Banking on Democracy: agrarian development, negotiated reforms, and the political-economy of land issues in post-apartheid South Africa
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A silent neoliberal affairRelations between the World Bank and South Africa were formally established in 1945 when South Africa became a member country of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development[ CITATION Wor20 \l 2057 ]. The first loan to South Africa, however, was only commissioned in 1951 to the value of $20,000,000[ CITATION Bon00 \l 7177 ]. The Bank continued to fund the incumbent apartheid government until 1966 when the Bank issued its final loan to the country amid political pressure from the international community to restrict all forms of financing the expansion of the apartheid economy and state in the global effort to bring an end to the oppressive regime (ibid). This gesture was, unfortunately, considered paltry by those who questioned the sincerity of the Bank’s motivations as they had already chosen to defy the United Nation’s Resolution to embargo against the country in 1964 [CITATION Tou20 \t \l 7177 ]; in their defence, the Bank’s directors cited Article IV Section 10 of the Bank’s Articles of Agreement which stipulate that: “The Bank and its officers shall not interfere in the political affairs of any member; nor shall they be influenced in their decisions by the political character of the member or members concerned. Only economic considerations shall be relevant to their decisions, and these considerations shall be weighed impartially in order to achieve the purposes stated in Article I” [ CITATION Wor12 \l 7177 ] The technocratic approach to development lending conveyed by the Bank’s Articles has come under much criticism for detaches the Bank’s decisions and actions from any and all kinds of political contexts and this, essentially, enabling the institution an opportunity to circumvent the political state of affairs of lending countries and absolves the Bank of its involvement in the erosion of human rights (throughout the globe) in the name of ‘development’ – this is most salient in the case of the apartheid government who relied on aid from the Bank’s IDA to finance several projects of industrialisation[CITATION Tou19 \t \l 7177 ]. The Bank’s engagements with South Africa ceased until the 1990s when the Bank returned not as a financier but offered their policy advisory services to the newly elected democratic government. The ANC-led government initially adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme which advocated for the reform of the racist, sexist exclusionary economic policies of the former administration [ CITATION ILR99 \l 7177 ]. The economy of the 1990s was one that had a notably industrialised mining sector, manufacturing industry, agricultural sector, a growing commerce and finance industry, a copious supply of electricity, and relatively advanced infrastructure (ANC 1994; Moll 1991). Nevertheless, the history of South Africa’s economic development was, to an extent, fostered by a labour system that relied greatly on the exploitation of cheap (black) labour, and unequal (racialised and gendered) distribution of yields of economic growth[ CITATION ANC94 \l 7177 ]. During the transition to democracy, land reform through redress for indigenous people and communities who have endured land dispossession featured in many contentious debates; this issue of continues to be the source of dispute for a myriad of reasons. Sibanda[CITATION Sib01 \n \t \l 7177 ] notes that the history of violent colonial dispossession – a history that is the tale of many African countries – and continued displacement and dispossession of indigenous people’s land, as enabled by the laws of the segregationist apartheid regime, has made the issue of land and land reform is invariably tied not only to the collective generational trauma endured by indigenous communities but also the heritage and dignity thereof. Agrarian reform is thus integral to the task of dismantling the legacy of colonialism and apartheid[ CITATION Ber11 \l 7177 ] as well as restoring the dignity and preserving the heritage of indigenous groups[ CITATION Kep18 \l 7177 ]. Land redistribution is also regarded as a coherent and viable strategy for the alleviation of poverty and deprivation [ CITATION Lah08 \l 7177 ]. In the course of the transition to democracy, the ANC reckoned with its position on land reform; initially asserting in the Freedom Charter that “the land shall be shared among those who work it […] restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it […] [and] all shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose”, the ruling party’s predilection for nationalisation would be demonstrated in the land reform policies they intend to adopt[ CITATION Nat942 \l 7177 ]; this, in effect, established land reform as “a decisive element of South Africa’s ideological transition […] [and] one of the conditions of political, economic and social stabilisation of the country”[CITATION Ans11 \p vii \l 2057 ]. In reality, however, the ANC-led state settled the for a less radical marketized expropriation model, resembling the ‘willing seller – willing buyer’ land reform model promoted by the World Bank’s canon. In the case of the Bank’s influence on land reform policy in South Africa, much can be said about the Bank’s role in advancing neoliberal capitalist economic policy to the detriment of a (socially) legitimate transition – through redress and redistribution – to democracy. During the formative years of South Africa’s democracy, the World Bank assumes its hegemonic dominance in academic expertise on issues regarding conflict, post-conflict reconstruction, and economic restructuring in countries that have just emerged from a monumental shift in political tides[ CITATION Wor22 \l 2057 ] – South Africa was an example of the latter. The widely-held view among scholars who offer political-economic insight into the paradigmatic shifts of the ANC’s post-apartheid economic policies argue that the ANC abandoned its radical and revolutionary mandate of land expropriation[ CITATION Sch18 \l 7177 ]. The ANC’s departure from its original stance on land reform as outlined in the Freedom Charter to the marketized policy approach is significantly consistent with the broader shift within the party’s ideological inclinations evinced by similar ‘policy reversals’ (such as the shift from the RDP to GEAR macroeconomic policy). The issue of land reform remains a prominent feature of post-apartheid South African discourse, and a popular politically rallying point. In the face of relentless unemployment and worsening quality of life, in part, caused by the economic reverberations of the COVID-19 pandemic, the exigence of developing land reform policies that prioritise redistribution is a robust way to create new jobs by prompting the development of employment-intensive farming systems (GTAC cited in Cousins 2020); moreover, it is argued that redistributive land reform could potentially alleviate the hardships of poor South Africans (ibid) caused by the recent rise in food insecurity[ CITATION van21 \l 7177 ]. In spite of these and many other suggested benefits of pursuing alternative means of land reform to those currently in place, land reform remains a polarising topic of discussion. The hampered prospects for meaningful and equitable agrarian reform in South Africa are but one example of the many plights that the inordinate hegemonic sway of global institutions has engendered in the name of fulfilling their mandated role in the global economy – all while furthering unequal growth and development. In view of this, it is only fair and judicious for the immense social, economic, and political power that a supranational institution such as the World Bank has amassed through the years to be brought into question. All in all, this paper has managed to highlight the manner in which the Bank’s shifting operations and policy stances were informed by and exist as an expression of power dynamics, and ultimately, seeks to spark expedient debate about the future prospects for an international economic system governed by egalitarian, democratic principles in the pursuit of shared development and prosperity. Download 32.53 Kb. Share with your friends:
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