Banking on Democracy: agrarian development, negotiated reforms, and the political-economy of land issues in post-apartheid South Africa
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Banking on Democracy: agrarian development, negotiated reforms, and the political-economy of land issues in post-apartheid South Africa AbstractThe spread of neoliberalism throughout societies in the world is spoken of in the same vein as globalisation, This paper argues that a robust understanding of the world economy can be constructed by studying the relationship between nation-states and the global institutions that constitute and contribute to the process of fashioning and restructuring the world economy. On this point, such an analysis of the nation-state and global institutions is undertaken through a case study of the World Bank’s presence in South Africa and, more explicitly, the Bank’s influence on agrarian reform policy in (the transition to) post-apartheid South Africa. Beginning by briefly retelling the evolution of the Bank, I will critically analyse this institution’s engagements within the world economy to reveal that throughout its evolution, this institution was defined by and acted in accordance with (certain) theoretical paradigms, ideological hegemony, and socio-political interests at a national and global level. This paper concludes, then, with some reflections on the case study in view of the contemporary debates around the issue of land reform and land expropriation, and development in present-day South Africa. IntroductionSouth Africa’s transition to democracy is marked by contestation, this has led many scholars to question the elements entailed in the ANC-led state’s spontaneous departure from the Reconstruction and Development Programme – a largely developmentalist approach that emerged as the first democratically elected government’s leading policy choice[ CITATION ILR99 \l 7177 ] – to the neoliberal capitalist GEAR policy (Bond 2000; Schneider 2018; Terreblanche 1999; Toussaint and Bond 2019). Albeit South Africa does not necessarily share the insidious relationship with the Washington Consensus as did most of the Global South[ CITATION Bel00 \l 7177 ], the stealthy entry of neoliberalism has undoubtedly shaped the process of making, implementing, and appraising economic policy, and this holds true apropos the issue of land reform[ CITATION Cli00 \l 7177 ]. Grasping the dynamic evolution of the World Bank as a key actor within global economy is a salient issue for scholars in many fields – this is especially more pronounced in relation to the debates around globalisation. Political-economic theory contends that one way we can come to a robust understanding of the integrated economies of the world is by studying the relationship between nation-states (or national economies) and the global institutions[ CITATION Ich98 \l 7177 ]. Moreover, power dynamics are an essential dimension of any political-economic analysis[ CITATION Rau12 \l 7177 ] thus, they are considered in this analysis; for clarity, theoretical paradigms, ideological hegemony and social interests are regarded as units of analyses in this study of the power dynamics. The discussion entailed in this paper is premised on these contentions. Download 32.53 Kb. Share with your friends:
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