analysis in Figure 8.3 allowed us to identify two rules when applying the 20 indicators of liberalization to the second dependent variable, which comprises attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats. This variable contains the response set in which 48 percent do not support the elimination

Kotzé

Table 8.2 Multivariate regression: Attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats relative to trust, tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics Model 1

Constant Trust Generalized trust Interpersonal trust: family Interpersonal trust: neighborhood Interpersonal trust: different race Interpersonal trust: people you know Interpersonal trust: people you meet for first time Interpersonal trust: different religion Interpersonal trust: different nationality

B

S.E.

2.502

0.075

Model 2 Beta

B

S.E.

1.843

0.099

Model 3 Beta

B

S.E.

1.843

0.102

Model 4 Beta

B

S.E.

1.915

0.113

Beta

–0.075 0.020 –0.002 0.057

–0.033 0.000*

–0.071 0.020

0.020 0.056

–0.031 0.003*

–0.072 0.022

0.020 0.056

–0.032 0.003*

–0.067 0.050

0.020 0.056

–0.030 0.008*

–0.168

0.022

–0.077

–0.132

0.021

–0.061

–0.134

0.021

–0.061

–0.136

0.021

–0.063

0.190

0.018

0.106

0.159

0.018

0.088

0.162

0.018

0.090

0.154

0.018

0.085

0.105

0.022

0.045

0.083

0.021

0.036

0.081

0.021

0.035

0.075

0.021

0.032

–0.453

0.018

–0.241

–0.405

0.018

–0.216

–0.405

0.018

–0.216

–0.394

0.018

–0.210

0.065

0.020

0.034

0.043

0.020

0.023

0.042

0.020

0.022

0.031

0.020

0.016*

0.005

0.020

0.003*

0.003

0.020

0.002*

0.005

0.020

0.003*

0.005

0.019

0.003*

0.195 –0.012 0.062

0.016 0.015 0.015

0.139 –0.008* 0.036

0.201 –0.017 0.065

0.016 0.015 0.015

0.144 –0.012* 0.038

0.199 –0.016 0.066

0.016 0.015 0.015

0.142 –0.011* 0.039

Tolerance Free-rider tolerance Permissive tolerance Cultural outsider tolerance Kotzé

Lifestyle outsider tolerance Permissive outsider tolerance Perceptions of threat Gender equality

–0.106

0.021

–0.048

–0.110

0.021

–0.050

–0.106

0.021

–0.048

0.080

0.015

0.052

0.081

0.015

0.052

0.079

0.015

0.051

0.190 –0.090

0.017 0.010

0.097 –0.077

0.188 –0.091

0.017 0.010

0.096 –0.078

0.190 –0.091

0.017 0.011

0.097 –0.078

0.052

0.020

0.026

0.068

0.020

0.035

–0.050

0.023

–0.021

–0.053

0.023

–0.023

–0.075 0.055 –0.045

0.012 0.018 0.024

–0.060 0.030 –0.017*

Confidence Confidence in state institutions Confidence in civil society organizations Socio-demographics Race Class Religiousness R R² R² adjusted

0.255 0.065 0.064

0.331 0.109 0.108

0.332 0.110 0.109

0.336 0.113 0.112


Kotzé

182

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA 180 51% 160 140 120

No of obs

34% 100 80 60 15% 51%

40 34% 20

15%

0 No (48%)

Neutral (15%)

Yes (37%)

No (48%)

Terminal: Tolerance: free-riders in (Neutral, Intolerant)

Neutral (15%)

Yes (37%)

Terminal: Tolerance: free-riders in (Tolerant) Observed

Figure 8.3

CART analysis—elimination of evil threats (dependent variable)


of evil threats, 15 percent remains neutral, and 37 percent supports the elimination of evil threats3 in 2006. First, of those who indicated that they were intolerant or neutral toward free riders, 51 percent support the elimination of evil threats in a community. Second, and conversely, of those who indicated that they were tolerant of free riders, 34 percent support the elimination of evil threats and 51 percent do not support it. From the regression analysis it became apparent that only the trust and tolerance models were relative predictors of attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats in a community. The importance plot in Figure 8.4 then identified the strongest individual predictor of attitudes toward the elimination of evil forces, namely, tolerance of free riders. This is followed by trust in people you meet for the first time, tolerance of permissiveness, and perceptions of threat.

Attitudes toward Immigration Policy Table 8.3 shows that the adjusted R² of the multiple regressions, including all four models, is 0.046. Thus, only 4.6 percent of the amount of variation in the dependent variable is accounted for by variation in the predictor variables. The trust model accounts for 2.0 percent of the explained variance in attitudes toward immigration policy; the tolerance model accounts for 2.2 percent of variance; the confidence model, 0.2 percent of variance; and the

Kotzé

CONCLUSION

183

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

To l

To l

er a Tr nce er ust : fr an : m ee ce ee -ri : p t de er firs rs m t C is tim on si ve e fid ne en s ce : c Th s i G vil rea To en s t le de oci ra nc r e ety e: qu life al C ity on T sty fid rus le Ra ou ce en t: ce ne ts : s igh ide r ta b te or s in ho st od To i t le Tr u ra us So tio nc t: cia ns e: di lc f Tr cu fer las us ltu en s r t t: pe al o rac op ut e le sid Tr e us y R ou rs t: an eli k ot gio now he u s G r n ne en at ss er ion To al le iz ality ra Tru e nc st T d e: : a rus tru n t pe : st rm oth fam is er r ily si ve elig ou ion ts id er s

0

Figure 8.4

Importance plot—elimination of evil threats (dependent variable)


socio-demographic model accounts for 0.2 percent of the explained variation. As with attitudes toward the elimination of evil threats, tolerance and trust are the “strongest” predictors of attitudes toward immigration policy, albeit at a far weaker level. The CART analysis in Figure 8.5 allowed us to identify three rules when applying the 20 indicators to the dependent variable, which consists of attitudes toward immigration policy. This variable is composed of the response set where 26 percent of respondents, in 2006, believe that immigrants/foreign workers should be prohibited; 46 percent believe there should be strict limitations on the number of immigrants/foreign workers who come to South Africa; 20 percent believe immigrants/foreign workers can come if jobs are available; and 8 percent indicated that anyone can come if they want to.4 First, of those who are intolerant or neutral toward cultural outsiders and trust those they meet for the first time, 45 percent believe that immigrants should be prohibited and 41 percent believe that strict limitations should be placed on the number allowed to enter South Africa. Second, of those who are intolerant or neutral toward cultural outsiders and do not trust people they meet for the first time, 27 percent believe that immigrants should be prohibited and 50 percent believe that strict limitations should be placed on immigrants entering the country. Third, of those who are tolerant toward cultural outsiders, 23 percent believe that immigrants should be prohibited and 46 percent believe that strict limitations should be placed on immigrants entering the country.

Kotzé

Table 8.3

Multivariate regression: Attitudes toward immigration policy relative to trust, tolerance, confidence, and socio-demographics Model 1

Constant Trust Generalized trust Interpersonal trust: family Interpersonal trust: neighborhood Interpersonal trust: different race Interpersonal trust: people you know Interpersonal trust: people you meet for first time Interpersonal trust: different religion Interpersonal trust: different nationality Tolerance Free-rider tolerance Permissive tolerance Cultural outsider tolerance Lifestyle outsider tolerance Permissive outsider tolerance Perceptions of threat

Kotzé

B

S.E.

3.14

0.08

–0.23 0.40 0.09 –0.04 –0.08 –0.06

0.02 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02

–0.07 0.10

0.02 0.02

Beta

Model 2

Model 3

B

S.E.

Beta

2.383

0.100

–0.11 0.06 0.04 –0.02 –0.04 –0.03

–0.217 0.389 0.065 –0.055 –0.071 –0.047

0.020 0.058 0.021 0.018 0.021 0.018

–0.099 0.061 0.031 –0.032 –0.032 –0.026

–0.04 0.06

–0.058 0.091 –0.012 –0.005 0.216 0.048 –0.028 0.127

B

S.E.

Model 4 Beta

B

S.E.

2.470

0.114

Beta

2.263

0.104

–0.217 0.386 0.060 –0.054 –0.067 –0.052

0.020 0.058 0.021 0.018 0.021 0.018

–0.099 0.060 0.029 –0.031 –0.030 –0.028

–0.210 0.408 0.059 –0.065 –0.078 –0.044

0.020 0.058 0.021 0.018 0.021 0.018

0.020 0.020

–0.031 –0.070 0.052 0.089

0.020 0.020

–0.038 0.051

–0.082 0.087

0.020 –0.044 0.020 0.049

0.016 0.015 0.015 0.021 0.015 0.017

–0.009* –0.003* 0.129 0.022 –0.018* 0.067

0.016 0.015 0.015 0.021 0.015 0.017

–0.002* –0.011 –0.007* –0.003 0.130 0.217 0.023 0.049 –0.020 –0.032 0.072 0.139

–0.002 –0.009 0.217 0.049 –0.030 0.135

–0.095 0.064 0.028 –0.037 –0.035 –0.024

0.016 –0.008* 0.015 –0.002* 0.015 0.130 0.021 0.023 0.015 –0.021 0.017 0.073

0.034

Gender equality

0.011

Confidence Confidence in state institutions Confidence in civil society organizations

0.030

0.029

0.011

0.025

0.036

0.011

0.032

0.069 0.035

0.020 0.024

0.036 0.016*

0.090 0.028

0.021 0.024

0.047 0.012*

Socio-demographics Race Class Religiousness

–0.048 –0.006 –0.091

R R² R² adjusted

0.145 0.021 0.020

0.207 0.043 0.042

0.212 0.045 0.044

0.012 –0.040 0.018 –0.004* 0.024 –0.035 0.218 0.048 0.046


Kotzé

140 120 100 80 60 50%

40 20

No of obs

0

3%

10%

Anyone come (8%)

Jobs available (20%)

41%

45%

Limit # (46%)

Prohibit (26%)

4% Anyone come (8%)

Terminal: Tolerance: cultural outsiders in (Neutral, Intolerant) AND trust: meet first time in (Trust)


46%

120 100 80 23%

22%

60 9%

20 0 Anyone come (8%)


Limit # (46%)

Prohibit (26%)

Terminal: Tolerance: cultural outsiders in (Tolerant) Observed

Figure 8.5

CART analysis—immigration policy (dependent variable)


Kotzé

Limit # (46%)

Prohibit (26%)

Terminal: Tolerance: cultural outsiders in (Neutral, Intolerant) AND trust: meet first time in (Do not trust)

140

40

27%

19%

CONCLUSION

187

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

To l

T er rus an t: ce m : c ee ul t fi C on tu r ra st fid en Ge l ou time ce nd ts : s er ide ta te equ rs in a st lity T itu To ole tio le r a ra ns nc nce e: : fr Ra pe ee ce rm -ri To is de le si rs ra nc S ve e: Ge oc nes i n a pe s rm era l cla is lize ss si d ve t ou rus To Tru ts t le st: id ra p er nc eo e: pl T s life e y hre o Tr sty u at us le kn o o t: ne uts w Tr ig id us hb er s t: an Rel orh i o Tr oth gio od us er us C on t: a nat nes fid no ion s en the al ce r r ity : c eli iv gio il so n Tr us Tru cie st t t: di : fa y ffe m re ily nt ra ce

0

Figure 8.6 Importance plot—immigration policy (dependent variable) Source: Compiled by Prof Martin Kidd for the authors from the 2006 WVS.

From the regression analysis it became apparent that none of the models are good predictors of attitudes toward the immigration policy, with the trust and tolerance models explaining almost all of the variance. The importance plot in Figure 8.6 identified the strongest individual predictor of attitudes toward immigration policy, namely, trust in people you meet for the first time. This is followed by tolerance of cultural outsiders, attitudes toward gender equality, and confidence in state institutions. The multivariate analysis ranking of the various attitudinal dimensions of liberalization (plus the socio-demographic indicators of race and social class) shows which of them best predicts or explains the variation within the three indicators of pacification. In the interests of brevity we continue this discussion with only the top four predictors from each of the three identified in the CART analysis. With respect to the death penalty, these are • • • •

Confidence in state institutions, Race, Permissive tolerance, Tolerance of free riders.

In the case of action against evil forces, they are • Tolerance of free riders, • Trust in people you meet for the first time,

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188


• Permissive tolerance, • Sense of threat. In the case of policies toward immigrants, they are • • • •

Trust in people you meet for the first time, Tolerance of cultural outsiders, Gender equality, Confidence in state institutions.

Existential Insecurity and Liberalization To recap briefly, the theory of liberal democratic peace holds that peace between states, both domestically within states and their societies, as well as internationally, is attainable through the democratization of their regimes. Democracy pacifies people, and it is the specific variant of liberal democracy that produces this cherished outcome. This peace is upheld by actors who engage in terms of the norm of reciprocity, who mutually endorse liberal values and pursue the fruits of capitalist modernity, namely, affluence, and who do so through mutually beneficial trade. The zone of peace comprises liberal democracies that are essentially alike in this regard. Extending the zone of peace is problematic precisely because potential new members are not (yet) essentially like the established ones in their liberal qualities. The characteristics of liberalism found in countries at the edge of inclusion into the zone of peace can vary greatly. At best, such countries are still in the process of becoming liberal; at worst, they represent hybrid regimes and societies, with little prospect of becoming fully liberal within the short to medium term. This study aimed to identify such liberal attitudinal dimensions in the South African case and describe their emergence and change over the time period that is covered by our data sets and to rank their importance in terms of their pacifying effect. In the South African instance the liberal attitudes most relevant to pacification have been identified in the rankings produced by the multivariate and CART analysis and are described above. Having done this, the next step is to consider which contextual factors may be either conducive to, or inhibit, the emergence of liberal values. Next we present some hypotheses on such potential factors. Insight into the dynamics of liberalization can be gained by drawing on the hypothesis of existential insecurity, as presented in the work of Norris and Inglehart. This hypothesis, described in chapter 6, is sharply delimited; namely, it states that greater existential insecurity causes greater adherence to religion. The dependent variable comprises the attitudes of individuals that relate only to their religiousness/secularization, which is but one dimension of

Kotzé

CONCLUSION

189

liberalization. The independent variable is existential insecurity, conceptually described by Norris and Inglehart only in terms of ego-tropic and socio-tropic risks and threats that individuals experience. Empirical measurement of the concept is by indicators of economic inequality (Gini coefficient), the Human Development Index (HDI), and overall type of society (by development), whether agrarian, industrial, or postindustrial, all of which reflect material living conditions. We argue that our findings can be understood in terms of an expanded version of this hypothesis. The dependent variable needs to be extended to include not only the religious/secular attitudinal dimension of liberalization but also the list identified in the multivariate analysis above. The independent variable needs to be extended to include a broader range of factors relevant to existential insecurity, some of which are nonmaterial and intangible. We would argue for this inclusion on the basis of the contextual and theoretical interpretations of these factors provided in the text thus far. The first and obvious aspect to include in a broader concept of existential insecurity is that of spiritual insecurity and the cultural paradigm within which this is understood. We found in chapter 6 that spiritual insecurity is anchored in beliefs about malevolent intangible supernatural forces. Respondents express these convictions in attitudes about the perceived presence of evil. This form of existential insecurity is not conducive to the flourishing of liberal values. We hypothesize that conceptions of evil and its consequences as well as remedies are far more compatible with the liberal framework of law and the rule of law, once it is understood in terms of the secular paradigm rather than that of conservative Christianity or the African spirit-world paradigm. The second component we would add to a broader concept of existential insecurity is that of social dislocation, and not just material deprivation. By this we mean the weakening, decay, or even breakdown in stable interpersonal relationships. In chapter 5 we argued that South Africans’ social conservatism, as expressed in their low tolerance of social norms that legitimate permissive interpersonal relations, needs to be understood as a response to their actual social environment, where many of them experience the adverse consequences of such weakening, decay, and breakdown in relationships, and have been experiencing it for many generations. We hypothesize that their insecurity originates in social turbulence, and this generates illiberal attitudes of social conservatism. Social dislocation in South Africa is in part a function of physical dislocation. This is part of the general syndrome of inadequate and uneven development, which is at the core of the Norris and Inglehart concept of existential insecurity. What makes the South African experience of uneven development (and hence, insecurity) so unique is that the poor at the bottom of the capitalist labor market were not only weak in terms of economic bargaining power but also politically weak under the rules of the apartheid regime. They were subjected to large-scale physical relocation: mostly Coloreds and Indians were

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relocated within urban areas under the Group Areas Act; black Africans were relocated from cities back to poor rural communities under the pass laws (see chapter 4). The immediate and enduring effect of such massive physical relocation and social dislocation is that familiar and trusted social benchmarks disappear and are replaced by other standards that are chronically unfamiliar and potentially threatening. Added to this were the tangible threats posed by crime and AIDS, unemployment and illness, poverty and the lack of a formal or informal welfare safety net. Most of the poor black South Africans experienced the social environment in which they grew up as an unstable and hostile one. The social environment experienced by poor black South Africans in the democratic era continues to be unstable and hostile. The end of apartheid brought massive and rapid urbanization, but the state was unable to provide formal housing and services to all, despite very successful and extensive building programs. For the established urban populations, this meant a continuous stream of new residents to deal with. The very last wave of strangers were the immigrants and work seekers from across the country’s borders. We hypothesize that this unique experience of development contributed to a general apprehension, caution, wariness, and reticence regarding strangers among many South Africans, which found expression in low levels of trust in people that they meet for the first time and in lower levels of tolerance toward cultural outsiders. Inadequate development in South Africa, as in many other societies, also has an intangible dimension. Capitalist development, even in its most benign form, produces a competitive arena that yields starkly clear winners and losers. When this process becomes intertwined with racial and cultural differences, a highly combustible social mix can result. In South Africa, capitalist development took off as part of the Dutch and then British imperialist projects, and the Black people rapidly began to land on the losing side. Apartheid policies reinforced this divide even deeper. Without having direct data to substantiate this claim, we argue that this social divide was not just tangibly economic and material, as it also reflected intangible status disparities and cultural incompatibilities. The democratic era has not yet uplifted all the poor, and a critical mass of deprived people remain. We do not have data on this aspect, but we do hypothesize that the concomitant experience of status deprivation is also experienced by this cohort of South Africans. Such conditions can be responded to in many ways by those at the bottom of the social order, one of which is to aggressively target the perceived cause of their status deprivation. As argued in chapter 7, we hypothesize that ethnic riots are rooted in the status insecurity of the Black urban poor, most of whom are young unemployed men. Inadequate and inequitable access to public goods is another element of existential insecurity in South Africa. If intolerance of permissiveness is the result of insecurity originating from the experience of social upheaval, then we hypothesize that intolerance of free riding emerges from the experience

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of public turmoil and the experienced need to establish such public order. As shown in chapter 4, the apartheid regime was notorious for its inequitable and unfair distribution of public goods to the subject race groups. Equitable public order was conspicuous by its absence. Order, where the state did establish it, was imposed by coercion, or by the threat of it, not through legitimacy. Free riding, carried out by individuals who take from the public good what they are not rightfully entitled to, further exacerbates the problem of scarcity in society. Closely related to the above, confidence in the state, so dramatically affected by the democratic transition (see chapter 3), is in our view not only an expectation about state capacity to deliver public goods but also an expression of ideological conviction, a reflection of an understanding of democracy. As shown in Table 3.6, many South Africans rank the achievement of socioeconomic targets as essential characteristics of democracy. Black South Africans saw how the state secured these objectives for Whites under apartheid. In the new democracy they assign the state with the task of achieving it for them. We hypothesize that the very experience of being deprived of public goods by the state under apartheid is the source of the Blacks’ expression of confidence in the state that it will deliver them such goods in the democratic era. Linking attitudes to gender equality to the conditions of existential insecurity represents an intriguing puzzle, especially as this variable emerges from the importance plot in Figure 8.6 as it relates to the third dependent variable, that of immigration policy toward outsiders. Do insecure men oppose gender equality, and do insecure women endorse it? Or, does the source of their insecurity have such a nature that it is experienced as a unifying rather than a divisive factor, cementing the genders into a cohesive unit of equals, confronting the threats together? As shown in Table 7.5, dislike of foreigners does not have a gender dimension, yet the violent actions against foreigners in May 2008 most certainly did. Very strikingly, the perpetrators came mostly from the ranks of young Black urban men. Did they commit these acts at the behest of, and with encouragement from, the women (whose input is valued because they are considered to be of equal standing) within their communities? Future research may solve this puzzle.

Policy Implications We have identified four dimensions of existential insecurity that could be added to the core factor of inadequate development identified by Norris and Inglehart. These are social and physical dislocation, status deprivation, spiritual insecurity, and inequitable access to public goods. We conclude the chapter with a short discussion of the policy relevant to each factor. These implications are relevant to the immediate matter of securing liberal democracy in South

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Africa, and generally to the broader theme of extending the liberal democratic zone of peace.

Physical and Social Dislocation and Development The core ingredient of existential insecurity is found in material deprivation. It affects both individuals and communities and provides the basic conditions from which additional aspects of insecurity follow. In the South African case the uneven development that is characteristic of capitalism was aggravated by the policies of apartheid, which deepened socioeconomic inequalities, on one hand, and led to economic inefficiency, on the other, thus weakening the capacity of capitalist wealth generation. The tension between the logic of capitalist development and the racial imperatives of spatial separation between race groups in terms of the apartheid blueprints was the subject of much analysis during the twentieth century. The demise of the racial oligarchy of apartheid can be interpreted as a victory of economic rationality over racist ideology. The imperative of wealth generation and development has not receded in the democratic era. On the contrary, it has become more urgent, with many impoverished black South Africans having become demand-generating citizens with voting rights. From the very outset, therefore, the debate about economic development in democratic South Africa centered on the rival priorities of growth and wealth redistribution. The ruling ANC prepared and implemented a variety of policies in the first fifteen years of democracy, starting with the RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme), which became official policy in the Mandela Presidency. This was followed by President Mbeki’s policy named GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution Programme), which was finally superseded by AsgiSA (Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa). Each of these policies had different emphasis on accommodating growth, that is, the production of wealth and the redistribution of wealth. President Mbeki was voted out as leader of the ANC in the September 2007 ANC National Conference in Polekwane, and a few months later he was instructed by the party to resign as President. This was a publicly humiliating and premature end to his tenure, about a year before his term was due to end with the national election of April 2009. Jacob Zuma replaced Mbeki in both positions with a very different set of supporters and a different mandate. Much of the disaffection against Mbeki came from the ANC alliance partners, COSATU and the SACP. They criticized his economic policies for being pro-business and anti-poor, and for toeing the line of the global architects of the Washington consensus and of neoliberalism in general. Statistics show the rise in income inequality, persistently high unemployment figures (many have been mentioned in chapter 4), chronic pockets of poverty, and weak service delivery by the state to the poor under the Mbeki presidency. These policy failures were repeatedly brought to bear against Mbeki. With the Zuma

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government in power, a new shift in policy toward poverty relief is expected. The challenge remains, however, to generate more wealth that can be made available to the poor in such a way that it becomes a form of self-generating empowerment. It is not yet clear what the details of the new policy mix is going to be. The pressure from the Zuma supporters, primarily located within COSATU and in the SACP, is for a policy that would deliver directly and with priority to the poor by way of greater employment, more and better public goods from the central and provincial state (with priority to health, crime prevention, and education), and municipal services and social welfare. Few would argue against the merits of such priorities. The policy debate is on how the economy should be managed to achieve such outcomes. The Mbeki critics have shown little appreciation of the fact that the economy did grow consistently during his nine-year term, albeit in a favorable global economy driven by a resource boom that suited the South African economy. Positive growth rates were recorded from 1999 onward, rising to 4.9 percent in 2004, to 5.0 percent in 2005, and peaking at 5.4 percent in 2006.5 One of the direct beneficiaries of such growth were the poor, who gained from the social grants system that was reaching more than 12 million poor by the end of Mbeki’s term. This program was financed by the very pro-growth policies that the Zuma supporters rail against. The policy shift that the Zuma camp favors is to expand on this welfare but to adopt a different approach to finding the wealth to be redistributed. Borrowing through budget deficits, higher taxation, and direct state intervention into the private sector are some measures of the new policy mix they propose. The result of such policies for the creation of more wealth, which is then to be redistributed, is a matter of speculation. It hinges on a number of clearly identifiable developmental factors. These are presented below briefly. There is, at first, a set of three factors that relates to policies at the national and provincial levels. These are primary and secondary education, crime prevention, and public health. Measurable performance indicators for assessing state capacity and output for these factors are available. Also available are the measurable indicators of the challenges that need to be addressed (see chapter 4). Successful policies have been formulated, but failures in implementation are also clearly evident in all fields. Effectively dealing with every one of these issues individually and collectively is of vital importance for the state if it is to manage the South African economy and society. The South African government must do it in such a way that more wealth is created and made available to those who need it and sustainable development occurs. The second set of factors is the current redistributive policies and their impact on the economy and society, as described in chapter 4. These are: • The policies of affirmative action as applied at the individual level to appointments in the labor market;

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• More general legislation that regulates the labor market with respect to the ease/difficulty in appointing and dismissing employees, thus affecting rigidity in this market; • Black Economic Empowerment, a policy aimed at affecting the racial profile of capital ownership; • Land reform, aimed at restitution of land previously lost through apartheid expropriation, reform in the shape of transfer of agricultural land from white to black South Africans, and land tenure reform, aimed at securing the tenants on privately owned land against unfair expulsion. The criteria to measure the net benefit of these policies are many. They range from the moral and ethical yardsticks that are derived from the historical context of subjugation and exploitation, to those values set up in the Constitution, to those of economic efficiency. The last criterion is immediately relevant to this discussion. The impact of policies on the wealth-generating capacity of the South African economy is of vital importance for all South Africans. However, as one commentator has noted, in some instances (for example, affirmative action and labor regulation) such policy assessments have yet to be made.6 The third set of developmental factors comprises those that affect service delivery at the local level. Again, tangible measures of performance are available, and policy successes as well as failures abound. The extent of successful service provision on a national scale is summarized in broad outlines in Table 4.2. Despite this obvious progress, the country has experienced widespread and persistent, if intermittent, public protests against service delivery failure since July 2004. It is reported that in the 2004/2005 financial year alone there were 5085 legal protests and 881 illegal protests of this nature.7 However, the data describe national totals only and obscure the fact that some municipalities do succeed while others fail in their developmental task. According to Atkinson, the actions were directed primarily at those local authorities who were providing poor services, who were making decisions deemed to be undemocratic, and were perceived to be corrupt and engaged in widening horizontal inequalities through self-enrichment. Apart from their internal weaknesses, which lies in a plethora of factors, such as skill shortages, weak appointments on the basis of affirmative action, inflated salaries for top officials, nepotism, and other forms of malpractice, Atkinson finds their failure to be grounded in the fact that provincial and national governments have devolved policy matters down to the local authorities that the latter are simply not geared to dealing with effectively. In short, the weak municipalities have become the victims of a failure in intergovernmental governance.8 South Africa’s developmental imperative has to be considered within the wider context of the globalization of capitalism, especially as it took off after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war. As the South African economy is located on the most peripheral continent of the entire global

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economy, its economic development had to be against competitors far more favorably located at the center. And most of these economies, with the notable exceptions of China and Russia, are within the democratic zone of peace. A last requirement for development, therefore, is that international trade with the center, if it is to serve the goal of extending the liberal democratic zone of peace, will have to provide preferential benefits to the weaker periphery, the location of many potential new entrants, including South Africa, to the zone. In summary, we cannot recommend a policy mix with which to reconcile the goals of growth and redistribution in South Africa. Our data do not enable us to take a position on macroeconomic policy and our research focus is not directed to that question. But we can restate that the imperative for growth and creation of wealth has not receded in the democratic era; if anything, it has become more urgent. It goes without saying that every one of the developmental factors mentioned above will have to be fine-tuned and evident policy failures detrimental to wealth generation urgently addressed. We can reiterate that the effective and systematic alleviation of material deprivation in the form of measurable poverty is the first and primary source of containing and limiting the conditions experienced as existential insecurity in South Africa. When progress is achieved in this field, it will create favorable conditions for other aspects of insecurity that impede the inculcation of liberal values and attitudes to be addressed.

Status Deprivation and Understanding the Urban Poor We argued above for an expanded concept of existential insecurity in the case of South Africa. This leads us to the recognition that further liberalization of South African society is likely to hinge not solely on the material and social conditions that the poor are going to experience, but on the way they are going to make sense of these conditions. The crucial question in this regard is: what is it about being poor that thwarts the development of liberal values and attitudes and disposes people to public violence? Our data do not enable us to present a direct answer, so to gain an insight into the predicament of the experience of poverty, we have to extrapolate from the theoretical frameworks introduced in chapter 2. These are social identity theory, as applied to ethnic conflict situations, and the cultural theory of conflict. It is well established that people who perceive themselves to be under threat are not likely to tolerate and trust the source of threat. They will be more inclined to express prejudice, distrust, and be intolerant toward the perceived threat. Threats may be of a tangible physical nature or may be intangible. Poor people experience physical deprivation on a daily basis, with tangible threats related to this condition in the form of scarcity of goods needed for survival. Social identity theory, as outlined in chapter 2, argues that they may

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be equally or more vulnerable to status deprivation. When poverty is accepted as an indicator of low social status in society, as is the case in materialistic societies, and poor people cannot find other reasons to evaluate themselves positively, then this deprivation can become chronic. A strongly held conventional view (backed with some empirical evidence) holds that people with a negative self-appraisal perceive themselves to be more deprived than those with high self-esteem, and they are therefore likely to be more assertive in trying to gain a positive self-identity. A perception of inadequacy may lead to a sense of helplessness and then to self-contempt, which can drive people to violence against those who make them feel inadequate in the first place.9 People with high self-esteem can also come under threat from negative comparisons.10 This view is elaborated by Roy Baumeister and associates.11 They focus on people with highly favorable self-appraisals and argue that these are the people most vulnerable to adverse comparisons and more likely to engage in violence. They develop the argument that aggression is likely to follow from a discrepancy between two rival assessments of the self: a favorable self-assessment and an unfavorable one by outsiders. Aggression may become one of the ways of dealing with this contradiction.12 And those with the highest self-evaluation have the most to lose. The high-esteem hypothesis is especially relevant to this study, which has as its focus the South African case of a negotiated transition from a racial oligarchy to a liberal democratic regime. When adversaries emerged from this racial conflict that had stretched over decades, if not centuries, and they managed to do so with a negotiated peace agreement, each party has ample reason to award itself a high sense of collective esteem. This applies especially when parties announce the outcome of negotiations as a positive result, the so-called win/win outcome, as did F.W. de Klerk to his own constituents. However, such a subjective assessment of the achievements opens the way for stressful encounters, especially when outside audiences or opponents appraise the peace agreement less favorably. Nonetheless, the South African constitutional agreement has been hailed by many as an exemplary achievement and a leading example of liberal constitutionalism, thus cementing the basis for an early mutually positive collective self-evaluation by all the negotiating parties and their respective constituents. In formal terms, this is what was achieved. The racial hierarchy of status, power, and privilege of the apartheid regime was dismantled and replaced by one of equal citizenship. What remained was the historically built-up inequities in material wealth, as well as the differences in abilities of citizens to compete in the economic arena. But this highly positive collective self-assessment comes under immediate threat when the new democratic context draws such parties into new, unfamiliar, competitive arenas from which clear-cut winners and losers emerge. Despite the many valid reasons parties have for walking away proud from

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the negotiating table, this pride does not automatically convert into competitive prowess in a modern political economy. Some groups may enter the postsettlement competitive arena with a distinct competitive advantage over others who, for various reasons, may be at a disadvantage. This happened very rapidly in South Africa as the new winners gained the best part of the peace dividend and the losers continued to remain in the ranks of the poor, as discussed in chapter 4. The immediate losers in the new democracy had little reason to perceive themselves as “backward,” or the winners as “advanced,” precisely by virtue of the fact that they all emerged from the peace process with a positive selfassessment. And the new winners and losers are not the same entities as those that prevailed under apartheid. The economic elites and the new middle class especially have become multiracial. Some of these new economic elites arose from the ranks of the poor and were involved in activities of the organizations that took part in the struggle, such as the United Democratic Front, COSATU, the SACP, and ANC. The entire new political elite were recruited from these ranks. Initially, then, strong bonds of race, culture, and partisan loyalty still tied together some of the new winners and some of those who continued to be the losers. Continued winning by some, and losing by others, creates a structure susceptible to undesirable comparative evaluation, which may be experienced by those in the lower status ranks as insult and humiliation. Invidious comparison can be experienced under various layers of humiliation. In the first layer a loser is reminded that her/his losing streak is not the result of personal qualities (laziness, indifference, lack of motivation, or lack of trying) or sheer bad luck. Instead, winners, with cultural attributes now different from those of the losers, can attribute the competitive weakness of the losers to the very culture of the individual loser and the group with whom she/he identifies. As such attribution increasingly assumes a permanent quality, the insult worsens, because the competitive disability may then seem to be a permanent one.13 Expressions of racism are frequent examples of such invidious comparisons. Our data show that South Africans, with their high and rising levels of interracial tolerance, are becoming less likely to engage in such public expressions of prejudice. The next layer of insult can be found in the comparisons made between the present performance of those destitute black South Africans and their achievements against apartheid in the recent past. For the weak to be reminded of the contrast between their current losing streak and their past history of excellence, achievement, and success does not make for a flattering comparison. In the immediate post-apartheid South Africa, even the most destitute among black South Africans could look back with a great sense of achievement at having contributed to the rapid dismantling of the once omnipotent apartheid regime. It thus became ever more painful to compare those glory days to the drudgery and poverty they continued to endure in the new democracy.

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A further layer of humiliation is the revelation, upon introspection, that one’s own culture may in fact contribute to one’s disempowerment. Despite the fact that South Africa has eleven official languages, this daily experience of dis-empowerment is faced by most South Africans who do not speak English as a first language. Those who speak any of the other ten languages other than English (comprising 91.8 percent of the populace)14 are at a major competitive disadvantage in terms of access to the world of computers, commerce, high technology, and global networks. Lastly, all the above threats to a positive self-assessment are likely to be so much more acutely distressing when the losing party has just emerged from a historic negotiated democratic transition with much credit to itself, and where this credit has been acknowledged and even acclaimed worldwide. The global iconic status that Nelson Mandela achieved could be shared vicariously by every one in South Africa, but more so by his own partisan supporters and his ethnic and racial kins who had additional bonds of affinity to draw on. But this became a bittersweet experience for the poor, because, despite all their heroic actions, they still remained poor and on the losing side of market capitalism, as had been the case under apartheid. The poignancy of their plight is that the end of apartheid, understood and expressed in terms depicting the paradigm of “liberation,” made them feel seemingly so close to escaping from material deprivation. Liberation that does not liberate is experienced as excruciatingly painful when it entails policy measures with sharply differential outcomes that “raise the prospect of a loss, including a loss of what is newly won, and they thwart the fulfillment of what is nearly attained.”15 Responses by the weak against what they perceive to be exploitation can include a variety of actions shaped by factors such as opportunities, resources, and their own sense of powerlessness. One response would be to accept the status of weakness as a reflection of their own caliber and make it part of their own self-definition. Acceptance of their weakness and lowering their status to internalize a sense of weakness would be to become backward. Another response would be to rail against the source of invidious comparisons, resist them, challenge their validity, and refuse to accept a lower status. Violence may be a tool used to express this response. In the South African case the immediate source of the precarious material position of the poor is to be found in the many policy failures of the ruling ANC, especially under President Mbeki during the democratic era. But violence directed against these new political and economic elites is strongly inhibited by the racial, ethnic, cultural, and partisan ties that bind the vast majority of the poor with these elites. And potential belligerents would have calculated that adequate police protection for these elites would be on hand. From the perspective of this interpretive framework, as argued by Bekker et al. and reported in chapter 7, displaced violence, in this instance against vulnerable foreign work-seekers in the form of the extensive xenophobic violence of May 2008, then became the preferred option.

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Some other options exist for dealing with comparisons that threaten one’s self esteem.16 These are available to both low- and high-status groups and may not involve any violence at all. One option is for individuals to exercise their individual mobility and leave the threatened group. This can be done physically, by relocation or emigration, or socially, by disassociating from the group. This option is hardly available to the South African poor, who are physically and socially trapped in the many informal settlements in the country’s major industrial cities. Another choice available to the poor is to alter the values assigned to the attributes of their own group from negative to positive. This form of selfredefinition was famously achieved by the poor Blacks during the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s when they declared that “black is beautiful.” South Africa’s black consciousness movement followed the same strategy. Another option would be for the threatened in-group to change the positive values assigned to the out-group to negative values. One such way is for the poor South Africans to designate the despised out-group as evil, possessed of malevolent spiritual forces, and practitioners of witchcraft. Ominously, one respondent in the Bekker et al. study had already alluded to foreigners as having supernatural powers that they use to accumulate capital.17 Another way to change the comparative framework in favor of the in-group is by changing the frame of reference away from the high-status out-group to another group that is lower in status. This apparently is what the poor in South Africa did when they diverted their resentment from their own elites in the Mbeki government to the foreign work-seekers and migrants from across the borders. A last option is to accept the framework of comparison and competition but to compete with the high-status out-group under new rules, hoping to emerge as winners. Both sets of stakeholders (i.e., both winners and losers) can agree to revise punitive rules, which either discriminate or allow for exploitation. New rules of competition that address the vulnerability of the urban poor in South Africa would entail a coherent, clear immigration policy that provides them, first and foremost, existential security in the wider sense of the term. The objective of such a project should not be just to write ever more liberal rules into the democratic constitutional framework, but to devise rules that address intolerable disparities in relative group status.

Spiritual Insecurity and Culture The data presented in chapter 6 show that most South Africans experience spiritual insecurity and sense the presence of evil forces within society. A significant number of them are prepared to act with lethal violence against people perceived to embody such evil forces, though an equal number are ambivalent about such action and neither promote nor discourage it. Together,

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these two groups make up a little more than half the South African public. The extent to which beliefs of the African spirit-world permeate South African public and private life can be gauged impressionistically from other sources too. Consider the following selection of headlines from reports in the Daily Sun, South Africa’s largest selling daily newspaper, aimed specifically at the poor urban working class. • “Killed by Evil Voices! Told to shoot himself—so he did” (Daily Sun, Friday, August 15, 2008). • “Evil fire eats baby! Nine-month-old toddler burns to death in shack” (Daily Sun, Tuesday, August 19, 2008). • “In the grip of Terror! 100 schoolgirls collapse in evil spirit frenzy” (Daily Sun, Friday, March 13, 2009). • “Demons at School for the third time!” (Daily Sun, Tuesday, March 17, 2009). • “No helping hand! Muthi backfires on dagga smugglers” (Daily Sun, March 17, 2009). Our data show that secular elites do not share this sense of threat from evil forces or the hostility with which people are prepared to protect their communities against such forces. This impedes their capacity to empathize with the general public on this matter. There is an immediate policy implication for this divergence of elite and public beliefs. Secular elites who are insensitive to the various paradigms within which the concept of evil is understood may aim to capitalize on the insecurity of those who believe in the threat of evil forces. The elites may then proceed to label, castigate, or depict political actions by their opponents as being “evil,” thus inadvertently tapping into the paradigmatic framework of their followers who see this depiction as a justification for violence. Should these elites deliberately link actions deemed evil with those of witchcraft, they may, even if in ignorance, be providing an incitement to public violence. It is the religious elites—those who, as was shown above, share the sense of threat experienced by the general public—who should shoulder the responsibly of informing their secular counterparts, by example as well as persuasion, to be more circumspect in resorting to the concept of evil as an explanation for the ills of society. The repertoire of “spiritual warfare” to which they subscribe can still be subsumed within the modern democratic state, but, given the public dispositions described above, this rhetoric may be a high-risk gamble. We suggest that rhetoric accusing political opponents of acting in an evil way should be subject to the limitations on “hate speech” as set out in section 16(2) of the South African Constitution. Another set of policy implications relates to the general public’s inclination to resort to violence. As noted above, only half the general public showed unequivocal opposition to the use of lethal violence to protect the community

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against harm from evildoers. Support for public slayings is not simply an endorsement of an illegal act of murder, it endorses an extreme form of public violence that runs against the entire liberal human rights doctrine and the rule of law doctrine that form the basis of the liberal South African democratic regime. Whether the democratic constitutional order provides adequate protection to its citizenry is a constant issue of public debate, as reflected in the ongoing calls from the public to restore the death penalty, which was outlawed in terms of the human rights doctrine of the new Constitution. Expressions of support for the killing of evil people in order to protect the community, as demonstrated here, may have a bearing on such calls. Endorsement of violence does not, however, necessarily mean that the endorsers see themselves as the agents of such coercion. The interpretation in this context is that support for restoring the death penalty, expressed in many public opinion surveys since 1994, is congruent with the attitudes reported here. If the state acts as the agent of execution through legalized death penalty, rather than the community doing so in the form of mob action or vigilante killings, then their requirements for community protection may well be met. We do not endorse the return of the death penalty and our data show that there is as yet no such connection to be found in these two dispositions, but it remains a link that opinion leaders could forge. The persistence of the witchcraft paradigm in its current form provides almost insoluble policy problems for the liberal democratic state. It represents a clear-cut case of incompatible cultural paradigms, with moral axioms that are entirely at odds with one another, as conceptualized in the theory of cultural conflict presented in chapter 2. First, this paradigm endorses a political culture that is difficult to reconcile with the civic culture needed to sustain democratic practices. The negative corollary of ubuntu, as described by Ashforth in chapter 6, is the very antithesis of the liberal culture in which interpersonal trust and tolerance serve to knit civil society into a coherent citizenry ready, willing, and able to exercise their democratic rights and obligations. In legitimizing the killing of purported witches in the name of justice, it also keeps alive a justification for public violence, which is incompatible with the liberal doctrine of human rights. Second, the persistence of this cultural paradigm aggravates the combustible issue regarding contest for relative group status in contemporary South Africa. The witchcraft paradigm is so irreconcilable with the secular paradigm as well as certain sections of the religious paradigm that it is difficult to provide it equal standing with the others. In South Africa, as elsewhere, the witchcraft paradigm has been relegated by both secularists and some religious denominations to the category of “superstition.” This is a negative designation and amounts to telling adherents that their culture is backward and inferior. This may be interpreted by them as insulting and derogatory. Furthermore, the witchcraft paradigm can be used as a call to violence against specific targets. In the South African case, as was argued in the

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preceding chapters, the targets would be those individual or collective agents of poverty, inequality, AIDS, unemployment, and other hardships perceived to be unwarranted, undeserved, and illegitimate. Above all, this paradigm presents an unambiguous response to the ever more strident question: “Why are we poor?” The answer is that the cause of poverty has to be someone, someone else, who is driven by malevolent intentions and jealousy, and armed with muthi with which to inflict damage. Notable targets would be the beneficiaries of the post-settlement peace dividend, which could include the new Black elite, all the overachieving minorities, Whites in general, Indians in general, and, yet again, foreign workers and immigrants from elsewhere in Africa. Let us be more explicit about the writ for public violence. We cannot claim, for example, that the marches against the homes of drug dealers on the Cape Flats during 2007 was motivated by a sense of religious threat (as measured in our data), or that drug dealers are considered to be engaging in witchcraft. But our data suggest that if opinion leaders present drug dealers to marching protesters as people possessed by evil forces, then it is likely that such a depiction will find very wide resonance within large sections (more than 80 percent) of the South African public. Furthermore, our data show that incitement to confront drug dealers perceived as engaging in witchcraft, even to the point of physically attacking them lethally, is likely to be endorsed by about three out of every ten South Africans. The last major policy implication is that the witchcraft paradigm is not conducive to social development. When the poor interpret their misfortune as being undeserved, the causal factor of development is externalized. Malevolent, invisible forces, engaged by witches through secret occult practices, are blamed for the misfortune, and it is considered that their elimination will provide the remedy. Though this paradigm has a comforting immediate effect, it is ultimately disempowering. In this belief system the locus of control is removed from the individual and collective self, and it absolves the subjects (individuals and/or groups) from responsibility for improving their own conditions and capabilities and also those of their community. As is the case with the different languages mentioned earlier, here is another instance of culture affecting collective abilities to compete in the modern global economy, which has adverse implications for relative group status in South Africa. To effectively deal with these challenges, there has to be an extensive public policy of modernizing the entire cultural base within which the witchcraft paradigm is embedded. Such a project will not be without difficulties. As Geschiere has noted with respect to the politics of Cameroon, there is an ongoing process involved in the modernization of witchcraft, which tends to be present wherever citizens view modern politics cynically.18 Likewise, Mavhungu has found that the South African state has incapacitated the traditional authorities dealing with witchcraft cases, thus creating a vacuum in which

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the practice has been appropriated by other players.19 Low confidence in state institutions and weak state performance in terms of service delivery are therefore detrimental to the project of cultural modernization. Such a modernization project should entail that culture be maintained and nurtured as a source of individual and social identity, not as an explanation of social ills, as a cure for it, or as a framework for establishing justice. One compulsive element in this project of cultural modernization will be to persuade citizens that criteria for justice should be derived from belief systems in the secular domain, such as the modern liberal human rights doctrine. This is a program that will have to start with a keen appreciation of the pervasive sense of spiritual insecurity experienced by most South Africans, and as the data reported in this study show, religious elites are the ones currently best disposed to fulfill this task.

Public Goods and Political Representation One of the most consistent findings of this study is that there are differences between the attitudes and values of the South African public and the elites. And wherever this difference stands out, it is invariably the elites that tend to be more liberal than the public. When we also consider the dimension of existential insecurity that relates to the public experience of inequitable and inadequate access to public goods, and their experience of turmoil in the public domain—with their increased expectation on the democratic state to deliver these goods more adequately and equitably than the apartheid state and regime did—then this elite/public divergence of attitudes becomes important for democracy and liberalization. Elites are free to be more liberal than the public in any democracy. However, owing to the weight of expectations of the public in a modernizing society, and their experience of the various dimensions of existential insecurity, it is imperative that the elites remain in touch with the public and the electorate. Being in touch does not entail holding similar views, but it does involve empathy as well as a grasp of the worldviews and daily experience of the members of the public. If this does not happen, then the elites’ concept of the public goods may not address the concerns of the public at all, and it may even worsen their anxieties and sense of rootlessness. Progressively liberal legislation relating to intimate interpersonal relationships, for example, may well be at the leading edge of liberalization, but these laws are prone to be experienced by the public as a source of further destabilization of families. Such legislation is therefore likely to exacerbate the public condition of social dislocation and the perceptions of insecurity. Likewise, the issues of immigration by foreign workseekers and the problem of AIDS (and tuberculosis) are not purely economic and health issues, these have to be recognized as root causes of social turmoil that drive existential insecurity.

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One way of raising elite empathy with the public is to make the elites more accountable to the public. Political elites make use of the democratic institution of elections available to them. However, there is a long-standing argument that elections in South Africa fail to produce fully accountable representatives. It is argued that the national electoral system based on a national and provincial party list proportional representation (PR) system is weak in this regard, because in this system it is the party leaders who control the lists that determine which individuals should take up the seats won by the parties. With no geographic constituency base, the voters cannot effectively exercise leverage on any individual representative from any party. The balance of opinion, therefore, is in favor of electoral system reform and tends to prefer a mixed-member proportional system (MMP), similar to that of Germany, combining geographic constituencies with a national party list so as to ensure both proportional outcomes and constituency-level accountability.20 Whether such electoral system reform alone will be adequate is open to doubt. In the perceptive analysis of local government failure cited above, the author remarked that, at the local level at least, “electoral behaviour is not based on service delivery and that elections do not function as ‘quality control mechanisms.’ ”21 This conclusion was reached against the background of an analysis of street protests in 2004 and 2005 followed by the local government elections of 2006. The relevant point here is that the ANC, whose members were the incumbents in most local authorities before 2006, was returned with much the same overwhelming support by the electorate after two years of legal and illegal open protest. And this result was obtained through an MMP system, with both party list PR and a constituency-based ward system. This is precisely what is being offered as a remedy to the current ills at the national level elections too. Clearly, much more than electoral system reform is required to overcome the current shortcomings. An additional remedy that seems to be needed is related to effective choice of candidates being made available to the voters through the party system. In a wide-ranging study of South African electoral behavior from 1994 to 2006, Schulz-Herzenberg found that the party system generates very few floating voters. She found that although voters may withdraw support from ruling parties because of poor governance, they are unlikely to reallocate their vote to another party. The reasons for this, she finds, are centered on party image, because all opposition parties are deemed worse options than the incumbents. As long as these images prevail, she concludes, the ruling party will be shielded from defeat and voter dissatisfaction will likely be directed against the system of democracy itself.22 Again, we are not in a position to make specific recommendations, and we can only point to the need for institutional reform to bridge the gap between elites and the public in South Africa.

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205

Conclusion A peaceful society is one that is infused with the values of liberal modernity. These values tend to be stable under the benign conditions of high affluence that is relatively equally spread among all members of society and acquired through the urban sedentary service economies of globally embedded industrial and postindustrial capitalist societies. In Third Wave democracies at the edge of inclusion into these ranks of stable, liberal, democratic, and peaceful societies, such benign conditions have to be created, because these countries invariably have suffered long years of civil strife. The so-called peace dividend is key to the emergence of these conditions. A peace dividend, in turn, can only be expected from successful regime transition after previous authoritarian structures are dismantled and replaced with democratic constitutional rules through which new representatives are elected into positions of power. South Africa, as described in this book, has succeeded admirably in its structural change to a new, democratic regime. A peace dividend did accrue as a result of this change, but this dividend was unevenly distributed, with clear winners and clear losers. There were some liberal values and attitudes that resulted from this structural change, while some others remained less than liberal. It is our hypothesis that such uneven liberalization is the function of the inability of the peace dividend to affect enough lives, which would have effectively diminished their existential insecurity and replaced it with material, social, and psychological conditions that are beneficial and benign. For many South Africans, constitutionally guaranteed freedom has yet to be infused with dignity. All democracies are prone to the degeneration and erosion of structures (into hybrid regimes, for example) and/or social values and attitudes (into illiberal societies). These can result from unintended and/or unanticipated consequences. Continued existential insecurity may induce such consequences when clusters of dispositions previously favorable to peaceful social relations become factors that fuel social conflict. We can identify one such potentially problematic policy area by way of illustration. One of the most strongly held positive factors for securing the democratized state, as per our argument, is the very low tolerance for free riding. But under sustained experience of insecurity generated by foreign migrants entering the South African labor market, which has not yet been effectively dealt with, this may lead to other adverse consequences. If foreign migrants are singled out as illegitimate free riders by the insecure South Africans, then the attitudes of low tolerance may fuel intense hostility rather than buttress peaceful relations. When other domestic racial, regional, or social minorities are identified likewise as unworthy

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beneficiaries of public goods, then they become the targets and the conflict may spiral in another direction. Awareness of both the liberal and illiberal threads of values among the public, how they can become entangled, and the need for policy measures that effectively deal with their experience of multifaceted existential insecurity are key to expanding the liberal space in South Africa’s democracy.

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Technical Appendix: Technical and Methodological Notes and Explanation

Chapter 1 Composition of the Elite and Public Samples Elite Samples The tables below provide an overview of the number of sectors and number of respondents within each sector for the various elite surveys. Unless expressly stated, the combined percentage of elites in all the sectors is presented for each wave. Although the same sectors were not used in each survey and thus direct comparisons within the elite sectors are not possible, the percentages of the elites as a whole provide a good overview of changing elite trends since 1990. It should however be stressed that generalizations should not be made to the trends in the broader South African public based on the results from an opinion-leader survey.

Public Samples IPSOS-Markinor conducted face-to-face interviews in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, and Xhosa. People in the sample interviewed included those aged 16 years and older, but none of the first four surveys used a fully representative national sample. For the first three waves the sample was organized along race lines. From the start, the White sample was large and nationally representative. But the Colored and Indian samples were small and confined to Cape Town and Durban, respectively. The Black samples were especially limited in the first two waves, comprising just 600 people in certain metropolitan areas (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, and East London) in 1981. In 1990 this sample comprised 600 people living in all major metropolitan areas and 500 people living in the so-called homelands. In 1995 the Black sample was more representative and comprised people from nine of the country’s new provinces and comprised 600 people from the major urban centers and 500 people from rural areas. Only in 2001 did the

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208 Table A1

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Classification of elite sectors, 1991–1998

Elite sector

1991 N

1992

%

1993 %

1994

N

%

N

N

16.1 164 7.2 70 14.5 104 9.3 74 7.1 74 7.4 104

16.4 7.0 10.4 7.4 7.4 10.4

115 – 100 106 – 87

25.5 – 22.2 23.5 – 19.3

153 36 83 82 51 –

%

1995 N

%

1998 N

%

Parliament Media Civil service Business Church Extraparliamentary Agriculture Labor unions Academia Military Right-wing National organizations Local politicians Codesa Provincial government SAPS

163 73 147 94 72 75

26.0 124 21.3 114 23.9 6.1 33 5.7 33 6.9 14.1 98 16.8 90 18.9 13.9 85 14.6 64 13.4 8.7 58 9.9 – – – – 17 3.6

TOTAL

1011 100 999 100 451 100 588 100 583 100 477 100

65 35 94 – – 51

6.4 3.5 9.3 – – 5.0

51 23 74 43 56 –

5.1 – 2.3 – 7.4 – 4.3 – 5.6 43 – –

– – – – 9.5 –

48 – 47 44 44 –

77 – –

7.6 – –

59 49 –

5.9 4.9 –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – 28

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

57 11.9

–

8.2 – 8.0 7.5 7.5 –

52

8.9 – – – 50 10.5 50 8.6 – – 35 6.0 24 5.0 48 8.2 – – – – – –

sample begin to approximate a nationally representative sample that included all race groups. For the first time, the sample was representative of urban as well as rural populations, with 60 percent of the sample from the metropolitan centers and 40 percent from towns, villages, and rural areas. The sample size for each wave of the South African leg of the WVS is tabulated below. In 2006, however, probability samples were drawn, with all South Africans aged 16 years and older having an equal chance of being selected. The sample was stratified into homogenous subgroups defined by province, gender, race, and community size. Since the sample was weighted to the full population and within a statistical margin of error of less than 2 percent at 95 percent confidence level, it was representative of the adult population of South Africa at that time.

Description of Independent Variables Race The South African population is categorized into four race groups for the purpose of this study: “Black,” “White,” “Colored,” and “Indian.” The decision to

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– – 5.9

Table A2

Classification of elite sectors, 2000–2007

Elite sector

2000

Composition of sample

2002

2007

N

%

N

%

N

%

103

26.2

–

–

100

33.0

Parliament

A selection of randomly sampled members of the National Assembly

Media

Managers, editors, senior journalists, and parliamentary correspondents of the print and electronic media

39

9.9

49

8.7

51

16.8

Civil service

Selected senior officials in government departments

63

16.0

98

17.3

51

16.8

Business

CEOs and directors from top South African companies

54

13.7

91

16.1

51

16.8

Churches

Executive members of South Africa’s largest churches

21

5.3

42

8.7

50

16.5

Agriculture

Executive members of national and regional agricultural unions

9

2.3

–

–

–

–

Trade unions Most senior members of COSATU and its affiliates

42

10.7

50

8.8

–

–

NGOs

Top managers and researchers in the NGO sector

62

15.8

84

14.8

–

–

Academia

Selected senior academics from various tertiary institutions and analysts

–

–

77

13.6

–

–

Politicians

Selected local, provincial, and national politicians

–

–

64

11.3

–

–

Other

–

–

10

1.8

–

–

Not classified

–

–

1

0.2

–

–

393

100

566

100

303

100

TOTAL

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DEMOCRACY AND PEACE IN SOUTH A FRICA Table A3

Sample sizes of WVS in South Africa, 1981–2006 Year

Wave 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

917

2736

2899

3000

3000

N

Table A4 Race categories of public samples, 1981–2006 Year

Race 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006


64.9 21.5 11.0 2.6

63.9 21.5 11.6 2.9

73.3 15.8 8.4 2.6

72.5 13.7 10.4 3.5

80.3 10.8 6.9 2.0

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100

use this categorization was reached because these terms had been used for the original categories used in the WVS questionnaire itself.

Social Class Social class is the second major independent variable used throughout this study. The WVS contains an item that reads: “People sometimes describe themselves as belonging to the working class, the middle class, or the upper or the lower class. Which would you describe yourself as belonging to?” However, this item is subjective and the responses will be relative to each respondent’s own reality. Past experience has taught us that self-reported social status is often biased. For these reasons the social class variable used in this study is based on the construction of an index comprising no fewer than 30 items on a living standards measure (LSM).

Social Class Measure Q: “The following questions are of a personal nature but the information is only going to be used for noting different trends in different parts of the country. Your name will never be related to your answers or given to anybody else. Could you please tell me which of the following, if any, you have in your house?” • Electricity, tap water provided in the house or on the plot, motor car in running order, domestic worker (part or full-time), dishwashing liquid,

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flush toilet in house/on plot, hot running water from a geyser, microwave oven, combined fridge/freezer or refrigerator, freestanding deep freezer, vacuum cleaner/floor polisher, electricity, washing machine, tumble dryer, durable items bought on credit in last 12 months, television set, hi-fi/music centre, access to the Internet on your PC at home, personal computer/laptop at home, access to cellular phone at home, M-Net subscription, DStv/Multichoice decoder, built-in kitchen sink, dishwasher, hotplate, electric stove, sewing machine, video cassette/VCR, home security service, DVD player.

Social Class Recode In constructing the social class index, the 30 items were added together and it produced a score of 0–30. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into three categories: (1) – lower class [0–18], (2) – middle class [19–25], and (3) – upper class [26–30].

Religion Religion in general and churches in particular play an important role in political socialization; furthermore, the diversity of cultural identity in South Africa is replicated in church, religion, and theology. South Africa is considered to be a very religious country, with more than three-quarters of the population having indicated that they are affiliated with a Christian religion (79.8 percent) and 83.6 percent with religion in general, according to the national Census 2001.

Religiousness Measure Instead of using the standard measure of religious affiliation—whether a respondent belongs to a religious denomination or not—and religious Table A5

Social class and race matrix, 2006 (public sample) Race

Social class

Black White Colored Indian TOTAL Lower class

% within social class % within race Middle class % within social class % within race Upper class % within social class % within race

91.3 94.8 29.3 5.1 4.3 0.1

2.3 17.4 46.8 60.1 87.4 22.4

5.3 64.0 17.6 35.5 1.3 0.5

1.1 46.3 6.3 44.0 6.9 9.7

100 83.3 100 13.9 100 2.8

TOTAL

80.3 100

10.8 100

6.9 100

2.0 100

100 100

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% within social class % within race

212


Table A6

Religiosity of public samples (1981–2006) and elite sample (2007) Year

Religiosity 1981

1990

1995

2001

2006

2007

Religious Not religious Atheist

72.6 18.3 9.1

83.3 13.5 3.1

80.5 17.8 1.7

79.7 17.4 2.8

81.3 17.5 1.2

81.1 16.2 2.7

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

100

100

attendance, we decided to use the following measure: Q: “Independently of whether you attend religious services or not, would you say you are ‘a religious person,’ ‘not a religious person,’ or ‘an atheist’?”

Chapter 3 Confidence in State and Non-State Institutions Building State Institutions and Civil Society Indexes The church, legal system, civil service, and major companies had factor loadings on both factors; however, it was decided that church and major companies Table A7

Factor analysis on state and non-state institutions, 1981

State and nonstate institutions

Church Armed forces Legal system Press Labor unions Police Parliament Civil service Major companies

Component Factor 1: State institutions 0.368 0.794 0.571 0.099 0.079 0.856 0.843 0.713 0.456

Notes: Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser normalization.

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Factor 2: Civil society 0.215 0.009 0.533 0.819 0.811 0.182 0.240 0.428 0.604

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would load on factor 2, whereas the legal system and civil service would load on factor 1. This decision was based on the principle of construct validity.

Reliability of Confidence Indexes • The Alpha scores for the state institutions index for the elite are as follows: 0.693 (2000); 0.694 (2002); 0.733 (2007). • The Alpha scores for the civil society index for the elite are as follows: 0.236 (2000); 0.244 (2002); 0.483 (2007). • The Alpha scores for the state institutions index for the public are as follows: 0.870 (1981); 0.802 (1990); 0.787 (1995); 0.688 (2001); 0.799 (2006). • The Alpha scores for the civil society index for the public are as follows: 0.666 (1981); 0.603 (1990); 0.618 (1995); 0.506 (2001); 0.573 (2006).

Protest Propensity • Reliability of “Legal” and “Illegal” Protest Indexes • The Alpha score for the “legal” protest index for the public is 0.791. • The Alpha score for the “legal” protest index for the elites is 0.783. • The Alpha score for the “illegal” protest index for the public is 0.687.

Chapter 5 Tolerance Building the Five Tolerance Indexes It was found that the “homosexuals” item loaded on two factors—lifestyle outsiders (0.685) and permissive outsiders (0.276)—and it has been included in both indexes. In terms of the criteria of construct validity, both can be justified: homosexuals can be considered “different” not only in terms of their sexual preference (hence, lifestyle outsiders) but also in the fact that their “differences” are widely disapproved in South Africa (and therefore they are permissive outsiders).

Free-Rider Tolerance Index In constructing the free-rider tolerance index, the four items produced a score of 4–8. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into

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Table A8

Factor analysis on first battery of tolerance indicators, 2006

Tolerance indicators: battery 1

Component Factor 1: Free-rider

Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled Avoiding paying fare on public transport Cheating on your taxes if you had the chance Someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties Homosexuality Prostitution Abortion Divorce Euthanasia Suicide

Factor 2: Permissiveness

0.855

0.173

0.840 0.825 0.809

0.259 0.323 0.360

0.259 0.383 0.288 0.058 0.306 0.432

0.740 0.770 0.788 0.790 0.662 0.672


Table A9

Factor analysis on second battery of tolerance indicators, 2006

Tolerance indicators: battery 2

People of a different race Immigrants/foreign workers Heavy drinkers Drug addicts Homosexuals People who have AIDS

Component Factor 1: Factor 2: Cultural outsider Lifestyle outsider 0.697

–0.042

0.072

0.727

0.054

–0.092

0.100 –0.257 0.283 0.070

0.259 0.727 0.685 0.220

–0.674 –0.263 0.276 0.714


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Factor 3: Permissive outsider

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five responses: (1) – very tolerant [8]; (2) – fairly tolerant [7]; (3) – neutral [6]; (4) – fairly intolerant [5]; and (5) – very intolerant [4].

Permissiveness Tolerance Index In constructing the permissiveness tolerance index, the six items produced a score range of 6–12. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into five responses: (1) – very tolerant [12], (2) – fairly tolerant [10 + 11], (3) – neutral [9], (4) – fairly intolerant [7 + 8], and (5) – very intolerant [6].

Cultural Outsider Tolerance Index In constructing the cultural outsider tolerance index, the two items produced a score range of 2–4. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into three responses: (1) – very tolerant [2], (2) – partially tolerant/ intolerant [3], and (3) – very intolerant [4].

Lifestyle Outsider Tolerance Index In constructing the lifestyle outsider tolerance index, the three items produced a score of 3–6. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into four responses: (1) – very tolerant [3], (2) – fairly tolerant [4], (3) – fairly intolerant [5], and (4) – very intolerant [6].

Permissive Outsider Tolerance Index In constructing the permissive outsider tolerance index, the two items produced a score of 2–4. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into three responses: (1) – very tolerant [2], (2) – partially tolerant/ intolerant [3], and (3) – very intolerant [4].

Reliability of Tolerance Indexes • The Alpha score for the free-rider tolerance index for the elite in 2007 is 0.811. • The Alpha score for the permissiveness tolerance index for the elite in 2007 is 0.875. • The Alpha scores for the free-rider index for the public are as follows: 0.797 (1981); 0.796 (1990); 0.793 (1995); 0.834 (2001); 0.901 (2006). • The Alpha scores for the permissiveness tolerance index for the public are as follows: 0.854 (1981); 0.829 (1990); 0.801 (1995); 0.796 (2001); 0.876 (2006). • The Alpha scores for the cultural outsider tolerance index for the public are as follows: 0.365 (1995); 0.517 (2001); 0.191 (2006).

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• The Alpha scores for the lifestyle outsider tolerance index for the public are as follows: 0.518 (1995); 0.458 (2001); 0.126 (2006). • The Alpha scores for the permissive outsider tolerance index for the public are as follows: 0.500 (1995); 0.314 (2001); 0.149 (2006).

Gender Equality Building a Gender Equality Index The gender equality index includes all six items that measure attitudes toward gender equality from the WVS questionnaire. All the six items were recoded into two categories: equal and not equal.

Gender Equality Index In constructing the gender equality index, the six items produced a score of 6–12. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and relabelled into four responses: (1) – no support [6], (2) – low support [1 + 2], (3) – medium support [3 + 4], and (4) – high support [5 + 6].

Reliability of Gender Equality Index The Alpha score for the gender equality tolerance index for the public in 2006 was 0.605.

Chapter 6 Religious Threat Building a Religious Threat Index The two items used in constructing the religious threat measure produced a score of 2–10. In order to facilitate analysis, the measure was recoded and relabelled into three responses: (1) – low perception of threat [8–10], (2) – moderate perception of threat [5–7], and (3) – high perception of threat [2–4].

Reliability of Religious Threat Measure • The Alpha scores for the religious threat measure for the public in 2006 was 0.790.

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Building a Religious Policy Support Measure The response categories were collapsed and recoded as follows: • Low perception of threat = “disagree” + “strongly disagree” • Moderate perception of threat = “neither agree nor disagree” • High perception of threat = “agree” + “strongly agree”

Religiousness Building a Religiousness Index The religiousness index includes the four items from Tables 6.1 to 6.4 that measured attitudes toward religiousness from the WVS questionnaire. The items were recoded and relabelled as follows: 1. Religious attendance • Religious [7] = “more than once a week” • Fairly religious [6] = “once a week” • Religious to moderate [5] = “once a month” • Moderate [4] = “only on special holy days” • Moderate to secular [3] = “once a year” • Fairly secular [2] = “less than once a year” • Secular [1] = “never/practically never” 2. Degree of religiousness • Religious = “a religious person” • Secular = “not a religious person” + “an atheist” 3. Prevalence of prayer mediation • Religious = “yes” • Secular = “no” 4. Importance of god • Secular [1] = 1 + 2 • Fairly secular [2] = 3 • Moderate-secular [3] = 4 • Moderate [4] = 5 + 6 • Moderate-religious [5] = 7 • Fairly religious [6] = 8 • Religious [7] = 9 + 10

Religiosity Index Recode The four items used in constructing the religiousness index produced a score range of 4–28. In order to facilitate analysis, the index was recoded and

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relabelled into two responses: (1) – secular [4 – 16], and (2) – religious [17 – 28].

Reliability of Religiosity Index • The Alpha score for the religiousness index for the public in 2006 was 0.718.

Chapter 8 Description of Multivariate Statistical Procedures Classification and Regression Tree (CART) Analysis CART analysis is a tree-building technique that is unlike traditional data analysis methods and is ideally suited to the generation of clinical decision rules. CART analysis consists of four basic steps. 1. The first step consists of tree-building, during which a tree is built using recursive splitting of nodes. Each resulting node is assigned a predicted class on the basis of the distribution of classes in the learning data set that would occur in that node and the decision cost matrix. The assignment of a predicted class to each node occurs whether or not that node is subsequently split into child nodes. 5. 2. The second step consists of stopping the tree-building process. At this point a “maximal” tree has been produced, which probably greatly over-fits the information contained within the learning data set. 6. 3. The third step consists of tree “pruning,” which results in the creation of a sequence of simpler and simpler trees, through the cutting off of increasingly important nodes. 4. The fourth step consists of optimal tree selection, during which a tree that fits the information in the learning data set, but does not over-fit the information, is selected from among the sequence of pruned trees. In the most general terms, the purpose of analyses via tree-building algorithms is to determine a set of if-then logical (split) conditions that permit accurate prediction or classification of cases. CART analysis has a number of advantages over other classification methods, including multivariate logistic regression. First, it is inherently nonparametric. In other words, no assumptions are made regarding the underlying distribution of values of the predictor variables. Thus, CART can handle numerical data that are highly skewed or multimodal, as well as

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categorical predictors with either ordinal or non-ordinal structure. CART also identifies “splitting” variables based on an exhaustive search of all possibilities. Since efficient algorithms are used, CART is able to search all possible variables as splitters, even in problems with many hundreds of possible predictors. CART also has sophisticated methods for dealing with missing variables. Another advantage of CART analysis is that it is a relatively automatic “machine learning” method. In other words, compared to the complexity of the analysis, relatively little input is required from the analyst. This is in marked contrast to other multivariate modelling methods, in which extensive input from the analyst, analysis of interim results, and subsequent modification of the method are required. Finally, CART trees are relatively simple for nonstatisticians to interpret; clinical decision rules based on trees are more likely to be feasible and practical since the structure of the rule and its inherent logic are apparent to the clinician. Despite its many advantages, there are a number of disadvantages of CART that should be kept in mind. First, CART analysis is relatively new and somewhat unknown. Thus there may be some resistance to accepting CART analysis among traditional statisticians. In addition, there is some well-founded skepticism regarding tree methodologies in general, based on unrealistic claims and poor performance of earlier techniques. And because CART is not a standard analysis technique, it is not included in many major statistical software packages (e.g., SAS and SPSS).

Regression Analysis Regression analysis is one of the most commonly used statistical techniques in social and behavioral sciences. Regression analysis is the statistical technique that identifies the relationship between two or more quantitative variables: a dependent variable, whose value is to be predicted, and an independent or explanatory variable (or variables), about which knowledge is available. The technique is used to find the equation that represents the relationship between the variables. A simple regression analysis can show that the relation between an independent variable X and a dependent variable Y is linear, using the simple linear regression equation. Multiple regression will provide an equation that predicts one variable from two or more independent variables. Simply put, regression analysis is used to understand the statistical dependence of one variable on other variables and can show what proportion of variance between variables is attributable to the dependent variable, and what proportion is attributable to the independent variables. Often there will be many possible explanatory variables in the data set; by using a stepwise regression process, these explanatory variables can be considered one at a time. The variable that explains most variation in the dependent variable will be added to the model at each step. The process will stop when the addition of an extra variable will make no significant improvement in the

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amount of variation explained. The amount of variation in the dependent variable that is accounted for by variation in the predictor variables is measured by the value of the coefficient of determination, often called R2 adjusted. The closer this is to 1 the better, because if R2 adjusted is 1 then the regression model would be accounting for all the variation in the outcome variable. As with any other statistical procedure, regression analysis has a number of strengths. First, regression analysis provides an opportunity to specify hypotheses concerning the nature of effects as well as explanatory factors. Second, when it is successfully executed (with a statistically valid adjustment), regression analysis can produce a quantitative estimate of net effects. There are, however, limitations to this approach as well, as regression analysis is likely to reach the conclusion that there is a strong link between two variables, whereas the influence of other, more important, variables may not have been estimated. Second, relations between the different explained and explanatory variables are often circular (X explains Y and Y explains X), and, lastly, the observations must present sufficiently contrasted evolutions to allow for adjustment.

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Notes

1 Introduction 1. Nelson Mandela, State of the Nation Address, Cape Town: Houses of Parliament, May 24, 1994, mimeo. Available online at www.info.gov. za/speeches/1994/170595002.htm. Downloaded on March 1, 2010. © GCIS2004: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Used with permission. 2. Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy 13, 1 (January 2002): 5–21, 10, 11. 3. Roger Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace. The Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Processes and Peace Accords (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 43 (emphasis added). It must be emphasized that Mac Ginty takes a highly critical view of this proposition. In his overview of current thinking and policymaking with regard to peace processes, he discerns many flaws and concludes that few such peace initiatives are likely to yield the desired outcome. 4. Pierre van den Berghe, South Africa, a Study in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1965. 5. J.C. Smuts, “Letter to S.G. Millin,” in Jean van Der Poel (ed.), Selections from the Smuts Papers, vol. VII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 866. 6. Robert Mattes, “South Africa: Democracy without the People,” Journal of Democracy 13, 1 (January 2002): 22–36, is a good scholarly account of the state of democracy in South Africa after the first ten years. For a critical review of the last fifteen years, consult R.W. Johnson, South Africa’s Brave New World. The Beloved Country Since the End of Apartheid (London: Allen Lane, 2009). 7. Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace, 24. 8. Some of the more prominent studies are listed in chapter 3. 9. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97, 1 (2003): 75–90. 10. This list is drawn from Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), ch. 1, 1–42. 11. R.J. Rummel, Power Kills. Democracy as a Method of Non-Violence (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), 91–98.

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12. According to Oskamp, a value is a highly regarded “life-goal or standard of behavior for a person—a standard toward which the individual has a strong positive attitude.” Values are ends rather than means, and they shape many other attitudes and beliefs held by an individual. Attitudes comprise three components. First, there is a cognitive aspect, being the ideas and beliefs about a particular attitude object; second, an affective component, comprising emotions (feelings) toward the said object; and third, a behavioral component, containing an action orientation toward the object. See Stuart Oskamp, Attitudes and Opinions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977), 10–14. See also J.W. van Deth and E. Scarborough (eds.), The Impact of Values (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 13. A regime comprises a specific set of institutions within a state. It consists of the values, norms, rules, and procedures as well as structures of authority that shape the ordering of power within and between the different organizations that comprise the state. Typical components of a regime are constitutional rules, parliaments, electoral systems, executives, and legislatures. Non-regime components of states typically comprise state bureaucracies such as the courts of law, police, military, tax agencies, and service bureaucracies. See Robert A. Fishman, “Rethinking State and Regime; Southern Europe’s Transition to Democracy,” World Politics 42 (April 1990): 422–440. One of the indicators of a healthy democracy is then that the institutions of state and regime can be clearly distinguished. In some long-standing authoritarian regimes, however, regime values and norms can become so pervasive that they seep into the organization and operating ethos of state agencies. This blurs the distinction between the two and, as in the case of South Africa, it then becomes appropriate to talk of the apartheid state and not only of the apartheid regime. In fully totalitarian systems the state/regime distinction falls away completely. 14. Edward Shils, “The Virtue of Civil Society,” Government and Opposition 26 (Winter 1991): 3–20. 15. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy, Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 128. 16. Consult the Technical Appendix for the changing composition of the positional elites during the course of South Africa’s democratic transition. 17. More information available on the World Values Survey Web site. Available online at www.worldvaluessurvey.org. 18. See www.ipsos-markinor.co.za. 19. Download at www.worldvaluessurvey.org. 20. Random sampling was used in the 2007 survey as past experience has shown that it is virtually impossible to reach all those individuals holding top positions within parliament (that is, cabinet ministers and deputy ministers) for an interview. 21. The positional approach has been the most widely used in determining national elite samples. It is the easiest to apply in practice, since it neither presupposes, judges, nor requires lengthy decisional studies. Starting out from a list of elite sectors, the researcher proceeds to select the most important organizations within each sector. In a third step the top positions within each

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organization have to be determined. The current incumbents of these positions are then finally considered as members of the elite. Hoffmann-Lange, U., “Surveying National Elites in the Federal Republic of Germany,” in Moyser, G. and Wagstaffe, M. (eds.), Research Methods for Elite Studies (Loughton, Essex: Billings and Sons Ltd., 1987), 27–47. 22. The 2001 elite study identified eight key sectors, namely, Parliament, Civil Service, Business, Media, Trade Unions, Nongovernmental Organizations, Churches, and Agriculture. See the Technical Appendix.

2 Democratization, Liberalization, and Pacification 1. R.J. Rummel, Power Kills. Democracy as a method of nonviolence (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), 23. 2. For general critical overviews of findings and summaries of both agreements and points of disagreement among scholars in this field, see James Lee Ray, Democracy and International Conflict. An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995). See also Steve Chan, “In Search of Democratic Peace: Problems and Promise,” Mershon International Studies Review 41 (1997): 59–91; James Lee Ray, “Does Democracy Cause Peace?,” Annual Review of Political Science 1 (1998): 27–46; and James Lee Ray, “The Democratic Path to Peace,” Journal of Democracy 8, 2 (April 1997): 49–64. 3. Fred Chernoff, “The Study of Democratic Peace and Progress in International Relations,” International Studies Review 6 (2004): 49–77; Nils Peter Gleditsch, “Democracy and Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 29, 4 (1992): 369–376. 4. Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace. Principles for a Post- Cold War World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch. 4, 72–98. 5. Bruce Russett and John ONeal, Triangulating Peace. Democracy, Interdependence and International Organisations (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), 93. 6. Rummel, Power Kills, 51–61. 7. Ibid., 85–89. 8. Matthew Krain and Marissa Edson Myers, “Democracy and Civil War: A Note on the Democratic Peace Proposition,” International Interactions 23, 1 (1997): 109–118. 9. Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, “Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946–92,” Journal of Peace Research 37, 3 (2000): 275–299. 10. For a list of such wars up to 1986, see Michael W. Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics,” American Political Science Review 80, 4 (December 1986): 1151–1169, 1165, 1166. 11. Russet and ONeal, Triangulating Peace. 12. Hans Reis (ed.), Kant’s Political Writings, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

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NOTES

13. Other authoritative measures are the Polity IV set of indicators developed by Ted Robert Gurr and colleagues, the data set established by Tatu Vanhanen, and the measures developed by Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi. All four of these data sets are compared and analyzed in Pippa Norris, Driving Democracy, Do Power- Sharing Institutions Work? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 14. The full set of criteria can be found online at www.freedomhouse.org. 15. Arch Puddington, “The 2008 Freedom House Survey: A Third Year of Decline,” Journal of Democracy 20, 3 (April 2009): 93–107. 16. Freedom House applies the following definition: “To qualify as an electoral democracy, a state must have satisfied the following criteria”: A competitive, multiparty political system; Universal adult suffrage for all citizens (with exceptions for restrictions that states may legitimately place on citizens as sanctions for criminal offenses); Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and in the absence of massive voter fraud, and that yield results that are representative of the public will; Significant public access of major political parties to the electorate through the media and through generally open political campaigning. Available online at www.freedomhouse.org. Downloaded on March 30, 2009. 17. Rummel, Power Kills, 9. 18. These two arguments are well summarized in Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, 30–42. 19. Rummel, Power Kills, p. 134. 20. John M. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security 19, 2 (1984): 87–125; Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics”; Rummel, Power Kills, 137–152; Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, 30–41, 80–93. 21. Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, 31. The logic underlying cooperation by free agents over conflict and confrontation is spelt out in the work of Robert Axelrod on the iterated prisoner’s Dilemma, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984). See also Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Co- operation (New York: Viking, 1996). For the construction of institutions of cooperation in such conditions, see Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons, The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 22. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy. Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 37. 23. Ibid. 24. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” 93. 25. Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), ch. 16, 587–609. 26. On the importance of levels of development for the liberal peace, see also Havard Hegre, “Development and the Liberal Peace: What Does it Take to be a Trading State?,” Journal of Peace Research 37, 1 (2000). 5–30;

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27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

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Michael Mousseau, “Market Prosperity, Democratic Consolidation, and the Democratic Peace,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44, 4 (August 2000): 472– 507; Michael Mousseau, Havard Hegre, and John ONeal, “How the Wealth of Nations Conditions the Liberal Peace,” European Journal of International Relations 9, 2 (2003): 277–314. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 87. Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values,” American Sociological Review 65 (February 2000): 19–51. Martin van Creveld, The Culture of War (New York: Balantine books, 2008). Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 157–191. Van Creveld, The Culture of War, ch. 20; van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 179–187. It has been argued that the very presence of large numbers of such “surplus” males within the populations of China and India holds significant implications for international security and domestic stability in these countries, with implications for the expansion of the liberal democratic zone of peace. See Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, Bare Branches. The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population (London: The MIT Press, 2005). Gat, War in Human Civilization, 594. Ibid., pp. 609–618. See Dahl, Polyarchy, Table 10.1, 203, for a summary. Ibid., 47. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 3, 4. For a review of the earlier interpretations of this wave of regime change and its relevance to the democratic peace thesis, see Ray, Democracy and International Conflict, ch. 2, 47–84. Ibid., 31–108. Huntington, The Third Wave, 121–163. Ibid., 151, 152. This perspective has yielded a large body of important theoretical and empirical findings, much of policy relevance, derived from comparative studies of peace processes. See Peter Harris and Ben Reilly (eds.), Democracy and DeepRooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators (Stockholm: International Idea, 1998); John Darby and Roger Mac Ginty (eds.), Contemporary Peacemaking, Conflict, Peace Processes and Post-War Reconstruction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) second edition; H. Miall, O. Ramsbottom, and T. Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005). Some of the standard works in this very large field are by Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies. A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Timothy D. Sisk,

226

44.

45.

46. 47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

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NOTES Power- Sharing and International mediation in Ethnic Conflicts (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996); Andrew Reynolds (ed.), The Architecture of Democracy. Constitutional Design, Conflict Management and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Sid Noel (ed.) From Power- Sharing to Democracy. Post- Conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005); Pippa Norris, Driving Democracy. Do Power- Sharing Institutions Work? Arguably the most influential in this regard were the analyses collected in the volume edited by Guillermo O’Donnell, Phillipe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Prospects for Democracy (London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). One of the earliest and influential presentations of the importance of processes of transition is by Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics 2, 3 (April 1970): 337–363. Phillipe C. Schmitter, “The Proto-Science of Consolidology; Can it Improve the Outcome of Contemporary Efforts at Democratization?,” Politikon, South African Journal of Political Studies 21, 2 (December 1994): 15–27, 24, 25. Ibid., 25. Roger Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace. The Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Processes and Peace Accords (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 43. Mac Ginty’s book takes a highly critical look at this proposition. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace. Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping, New York: United Nations, January 31, 1992, Para. 59. A summary of UN peace operations can be found in Paul F. Diehl, Peace Operations (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008). See also Russett and ONeal, Triangulating Peace, 200–211. For critical accounts, see the work of Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace; Mac Ginty and Richmond (eds.), The Liberal Peace and Post-War Reconstruction, Myth or Reality (New York: Routledge, 2009). See also Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey (eds.), Democracy, Liberalism and War, Rethinking the Democratic Peace Debate (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001). Influential in this regard are Roland Paris, At War’s End, Building Peace After Civil Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk (eds.), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding. Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (New York: Routledge, 2009). Leo Kuper, “Plural Societies; Perspectives and Problems,” in Leo Kuper and M.G. Smith, (eds.), Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 12. M.G. Smith, The Plural Society in the British West Indies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 81, 82. Ibid., 174. Ibid., xi. S.P. Huntington, 1993 “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs (summer 1993): 22–49; Huntington, S.P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996).

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57. Henry Tajfel and John Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict,” in William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel (eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Monterey: Wadsworth, 1979), 40. 58. Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszcynski, Abraham Rosenblatt, John Burling, Deborah Lyon, Linda Simon, and Elizabeth Pinel, “Why do People Need Self-Esteem? Converging Evidence that Self-Esteem Serves as an Anxiety-Buffering Function,” in Baumeister, Roy, F. (ed.), The Self in Social Psychology (Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 1999), 105–122, 106. 59. Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski, “A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews,” in Marc P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 24 (New York: Academic Press, 1991), 93–159. 60. Peter L. Berger, “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honour,” in Peter L. Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner (eds.), The Homeless Mind – Modernization and Consciousness (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 78–89. 61. Robert Dahl, Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 48–59. See also Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, 71–81. 62. Amy Chua, World on Fire. How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (New York: Random House, 2004), 4. 63. Larry Diamond, “Is The Third Wave Over?” Journal of Democracy 7, 3 (1996): 20–37. 64. Ibid., 35, fn. 19. 65. Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs (November/ December 1997): 22–43; Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom. Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004). 66. Adrian Karatnycky, “The 1998 Freedom House Surveys: The Decline of Illiberal Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 10, 1 (1999): 112–125. 67. Larry Diamond, “Elections Without Democracy: Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,” Journal of Democracy 13, 2 (April 2002): 21–35. See also Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 13, 2 (April 2002): 51–65; Andreas Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” Journal of Democracy 13, 2 (April 2002): 36–50; Nicolas van de Walle, “Africa’s Range of Regimes,” Journal of Democracy 13, 2 (April 2002): 66–80. 68. Ibid., 30, 31, and Table 2. 69. Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy 13, 1 (January 2002): 5–21. 70. Arch Puddington, “The 2007 Freedom House Survey: Is the Tide Turning?,” Journal of Democracy 19, 2 (April 2008): 61–73. See also Charles Tilly, Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 133–137. 71. Pierre Hassner, “Russia’s Transition to Autocracy,” Journal of Democracy 19, 2 (April 2008): 5–15. 72. Ibid., 13, 14.

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3

The State as Guardian?

1. A consistent exception in this regard has been the work of Charles Tilly. The most recent example is found in Charles Tilly, Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 2. Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States – State- Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 4, 5, 20–24, 30–33. We do not measure state strength and state capacity directly, but only gauge the extent of confidence in state institutions, an attitude that has a bearing on state strength and capacity but is not a measure of these variables. Both the concept and empirical measurement of state capacity is well examined by Merilee Grindle, Challenging the State, Crisis and Innovation in Latin America and Africa (New York; Cambridge University Press, 1996). 3. T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa, A Modern History, 3rd ed. (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1987), 214–217; Leonard Thompson, “The Compromise of Union,” in Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, Vol. II, South Africa 1870–1966 (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1975), 325–364, 328; S.B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism? (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1977). Davenport places the civilian casualty levels in the concentration camps at 28,000, while Thompson has a slightly lower figure of 25,000. Both agree on a death rate of 344 per 1000 per annum at the height of the epidemic. This was a pivotal event in the process of state building not only in South Africa but also in Britain. It marked the rise of liberal values among the British public, particularly through the avenues of democratic participation; via the sterling lobbying of Millicent Fawcett and Emily Hobhouse, it shaped the way the British then, and subsequently, had to conduct themselves in war. Liberal criteria for treating civilian noncombatants were increasingly imposed onto the war maker. See Thomas Packenham, The Boer War (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1979), 503–518. 4. Davenport, South Africa – A Modern History, 228–229; Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, From Apartheid to Nation-Building (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1989), 11–12. 5. Francis Wilson and Mamphele Ramphele, Uprooting Poverty – the South African Challenge (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989), 216, 217. 6. Giliomee and Schlemmer, From Apartheid to Nation-Building, 101. 7. Laurine Platzky and Cherryl Walker, The Surplus People – Forced Removals in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985). 8. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States – State- Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World, 4, 5, 30–33. 9. For the evolution of the ideology, strategy, and tactics of the Black resistance to apartheid, see Gail M. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa. The Evolution of an Ideology (London: University of California Press, 1978); Tom Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa after 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983); Leo Kuper, “African Nationalism in South Africa, 1910–1964,” in Monica Wilson

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10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15.

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and Leonard Thompson (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, Vol. II, 1870–1966 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975); Tom Lodge, Bill Nasson, Steven Mufson, Khela Shubane, and Nokwanda Sithole, All, Here and Now: Black politics in South Africa in the 1980s (Cape Town: Ford Foundation – David Philip, 1991). For an insider account of life within the various military formations beyond the South African state in the latter half of the twentieth century, see Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Fighting for a Divided People (Alberton: Galago Books, 2005). For both liberal and non-liberal analyses of the tensions between capitalism and apartheid into the democratic era, see David Yudelman, The Emergence of Modern South Africa. State, Capital and the Incorporation of Organised Labour on the South African Gold Fields, 1902–1939 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1983); Merle Lipton, Capitalism and Apartheid, South Africa 1910–1986 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1986); Stanley Greenberg, Race and State in Capitalist Development, South Africa in Comparative Perspective (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1980); Merle Lipton and Charles Simkins (eds.), State & Market in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1993). Pierre du Toit, State-Building and Democracy in Southern Africa – A Comparative Study of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Pretoria: HSRC Publishers, 1995), 357–364. Anthea Jeffery, People’s War. New Light on the Struggle for South Africa (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2009). Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners – Biography of a People (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2003); Heribert Adam and Hermann Giliomee, The Rise and Crisis of Afrikaner Power (Cape Town: David Philip, 1979). R.J. Rummel, Power Kills. Democracy as a Method of Non-violence (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), 41, 122. For analyses of the negotiated transition, see Vincent T. Maphai, “A Season for Power-Sharing,” Journal of Democracy 7, 1 (January 1996): 67–81; Johannes Rantete, The African National Congress and the Negotiated Settlement in South Africa (Pretoria: JL Van Schaik, 1998); Adam Habib, “The Transition to Democracy in South Africa; A Developing Dynamic Model,” Transformation 27 (1995): 50–73; Courtney Jung and Ian Shapiro, “South Africa’s Negotiated Transition: Democracy, Opposition, and the New Constitutional Order,” Politics and Society 23, 3 (September 1995): 269–308; Timothy D. Sisk, Democratization in South Africa – The Elusive Social Contract (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); Wilmot James and Daria Caliguire, “Renewing Civil Society,” Journal of Democracy 7, 1 (January 1996): 56–66; Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer (eds.), Negotiating South Africa’s Future (Johannesburg: Southern, 1989); Steven Friedman (ed.), The Long Journey, South Africa’s Quest for a Negotiated Settlement (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1993); Steven Friedman and Doreen Atkinson (eds.), The Small Miracle – South Africa’s Negotiated Settlement (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1994); Patti Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle. The end of apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa (London: Viking, 1997).

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16. Botha W. Kruger, Prenegotiation in South Africa (1985–1993): A Phaseological Analysis of the Transitional Negotiations. Unpublished MA thesis, Stellenbosch University, March 1998, 94. 17. Peter Gastrow, Bargaining for Peace. South Africa and the National Peace Accord (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995). 18. Pierre du Toit, South Africa’s Brittle Peace – The Problem of Post- Settlement Violence (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 34, Table 2.1. 19. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 5 (Cape Town: Juta, 1998), 209–210. 20. Bertus de Villiers (ed.), Birth of a Constitution (Kenwyn: Juta, 1994); Murray Faure and Jan-Erik Lane (eds.), South Africa, Designing New Political Institutions (London: Sage, 1996); Lourens du Plessis and Hugh Corder, Understanding South Africa’s Transitional Bill of Rights (Kenwyn: Juta, 1994). 21. Hennie Kotzé and Pierre du Toit, “The State, Civil Society and Democratic Transition in South Africa: A Survey of Elite Attitudes,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 39, 1 (March 1995): 4–26. 22. Friedman and Atkinson, The Small Miracle. 23. The debate within the ANC alliance about the nature of negotiations can be gauged from Alex Mashinini, “People’s War and Negotiations – Are They Fire and Water?,” Sechaba 22, 8 (1988): 25–29; Brenda Stalker, “The Crisis in our Country – a Realistic Political Solution,” Sechaba 22, 5 (May 1988): 19–26; Neil Zumana, “Discussion Article: Revolution or Negotiations?,” Sechaba 23, 4 (April 1988): 26–30; Ronnie Kasrils, “Voice from the Underground: Mass Struggle is the Key,” Work in Progress 27 (January/February 1991): 9–13, at 13; Jeremy Cronin, “The Boat, the Tap, and the Leipzig Way,” African Communist, 3rd Quarter, 1992, 41–54; Joe Slovo, “Negotiations: What Room for Compromise?,” African Communist, 3rd Quarter, 1992, 36–40; Pallo Jordan, “Strategic Debate in the ANC: A Response to Joe Slovo,” African Communist, 4th Quarter, 1992, 7–15; Blade Nzimande, “Let Us Take the People with Us; A Reply to Joe Slovo,” African Communist, 4th Quarter, 1992, 16–28; Harry Gwala, “Negotiations as Presented by Joe Slovo,” African Communist, 4th Quarter, 1992, 24–28; Jeremy Cronin, “Dreaming of the Final Showdown: A Reply to Jordan & Nzimande,” African Communist, 4th Quarter 1992, 38–44; African National Congress, NEC paper, “Negotiations: A Strategic Perspective,” African Communist, 4th Quarter, 1992, 48–53. 24. For a conceptual and empirical analysis of these two dimensions of democracy, see also Robert Mattes and Hermann Thiel, “Consolidation and Public Opinion in South Africa,” Journal of Democracy 9, 1 (January 1998): 95–110; Robert Mattes and Michael Bratton, “Learning About Democracy in Africa: Awareness, Performance, and Experience,” American Journal of Political Science 51, 1 (January 2007): 191–217; Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 235–238. 25. Louwrens Pretorius, “Government by or over the People? The African National Congress’s Conception of Democracy,” Social Identities 12, 6 (November 2006): 745–769.

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26. African National Congress, The State, Property Relations and Social Transformation. A Discussion Paper towards the Alliance Summit. Available online at www.anc.org. Downloaded on October 13, 1998; Hermann Giliomee, James Myburgh, and Lawrence Schlemmer, “Dominant Party Rule, Opposition Parties and Minorities in South Africa,” Democratization 8, 1 (Spring 2001): 161–182. 27. For an explanation on the construction of the index, please see the Technical Appendix. 28. The conceptualization and measurement of social class in South African social research is the subject of intense debate. We choose to make use of an item that is based on the Living Standards Measure used in the World Values Survey. See the Technical Appendix for the coding. See also Carlos GarciaRivero, Pierre du Toit, and Hennie Kotzé, “Tracking the Development of the Middle Class in South Africa,” Politeia 22, 3 (2003): 6–29. 29. L. Pretorius and W.B. Vosloo, “Interest Groups in the Republic of South Africa,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 413 (May 1974): 72–85. 30. This conception of civil society is drawn from Edward Shils, “The Virtue of Civil Society,” Government and Opposition 26 (Winter 1991): 3–20. 31. Lawrence Schlemmer, “Prospects for a Liberal Society in South Africa,” in Jeffrey Butler, Richard Elphick, and David Welsh (eds.), Democratic Liberalism in South Africa, Its History and Prospect (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), 385. 32. For an explanation on the construction of the index, please see the Technical Appendix. 33. Stephanie Schulein, The Relationship between Social Capital and Income Generation amongst Indians in South Africa: An Exploratory and Comparative Study in Post-Apartheid South Africa. MPhil thesis. Stellenbosch University, 2005. 34. See the Technical Appendix for the Cronbach’s alpha measures. 35. Different wordings were utilized in the WVS for three of the items in order to make it more understandable to the public: (A) “One can join any oganisation one likes” was used in the WVS instead of “people have freedom of association” as used in the elite survey. (B) “Everyone has the right to say what they think” was used in the WVS instead of “people have freedom of speech” as used in the elite survey. (C) “People like me can have an influence on government” was used in the WVS instead of “ordinary people have an influence on government” as used in the elite survey. 36. Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Anthea Jeffery, Shaun Mackay, Rory Gallocher, Herma Forgey, and Cheryl Chipps, South Africa Survey 1995/96 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1996), 465. 37. Anthea Jeffery, Bill of Rights Report 1996/97 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997), 38–40. 38. Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Anthea Jeffery, Shaun Mackay, Herma Forgey, Cheryl Chipps, and Terence Corrigan, South Africa Survey 1996/1997 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997), 99.

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NOTES

39. Carole Cooper, Colleen McCall, Robin Hamilton, Isabelle Delvare, John Gray Moonsamy, and Kristine Mueller, Race Relations Survey 1989/90 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1990), 151, 152.

4

Society in Transition: An Overview

1. Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners. Biography of a People (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2003). 2. Ibid., 460, 465. 3. Ibid., 472–474. 4. Ibid., 515–525. 5. L. Pretorius and W.B. Vosloo, “Interest Groups in the Republic of South Africa,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 413 (May 1974): 72–85; Peter Harris, “Interest Groups in the South African Political Process,” in Worrall, D. (ed.), South Africa: Government and Politics (Pretoria: JL van Schaik, 1975), 253–284. 6. Muriel Horrell, Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 1948–1976 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1978), 144–149. 7. Hennie Kotzé and Anneke Greyling, Political Organisations in South Africa, A-Z (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1991), 81–91. 8. Susan Booysen and Hennie Kotzé, “The Political Socialization of Isolation: A Case Study of Afrikaner Student Youth,” Politikon 12, 2 (December 1985): 23–46. 9. Don Pinnock, The Brotherhoods: Street Gangs and State Control in Cape Town (Cape Town: David Philip, 1984). 10. Horrell, Laws Affecting Race Relations, 115–117, 131–132; J.V.O. Reid, “Health,” in Sheila T. van der Horst, and Jane Reid (eds.), Race Discrimination in South Africa – A Review (Cape Town: David Philip, 1981), 127–151, 129. 11. Muriel Horrell, Dudley Horner, Jane Kane-Berman, and Robin Margo, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, January 1973, 66. Used with permission. 12. This aspect of apartheid has been extensively and thoroughly documented in various studies. See Francis Wilson and Mamphela Ramphele, Uprooting Poverty – The South African Challenge (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989); Merle Lipton, Capitalism and Apartheid – South Africa, 1910–1986 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1986); Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, From Apartheid to Nation-Building (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1989). 13. Giliomee, The Afrikaners, 540. 14. Deon Geldenhuys and Hennie Kotzé, “Aspects of Decision-making in South Africa,” Politikon 10, 1 (June 1983): 33–45. 15. A summary of these surveys can be found in Donald L. Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? – Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), ch. 2.

Kotzé

NOTES

233

16. Giliomee, The Afrikaners, 586. 17. Heribert Adam, Modernizing Racial Domination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). 18. Giliomee and Schlemmer, From Apartheid to Nation-Building, ch. 4. 19. Ibid., 123–148. 20. Carole Cooper, Robin Hamilton, Harry Mashabela, Shaun Mackay, Joe Kelly, Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Claire Gordon-Brown, and John Gary Moonsamy, Race Relations Survey 1991/92 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1992), xxiv, xxx. 21. F. van Zyl Slabbert and David Welsh, South Africa’s Options. Strategies for Sharing Power (Cape Town: David Philip, 1979). 22. Lawrence Schlemmer, “Prospects for a Liberal Society in South Africa,” in Jeffrey Butler, Richard Elphick, and David Welsh (eds.), Democratic Liberalism in South Africa, Its History and Prospect (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), 384–398, 385. 23. Ibid., 393 (emphasis in original). 24. Carole Cooper, Robin Hamilton, Harry Mashabela, Shaun Mackay, Joe Kelly, Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Claire Gordon-Brown, and John Gary Moonsamy, Race Relations Survey 1991/92 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1992), 200, 201. 25. Carole Cooper, Robin Hamilton, Harry Mashabela, Shaun Mackay, Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Claire Gordon-Brown, Stuart Murphy, and Coletane Markham, Race Relations Survey 1992/93 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1993), 597, 598. 26. Carole Cooper, Robin Hamilton, Harry Mashabela, Shaun Mackay, Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Claire Gordon-Brown, Stuart Murphy, and Julia Frielinghaus, Race Relations Survey, 1993/94 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1994), 697. 27. Mohamed Sujee, “Deracialisation of Gauteng Schools – A Quantitative Analysis,” in Mokubung Nkomo, Carolyn McKinney, and Linda Chisholm (eds.), Reflections on School Integration (Cape Town: HSRC Publishers, 2004), 43–60, 44–49. 28. The GINI coefficient is a measure of inequality ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates a perfectly equal society where everybody receives identical incomes, and 1 indicates a perfectly unequal society with all the income concentrated in the hands of a single member of that society. 29. John Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 235. 30. Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass, Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006), 306. 31. Frances Stewart, “Policies towards Horizontal Inequalities in Post-Conflict Reconstruction.” Available online at http://www.hicn.org/papers/stewart_ philadelphia.pdf. Downloaded on January 27, 2010. 32. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey, 2007/08, 253. 33. Ibid., 252.

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NOTES

34. Republic of South Africa, The Presidency, Development Indicators 2008, 28. Available online at www.thepresidency.gov.za. Downloaded on July 7, 2009. 35. Ibid., 20, 21. 36. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey, 2007/08, 211, 221. 37. Ibid., 488. 38. Frouwien Bosman, Land Reform: A Contextual Analysis, Cape Town: F.W. De Klerk Foundation, May 2007, 6. 39. Republic of South Africa, The Presidency, Development Indicators 2008, 37. 40. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey, 2007/08, 438, 439. 41. Martin Schonteich, Unshackling the Crime Fighters, Increasing Private Sector Involvement in South Africa’s Criminal Justice System (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1999), 10, 11. 42. Brian Pottinger, The Mbeki Legacy (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2008), 114. 43. Ibid., 114, 121. 44. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08, 562, 566. 45. Pottinger, The Mbeki Legacy, 121. 46. Patrick Burton, Anton du Plessis, Ted Leggett, Antoinette Louw, Duxita Mistry, and Hennie van Vuuren, National Victims of Crime Survey, South Africa 2003, ISS Monograph, No. 101, July 2004, 53; Robyn Pharoah, National Victims of Crime Survey, Overview of Findings, ISS Paper No. 175, December 2008, 7. 47. Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Anthea Jeffery, Herma Forgey, Cheryl Chipps, Terence Corrigan, Thabo Mophuthing, Andrea Helman, and Tamara Dimant, South Africa Survey 1997/98 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1998), 33; Herma Forgey, Anthea Jeffery, Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Cheryl Smith, Terence Corrigan, Thabo Mophuthing, Andrea Helman, Jean Redpath, and Tamara Dimant, South Africa Survey 1999/2000, Millennium Edition (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1999), 59. 48. Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, Dealing with School Violence in South Africa, CJCP Issue Paper, 4 (April 2008); Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, Snapshot results of the CJCP National School Violence Study, CJCP Research Bulletin, 2 (April 2008). 49. Fast Facts, No. 02/2008 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, February 2008), 10. 50. Kane-Berman, South Africa Survey 2007/08, 594. 51. Ibid., 629–631. 52. This statement was made in Parliament on May 29, 1998. Available online at www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/1998/mbek0529/htm. Downloaded on March 1, 2010. 53. Hennie Kotzé, “Culture, Ethnicity and Religion: South African Perceptions of Social Identity,” Johannesburg: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Occasional Papers, April 1997, 12. 54. For Mbeki’s own vision, see Thabo Mbeki, Africa, Define Yourself (Cape Town: Tafelberg/Mafube, 2002). For a critical view, see William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2005).

Kotzé

NOTES

235

55. John Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2004/2005 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2006), 488. Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08, 605. 56. Pottinger, The Mbeki Legacy, 118.

5

Interpersonal Relations: Trust, Tolerance, and Gender

1. Hennie Kotzé and Pierre du Toit, “Civic Tolerance and Religiosity: Elites and Publics Compared,” in Ursula van Beek (ed.), Democracy under Scrutiny (Opladen: Barbara Budrich, 2010), 241–262. 2. Hennie Kotzé and Pierre du Toit, “Civil Society and Democracy,” in Ursula van Beek (ed.), Democracy under Construction, Patterns from four continents (Bloomfield Hills & Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2005), 243–258, 255. Used with permission from the publishers. 3. Ibid., 255, 256. 4. James L. Gibson, “The Paradoxes of Political Tolerance in Processes of Democratization,” Politikon 23, 2 (1996): 5–21; James L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws, Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa – Experiments in Democratic Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Amanda Gouws, “Political Tolerance and Civil Society: The Case of South Africa,” Politikon 20, 1 (1993): 15–31. 5. Gibson and Gouws, Overcoming Intolerance, 49. 6. Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1954), 281. 7. For the coding of these indexes, see the Technical Appendix. 8. For the coding of these three indexes, see the Technical Appendix. 9. Kotzé and Du Toit, “Civic Tolerance and Religiosity,” 241–262. 10. Robyn Pharoah, National Victims of Crime Survey. Overview of Key Findings. ISS Paper No. 175, December 2008. 11. Anthea Jeffery, Bill of Rights Report 1996/97 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997), 41–43. 12. Kotzé and Du Toit, “Civic Tolerance and Religiosity,” 241–262. 13. Ibid., 241–262. 14. Hennie Kotzé, Culture, Ethnicity and Religion; South African Perceptions of Social Identity, Johannesburg: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Occasional Paper, April 1997. 15. James L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws. Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa. 16. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular, Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 148–155. 17. T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa. A Modern History (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1987), 311. 18. For an early treatment of the problematic aspects of bringing African customary law into line with the requirements of the democratic constitution, see T.W.

Kotzé

236

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

30.

Kotzé

NOTES Bennett, Human Rights and African Customary Law under the South African Constitution (Cape Town: Juta, 1995). On the relatively strong legal status of women in the Cape Colony under Dutch rule, see Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners. Biography of a People (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2003), 37, 38. For a review of progress in this field, see Amanda Gouws, “The State of the National Gender Machinery: Structural Problems and Personalised Politics,” in Sakhela Buhlungu, John Daniel, Roger Southall, and Jessica Lutchman, State of the Nation, South Africa 2005–2006 (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2006), 143–166. John Kane-Berman, South Africa Survey 2007/2008 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 609. Pierre du Toit, South Africa’s Brittle Peace. The Problem of Post- Settlement Violence (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 97. Ibid., 78–79. Jan Froestad, “Environmental Health Problems in Hout Bay: The Challenge of Generalising Trust in South Africa,” Journal of Southern African Studies 31, 2 (June 2005): 333–356. See also Steinar Askvik, “Trust in the Post-Apartheid Government of South Africa: The Roles of Identity and Policy Performance,” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 46, 4 (November 2008): 516–539. Gail Eddy, “Unhappy Families,” Fast Facts, No. 7/2009 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2009), 2–3. Eddy draws on a variety of sources that include data from the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute, Target Group Index, Statistics South Africa, the Health Systems Trust, and the Human Sciences Research Council. See also Helen Barnes, Gemma Wright, Michael Noble, and Andrew Dawes, The South African Index of Multiple Deprivation of Children – Census 2001 (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007), 12, 25; Ishmael Kalule-Sabiti, Martin Palamuleni, Monde Makiwane, and Acheampong Yaw Amoateng, “Family Formation and Dissolution Patterns,” in Acheampong Yaw Amoateng and Tim B. Heaton (eds.), Families and Households in Post-apartheid South Africa: Socio-Demographic Perspectives (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007), 107. Eddy, “Unhappy Families,” 2, 3. Theissen, G. Supporting justice, Co Existence and Reconciliation after Armed Conflict: Strategies for Dealing with the Past, 2004. Available online at http:// www.berghof-handbook.net. Downloaded on March 1, 2007. James L. Gibson, Overcoming Apartheid – Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2004), 177. Ibid., 10. James L. Gibson, “The Truth about Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa,” International Political Science Review 26, 4 (October 2005): 341–361; James L. Gibson, “The Contributions of Truth to Reconciliation – Lessons from South Africa,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, 3 (June 2006): 409–432; James L. Gibson, “Do Strong Group Identities Fuel Intolerance? Evidence from the South African Case,” Political Psychology 27, 5 (2006): 665–705; Gibson and Gouws, Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa. Gibson, Overcoming Apartheid, 76, 77.

NOTES 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

237

Ibid., 12–17. Ibid., 80, 81, Table 3.1. Ibid., 123, Table 4.1. Ibid., 138, Table 4.5. Kotzé and Du Toit, “Civil Society and Democracy,” 328. Gibson and Gouws, Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa.

6

Religion, Evil, and Liberalization

1. Bruce, Steve, Religion in the Modern World – from Cathedrals to Cults (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 26. 2. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular. Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 18. 3. Norris and Inglehart, Sacred and Secular—Religion and Politics Worldwide, 4, 5. 4. Ibid., 221. 5. Ibid, 26, 241. 6. See, for example, Jean Bethke Elshtain, “Religion and Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 20, 2 (April 2009): 5–17. 7. Huntington, S.P., Who are We? America’s Great Debate (London: The Free Press, 2004), 360. 8. Berger, Peter, L. (ed.), The Desecularization of the World – Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Erdmans, 1999). 9. Davie, Grace, “Europe: The Exception that Proves the Rule?,” in Berger, Peter, L. (ed.), The Desecularization of the World – Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Erdmans, 1999). 10. Jenkins, Philip, “The Next Christianity,” Atlantic Monthly (October 2002): 53–68. 11. Van Creveld, M. 1991. The Transformation of War. New York: The Free Press, 1991, pp. 214, 215. 12. Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies – An Introduction, 4th ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 288. 13. Ibid., 288. 14. This does not imply conformity in terms of religious dogma and belief. See Stephen Rule, “How do South Africans Understand Democracy and Christianity,” Africa Insight 34, 2/3 (June/September 2004). 15. Ibid., 40, 41. 16. The coding of this index is described in the Technical Appendix. 17. Norris and Inglehart, Sacred and Secular, 71. 18. John Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 46, 47. 19. For various perspectives on the concept of evil, see Michel Wieviorka, “ ‘Evil’ Too is ‘Global,’ ” Comparative Sociology 5, 4 (2006): 319–325; Marcus G. Singer,

Kotzé

238

20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

41.

Kotzé

NOTES “The Concept of evil,” Philosophy 79 (2004): 185–214; Fred C. Alford, “The Political Psychology of Evil,” Political Psychology 18, 1 (March 1997): 1–17. Philip Jenkins, “The Next Christianity,” 53–68; Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom. The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 63–67, 77–78, 122–131. Ibid., 202. L. Glenna, “Operationalizing Evil: Christian Realism, Liberal Economics, and Industrial Agriculture,” Agriculture and Human Values 19 (2000): 205– 216. Ibid., 207. Hanna Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil (London: Faber and Faber, 1963), 247. Ibid., 134. Clifton Crais, The Politics of Evil. Magic, State Power, and the Political Imagination in South Africa (Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, 2002), offers a historical contextualized account of the process of state-building in South Africa, as interpreted within this framework by those who were subjected to this coercive process. Ashforth, A., Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 1. Ibid., 1, 86. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 133. Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 129. Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa, 134, 247, 248. Ibid., 257–260. Ibid., 260. Ibid., 38. Van Dijk, R., “Time and Transcultural Technologies of the Self in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora,” in André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (eds.), Between Babel and Pentecost (London: Hurst, 2001), 216–234. John Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2006/2007 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2007), 359, John Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08, 455, 476. Herma Forgey, Anthea Jeffery, Elizabeth Sidiropolous, Cheryl Smith, Terence Corrigan, Thabo Mophuthing, Andrea Helman, Jean Redpath, and Tamara Dimant, South Africa Survey 1999/2000 Millennium Edition (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1999), 59. Pierre du Toit, South Africa’s Brittle Peace. The Problem of Post- Settlement Violence (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 47, 48. Eugene Gunning, “Zille in spervuur oor steun vir Padlac,” Die Burger, October 1, 2007; Liesl Peyper and Eugene Gunning, “Vrae oor raad en Padlac,” Die Burger, October 2, 2007. H.J. Kotzé, Culture, Ethnicity and Religion: South African Perceptions of Social Identity, Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenhauer-Stiftung, Occasional papers, 1997.

NOTES

239

42. For the coding of this index, see the Technical Appendix. 43. For the coding of this item, see the Technical Appendix. 44. Pallant, J. SPSS Survival Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Data Analysis using SPSS for Windows (New York: Open University Press, 2005). 45. South African Institute of Race Relations, Fast Facts, 02/2008 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008). 46. Patrick Burton, Anton du Plessis, Ted Leggett, Antoinette Louw, Duxita Mistry, and Hennie van Vuuren, National Victims of Crime Survey, South Africa 2003, ISS Monograph Series No. 101, July 2004. Robyn Pharoah, National Victims of Crime Survey. An Overview of the Findings. ISS Paper, No. 175, December 2008. Robyn Pharoah, The Dynamics of Crime. Comparing the results from the 1998, 2003 and 2007 National Crime and Victimisation Surveys. ISS Paper, No. 177, December 2008. 47. Anderson, A. “Pentecostals and Apartheid in South Africa during the Ninety Years 1908–1998,” Cyberjournal for Pentecostal- Charismatic Research 7. Available online at http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk. Downloaded on April 4, 2008. 48. Buchholz, E.S. and J.K. Mandel, “Reaching for Virtue, Stumbling on Sin: Concepts of Good and Evil in a Postmodern Era,” Journal of Religion and Health 39, 2 (Summer 2000): 123–142, 137–140. 49. Glenna, “Operationalizing Evil,” 209, 210. 50. Ibid., 209. 51. Armstrong, K., The Great Transformation. The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah (London: Atlantic Books, 2006). 52. Niehaus, I., Witchcraft, Power and Politics (Cape Town: David Philip, 2001). 53. Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa, 267–270. 54. Ibid., 278. 55. Pride Chigwedere, George R. Seage III, Sofia Gruskin, Tun-Hou Lee, and M. Essex, “Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa,” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome 49 (2008): 410– 415. 56. Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy, 88–110. 57. Ibid., 95, 96. 58. Ibid., 105–110.

Outsiders 1. Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), xiii. 2. Shireen Hassim, Tawana Kupe, and Eric Worby (eds.), Go Home or Die Here – Violence, Xenophobia and the Reinvention of Difference in South Africa (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2008); Jonny Steinberg, South Africa’s Xenophobic Eruption, Institute of Security Studies, ISS Paper 169, November

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3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

NOTES 2008. See also Marius Roodt, “Xenophobic Violence: Simmering Volcano or Nasty Surprise?,” Fast Facts 2 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 4–7. Simon Bekker, Ilse Eigelaar-Meets, Gary Eva, and Caroline Poole, “Xenophobic Violence in South Africa; Reflections on the Events of May and June 2008,” chapter prepared for publication, 2009; Simon Bekker, Ilse Eigelaar-Meets, Gary Eva, and Caroline Poole, Xenophobia and Violence in South Africa: A Desktop Study of the Trends and a Scan of Explanations Offered, mimeo. 2008. Used with permission from S. Bekker. See also Simon Bekker, “Explaining Violence Against Foreigners and Strangers in Urban South Africa: Outbursts During May and June 2008,” The African Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 16, 2010 (forthcoming). Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, 180. Ibid., 1, 2, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 42. Ibid., 111. Victor Khupiso, “ ‘The Dog is Dead,’ I Heard Them Say,” Sunday Times, May 25, 2009, 5. Bekker et al, Xenophobia and Violence in South Africa. Hassim et al., Go Home or Die Here. See especially the photographs on the inside cover, opposite page 1, and on pages 7 and 8. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, 137–147; 139–140. Bekker, personal communication, Stellenbosch, May 7, 2009. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, 187. Ibid., 184. Steinberg, South Africa’s Xenophobic Eruption, 8, 9. Editorial, Sunday Times, May 25, 2008. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, ch. 9, 326–373. Steinberg, South Africa’s Xenophobic Eruption, 11, 12. See also Mamphela Ramphele, “Xenophobia Crisis Should Jolt Us from Apathy,” Cape Times, Friday, May 23, 2008; Frans Cronje, “Violence Springs from Government Failures,” Cape Times, Wednesday, May 21, 2008.

8

Conclusion

1. Nicola de Jager, “No ‘New ANC’?,” Politikon 36, 2 (August 2009): 275–288. 2. See Breiman L, Friedman J.H., Olshen R.A., and Stone C.J., Classification and Regression Trees (New York: Chapman & Hall, 1993). 3. Please note that these percentages are slightly different from those reported in Table 6.7 of chapter 6, because the multivariate analysis was conducted with unweighted data. 4. Please note that these percentages are slightly different from those reported in Table 7.2 of chapter 7, because the multivariate analysis was conducted with unweighted data. 5. John Kane-Berman (ed.), South Africa Survey 2007/08 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 78.

Kotzé

NOTES

241

6. Frans Cronje, “South Africa 2030,” Fast Facts, 7 (July 2009): 13, 14. 7. Doreen Atkinson, “Taking to the Streets: Has Developmental Local Government Failed in South Africa?,” in Buhlungu, S. et al. (eds.), State of the Nation, South Africa 2007 (Pretoria: HSRC Press, 2007), 53–77, 58. 8. Ibid., 60–73. 9. Rupert Brown, “Social Identity Theory: Past Achievements, Current Problems and Future Challenges,” European Journal of Social Psychology 30 (2000): 755, 756. 10. Henri Tajfel and John Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict,” in William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel (eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Monterey: Wadsworth, 1979), 33–47, 45. 11. Roy F. Baumeister, Laura Smart, and Joseph M. Boden, “Relation of Threatened Egotism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of High SelfEsteem,” in Roy F. Baumeister (ed.), The Self in Social Psychology (Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1999), 240–279, 241. 12. Ibid., 244. 13. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 147. 14. John Kane-Berman, South Africa Survey, 2007/2008 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2008), 45. 15. Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, 343. 16. Tajfel and Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict,” 43–46. 17. Simon Bekker, Ilse Eigelaar-Meets, Gary Eva, and Caroline Poole, Xenophobia and Violence in South Africa: A Desktop Study of the Trends and a Scan of Explanations Offered, mimeo. 2008. Used with permission from S. Bekker. 18. Peter Geschiere, The Modernity of Witchcraft. Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 203. 19. Khaukanani Norman Mavhungu, Witchcraft and the State: A Comparative Study of Kom and Venda Witchcraft, unpublished DPhil. thesis, Stellenbosch University, 2003. 20. The South African government responded to this public debate by appointing an Electoral Task Team in 2002 with a brief to investigate electoral system alternatives. A two-day roundtable seminar was organized where a number of papers were presented on the topic. A hardcopy version of the papers was made available entitled South African Electoral System Review Roundtable, Cape Town: Electoral Institute of South Africa, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Electoral Task Team, 2002. 21. Atkinson, “Taking to the Streets,” 54. 22. Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, Elections and Accountability in South Africa, ISS paper 188 (June 2009), 21, 22.

Kotzé


Kotzé

Index

abortion, 107–110, 118, 127, 132, 134 affirmative action, 43, 87, 89, 117, 124, 193–194 African National Congress (ANC), xiii, 38–43, 45, 58, 108, 155, 197, 204 alliance, 9, 192, 230 armed struggle of, 84 cadre policy, 43 hegemony of ideas, 43, 60 national conference, 192 ruling party, 85–86, 117, 156, 162, 173, 192, 198 transformation, 43 unbanning of, 75 violent conflict, 154 AIDS, 8, 63, 79, 81, 83, 89, 102, 112–116, 118, 126–127, 141, 151, 155–158, 190, 202, 203 Allport, G., 101, 132, 155 Anglo-Boer War, 36 Afrikaner nationalists, 37–38 concentration camps, 37, 228 Lord Milner, 37 apartheid policies, 37, 69, 72, 190 Afrikaner nationalists/ism, 70–71, 74 Black Land Act, 75 forced removals, 72, 79 Group Areas Act, 38, 105, 190 Immorality Act, 73 interest groups, 71–72 pass laws, 38, 75, 127, 190

Kotzé

Population Registration Act, 38, 75, 76, 85, 88 Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 73 racially mixed schools, 77 reform apartheid, 74 Tomlinson Report, 70 Total Strategy, 39 Tricameral Parliament, 39 Ashforth, A., 140, 143, 149, 154–156, 201 black economic empowerment, 86, 194 Botha, P.W., 74 Boutros-Ghali, B., 25 capitalist modernity, 19–20, 188 Carothers, T., 2, 31–32 CART analysis, 174, 175, 178–179, 182–183, 186–188, 218–219 Center for International and Comparative Politics (CICP), 9 Chile, 2, 23, 32, 92, 106, 110, 114 Chua, A., 29 civil society, 5, 9, 47, 101, 145, 175, 201 confidence in civil society, 47–49 confidence in churches, 50, 151 confidence in organized business, 52 confidence in organized labor, 51–2 liberal concept of, 84, 88, 89

244

INDEX

cold war, 2, 15, 21, 23, 39, 194 post-cold war, 2, 15 Commission for Gender Equality, 117 confidence in civil society organisations, 47–49, 175 in institutions, 50–52 in state institutions, 7, 36, 46–49, 175, 178, 179, 187, 188, 203 Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), 9, 173, 192–193, 197 see also African National Congress (ANC), alliance crime, 63, 64, 68, 81–84, 89, 126–127, 129, 130, 137, 140, 142, 145, 158, 190 attacks on police, 84 crimes against humanity, 129–130, 140, 142, 153 criminal violence, 72, 81–84 killing of witches, 152 prevention, 193 school violence, 84 Victims of Crime Survey, 84, 106 violent crime, 81, 83–84, 89, 126, 145, 151–152 xenophobic violence, 84, 159, 175, 198 cultural outsiders, 102, 113–116, 132, 162, 183, 187, 188, 190 cultural theory of conflict, 195 Dahl, R., 6, 17–18, 21–23, 28 De Klerk, F.W., 39, 57, 75, 76, 155, 196 death penalty, 4, 6, 20, 132, 142, 143, 146, 153, 156, 201 attitudes toward, 61, 63–68, 96, 178 as dependent variable, 6, 174–177 predictors of, 177–179, 187 democracy assessment of, 62–63

Kotzé

attitudes toward, 52–56 democratic society, 63, 75–77, 85 democratic transition, 5, 30, 35–36, 42, 45, 52, 65, 75, 103, 105, 120, 127, 191, 198 democratization, 1–6, 10, 15, 20, 21–25, 29–30, 32–33, 58, 67, 69, 84, 95, 124, 132, 188 electoral democracy, 15, 30–31 liberal democracy, 4–7, 13, 15, 20–21, 30–32, 35, 45, 52, 61, 92–93, 103, 106–107, 113, 160, 188, 191 preconditions for, 22, 32, 35, 39, 42 pseudo-democracy, 30–31 see also Huntington, Third Wave Diamond, L., 30–31 divorce, 108–110, 118, 127, 134 drug addicts, 8, 112–114, 128 electoral system(s), 24, 28, 204 elite business elite, 7, 9, 65, 167 church/religious elite, 9, 65, 100, 112, 148, 151, 152, 157, 200, 203 civil service elites, 7, 9, 96 media elite, 7, 9, 65, 96–97, 100, 112, 167 parliamentarian elite, 7, 9 surveys, 7, 9, 54, 65, 96, 145, 167, 207 sectors, 7, 9, 65, 96–97, 100, 106, 112, 116, 167, 207 Employment Equity Act, 86, 117 Euthanasia, 108–110 evil evil forces, 8, 140, 141, 144, 148, 151, 152–158, 175, 182, 187, 199–200, 202 elimination of evil threats, 174, 179–183 superstition, 143, 146, 201 existential in/security, 8, 138, 151, 157, 188–192, 195, 199, 203, 205–206

INDEX definition of, 134 physical dislocation, 189, 191, 192–195 public goods, 190–191, 193, 203–206 social dislocation, 189–190, 192–195 spiritual insecurity, 140, 149, 151, 157, 189, 191, 199–203 status deprivation, 190, 191, 195–199 First World War, 15, 19 foreign workers, 112–113, 162–167, 175, 183, 202 see also immigrants free rider(s), 103–107, 111, 128, 182, 183, 187, 190–191, 205 freedom as dignity, 1, 205 Freedom House, 14–15, 30, 31, 32 French Revolution, 18 Gat, A., 18–19, 21 gender equality, 93, 116–124, 128, 132, 174, 175, 187, 188, 191 Germany, 17, 19, 23, 92, 106, 114, 204 Gini coefficient, 77–78, 189, 233 Greece, 2, 22, 23 Hani, C., 42 hate speech, 200 heavy drinkers, 8, 112–114, 128 HIV, 80, 156 see also AIDS homosexuality, 107–110, 118, 134 Huntington, S.P., 23–24, 27, 135 Clash of Civilizations, 27 Third Wave, 2–3, 13, 21–23, 29, 30–32, 39, 92, 106, 205 immigrants, 85, 157, 182–187, 188, 190, 202 see also foreign workers inequality, 21, 29, 42–43, 134, 155–158, 189, 192, 202

Kotzé

245

Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), 42, 154 IPSOS-Markinor, 9, 106 Kabwe Conference, 40 Kant, Immanuel, 14 triangle of peace, 18–19 liberal democratic peace, 21, 24, 35, 100, 158 democratic peace process, 3, 13–14 theory of, 2, 6, 8, 14, 61, 67, 91, 188 liberal values, 8, 15, 19–20, 30, 32, 39, 42, 52–68, 86, 132, 133, 143, 146, 188–189, 195, 205 liberalization of society, 15–17, 25, 33, 40, 43, 132 lifestyle outsiders, 102, 113–116 Mandela, N., 1, 38–40, 42, 45, 58, 67, 75, 79, 89, 95, 128, 192, 198 Mbeki, T., 83, 85–86, 116, 125, 160, 173, 192–193, 198, 199 minorities, 16, 42, 45–46, 55, 58, 63, 67, 74, 89, 98, 105, 112, 122, 130, 154, 157, 202, 205 muthi, 141–142, 144, 152, 200, 202 National Party (NP), 37, 39, 43, 75, 153, 155, 162 National Peace Accord, 41, 124 Norris and Inglehart, 134–135, 137–138, 151, 157, 188–189, 191 pacification, 2, 6–7, 16, 18, 20–21, 25–27, 30, 63, 67, 68, 132, 174–175, 187, 188 behavioral dimension, 4, 63 definition of, 4 institutional dimension, 4, 63 of society, 2, 6, 129, 152 of South African society, 113, 158, 171 Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), 42, 45, 75

246

INDEX

peace definition of, 4 dividend, 33, 88–89, 126, 162, 197, 202, 205 process, 1–2, 21, 24–25, 43, 88, 197 zone of, 2, 3, 11, 14, 17, 22, 24, 33, 188, 192, 195 People’s War, 38, 40 permissive outsiders, 102, 113–116 permissiveness, 102, 107–115, 178–179, 182, 190 Poland, 2, 23, 32, 92, 106, 114 Portugal, 2, 22, 23 poverty, 28, 29, 42–43, 70, 77–78, 81, 126–127, 138–139, 141, 155–158, 161, 163, 190, 192–193, 195–197, 202 prostitution, 107–111, 118, 127 protest, 55, 68, 194, 202, 204 illegal protest, 58–59, 194 legal protest, 57–59, 194 organized protest, 4, 38 regression analysis, 174–175, 178, 182, 187, 219 religion African spirit-world, 140, 142, 143, 151, 152, 154–157, 189, 200 Christianity, 135, 143, 152, 154, 173, 189 fundamentalism, 135 religiosity, 5, 8, 10, 96–97, 106, 116, 134, 148, 167, 174, 175 religious movements, 135, 139, 144 religious norms and values, 95, 115, 134, 135 religious organizations, 71 religious orientation, 95–97, 111–112, 115, 148 religiousness, 133–138, 151, 157, 175, 188 Rummel, R.J., 13, 15, 16 Russett, B., 13, 18

Kotzé

Russett and ONeal, 13–14 Second World War, 15, 18, 21, 23 secondary analysis, 7, 60 secular(ization), 10, 133–138, 140, 141, 143–146, 152–153, 155, 157, 188–189, 201, 203 Smuts, J., 3 social contact hypothesis, 101, 139, 155 social grants, 3, 78, 89, 193 social identity theory, 27, 29–30, 132, 135, 160, 195 and advanced status, 162, 163, 167 and backward status, 162, 163, 167, 178, 201 high-esteem hypothesis, 196 relative group status, 27, 28, 30, 132, 135, 160, 199, 201, 202 self-esteem, 27, 196 socioeconomic conditions, 54, 77–81, 88, 126, 134, 195 South African Communist Party (SACP), 9, 42–43, 45, 75, 173, 192–193, 197 see also African National Congress(ANC), alliance South African elite surveys, see elite, surveys South African transition, 93 South Korea, 2, 23, 32, 92, 106, 110, 114 Spain, 2, 22, 23 state democratic state, 5, 10, 15, 86, 101, 200, 203 liberal democratic state, 36, 201 liberal state, 36, 45, 47, 55, 57, 60 state capacity, 36, 103, 191, 193, 228 state institutions, 25, 35–36, 43–51, 171, 175, 178–179, 187–188, 203 state strength, 35, 38, 103, 228 state violence, 4, 36 suicide, 108–111, 127

INDEX Sweden, 17, 22, 92, 106, 114 Third Force, 154–155 tolerance, 5, 7–8, 16, 26, 30, 88, 89, 91, 93, 127, 128–132, 197, 201, 205 of actions, 103–112 definition of, 100–101 of evil, 134–135, 139 as independent variable, 174–188 negative tolerance, 101, 132 of outsiders, 159, 162–171 of people, 112–116 positive tolerance, 101 transition paradigm, 24, 32, 35, 91 transitology, 24–25 trust, 5, 7, 8, 88, 89, 91–93, 131, 190, 195 definition of, 92 generalized trust, 10, 92, 93–97, 124–125, 175 as independent variable, 174–175, 178, 179, 182, 183, 187–188 interpersonal trust, 5, 92, 97–100, 126, 130, 175, 201 political trust, 91–92 thick vs thin trust, 92–93, 97, 98, 125–127

Kotzé

247

Truth and Reconciliation Commission/Truth Commission (TRC), 3, 42, 128–130, 143, 153, 155 Turkey, 30, 92, 114 Tutu, D., 125 two-nations thesis, 85, 86, 125 ubuntu, 140, 201 unemployment, 42–43, 79, 126–127, 141, 167, 190, 192, 202 ungovernable, 38, 58, 103 Union of South Africa, 36, 116 United Democratic Front (UDF), 42, 173, 197 Wilson, W., 15 witchcraft, 141–144, 154–156, 199–202 witches, 84, 142–143, 152, 201, 202 World Values Surveys (WVS), 7–10, 53, 55, 59, 65, 91, 93, 96, 102, 106, 118, 130, 134, 137, 145, 162 xenophobia, 32, 84, 157, 159, 161, 167, 170, 175, 198 Zakaria, F., 30–31 Zuma, J., 173, 192–193

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A Deeper Freedom: Liberal Democracy as an Everyday Morality

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Beyond Freedom & Dignity

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