The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa 9781626372504

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa Louis A. Picard Thomas Mogale

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2015 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2015 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-62637-087-6 (hc : alk. paper)

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5

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To Pauline Greenlick and to the memory of my parents, Vincent and Katherine Picard —L. A. P.

To my family —T. M.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

1

Political Development in South Africa

1

2

Patterns of Local Governance: Africa’s Colonial Legacy

23

3

The Colonial Origins of Local Control in South Africa

43

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Authoritarian Institutions and Governance: The British Come to the Cape

65

From Colonialism to Apartheid: State Structures at the Base

89

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The Urban Local State in the Apartheid Era

127

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The Local State vs. Local Governance After Apartheid

155

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Where’s the Money? The Fiscal Debate

185

vii

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Contents

The Special Challenges of Rural Local Governance

205

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The Continuing Role of Traditional Authorities

225

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The Dilemmas of Decentralized Governance

245

Bibliography Index About the Book

257 265 277

Acknowledgments

W

e are grateful to the many individuals and organizations who assisted us as we developed the ideas that resulted in this book. Our list must begin with Brooks Spector and Gill Jacot Guillarmod, who supported Lou Picard’s work for many years and who were instrumental in arranging for Thomas Mogale to complete his graduate study at the University of Pittsburgh. We thank them both. Others helped along the way, including John Harbeson, Richard Humphries, Dirk Kotze, Hannes Mentz, and Denis Venter, and we wish to express deep appreciation to them. Our continuing gratitude goes to Patrick FitzGerald, adjunct professor at the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management (recently renamed the Wits School of Governance), as well as to Anne McLennan, associate professor in the school, and other colleagues. We also thank the University of Pittsburgh and its Graduate School of Public and International Affairs for their support. The many acknowledged in Picard’s earlier book, The State of the State: Institutional Transformation, Capacity and Political Change in South Africa, contributed immeasurably to the current book. Financial support for our research over the years came from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States Information Agency and its Fulbright program, and the University Center for International Studies and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. We also gratefully acknowledge funding and support from the late John Gerhardt, who for many years was in charge of the Ford Foundation’s program in South Africa. Jim Lance (formerly of Kumarian Press) and Lynne Rienner and her staff were instrumental in transforming our manuscript into a book, as were ix

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Acknowledgments

Kate Freed and Kimberley Bennett. Our thanks go to them, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers who read an early version of the manuscript. Some of the research presented in this book was carried out while Lou Picard was under contract with USAID through Management Systems International. The views expressed here are our own and do not reflect those of either USAID or Management Systems International. —Louis A. Picard and Thomas Mogale

1 Political Development in South Africa

I had always wanted to possess a country of my own. I did not want a large country that would be bound to get me in trouble . . . but one quite small, and preferably round.1 Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human.2

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his book focuses on South Africa: its politicians and bureaucrats, the people they are supposed to serve, and especially the long-suffering residents of the urban slums and the rural villages who still have not benefited from the promises of development made since 1994 and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the country’s president. The book is also about an oftenelusive concept called “decentralization”—a political and administrative response by national political leaders designed to ensure that government serves the people effectively. South Africa’s transition to majority rule and nonracial government is well known. After years of sanctions and internal and external violence, the African National Congress and other antiapartheid organizations were unbanned on February 2, 1990. Nelson Mandela and other antiapartheid leaders went from the jail cell to the negotiation table. After majority rule elections April 26–28, 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president of South Africa on May 10, 1994. Like France and a number of Asian and African democracies, South Africa has a mixed presidential and parliamentary system. The legislature consists of a National Assembly and a National Council of Provinces. The president is selected by the parliament by majority vote, and though he does

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

not sit as a member, the president has the right to attend parliamentary proceedings. The president selects the deputy president and his own cabinet, subject to parliamentary investigation and review, and can be removed from office by parliament. There are three levels of government: national, intermediate, and local, as well as an independent and active judiciary. The country has nine provinces. At the local level there are eight metropolitan municipalities, forty-four district municipalities, and 226 local municipalities, though these numbers are likely to change with several new metropolitan municipalities in the offing. There are numerous traditional authorities throughout South Africa except in the Western Cape, the only province controlled by the national opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. Rather than focusing on these structures in this book, we examine the human dynamics of governance: the legacy urban apartheid townships and rural homelands (or Bantustans) have on local governance, intergovernmental relationships, and civil society. Our concern is with the state-centric manner in which the apartheid regime controlled black South Africans and the implications of this control for postapartheid South Africa. We deliberately take a historical approach, using history as a methodological tool to measure change—or the lack thereof. Several interrelated sets of themes run throughout the book. First, there is a historical legacy of both participation and hierarchy that continue to define political debates in South Africa. This historical legacy became entrenched and embedded within the colonial model of prefectoralism and its opposite, the “liberatory” model of the African National Congress (ANC), which demanded political change through centralized structures. At the subnational government level we can see two trends: (1) a promise of—or at least the demand for—local participatory governance and (2) local political elites trying to impose political structures and processes on society. This book examines the clash between those two historical trends. What is clear is that there are common elements that, alone or in combination, create significant bottlenecks from a social and economic development perspective and distort patterns of governance in South Africa. Further, we recognize that the failure of the local state has been more profound in Africa than in any other part of the world and that state failure has been the cause of grief, terror, economic stagnation, and—in some countries— war, starvation, and death. There is a concern here that South Africans may one day share the fate of many in the rest of Africa, particularly those who reside in its urban slums and in its rural areas. We also know that in Africa, government responses are often influenced by the priorities and demands of the international donor community through assistance programs and policy reform mandates. These donors often operate without knowledge of the local patterns of governance and

Political Development in South Africa

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their relationship to social and economic development. Our argument here is that to understand governance in South Africa today, one must look at the long, mostly tortured history of governance over the past 400 years. A number of themes stand out from the long-term perspective. First, there is a pattern of grassroots and participatory values that begin with the Western Cape hunter-gatherers, include Afrikaner nationalist demands, and resemble the township and mobilization models of the ANC and other African nationalist movements of the twentieth century.

Local Governance and Central Control Although we attempt to contribute to an understanding of the theories and practices of local governance, we focus our attention on the people who make up government, the people who are affected by the government, and the social fabric that ideally binds societies together. Throughout we raise two questions: Why do so many policies fail to deliver when implemented? What is it about the nature of center-periphery relations that has prevented the establishment of local government structures responsible for delivering the goods at the local level? We have not been able to discover a single, fundamental answer to either question, nor do we think there is one. However, this study tries to understand the difficulties inherent in effective local governance. The Local State The storyline here is what some South African writers have called the local state—that is, how the state system functions at the local level. We accept the premise that in 1990 (and perhaps in 2012) the crisis of local government formed an important part of the national crisis in South Africa.3 This analysis reflects a variation on a theme that is valid for most of subSaharan Africa. Ultimately, democratic governance and liberalism are defined, at least in part, by local institutions of devolved governance and by the assumption that the goals of democratic governance would be best achieved by enhancing the links between government and society and by building local institutions that balance central power. We have two concerns in our discussion of the local state. First, it is important to understand the historical impact of the state’s local-level apparatus on South African society today. Second, given that bureaucratic and control structures are often more durable than personalities and political movements, an analysis of the local state may identify the extent to which patterns of local administration and control have survived into the postapartheid, majority-rule state.

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

In South Africa, an examination of the local state provides the context for state transformation and continuity at the national level. We argue here that the local state is not synonymous with local government. The local state delineates the state’s impact upon society and involves the many forms of political and bureaucratic control that we identify as prefectoralism. We believe that South Africa shares inherited patterns of dyarchy (two parallel forms of government operating separately but simultaneously)4 with the other postcolonial societies of Africa. Elements of the local government and local state coexist within the same political space. These overlapping jurisdictions may have harmed the evolution toward a democratic developmental state. All forms of local, intermediate, and national administration, including traditional administration and bureaucratic control, the existing state apparatus, parastatal organizations, and public corporations are included in the local-state concept. In South Africa, the nonracial government 5 inherited a seventy-year pattern of top-down policymaking, which culminated in a decade of state security management through P. W. Botha’s Total Strategy of the 1980s. That pattern of top-down policymaking continued into the twenty-first century under President Thabo Mbeki (1999–2008) and President Jacob Zuma (2009–).6 The nature of the segregationist and apartheid states in South Africa meant that the implementation of control processes often played out at the local level, where the state has a direct impact upon society. Despite the nonracial elections of April 26–28, 1994, the legacy of the local state system and the political and criminal violence spawned out of it still threaten to damage the social fabric of postapartheid society in both urban and rural South Africa. As we will see, the role of local government entities in South Africa remains ambiguous after twenty years of nonracial government. The devolution of authority is a key factor in the movement away from authoritarian, centralized decisionmaking.7 Africa’s experience suggests that decentralization, as a value system, is not embedded in development planning and management. Donors tend to work with, and strengthen, central structures. Academics often look at the central government as the key to development efforts, and some of the literature on development administration has stressed the need for a centralized developmental state. The centralized state should provide wide latitude for autonomy, be constitutionally guaranteed, be large enough to govern and support significant development efforts, and be accountable to a locally based electorate.8 For some academics, decentralized government is difficult because it is seen as a threat to national elites. Rather than devolving power, central state managers prefer to deconcentrate power to loyal field agents at the grassroots level.

Political Development in South Africa

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Deconcentrated officials in less-developed states often fail as modernizers because they remain detached from local social forces and civil society groups. Many African countries have been unable to raise sufficient revenue, unable to recruit skilled personnel, and unable to maintain grassroots faith in government. South Africa’s future depends on generating revenue and recruiting skilled professionals for urban and rural local governments. The alternative to the centralized nondevelopmental state is local selfgovernance, where the state’s primary role is to provide a framework of rules that empower and facilitate a development environment at the grassroots level.9 Economic and social development requires local initiative. Mobilization and consciousness-raising must start with the individual and small groups of neighbors, not with the hierarchical commands of the authoritarian political movement. Political space can best be measured at the local level. Are people free to make choices about their own future and their own development priorities? Can local government deliver the social services (health, water, and education) that are the prerequisites for development?10 We argue that for poor, vulnerable, and powerless people and communities, sustainable development also involves the struggle for rights and participation in processes that lead to local-level governance and “peoplecentered” development.11 For them, development is not about creating new civil service jobs for the middle class, raising the salaries of the urban labor elite, or perpetuating high levels of consumerism among political elites. Indeed, while civil servants, a labor elite, and business oligarchs are likely to be linked to a hegemonic state, the poor and powerless need democratic self-governance at the local level. The argument here is that local-level selfgovernance is key to the establishment of a developmental state. This chapter provides a contextual and historical background in which to understand the nature of the local institutional state in South Africa. We examine the legacy of colonial and apartheid institutions and the social and political values that they generated. These values affected organizational arrangements during the colonial period and during the period of Union (1910–1948) and Nationalist (1948–1994) governments that followed. Rather than being a departure from an earlier policy of racial domination, separate development (apartheid) reflects a continuity of domestic colonial relationships that goes back to the early nineteenth century and the interaction between Dutch settlements and British rule during that period. The Current Book We begin with an overview of the problem of the local state in South Africa. This chapter and the next put issues of local governance in a com-

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

parative context within Africa to generate lessons that may be of some relevance for the nonracial South Africa. The rest of this chapter examines an interrelated set of themes that provide a basis for understanding the history of local governance in South Africa. In the next section we briefly examine the nature and assumptions of South Africans, discuss decentralization as a concept, and detail the intersection of governance and control in colonial Africa, focusing on what we call prefectoralism as both a set of structures and a mindset. We ask how does one understand the movement from an indigenous society in fourteenth-century South Africa to the dynamic, but flawed industrial state that is South Africa today? The key is to understand the dynamics of local governance at the base of the state system. Following this, we examine patterns of local governance in Anglophone Africa, beginning with a look at traditional values, and then go on to look at the movement toward indirect rule in Africa in the interwar period and patterns of local government in the late colonial period. We then provide an overview of postcolonial local government, discuss the reasons for the failure of local government in Africa, and look at center-periphery tensions in contemporary Africa. Next we examine what we call the prefectoral mentality, the set of structures and mindset that has evolved in South Africa for the past 400 years. We provide an overview of local governance in South Africa during the imperial period. Following this, we focus on the institutional inheritance of South Africa in the Union period and the control mechanisms that came with it. The last four chapters of the book look at local government during the transition to a postapartheid South Africa, beginning with an examination of the local state in South Africa in the 1980s and the way that negotiations to end apartheid impacted local government and local government policy during the Government of National Unity. We go on to look at rural local government and the continued debates on traditional authorities in postapartheid South Africa. The last chapter of the book examines developments in local government during the presidencies of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma and draws some conclusions about subnational governance and civil society in South Africa.

The South African State: An Overview The Contemporary State The South African state can be defined by its robust industrial and mineralbased economy and its tortured racial history. The contemporary South

Political Development in South Africa

7

African state began in June 1994 with the first nonracial elections in the country’s history. This followed 200 years of racially defined economic development and white minority regimes propped up first by colonialism, later by authoritarianism, and ultimately by the quasi-military structure known as apartheid. South Africa has a population of nearly 53 million people. It is a very large country with 1.2 million square kilometers, roughly twice the size of Texas or France. South Africa is divided both racially and linguistically. There are four major racial groups in the country, and most individuals speak at least one of nine major African languages. The largest group, 79 percent of the population, is African. The next largest group, classified as white or European, constitutes 9.1 percent of the population, with a socalled mixed race group (people of mixed European, Asian, and African heritage) accounting for a further 9 percent. Non-Africans speak either English or Afrikaans as a first language (though some South African Asians also speak an Indian language). Just under 3 percent of the population is of Indian or Asian heritage, including people from China and Japan. 12 Combined, non-Africans constitute 21 percent of the population as of 2010. South Africa is one of the most urbanized and highly industrialized countries in Africa. Over 61 percent of South Africa’s population is urban, and the country continues to rapidly urbanize. However, rural South Africans, who total just over 20 million people, are overwhelmingly poor. Though it has high levels of educational development and health-care capacity, it has one of the most unequal distributions of income in the world.13 This gap has strong implications for South Africa’s municipal administration, which is most highly developed in South Africa’s urban and peri-urban areas. The 39 percent of South Africans who live in small towns and farms live and work on the 12 percent of the land that is arable. Large areas of the country are desert or semi-desert. The country has vast amounts of industrial minerals that support its urban base, industrial production, and export trade. Core Values and the Local State Ruling elites have encouraged the notion of multiple South Africas. This image goes back to the nineteenth century at least. Anthony Sampson puts it this way: “South Africa seemed not so much a real country as a map of the mind in which anyone could find his own place.”14 In essence, this mindset amounted to a denial that South Africa existed as an actual place with physical space. If the Dutch and the British brought competing ideologies of colonialism, nationalism, and liberalism to South Africa in the nineteenth century,

8

The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

these “isms” were met and challenged by traditional African values. Liberalism as a formal ideology predominated at the end of the Government of National Unity among South African elites, both among black Africans (if uneasily) as well as among Afrikaners and Anglophones. This liberalism reflected a democratic tendency that has penetrated every political forum in South Africa. The dominant values are what one observer calls the “Anglo centric educational background” of educated elites. 15 Some critics express concern that beneath the liberal façade of South Africa lies a tendency toward authoritarianism. Historically, Dutch and British values (as well as those of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent) clashed with indigenous Khoi and San social norms and with the value system of the majority of Bantulanguage speakers who inhabited the subcontinent. Khoisian values largely died out or have been integrated into the values of the mixed race (“coloured”) population in the Western Cape. As “the land of the indigenous nomadic herdsmen, the khoikhoi (Hottentots), was progressively expropriated and eventually they, together with Malay slaves from the Dutch East Indies and the offspring of mixed race marriages, became the Cape Coloured People.”16 Traditional Bantu values have evolved and remain powerful, particularly in the rural areas of the country. The role that traditional values will play in a future South Africa still remains uncertain, even though millions of South Africans continue to live within traditional value systems. Both the South African government and the ANC have expressed a renewed interest in traditional governance. Ideas play an important role in making history in South Africa, as well as in current policies. Idealists have sometimes exaggerated the power of ideas, but historical materialists have never effectively debunked that argument.17 In South Africa, the writing of history has both suffered from a limited historiographical tradition and contributed to the mythologies of racial separation.18 Three historical schools have dominated South African historiography: liberalism, Afrocentrism, and Marxism. According to T. R. H. Davenport, “The study of South African history, so dependent in the early part of this century on the work of George McCall Theal [with his focus on missionary values], has undergone two significant changes in the twentieth century and is now involved in the beginnings of a third.”19 The liberal approach is also known as the Macmillan school, after W. M. Macmillan, who questioned “the validity of the received version, above all in its presumption in favour of the ‘colonial’ as against the ‘missionary’ point of view in the inter-racial controversies of the early nineteenth century.”20 Second, the Africanist approach takes an Afrocentric rather than a Eurocentric view. In the post–World War II period, the emphasis has been on the indigenous peoples of Africa and on decolonizing the history of

Political Development in South Africa

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Africa. Finally, there is the Marxist approach, with its critique of liberals for ignoring the influence of rival power groups or class conflict. The debate among these three schools concerned which fundamental values would predominate in a postapartheid South Africa. The approach used here, while recognizing the importance of materialism as a motivating force, takes the position that values are based upon a multiplicity of concerns. It is essential to understand the core values that make up South African society, including traditionalism, communalism, liberalism, trusteeship, and modernization, as well as a number of variations on class analysis. European and African values, plus ideas such as nonviolence generated by immigrants from Asia, combine with indigenous values to make up the rich mosaic of South African intellectual life. There are two views on society in postapartheid South Africa. The traditional view suggests that South Africa remains divided along racial, ethnic, and class lines and that these contending civil societies need to learn to interact with each other.21 At issue is the extent to which South African nationalism was substantially different from the emerging nationalisms in the rest of Africa because of its permanent multiracial minority of close to 21 percent. The other view is that South Africa is moving toward a common set of values. The division between black and white, “the division that runs through the psyche of the nation,” runs deep in South African culture.22 Despite this divide, however, South Africans share common values perched on top of the social, economic, and political divisions of the country. Many people of varying backgrounds have knowledge of more than one language and are culturally fluid. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were “cultural borrowings that to some extent crossed racial boundaries.”23 The assumption of many watching South Africa was that “most South Africans [were] working to form a single nation—‘the rainbow nation.’”24 It is certainly true that some South Africans, both black and white, have begun to broaden their self-identity to groups that were formerly “others.”25 Increasingly, there are people in South Africa who feel connected through deeper values, despite their diversity and cultural differences.26 As the late Nadine Gordimer notes, increasingly South Africans now accept each other “as a common relative in the human family.”27 However, some observers suggest that this acceptance is a myth. For these critics, South Africa has not become the rainbow nation that Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu hoped for, but rather remains a deeply divided country. And there is still concern among scholars that the divisions in this society, including ethnic language, racial, socioeconomic, and class divisions, will not survive continued violence, including criminal violence, in a new open democracy with a majority government.28 Some critics of the

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

one-nation idea point out that only 13 percent of South Africans identify themselves as such, without reference to race, ethnicity, or culture. It was not that long ago that Afrikaners and blacks were both at the bottom of the class scale. But today, “blacks and Boers [farmers] have a great deal in common, and are often able to bridge the apartheid divide more easily than English speaking South Africans.”29 As Denis Beckett puts it, “There can be few white men on the planet who have closer physical contact with black men than the working class Boer.”30 The rainbow nation sentiment dominated the ANC-Lusaka meetings with white South Africans in the late 1980s.31 Such a vision assumed that a future South African political culture would emerge from a common, distinctively South African, synthesis.32 The intimate relationship between African and Afrikaner, particularly in the rural areas of South Africa, defines this synthesis. For Charles van Onselen, “When an authentic South African identity eventually emerges from the troubled country it will, in large part, have come from painful shared experiences on the highveld.”33 There is some evidence of common values grounded in terms of a South African political culture. At question is whether a peaceful and adaptable society that recognizes and respects the rule of law can be achieved in South Africa.34 For many—but not all—South Africans, race is no longer the central organizing force of society.35 This view suggests that there is a South African bond that, at least at an elite level, can cross ethnic and racial differences. It is a bond of “mutual attachment to the same country despite racial and political differences.”36 Institutions of local governance are central to getting the rules of the political game right. Nationalism in South Africa, if it is to provide for political stability, should and will not be ethnically based but rather derived from shared social, economic, and political concerns and a common history.37 “What is unique for the RSA [Republic of South Africa],” according to Jan-Erik Lane and Murray Faure, “is the strong emphasis upon constitutional mechanisms, i.e., for getting the constitutional rules right and the setting up of institutions for the implementation of a large variety of constitutional provisions.”38 From this, one could conclude that South Africans share a common patriotism, values, spirituality, and humanity. Over the past 200 years, African, Asian, and European values have circulated and blended in South Africa.39 The most important of these values is popular democracy through democratic governance and based upon Afrikaner civil religion (an ideology of ethnically defined values) since World War II, despite its distortion by racism.40 This populist democratic value system is the hope for the future. The synthesis, however, is not yet entirely apparent. During the 1994 elections, political movements and opposition groups claimed specific

Political Development in South Africa

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swaths of territory and excluded other groups from these spaces (including most townships, parts of Natal and the Transkei). Voting patterns from 1994, 1999, 2004, and 2009 and the 1995–1996, 2000, 2006, and 2011 local government elections suggest that ethnic cleavages define voting (the election results mirrored ethnic demographics), and, for all intents and purposes, South Africa is a one-party state. The negotiated agreement leading to the 1994 elections provided the opportunity to define a common set of values, such as an inclusive nationbuilding nationalism, a liberal democratic constitution, and a strategy of economic growth driven by a competitive market economy. It also provided for intergovernmental relations among the three levels of government, which were constitutionally entrenched. However, also coming out of the negotiated agreement is a continued advocacy by some of ethnic exclusivism, or by others of nonracial nation building, which can be seen as either “Jacobin intolerance”41 or the continued protection of privilege. These competing perspectives are central to issues of local governance in South Africa.

Local Governance and State Institutions The Centralized State and Society In England, at the beginning of the twentieth century, democratic local government led to great programs of gas and water linkages, housing projects, slum clearance, the establishment of art galleries, parks, public baths, and sewage and sanitation projects. Local government reform proved to be the political remedy to poverty and despotism in Europe, and similar results have occurred in other parts of the world. Local governance has its historical origins in the extension of voting rights to local governments in Europe, which were granted wide powers of administration, financed by taxes. Local government became an instrument of reform, and public servants generally carried out their duties with honesty. Local government careers attracted some of most-talented members of the middle class.42 The English definition of local governance is at once localized and at the same time accepted throughout Britain and the old Dominions. It did not export well throughout much of the non-white British Empire, however. The patterns of segregation and apartheid that characterized twentiethcentury South Africa had their origins in the nineteenth century and came out of British colonial rule and the frontier experience of Dutch-speaking settlers interacting with the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. Territorial and political segregation policies imposed by European settlers

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

reduced the black numerical majority into a de facto minority that had little power in the South African state.43 Historically, as we will see, Africans could only gain experience in public management in segregated, corrupt subnational governments infused with an administrative culture of prefectoralism. As recently as 1994, blacks made up only 10 percent of the Public Service Association, the elite civil service advocacy organization. Efforts at affirmative action have depended upon recruitment from outside the civil service for senior government positions, short-term bridge training, and a long-term educational program to develop the skill pool needed to ensure effective and efficient public sector management after the transition. Following the fiveyear constitutional transition period (1994–1999), in 2000, the results were not promising. At the end of the Mbeki presidency, the situation within the local level civil service appeared to get worse, and under Jacob Zuma South African subnational governments continued to face significant capacity shortages, unfunded mandates, and budgetary deficits as well as increased detachment of local government officials from the concerns of good governance.44 The South African centralized state, as a colonial inheritance, functioned in relationship to civil society in a way that was racially based and ethnically defined. For black South Africans living outside of whitemajority areas, the local state45 remained colonial and authoritarian. Thus, democratic participatory culture depended largely on the degree of pluralism embedded in a wider network of state and social institutions. This must include local-level political structures. Stable democracies require social strength to maintain a civil society and a bureaucracy that sees themselves as part of an institution, as having interests that go beyond their own organizational or class interests.46 Thus “institution building” should take precedence over “nation building” in a multiethnic country.47 Democratically based civil society requires an institutionalized democratic process where there are consensually but firmly defined values and institutional rules for policy debate. In South Africa, civil society needs to be made up of multiracial, cross-sectional political parties that promote consensus rather than cleavage, a public service sector defined by a democratic culture, and an independent elite led by mass-based organizations, private entrepreneurial bodies, and popular social movements that can drive the political system and act as a watchdog over the state.48 These are tall orders for a racially and ethnically splintered society. A major assumption of this book is that ethnicity and culture are important, but the relative importance of ethnicity, as a factor, is contextual to the social, economic, and political environment of the time. There is no mystifying cultural essence to any of the social groupings in South Africa. However, the diverse racial and ethnic groups in the country have all had group-

Political Development in South Africa

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defined interests and actions. At the same time, there is, and has been for some time, a single social system that spans all South Africa.49 Between 1990 and 1994, rules in South Africa were largely defined via the negotiated transition. These rules provided the country with a limited, formalized political democracy at the national and subnational levels. However, in the aftermath of the 1994 elections, the rules were often undefined and open-ended, and the future of local governance and civil society remained uncertain. Democratic governance is more than elections and transparency at the national level. A civil society requires local government structures and processes that are pluralist and participatory. For good government to occur, participatory processes need to evolve at the level where public institutions and policies most impact society. It is at this grassroots or primary level where dialogue occurs between the state and its citizens and where interest-based organizations and community-based groups both compete with each other and form partnerships with accountable, representative local authorities. The Developmental State In the 1980s and 1990s, ideas about local governance and civil society reflected the ongoing uncertainties about the nature of the state in a development context. In the past thirty years, debate among both practitioners and academics has swung between autonomy and centralism as appropriate strategies of development. The developmental state, as it evolved in the 1950s, was state-centric and took the Indian Five-Year Plan, established under the British Raj, as its model. The state would define and manage development efforts. Planning was hierarchical and top-down. By the late 1960s, ideas of development had become more localized with concern for appropriate technologies and grassroots efforts. By the end of the 1970s, observers despaired about the appropriate form of (national or local) government involvement in socioeconomic change. Privatization and policy reform became code words for reduced management, private sector development, and strict limits on state authority. By the end of the 1980s, it became clear that early optimism about the long-term impact of policy reform was unwarranted. By the first decade of the twenty-first century it was obvious that developing societies are complex and require a robust, yet limited, government and a strong private sector embedded in civil society values. A combination of democratic governance and civil society is the real key to economic transformation. Advocates of civil society have been disenchanted with both statecentric models of change and naïve arguments about unfettered private enterprise development. Democratic governance involves a pluralist form

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

of decisionmaking, a role for voluntary associations and community-based organizations, a strong and diversified private sector, and decentralized forms of political participation. In the 1990s and into the 2000s, patterns of governance, specifically decentralized government, again became central to thinking about social and economic development around the world. Decentralization as a Concept Decentralization is an elusive concept often used by practitioners and scholars to understand the role of local government in the development process. The term means different things to different people. According to Rondinelli and Cheema, decentralization is “the transfer of planning, decision making, or administrative authority from the central government to its field organizations, local administrative units, semi-autonomous and parastatal organizations, local governments, or non-governmental organizations.”50 Decentralization of authority usually includes the ability to raise taxes, spend, access capital markets, and make policy within their own jurisdictions.51 Other aspects of decentralization involve the ability to control and select personnel and judicial autonomy. What is often missing from technical discussions of decentralization is the devolution of political power; that is, granting local officials autonomy of action. The key characteristics of decentralization are the extent to which fiscal powers are decentralized, local government borrowing is permitted, and intergovernmental grants are used to flatten out inequity. Decentralization is an umbrella term that incorporates four types of transfer of authority from the national state to subnational organizations. First, political decentralization or devolution of power refers to the transfer of political authority from one level of government and one level of political elites to another lower level. The constitutional entrenchment of this division of authority is usually referred to as federalism. Second, administrative decentralization or deconcentration of power refers to the transfer of fiscal, personnel, or program policy from the central bureaucracy to a geographically or functionally separate field administration. The location of political authority remains largely unchanged—at the center. Decentralization to locally based bureaucrats is often referred to as the creation of a local state. Third, delegation of power refers to the transfer of authority from a government structure to an autonomous or semiautonomous organization, a special authority, a parastatal, or a public corporation. Fourth, privatization refers to the transfer of economic authority from the central government to a nongovernmental, not-for-profit, or profitmaking organization.

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While analytically we can separate these four functions, in reality they are often intertwined both in the bureaucratic sense and at the policy level. Thus, we focus largely on the first two forms of decentralization: devolution of power and deconcentration of authority from central to local government. Decentralization, as we use the term, has both political and administrative dimensions and, at the heart of the strategy, is an effort to reorient power-sharing relationships and increase participation. In its purest form, political decentralization is the devolution of power to local-level political elites, individuals with a constituency separate from that of the national leadership. In Africa, we most often see a variant of administrative decentralization (or deconcentration), where limited authority is delegated to officials who represent the state at the local level. Because of the way decentralization has occurred, patterns of local governance in the 1990s in practice came to mean local administration by representatives of the central government. In many parts of Africa local authorities are dependent on the center for financial and physical resources, their autonomy is limited, and local participation is weak to nonexistent. Deconcentration entails the dispersion or redistribution of administrative responsibilities from central government ministries or departments to field offices. There is no transfer of political power to the periphery. The main variations in deconcentration include: field administration, where some decisionmaking discretion is transferred to field staff; local administration, where subordinate levels of government become agents of the central authority; and functional administration, where deconcentration occurs within specific sectors such as health, education, and agriculture. Within a geographical unit there are two types of local administration—what Smith categorizes as integrated and unintegrated “prefectoral systems.”52 “Prefectoralism” is a conceptual term that defines appointed central authorities at the subnational level. In the early days, white magistrates served as prefects in South Africa. Later “native” or “Bantu” commissioners functioned as prefects in the parts of South Africa reserved for blacks. Integrated systems are forms of deconcentration in which the field staff of central departments work within a local jurisdiction under the direction and coordination of a chief executive—a prefect—appointed by and responsible to the central government. In unintegrated systems, local field staff operate independently of each other and report directly to their central parent departments in the capital city. The field administrator or prefect is responsible for law and order and residual administration functions that are not sectorally divided. Devolution involves the transfer of both responsibilities and political power to the local governments. The assumption is that devolution devolves power in a series of different locations so that a space is created in which minority interests can be more influential.53 The subsidiary levels of

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government are autonomous, independent, and widely recognized as distinct political entities within a geographical area. They have a corporate status and the power to secure resources to perform their functions. Rondinelli and Cheema perhaps offer the most complete definition of devolution as an arrangement in which there are reciprocal, mutually beneficial, and coordinated relationships between central and local governments. The local government, thus, has the ability to interact reciprocally with other government units. The concept of devolution is nonhierarchical in that governments coordinate with one another on an independent, reciprocating basis. Most often governments in developing countries have adopted mixed or dual local government systems, with characteristics lying somewhere between deconcentration and devolution. In eastern and southern Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya are recognized as having dual systems, and they have experienced a variety of problems ranging from conflict over resources and responsibilities to regional or ethnic political rivalries.54 The possible variations existing within this continuum of deconcentration through devolution explains the high frequency of administrative reforms in many African countries. In practice, decentralization is a matter of degree, and thus countries or organizations cannot be fitted neatly into the various categories of decentralization. Moreover, within one country we could identify a variety of types and degrees of decentralization, depending on the type of organization examined. Even more interesting is the gap between the rhetoric and the practice of decentralization among both politicians and administrators. Prefectoralism as a Structure and a Mindset The office of the prefect, a territorial governor appointed by a central authority, has its origins in the absolutist period in Europe, when the prefect was the territorial representative of the monarch. European imperialists transferred the office to many areas of Africa and Asia.55 The judicial and administrative role of the South African prefect, later styled “native commissioner” in the rural reserves of South Africa (and magistrate and commissioner later in the Bantustan homelands), was the counterpart of the district officer, commandant, district commissioner, and collector in other parts of imperial Africa and Asia. The French prefectoral system, coming out of Napoleonic France, is usually cited as the ideal integrated prefectoral system. The term “integrated” refers to a dual relationship between the prefect and other central government field officers and between the prefect and local government.56 In the classic integrated prefectoral system, the field administrator is the responsible authority outside the capital, carries what in Francophone Africa is called the tutelle,57 and has authority over other government offi-

Political Development in South Africa

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cials within his jurisdiction. The integrated prefectoral system increases interaction between the local population and field staff, as well as among the various government field offices. This system can lead to a bettermotivated public and optimal utilization of local resources. Popular participation in decisionmaking can also lead to improved political and administrative participation in rural areas, which implies greater support for government policies, greater political stability, and greater equity in the distribution of the benefits of development.58 Until the late twentieth century, prefectoralism was the dominant mechanism of state control outside of the United States and its formal territories, the British home islands, and parts of Latin America. Throughout the world, prefects continue to function as mechanisms of social and political control in the twenty-first century. Prefectoralism, however, both as a structure and a mindset, is a worldview based on centralized authority. As a mindset, prefectoralism will continue until economic development and technological complexity advance to a level that requires specialized administration and organized pluralist interests demand access to the specialized state. In Western Europe, as a result of advanced economic development, the role of the prefect has been in decline. This is also the case in South Africa where prefectoral structures have largely—though not completely—disappeared. Yet prefectoralism as a formula for political control remains an important factor in elite decisionmaking.

Conclusion To understand governance in South Africa today, one must look at the region’s long, mostly tortured history of governance over the past 400 years. A number of themes stand out. First, there is a pattern of grassroots and participatory values that begins with the Western Cape huntergatherers, including Afrikaner nationalist demands, and the township and mobilization models of the ANC and the other African nationalist movements of the twentieth century. However, an opposition trend, patriarchal authoritarianism, also moves through South Africa from hierarchical traditional authority, through the colonialism of the prefect as “the tutor” to locals, to the authoritarianism of the apartheid regime. The apartheid regime created a system of dependent appendages as intermediate governance mechanisms that have as yet to be fully integrated into the political system. This hierarchical model remains firmly in place through the continuing ideological lenses of some in the ANC and the South African Communist Party as well as the fragment of collectivism that South African leaders have come to call cooperative government.

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

This is the dialectic to be addressed in this book. The backdrop is the richness of debate, the drama of conflict, and the routinization of hierarchy that is South African local governance at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. It is also important to note that South Africa is an African state, and though many South Africans do not like to hear it, there are lessons, both good and bad, that South Africans can learn from their neighbors on the continent. Chapter 2 provides a framework for understanding local governance debates in South Africa.

Notes 1. Aubrey Menen, The Prevalence of Witches (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), p. 1. Picard notes that the late Hugh Charles Hooks drew his attention to this classic many years ago. 2. Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 31. 3. Jeremy Grest, “The Crisis of Local Government in South Africa,” in State, Resistance, and Change in South Africa, ed. Phillip Frankel, Noam Pines, and Mark Swilling (London: Croom Helm, 1988), p. 110. 4. The term is most often used to describe the system instituted in India and its nine provinces under the 1919 Constitution, which divided functions between the British governor general and largely self-governing provincial administrations. 5. We use the term “nonracial” with hesitance since South Africa still bears the cross of racial segregation and apartheid. The term respects the aspirations of many if not most South Africans and is common terminology there. For that reason we use the term to define the post-1994 period. 6. This point is made in the special pullout section of the Economist (June 5, 2010). See especially the article, “Your Friendly Monolith: The ANC Remains All Powerful,” pp. 4–5. 7. Vino Naidoo, “The State of the Public Service,” in State of the Nation: South Africa 2003–2004, ed. John Daniel, Adam Habib, and Roger Southall (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council Press, 2003), p. 126. 8. Dele Olowu, “The Failure of Decentralization Programs in Africa,” in The Failure of the Centralized State: Institutions and Self-Governance in Africa, ed. James Wunsch and Dele Olowu (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 85–86. 9. James S. Wunsch and Dele Olowu, “The Failure of the Centralized African State,” in The Failure of the Centralized State, p. 14. 10. For a discussion of this see United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1994 (New York: UNDP, 1994). 11. See Guy Gran, Development by People: Citizen Construction of a Just World (New York: Praeger, 1983). 12. South African Surveys: The Millennium Edition 2000/2001 (Pretoria: South African Institute of Race Relations, 2001). 13. See the end of apartheid debates in Robert Schrire, Wealth or Poverty? Critical Choices for South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1992). 14. Anthony Sampson, Black and Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries, and Apartheid (London: Coronet Books, 1987), p. 21.

Political Development in South Africa

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15. Justin Cartwright, Not Yet Home: A South African Journey (London: Fourth Estate, 1996), p. 22. 16. Peter Hain, Sing the Beloved Country: The Struggle for the New South Africa (London: Pluto Press, 1996), p. 5. 17. Leonard Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 241. 18. “Problems of Southern African Historiography” (unpublished essay, February 7, 1977). 19. T. R. H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1997), p. xiii. 20. Ibid. 21. Pierre du Toit, State Building and Democracy in Southern Africa: Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), p. 231. 22. Allister Sparks, The Mind of South Africa (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. xvii. 23. William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 176. 24. James Barber, South Africa in the Twentieth Century (London: Blackwell, 1999). 25. J. J. van Tonder, “The Salient Features of the Interim Constitution,” in South Africa: Designing New Political Institutions, ed. Murray Faure and Jan-Erik Lane (London: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 11–33. 26. F. Van Zyl Slabbert, Tough Choices: Reflections of an Afrikaner African (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2000), p. 82. 27. Nadine Gordimer, “Five Years into Freedom,” New York Times Magazine (June 27, 1999): 19. 28. van Tonder, “The Salient Features of the Interim Constitution,” p. 27. 29. David Goodman, Faultlines: Journeys into the New South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 7. 30. Denis Beckett, Madibaland (Cape Town: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 69. 31. Patti Waldemeir, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 64. 32. For a discussion and critique of this view, see George M. Fredrickson, Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 284–286. 33. Charles van Onselen, The Seed Is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894–1985 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990), p. 270 and p. vi, respectively. 34. Frank Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History (New York: Kodansha International, 1999), p. xxv. 35. Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (New York: Random House Digital, 2007), p. 270. 36. Allister Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa’s Road to Change (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), p. 82. 37. Fredrickson, Black Liberation, p. 285. 38. Jan-Erik Lane and Murray Faure, “Introduction” in South Africa: Designing New Political Institutions, ed. Murray Faure and Jan-Erik Lane (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), p. 1. 39. Ivan Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 196.

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

40. Ronald Christenson, “The Civil Religion of Apartheid: Afrikanerdom’s Covenant,” The Midwest Quarterly 20, no. 2 (Winter 1979): 138. 41. From the French Revolution, defining a populist, radical view of social change. 42. Rayne Kruger, Goodbye Dolly Gray: The Story of the Boer War (London: Cassell, 1959), p. 3. 43. Fredrickson, Black Liberation, p. 6. 44. A situation confirmed a year into the presidency of Jacob Zuma. See Celia W. Dugger, “A President Stirs Hope, But Has Yet to Deliver,” New York Times, June 8, 2010, A4, A8. 45. Golding notes the “hidden details” of the internal state strategies with respect to its employees under the apartheid system and uses the term “local state.” See Marcel Golding, “Workers in the State Sector: The Case of the Civil Administration,” South African Labour Bulletin 10, no. 5 (April 1985): 40–56. 46. See Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); du Toit, State Building and Democracy, p. 269. 47. Heribert Adam, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, and Kogila Moodley, Comrades in Business: Post-Liberation Politics in South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1997), p. 103. 48. Philip Schmitter discussed these points in a “Workshop on the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa” (Johannesburg, June 25–26, 1990), Picard’s research diary. 49. William F. Lye and Colin Murry, Transformations on the Highveld: The Tswana and Southern Sotho (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1980), p. 20. 50. G. S. Cheema, “Introduction,” in Decentralization and Development: Policy Implementation in Developing Countries, ed. G. S. Cheema and D. A. Rondinelli (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983), p. 19. 51. J. Tyler Dickovick, “The Measure and Mismeasure of Decentralisation: Subnational Autonomy in Senegal and South Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 43, no. 2 (2005): 183–207. 52. See Brian Smith, Field Administration (London: Kegan and Paul, 1967). 53. Raymond Parsons, The Mbeki Inheritance: South Africa’s Economy, 1990–2004 (Johannesburg: Hodder and Stoughton, 1999), p. 7. 54. Philip Mawhood, “Decentralization: The Concept and the Practice,” in Local Government for Development: The Experience of Tropical Africa, ed. Philip Mawhood (Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons, 1983), pp. 13–14. 55. A prefect is a geographically or territorially based governor, appointed by the central government. The term was originally French. The French prefectoral government is seen as representative of a highly centralized territorial administration. Though Britain does not have a prefectoral form of local administration within the UK, it created prefectoral administrations in most parts of its second colonial empire. See Ferrel Heady, Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1991), pp. 176–182. On prefectoralism, see Brian C. Smith, Decentralization: The Territorial Dimension of the State (London: Allen and Unwin, 1985). Two illustrative case studies on the evolution of prefectoral government are Louis A. Picard, “Decentralization, ‘Recentralization’ and ‘Steering Mechanisms’: Paradoxes of Local Government in Denmark,” Polity 15, no. 4 (Summer 1983): 536–554; and Louis A. Picard, “Socialism and the Field Administrator: Decentralization in Tanzania,” Comparative Politics 12, no. 4 (July 1980): 439–457.

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56. W. J. O. Jeppe, Bophuthatswana: Land Tenure and Development (Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch, 1980), p. 85–90. 57. The word suggests the tutor in an academic sense. See Louis A. Picard and Ezzedine Moudoud, “The 2008 Guinea Conakry Coup: Neither Inevitable nor Inexorable,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 28, no. 1 (January 2010): 51–69. 58. Dennis A. Rondinelli, “Administrative Decentralization and Economic Development: The Sudanese Experiment with Devolution,” Journal of Modern African Studies 19, no. 4 (1981): 597. See also D. A. Kotze, “Trends in Field Administration” (Pretoria: unpublished manuscript, 1983), p. 10.

2 Patterns of Local Governance: Africa’s Colonial Legacy

You can take the African out of the Bush but you can’t take the Bush out of the African.1 I had little or no administration [at the district level] with their very poor African population and an economically predominant white community.2

I

n much of Africa, colonialism created a top-down prefectoralism that was retained by postcolonial rulers. Colonial prefectoralism at the grassroots level defined the pragmatic imperial servant . . . [in] that special system of one-man subgovernment, at once coldly detached as well as necessarily intimate, through which whole peoples and vast territories were eventually to be ruled in the remoter regions of colonial Africa south [of] the Sahara, its practitioners so many zealous individual definers of imperialism.3

This chapter puts South Africa into a comparative historical perspective by introducing the concept of prefectoralism in Africa. Prefectoral control in colonial states evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The relationship of the individual to the state under prefectoralism tended to be that of a subject rather than a citizen. This legacy has had a deep impact upon African politics. The prefectoral system provided a control mechanism to ensure hegemony over the colonial territory. Throughout colonial Africa, the European district officers—the prefects—and the African chiefs were responsible for imposing an increasingly comprehen-

23

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

sive hegemony through universal taxation, communications, and other infrastructure institutions.4 The prefect symbolized the dominance of the European colonial institutional structure over the looser imperial system created in the nineteenth century. Overseas domination was reduced to a single basis of territorial domination, “a basic territorial grid or regional administration, staffed by Europeans.”5 In his prefectoral role, the district officer held unquestioned authority and came to represent “a pure model of alien bureaucratic autocracy.”6 The “local state” is defined here as that part of the state structure that directly impacts upon and is influenced by individuals and groups given that under colonialism higher levels of government are usually isolated from individuals and groups. The prefect implements government directives at the local level and channels all communication between the citizen and the administration.7 Hegemony or physical control in colonial regimes occurred through the physical domination of space. This territorial imperative was central to the colonial system. The territory, once occupied, would never be voluntarily given up. Hegemony consisted of four interacting strategies: (1) co-optation of elements of the precolonial elites, (2) use of or threat to use force, (3) imposition of a body of colonial law, and, finally, (4) relationships and roles defined at the point where the colonizer and the colonized intersected. Hegemony meant the right to exercise arbitrary authority for the colonial regime. In addition, prefects were responsible for extracting resources and imposing a system of labor service favorable to monopoly trading companies, the settler community, and the colonial regime. The colonial district officer, the embodiment of empire, represented “a special form of polity, the purest modern form of bureaucratic autocracy. State and administration were coterminous.”8 The legacies of prefectoralism have provided a major challenge to the development of local self-governance. Rothchild and Chazan call this challenge the “precarious balance between state and society.”9 Here we define the problem as the difference between the local state and local democratic self-governance. The African colonial state developed a number of characteristics that make it similar to the apartheid state that evolved in South Africa. Among the most important was the use of an outsider, the colonial prefect, the “district officers, ‘kings of the bush,’ [who] enjoyed an infrequently challenged ascendancy” to impose top-down control over all in their political jurisdiction.10 Though they discouraged local self-governance, both colonial governors in the nineteenth century and South African white elites in the twentieth invited subject populations to share a subordinated and affective relationship tie to the imperial center. However, the colonial state was a dependent appendage of the overseas society, alien to the local population.

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This same alienation was reproduced in the apartheid regime that occurred within shared geographical space in South Africa.

From Traditional Administration to Indirect Rule An understanding of local government in Africa begins with the patterns of traditional government and how British colonialism changed traditional rule. Throughout central and southern Africa, local governance is a “syncretic blend of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial mechanisms of political control and quiescence.”11 In this book we distinguish between tribal authority and the traditional administration. The latter existed prior to the European scramble for Africa and encompassed widely varying forms of government: participatory, authoritarian, segmented, and hierarchical (chiefs, headmen, and village elders). Traditional government processes are sometimes erroneously referred to as nonformal or informal. Prior to the advent of colonial rule, eastern and southern Africa consisted of a rich variety of political forms ranging from egalitarian, agegrade, and segmentary societies to hierarchically organized monarchies, the primary form. The Bantu monarchies, which ran from the interlacustrine lake kingdoms in eastern Africa to the Nguni and Sotho-Tswana states in southern Africa, were well-established by the time the British arrived in the late nineteenth century. The hierarchical Bantu states had evolved over a millennium, and they were transformed in central and southern Africa following the Zulu Mfecane (crushing) from 1817 to 1828. As a result of the expansion of the Zulu kingdom under King Shaka, during the Mfecane hundreds of thousands of people were uprooted from their homes, and new monarchies formed and reformed throughout eastern and southern Africa. Tribal authority is a form of administration introduced by British colonial rule in the self-governing white minority states of Rhodesia, Southwest Africa, and South Africa. Tribal authority profoundly differed from the precolonial or traditional polities that preceded it and was the product of the British strategy of indirect rule, whereby traditional authorities were significantly modified and reduced in authority through the introduction of administrative and financial controls by a highly centralized colonial administrative state.12 Though the timing differs from place to place, the colonial period in eastern and southern Africa can be divided into three parts. The first period, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, featured parallel rule under an external British protectorate. Lugard’s indirect rule (governing through tribal authorities)13 characterized the middle period, and ideas of

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

modernization and development characterized the late preindependence era. The period between 1948 and independence in 1961 was characterized by the introduction of limited forms of elected local government. Parallel Rule Parallel rule created and propagated the myths that British rule protected African polities from outside forces and that the British government would not interfere in the internal affairs of traditional rulers. Patterns of communication from the then–colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain (1895–1903), encouraged the traditional ruler’s sense of autonomy. In areas with strong traditional regimes, parallel rule offered paramount chiefs potentially great power. The British, with their “pockets full of treaties,”14 introduced colonialism to Africa and guided both the indigenous rulers and their subjects, seeing the external relationship as quasi-diplomatic in nature, with the magistrate or commissioner acting as the Crown’s ambassador to the chief. The remnants of the external-protectorate thinking would plague colonial administrators almost to the end of the colonial period. As one colonial administrator put it: The problem with chiefs was that they hated new developments. They were often to the right of the Europeans. They had old attitudes and despotic powers based on the [quasi-diplomatic status] given to them by the Chamberlain agreements.15

Parallel rule was often weakened when other European settlers arrived in eastern and southern Africa, and the existence and length of parallel rule was influenced by the proximity and influence of these European settlers.16 Thus, the Xhosa of the Eastern Cape experienced no significant period of parallel rule, while the Zulu kingdom existed as a protectorate from the 1840s to 1879. Prior to the 1899–1901 Anglo-Boer War, the Dutch republics, the Orange Free State, and the South African Republic (Transvaal) could also be classified as external protectorates. Indirect Rule After Union in 1910 and by the end of World War I, the British Colonial Office decided that tighter controls over the colonies were required. As a result, indirect rule was introduced in the late 1920s and 1930s throughout eastern, central, and southern Africa, first in Tanganyika (now the mainland of Tanzania) and Uganda and then, subject to the acceptability of European settlers, throughout sub-Saharan Africa.17 Under indirect rule, the colonial

Patterns of Local Governance: Africa’s Colonial Legacy

27

district officer took on a more interventionist and an avowedly paternal style of administration.18 Lord Lugard’s experiments in northern Nigeria and the policy in Tanganyika of Sir Donald Cameron, governor of Tanganyika (1925–1931), set the stage for indirect rule elsewhere in southern Africa. Lugard published The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (Lugard’s manifesto on colonialism) in 1922.19 Ultimately, British commissioners throughout eastern and southern Africa recommended the adoption of the indirect rule model, and versions were introduced in Rhodesia, southwest Africa, and portions of contemporary South Africa as well. According to Lugard, British colonial officials must govern their subjects through traditional institutions wherever possible. However, indirect rule differed from parallel rule in that British administrators were mandated to change or reform traditional administration. Although, in theory, African political institutions were not coterminous with traditional authority, in practice, indirect rule heavily emphasized the chief’s role, guided by the colonial administrator, in the governance of African people who traditionally did not distinguish between political and religious leaders.20 From the perspective of the colonial administrator, indirect rule targeted several sets of concerns that arose in the 1920s and 1930s. These included, first of all, the “low moral standards” of chiefs and headmen, “whose drinking habits and private lives left much to be desired.”21 Pushed along by such subjective thinking, indirect rule took on a moral flavor as it was marketed to both the British public and local interests. More practically, the district officer had to deal with the tribal authorities’ lack of financial skills, as it was difficult to recruit tribal treasurers who were both fully competent and honest. Thus, any budget irregularities had to be meticulously checked.22 Indirect rule, as noted, aimed to reform the practices of the local chief and bring him fully under British government control.23 In southern Africa up to the late 1950s, the district officer, styled as the district commissioner, consulted the chief on policy matters, believing the chief’s views reflected the needs of the area.24 The district commissioner sought the cooperation of the chief and his administration by persuasion and, sometimes, coercion.25 The British policy of indirect rule demonstrates the dilemmas and contradictions inherent in colonialism.26 When the British introduced indirect rule, they used bureaucratic means to modify local political structures. The resulting form of tribal administration was supposed to remain autonomous, while at the same time being controlled financially and administratively by the district administration. Bureaucratic structures, in theory, would give birth to reformed political entities.

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

By the 1920s, British colonial administrators served throughout Africa as district officers, magistrates, commissioners, and regional and resident advisers (with the name changing in different territories). While the nomenclature may have changed over time, the role of the colonial administrator remained constant throughout eastern and southern Africa. And although their numbers were small, the colonial administrators made decisions that affected the lives of millions of people. Their proclamations regulated the powers of chiefs and headmen; established tribal treasuries and financial procedures; reformed traditional judicial administration; and selected tribal councils to provide a modicum of participation. District officers also trained traditional authorities and their new salaried staffs. The district officer was a field administrator who circulated throughout his territory. In the 1920s, travel (safaris) usually took place on foot or push bicycle. Later, touring became more imperial, and “what we had was the pomp and circumstance—the Africans took to this.” 27 One former colonial administrator in East Africa recalled that “a good administrative officer soon learnt that he had to lead rather than drive.”28 That is, the status of the district officer became an important component of his role. Furthermore, almost all colonial district officers saw their role as a positive one, with one former colonial official, in the mid-1980s, in an interview with Picard, even comparing colonial officers with US Peace Corps volunteers.

Local Government in the Late Colonial Period Changes in the nature of local administration began with the introduction of limited colonial development and welfare funds in the late 1930s. After World War II a reforming zeal came to predominate the thinking of new entries into the colonial service. This younger generation would take the African territories through to independence, and many stayed on for varying periods long after. “Modernization” and “development” became the catchwords of colonial administration, giving the district administration and the local authorities responsibility for infrastructure development and food-for-work (welfare) activities. The post–World War II generation of colonial officials were often more oriented toward economic and social development, and many of them disliked supervising tribal administration and judicial work—the primary responsibilities of their predecessors. The postwar period called for a new approach to administering the colonies. In 1949, Secretary of State for Colonies Arthur Creech Jones distributed a circular memorandum that provided not only the opportunity, but also the basis for such an approach. As Creech Jones pointed out:

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29

I believe that the key to success lies in the development of an efficient and democratic system of local government. I wish to emphasize the words efficient, democratic and local. . . . I use these words because they seem to me to contain the kernel of the whole matter: local because the system of government must be close to the common people and their problems; efficient because it must be capable of managing the local services in a way which will help to raise the standard of living; and democratic because it must not only find a place for the growing class of educated men, but at the same time command the respect and support of the mass of the people.29

In keeping with Creech Jones’s guidelines, the colonial administration instituted a number of changes, beginning with the introduction of elections for local councils. This meant that membership was no longer confined to those appointed by the chief, the governor, or the district commissioner. In reality, because of the presence of European settlers in parts of eastern and especially southern Africa, local government principles were introduced “in a half-hearted way” in many territories given that settlers saw indirect rule as threatening to their privileged status in the colonies.30 The decision to shift from indirect rule to local governance coincided with the establishment of internal self-government at the central level. This occurred in the mid-1950s in western, eastern, and central Africa, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s in much of southern Africa.31 The decision to replace indirect rule with decentralized government was a “leisurely colonial conception” taken at a time when independence was believed to be a long time away.32 As such, decentralized government was perceived by the British colonial administration as a “safe strategy never far from colonial tutelage and control.”33 However, such thinking was soon challenged by the rapid acceleration of political developments. The transition to a local government system often had to be effected in a very short period of time,34 especially after 1957 when there were political pressures to decolonize coming from Britain. Initially, the intended scope of modernizing local governance fell short of self-government. However, by 1953 the Gold Coast was on its way to independence, establishing a model of decolonization that was used across Africa, culminating with the independence of Namibia in 1990. In each of the British colonies, specific ordinances were promulgated instituting the new practices.35 Gradually, elected local councils replaced the undemocratic “native authorities” (to use the South African term for tribal authority). in both urban and rural areas. In the twenty-first century one still finds three types of local institutions in Anglophone Africa: the provincial or district administration; municipal council institutions, mostly in urban areas; and traditional community-level institutions in rural areas. The introduction of local government was often met with little enthusiasm from older colonial officials and tribal chiefs alike. Colonial officers

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

were often suspicious of self-government schemes as “imposing sophisticated forms of government on unsophisticated people.”36 One colonial officer went so far as to suggest that “we lost the opportunity to civilize the Third World” because of democratization and decolonization.37 The existence of traditional chiefs and councils influenced the composition of the new local authorities, as well as their functions. As one former colonial officer explained, “In the period leading up to independence, it was obvious to most tribesmen that the creation of elected village and district councils would detract greatly from the authority and prestige of the chieftainship, which causes a certain amount of suspicion about the good intentions of the government.”38 Other factors were also at work in the development of local authorities. For example, the racial composition of some colonies (e.g., Kenya’s large settler community) and the economic domination of one group influenced the organization and the degree of autonomy of the local authorities. While the democratically elected councils were seen to perform a representative function, they also increased administrative capacity at the local level. Local government under the British and their successors was designed to modernize local administration by democratizing the decisionmaking processes and reducing the autocratic powers of the chiefs.39 This tension between governance and management defines the dilemmas of local government in postcolonial Africa.

Local Government After Independence Historically, local government has had three broad functions in southern Africa: to maintain law and order, to deliver social services (e.g., health care, water, waste removal, education), and to facilitate social and economic development in both urban and rural areas. Likewise, the local state has used a combination of three strategies to achieve societal goals: participation and consensus building, social mobilization, and the use of coercive force. The 1950s and early 1960s were transitional years for local government in Anglophone Africa. With the well-established production of agricultural crops for export and extraction of minerals, the colonies were doing well economically in the 1950s and 1960s. On the political front, Africans were increasingly involved in national affairs. Nationalist movements were also beginning to take shape, and it was clear that, sooner or later, the indigenous population would take over administrative and state structures. As independence (the transfer of political authority to an elected political elite and a governing political party) approached in Anglophone Africa,

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the responsibilities of local authorities were no longer limited to maintaining law and order. Their functions were expanded to include education, public health, and the development of agriculture and forestry services. In addition, local authorities were conferred powers of taxation that, in theory, provided them with an independent source of finance. Provisions were also made for central governments to issue grants to local authorities. Independence brought both jubilation and the expectation of a better life to come. It was believed that Africa’s destiny was firmly in the hands of Africans who would transform their national economies, social systems, and political organizations to achieve a better and dignified life for all. Independence also brought new goals and objectives. The roles and functions assigned to political institutions, such as local government, also would be changed, as independence created new patterns of relationships between public officials and the people. While in other former colonies government officials were now responsible to the population as a whole, the minority governments in Rhodesia, southwest Africa, and South Africa continued a form of indirect rule under white government. Unfortunately, the decentralization strategies begun under colonial rule were quickly dismantled after independence as political leaders turned authoritarian. The nascent local governments under colonialism became local administrations of the central government in the postcolonial era.40 All too soon, local elections were eliminated, and, as Nelson Kasfir observed, the domination of district councils by a district commissioner returned local authorities to their earlier status as adjuncts to a deconcentrated structure of authority.41 During the struggle for independence, the emerging nationalist movements had used decentralized authorities as bases for coalition building. With independence, leaders at the center no longer looked so favorably upon local authorities, regarding them as potential breeding grounds for opposition forces. The political implications of decentralized government weighed heavily on the minds of politicians over time, often outweighing any genuine desire to introduce administrative and political reforms. The Failure of Local Governance Structures Two central themes have dominated the concerns of both practitioners and academics regarding local government in Africa since independence.42 First, how can the drive toward rapid socioeconomic development be reconciled with decentralization strategies? Second, what is the most appropriate decentralization strategy—devolution to self-governing institutions or deconcentration through field units of the central government? Despite the rhetoric of decentralization and citizen participation, postcolonial governments in Africa responded to the challenges of underdevel-

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

opment in ways that halted efforts directed at establishing relatively autonomous local government units. As a rule, deconcentration was implemented in one of two ways: the direct supplanting of local governments by field agencies of the central government, or the conversion of local governments into field agencies. There were, of course, some exceptions, including Botswana and, later, Ghana.43 However, most African governments implemented measures that left local governments virtually powerless and, in some cases, extinct. Ironically, the transformation of tribal authorities into local governments (specifically, urban and rural councils) did not significantly increase local initiative, citizen participation, or popular responsiveness. Directives continued to come from the center through the regional or district officers, and locally conceived plans and projects had to be approved at the center.44 The remainder of this book focuses on the failure to create democratic governance structures at local levels in South Africa and the resulting implications for development. The debate over the nature of political competition and political control plays out at the grassroots or primary level of government. Since independence in the 1960s, most of the countries of Africa have been characterized by state-centric patterns of governance where chronically weak or soft states attempt to manage the development process with little or no role for nongovernmental organizations and pluralist centers of decisionmaking.45 As a result, grassroots participatory structures have been very weak throughout the continent. Social experiments, such as the mobilization of large populations to promote certain forms of agricultural development, often fizzled out. Rural and urban dwellers alike have withdrawn sullenly from the national social and economic system or transferred their loyalties to alternative ethnic, religious, or regional groupings. Philip Mawhood has characterized the ebb and flow of local authority in terms of a pendulum, whereby power regularly shifts from the center to the periphery and back to the center.46 Beginning with the movement to establish autonomous local authorities prior to independence, the pendulum swung in favor of deconcentrated administration during the 1960s, as power reverted back to the center. A renewed belief in the value of participation and a greater emphasis on rural development strategies swung the pendulum again with experiments that resulted in mixed authorities—where local representative bodies (usually development committees or district councils) were comprised of locally elected councilors and central government nominees or government officials. In most cases, the government representatives outnumbered the locals. The 1970s witnessed a second round of decentralization, as international donors advocated addressing basic needs through a strategy of inte-

Patterns of Local Governance: Africa’s Colonial Legacy

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grated rural development.47 Local government was seen as a forum for reaching the grassroots and coming to consensus on public policy. Absent in many of the discussions of governance in this period was the element of political competition. The failure to recognize that groups representing many social, ethnic, and economic interests would need political space to legitimately compete for power and debate significant development issues has been the bane of many large-scale social and economic transformation interventions. Political strategies that shifted power back and forth from the center to the periphery had significant administrative consequences. Local governments in Africa never succeeded in becoming autonomous political units; rather, they formed an integral—if weak—part of the national administrative structure. The significance of local authorities lies in the role they have played in the development process, and in two important functions they have performed. First, local authorities determine the relationship between the various organs involved in governing. Local authorities also serve as moderators, providing a balance between four opposing sets of values: individual liberty vs. corporate authority; local political initiative vs. central government directives; citizen participation vs. professional management; and, finally, popular responsiveness vs. effective administration. Attempts to centralize control have resulted in “negative power” for governments, as centralization effectively prevented other political bodies from acting independently. When power was brought back to the center, the center often lacked the “positive power” needed to effectively implement policies.48 While the cycle of centralization-decentralization appears to have been finally broken during the 1980s, with decentralized strategies in ascendancy, an appropriate balance of power has yet to be found. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the failure of the African state, in both political and socioeconomic terms, reignited demands for democratic and pluralist forms of governance in many parts of Africa. The political test of new forms of governance occurred at the local level. Thus, an understanding of the limits on local government provides an important starting point in discussions about the future of the development process in South Africa. The last ten years have seen a renewed recognition that fiscal and personnel deficits will limit the effectiveness of democratic local institutions. In Tanzania, for example, the main purpose of the politicization of the bureaucracy after 1970 was to provide a counterweight to the historically independent civil service. Despite politicization, however, party officials were not able to control the bureaucracy, even at the district level.49 According to some observers, the problem in many countries was not an underdeveloped local bureaucracy, but rather an overdeveloped bureaucracy that the political system could not control.50

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Academic and policy critics of development administration in the 1980s called for a new approach—development management—a concept that included nongovernmental organizations, public-private partnerships, and nontraditional public-sector actors. The term “management” suggests a consensus-based, nonhierarchical model of social and economic change, which is participatory in nature both in electoral and in consultative terms. The literature on the rationale for decentralization in development administration is wide and mainly based on the need to involve local interests and people in the development process.51 Other reasons for decentralization include enhancing political legitimacy, maintaining social order, and reproducing cheap labor for the state. Diana Conyers has grouped them into two main categories: administrative and political. Administrative arguments call for the facilitation of horizontal coordination among various agencies at the local level, popular participation in development planning, and flexibility in the implementation of development projects. The political arguments have focused on popular participation in the political process, the reduction of regional inequities, and the enhancement of political unity.52 The search for an appropriate institutional framework at the local level is as important today in Africa as it was some fifty years ago. According to estimates by the United Nations, the most-developed countries put a quarter or more of total government spending in the hands of city or regional authorities. In developing countries, the figure is 10 percent or less. This difference gives us the opportunity to think about the role that local government should play in the development process. While the political and economic rationales have certainly changed over time, the significance of having sound and efficient local structures remains high on the agendas of most African countries. In particular, the failure of rural development programs has pushed policymakers and donors alike to develop new strategies to not only improve local-level institutional capacity, but also to search for ways to improve sustainability, efficiency, and effectiveness, as well as democratic participation. Tensions in Center-Periphery Relations With the exception of Nigeria, which became a federation, all Anglophone African national governments in western, eastern, and southern Africa were unitary and controlled local governments by exercising the legal or administrative right to create and alter boundaries and dissolve local authorities. The legislative acts, in addition to creating local governments, also defined and assigned specific functions to be performed by those authorities. Statutes detail both permissive functions (nonobligatory functions) and obligatory functions. The latter are carried out in a manner specified in laws or directives overseen by central government agents. As a consequence of

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these permissive and obligatory functions, local governments in Africa not only take care of some matters of a purely local nature, but they also act to a great extent as administrative agents for the central government.53 This has led some observers to conclude that local government functions in Africa can be viewed as a deconcentrated form of decentralization.54 Every African country has a Ministry of Local Government or a ministry that makes directives and recommendations to local governments on behalf of the central government. Further, other ministries participate in the regulation, supervision, and tutelage of local authorities by directly or indirectly supervising the activities of local units in their respective fields of specialization and by planning development activities.55 In eastern and southern Africa, the minister responsible for local government has powers to approve not only the creation of local governments, but also their development plans, loan applications, and new projects.56 Moreover, with the exception of Botswana, the ruling political party in these countries usually has had a monopoly of control over local politics through a process known as one-party supremacy, with all other political parties being outlawed. Central government control is usually the strictest regarding finance and personnel. As central government financial aid to local units gradually increases, supervision from the center also increases. Beginning in 1982 in Tanzania, for example, district and regional commissioners representing the central government supervised the local government budget process. The inability of local authorities to raise adequate revenues also leaves them weak in terms of skilled professionals. A poor economic base in some areas and central government taxation laws means many local governments cannot pay the salaries needed to attract and retain the personnel needed for effective and efficient operation. As a result, central governments often appoint top administrative officials in local governments and pay their salaries, giving them another lever of control. African local governments provide very few of the personnel working at the local-government level. The average in Africa is only 2.1 percent of personnel attached to local governments. This compares with 4.2 percent for Latin America, 8.0 percent for Asia, and 12 percent for members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).57 The authority to appoint and dismiss local officials has been one of the most effective means of supervising and controlling the activities of local units. In most African Anglophone countries there is either a local government commission or a unified local service commission working in conjunction with the ministry responsible for local civil servants. The commissions (often in existence prior to independence) serve as a link between local government authorities and the central government and its various departments.

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Various arguments have been used to justify central government control over local authorities. One argument focuses on historical precedent, citing the numerous ordinances and laws promulgated over the years to cover every important activity of local authority. In Kenya, for example, the Local Government Act contains no less than 100 controls and regulations. 58 Another argument focuses on the limited resources available and the concomitant need to obtain the maximum value of funds spent and to ensure coordination between central and local government policies and services. A third argument focuses on the lack of experienced and trained officers to staff local governments. In many cases these arguments are no longer valid, nor do they always explain the host of problems experienced by local authorities. Control from the center has proved to be a source of friction between the central government and local authorities, blocking adequate, efficient delivery of goods and services at the local level. In many cases central government control has reduced the initiative and enterprise of local authorities. Finally, the uniform manner in which central government control has been applied across and within countries has marginalized many experienced and capable local authorities. There are three ways in which to view center-periphery relationships in Africa.59 First, there is the view that local authorities act, or should act, primarily as agents of the center. In this view, local authorities are mainly concerned with the efficient administration of policies decided at the center. A second view focuses on local authorities as partners with the central government in the provision of services for the public. This view emphasizes that while broad policies are determined nationally, local authorities should have a substantial part to play in interpreting those policies and mobilizing the resources needed to bring them to fruition. A third perspective posits that local authorities have to be viewed and allowed to act as autonomous, or at least semiautonomous, political systems.60 The literature on subnational politics is rich with explanations about why institutions of local governance have not been successful.61 The major arguments focus on political, economic, and institutional or organizational factors of government (or how government functions). The political argument examines the widening gap that has emerged between the form and reality of local authority structures. Despite the widespread appearance of legally mandated, fully functioning local-level structures, in practice they often do not exist. Even where powers have been delegated and functions proscribed, there is little capacity to sustain local operations. Popular or grassroots participation has also been difficult to achieve under the various legal and administrative approaches that have been tried. Decentralization strategies, including both devolution and deconcentration,

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either have not been fully implemented or not fully understood or coordinated within the context of prevailing local conditions. A final point in the political argument emphasizes the degree to which interference by political leaders, government bureaucrats, and party leaders undermines the autonomy and functioning of local-level structures. Such interference has resulted from the need to both keep in check overt plays for power in the periphery, as well as the need to install technical staff in place of local personnel. Both trends have alienated popular participation and undermined the rationale of local authority. The economic argument focuses on the weak or nonexistent financial management systems in place at the local level and the lack of skilled personnel to maintain such systems. The problem has been compounded by the often narrow revenue base of local governments and their inability to respond to periodic changes in the economy. Poor revenue collection techniques and the absence of reliable data about taxpayers and property valuations have further weakened the revenue base. Finally, decreasing revenues at the center have significantly reduced the amount of grants and aid normally set aside for local authorities.

Conclusion The interplay of the above factors has left many local governments in Africa devoid of the political, fiscal, and administrative capacity needed to function as local authorities. Above all, it has been both the structures and mindset of prefectoralism that have limited options for popular participation in local government. At independence, central government officials eager to assert central control moved swiftly to take charge of local affairs through administrative decentralization. As the following chapters will show, such decentralization did not strengthen local authorities in apartheid or postapartheid South Africa. Though some argue that administrative decentralization, or deconcentration, is better than nothing, we argue that it is not a substitute for democratic, grassroots-level institutions. The local government debate, in terms of institutional development, historically also focuses on the low level of capacity at both the center and at local levels. The same is true for South Africa. Human resource shortages, as well as confusion about the appropriate level of political and administrative autonomy that should be permitted to develop outside of the central government, have often pitted regional and district administrators, political leaders, and local authorities against one another. Moreover, weak capacity among various bodies such as local government commissions,

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

boards, and ministerial departments, designed to support, oversee, and advise local authorities has also hindered the development of local authorities. Inappropriate development planning strategies have further eroded the potential of local authorities through the dominance of top-down planning, giving local authorities little experience or say in formulating and implementing local activities. Evidence of the successes of bottom-up development efforts (such as the use of very small or microcredit loans) combine with democracy and governance arguments to suggest that subnational institutions of governance are essential to long-term economic and social development.

Notes 1. The author of this epigraph was a South African of mixed race or so-called coloured; that is, a person with ancestors from more than one of South Africa’s classification groups: Europeans, Africans, and Indians. 2. V. Gillett, letter to Picard, May 21, 1978. Gillett served in the colonial administration in Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and the Seychelles. 3. Noel Mostert, Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), p. 1156. 4. Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 132. 5. Ibid., p. 76. 6. Ibid., p. 180. 7. Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill, and Donald Rothchild, Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1988), p. 174. 8. Ibid. See p. 160. 9. Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, “Preface,” The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa, ed. Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan (Boulder: Westview, 1988), p. x. 10. Young, The African Colonial State, p. 48. 11. Louis A. Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana: A Model for Success? (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1987), p. 10. 12. See Lord (Frederick) Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, 5th ed. (London: Frank Cass, 1965). 13. On Lugard’s theories of indirect rule, see L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, The Rulers of British Africa, 1870–1914 (London: Croom Helm, 1978), pp. 208–213. Frederick J. D. Lugard, later Lord Lugard, was the governor-general of Nigeria from 1907 to 1912 and wrote widely on colonial administration and the concept of indirect rule. 14. A wonderful description of the beginning of colonial rule is Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 (New York: Random House, 1991). 15. Sir Peter Fawcus (former queen’s commissioner in Bechuanaland), interview with Picard, August 18, 1979, Edinburgh, Scotland. 16. Ibid. I am grateful to Sir Peter Fawcus for this contradistinction. Arthur Douglas, a former colonial officer in Basutoland and later a government secretary in

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Bechuanaland, pointed out that from the perspective of the chief, parallel rule as a traditional ideology continued to influence traditional elite thinking down to the independence period. A. J. A. Douglas (director, Education and Training Policy Department, Ministry of Overseas Development), interview with Picard, August 16, 1979, London. 17. Indirect rule was seen as threatening to settlers in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, although it had also been introduced in the rural areas of Northern Rhodesia and Malawi; the High Commission Territories of Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland; and in the reserve areas (later the homelands of South Africa). 18. R. A. R. Bent (former colonial administrator in Bechuanaland), interview with Picard, May 18, 1979, Cambridge, UK. Bent served in the Royal Pioneers Corps where he came into contact with African soldiers from all over the empire. He also served in the Bechuanaland colonial administration and later settled on a farm in Rhodesia, where he had lived fourteen years at the time of the interview. See R. A. R. Bent, Ten Thousand Men of Africa (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1952) for a discussion of the colonial service at war. B. A. F. Read used the same term in a letter to Picard, November 23, 1978. 19. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. 20. Michael Crowder, West Africa Under Colonial Rule (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 169. 21. Read to Picard, November 23, 1978. 22. Ibid. 23. Sir Edwin Arrowsmith (former resident commissioner of Basutoland and former governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Falkland Islands), interview with Picard, June 1, 1979, London. 24. M. R. B. Williams (first permanent secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Lands in Botswana), interview with Picard, August 10, 1979, London. 25. G. B. Silberbauer, senior lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Monash University, letter to Picard, September 25, 1979. Silberbauer served in Maun, Bechuanaland, which had a queen regent as the tribal authority for many years. 26. The next few paragraphs are based on Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana, pp. 46–47. 27. George Winstanley (senior colonial official, Bechuanaland Protectorate), interview with Picard, August 10, 1979, London. 28. G. J. L. Atkinson (former colonial officer with over twenty-five years of service in Bechuanaland), letter to Picard, August 15, 1979. 29. As quoted in Samuel Humes, “The Role of Local Government in Economic Development in Africa,” Journal of Administration Overseas 12, no. 1 (January 1973): 23. Arthur Creech Jones was the British secretary of state for the colonies from 1946 to 1950 30. Fawcus interview. 31. Williams interview, August 10, 1979. In southern Africa colonial officers used developments in Kenya and Tanganyika as their model according to Williams. 32. Nelson Kasfir, “Designs and Dilemmas: An Overview,” in Local Government in the Third World: The Experience of Tropical Africa, ed. Philip Mawhood (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1983), p. 28. 33. Ibid. 34. In Bechuanaland, they had only fifteen months to make the transition. 35. In Kenya, for example, the African District Councils Ordinance of 1950 established this principle. In Tanzania, both the Municipalities Act of 1946 and the

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

Local Government Act of 1953 provided for local authorities to have corporate status, with the power to levy property taxes, and to receive grants from the central government. 36. Winstanley interview, August 10, 1979. 37. Ibid. 38. Read to Picard, November 23, 1978. 39. William Ruddell, interview with Picard, July 23, 1983. Ruddell, an American, served as crown counsel in the Attorney General’s Office in Bechuanaland under the Ford Foundation Asia Africa program run by Syracuse University. 40. Ronald Wraith makes this point. See his Local Administration in West Africa (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972). An earlier edition of his book was titled Local Government in West Africa. 41. Nelson Kasfir, “Designs and Dilemmas,” in Mawhood, Local Government in the Third World, p. 32. 42. Dele Olowu, “The Study of African Local Government Since 1960,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 48–59. 43. See, for example, Malcolm Wallis, “Local Government and Development in Southern African States: Botswana and Lesotho Compared,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 68–76; and Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana. 44. See, for example, C. A. Kallaghe, “Local Government and Economic Development—An Overview of Tanzania,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 77–80; K. M. Higgins, “Local Government Training in Botswana: Developing the Districts,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 87–92; and C. M. Chitoshi, “The Role of Local Government Association of Zambia,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 110–117. 45. See Goran Hyden, No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). 46. Philip Mawhood, “Decentralization,” in Local Government for Development, p. 8. See also Wraith, Local Administration in West Africa, pp. 25–26. 47. Ibid., p. 8. 48. Nelson Kasfir, “Designs and Dilemmas,” in Local Government in the Third World, p. 26. 49. Louis A. Picard, “Attitudes and Development: The District Administration in Tanzania,” African Studies Review 13, no. 3 (September 1980): 33–67. 50. J. R. Finucane, Rural Development and Bureaucracy in Tanzania: The Case of Mwanza Region (Uppsala, Sweden: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1974), p. 120. 51. See, for example, the essays in Rural Development and Planning in Zimbabwe, ed. N. D. Mutizwa-Mangiza and A. H. J. Helmsing (Brookfield, VT: Gower, 1991). 52. See Diana Conyers, An Introduction to Social Planning in the Third World (New York: Wiley, 1982); and Dennis Rondinelli, Development Projects as Policy Experiments: An Adaptive Approach to Development Administration (New York: Methuen, 1983). 53. In theory, the power and functions of local government in southern Africa cover a wide range of services and reflect the area served by each authority and are explicitly stated in local government acts. For example, there are powers and functions exercised by all local governments and specific, separate, functions for urban and rural councils. In Kenya and Tanzania, for example, all local governments are

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charged with the provision of social and public health services and primary education facilities. But only municipal councils provide sewage and drainage facilities, sanitary services, and water supply. As a rule, local government services can be financed from: (1) taxes levied by the council on people in their area—these may include graduated personal tax and rates on property; (2) taxes levied on produce; (3) licenses for vehicles, certain trades, and the like; and (4) grants from the central government that are given as general financial assistance, for carrying out specific services, or to pay the salaries of certain officials. In addition, local governments as corporate bodies prepare annual budgets, acquire property, and make contracts. With the exception of Nigeria, most former British colonies are divided into several provinces or regions, each headed by a central government officer. The provinces or regions are further subdivided into districts, which are also headed by a central government officer. In most countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia), there are district councils in the rural areas and urban municipal councils, with district and town councils having a majority of elected members. Nigeria, however, consists of nineteen states. The states are headed by elected governors and do not form part of the local government system. The states have two tiers of local administration: the divisions and the local authorities. 54. D. A. Rondinelli, J. S. McCullough, and R. W. Johnson, “Analyzing Decentralization Policies in Developing Countries: A Political Economy Framework,” Development and Change 20 (1989): 57–87. 55. For example, a Ministry of Education would work closely with local government to see that officials carry out education activities that conform with national statutes and regulations. 56. See, for example, Kallaghe, “Local Government,” pp. 77–80; C. K. Murumba, “Sharing Responsibility and Resources for Effective Central-Local Relationships in Kenya,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 100–109; and P. S. Nooi, “Local Self-Government Reform: A Comparative Study of Selected Countries in Africa and Southeast Asia,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 31–38. 57. Peter Heller and Alan Tait, Government Employment and Pay: Some International Comparisons (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1982). 58. Murumba, “Sharing Responsibilities and Resources,” pp. 100–109. 59. H. J. Elcock discusses these ideal types in Local Government, Politicians, Professionals and the Public in Local Authorities (London: Methuen, 1986). 60. Jeffrey Stanyer is the leading proponent of this view. He argues that just as the nation state is abstracted from the international system, of which it is a part, when its system of government is being studied, so a locality may be abstracted from the national system when it is treated as an individual in its own right. Jeffrey Stanyer, County Government in England and Wales (New York: Routledge and K. Paul, 1967). 61. See the following for extensive and incisive analyses of the causes for failure of decentralized institutions, in general, and local governments, in particular. Rondinelli et al., “Analyzing Decentralization Policies,” pp. 57–87; Mawhood, Local Government for Development; Philip Mawhood, “Decentralization and the Third World in the 1980s,” Planning and Administration 14, no. 1 (1987): 10–22; William Tordoff, Government and Politics in Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984); W. Tordoff and P. A. Cammack, Third World Politics: A Comparative Introduction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1988); L. Adamolekun, D.

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Olowu, and M. Laleye, eds., Local Government in West Africa (Lagos, Nigeria: University of Lagos, 1988); J. S. Wunsch and D. Olowu, eds., The Failure of the Centralized State: Institutions and Self-Governance in Africa (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990); C. Pickvance and E. Preteceille, eds., State Restructuring and Local Power: A Comparative Perspective (London: Pinter, 1991); and Cheema and Rondinelli, eds., Decentralization and Development.

3 The Colonial Origins of Local Control in South Africa

Within the first century of Van Riebeeck’s founding of the Cape station, the stamp of Africa was already on those who had been granted its “freedom.” [The Afrikaners were] “Lost in Africa.”1 Morena ha a fose. [The chief can do no wrong.] Morena Ke batho. [A chief is a chief by the people.]

S

tructures established at the grassroots level as a result of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century colonialism are likely to remain in place regardless of changes made during or after the Zuma administration.2 Thus, in this chapter we examine the nature of Dutch and British colonialism as it affected grassroots governance in what is now South Africa. There were two major changes that occurred during the colonial period: the creation of a system of top-down prefectoral rule that overlaid traditional authority and the distortion of that traditional authority through systems labeled “tribal” by the colonial officials who invented them.

Indigenous Institutional Structures It is difficult to discuss the indigenous people in the Western Cape and throughout southern Africa as there were no written records prior to 1500.3 We know that the San4 and Khoi5 were hunter-gatherers and pastoralists, respectively, but we do not know if they shared a single language. Today, the San have virtually disappeared from South Africa, though the remains

43

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

of this vibrant community are precariously balanced in the Kalahari Desert regions of Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia. In South Africa, traces of the Khoi can be found among the coloured or mixed-race population, while the Nama people of Namibia and South Africa still speak a Khoi language. There are said to be perhaps 30,000– 40,000 Nama speakers in Namibia and South Africa.6 There are estimated to be 90,000 San in southern Africa, but only 10,000 remain in South Africa. Bantu-speaking peoples make up close to 79 percent of the population of South Africa. Bantu society in the eighteenth century was agricultural and pastoral. Though influenced by San and Khoi values, the traditional ideas reflected in South Africa today, outside of the Western Cape, largely represent the values of these Bantu-speaking people. Various settler groups constitute the final category of peoples that make up modern South Africa.7 In 1994 there were an estimated 4.9 million people of European origin, of whom 60 percent speak Afrikaans as a first language and 40 percent speak English. There were an estimated 5.1 million people of mixed race (coloureds), of whom 80 percent spoke Afrikaans and 20 percent spoke English. In addition, there are about one million people of Indian origin, and 350,000 people of Chinese, Japanese, or other East Asian heritage. The nature of precolonial indigenous authority influences both South Africa’s contemporary political culture and the ethnic and racial clashes that have stemmed from that diversity. Three very different patterns of indigenous political authority joined with two patterns of colonial control to define primary-level political relationships. South Africa’s first indigenous peoples, the San and Nama, inhabited what is now the Western Cape and functioned under loosely linked age-grade systems, sometimes described as corporate or stateless societies. This participatory model was said to influence the descendants from these two groups, the rural mixed-race people, in the west and Northern Cape. Contemporary observers have suggested that these patterns of age-grade governance were more conducive to direct democracy than hierarchical leadership with its caste structure. The political systems of the southern African polities were the product of fission and expansion. Alien people and alien values were regularly incorporated into African social systems. The main political units were autonomous chieftains or kingdoms comprised of a series of units with decreasing control by the central authority. African ideology included respect for elders, chiefly authority, and religious values. Nelson Mandela believed that traditional African values contributed to a common future for all South Africans. These values are said to give African society a quality of material responsibility and compassion.8

The Colonial Origins of Local Control in South Africa

45

Most Europeans misunderstood the role of the chief and often saw the office as dictatorial and fixed in geographic space. Traditional rule was not necessarily autocratic.9 In the Tswana kgotla (village meeting) for example, every male adult was entitled to speak and usually did so. Subsequent deliberations sometimes overturned earlier decisions. 10 The role of the traditional leader, whether labeled king or chief, was fundamental to the corporate social structure.11 There was much uncertainty in the pattern of selecting traditional leaders, nominally by lineage but in reality with competition and instability often disguised retroactively through the retelling of genealogies and history.12 Traditional politics prior to external intervention was fairly consensual and communal. The term “African humanism” has been used to describe this unity. The main safeguard against the power of the chief was the influence of the traditional councilors.13 Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, the Xhosa preserved the democratic nature of their society. The Xhosa legacy combined with immigrant values in the Eastern Cape to define the postapartheid political culture in the country and the southern Africa region. Polities were headed by hereditary chiefs. The words king and chief are incorporated into a single word within the Bantu languages, for example, Kgosi in Sotho-Tswana. Some of the territories were small—less than 5,000 people—although a few had 50,000 or more people within them. These polities did not conform to the Western concept of tribalism, which refers to closed populations reproducing fixed cultural characteristics.14 Rather than being a dictator, traditionally “the authority of Bantu chiefs had been circumscribed by law and custom, by the existence of sorcerers, diviners, thauma turges [magicians] and rainmakers . . . [and all those with] magical authority.”15 Traditional councils played an important role in the administrative process of the group led by the great chief, who had to maintain harmony among all sections of his people.16 Participation in traditional councils was fluid, open, and incident- and issue-specific.17 At the center of African community values in Bantu-speaking societies was a tradition of communal loyalty, social obligation, shared grief and joy, and a collectivist style of decisionmaking through discussion and consensus building. The meeting of all the age groups in the kraal18 of the village had various names (the kgotla or tinkundla in Sotho-Tswana and Nguni, respectively, and baraza in Kiswahili) and had equivalent systems throughout eastern and southern Africa. Discussions were open and free (though limited for the most part to adult males) and choosing a course of action required the development of an all-encompassing consensus. Communalism posits a corporatist society. African humanism as a culture refers to the historical communalism of African economics, that is, the

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readiness to share possessions within a “corporate society” and a “collective way of life.”19 Some observers have argued that these values may be strengthened by contemporary poverty. These critics fear that affluence for some, combined with the competitive demands of the marketplace, is contrary to the highly prized cultural trait of African humanism. Traditional governance systems throughout Africa generally had democratic elements, such as the traditional assembly representation of the family unit. Chiefs, however, were seen by their followers as monarchs who could die but could not be displaced. The lineage of the ruling family was of a corporate group whose relationships were evolving in patterns similar to corporatist changes that had occurred earlier in medieval Europe.20 Within the corporate whole, there was often conflict between levels of authority. Clan and traditional leaders in southern Africa were linked to society in an organic, corporate manner, although traditional land policy forced a departure from the organic conception of African society, particularly in the Eastern Cape.21 Land in southern Africa was historically communally owned and represented economic security. However, arable land, in contrast to grazing areas, was allocated by traditional authorities for the use of individual clans and extended families, thus the passion for land ownership remains strongly entrenched in African culture. African subsistence agriculture was based upon a “collective way of life”22 but with elements of more individualized control of divisible commodities, particularly food. Several major Bantu-speaking groups, including the Tswana and the Xhosa, had localized hierarchical authority systems (what the British called chiefs) but had no centralized authoritative leadership.23 The North and South Sotho have had hierarchical leadership structures. A third pattern of authority, with bimodal traditional leadership (a monarch and his geographically dispersed lieutenants living alongside a geographically localized “chief,”) predominated in the eastern side of South Africa among the Zulu, Ndebele, and Swazi.24

Traditional Society and Values Indigenous institutions are as important for contemporary African society as are late-eighteenth-century institutions in North America or Western Europe. They are a neglected component of applied research in democracy and governance in Africa. Traditional authority and customary law define governance in several ways. First, traditional authority determines the use of agricultural land and access to water in some parts of the country. Second, traditional values continue to impact gender relationships and eco-

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nomic activity. Third, chiefs have informal influence on social behavior, legal disputes, and norms of informal punishment in rural (and some would argue in urban) areas. They also influence grassroots political activity throughout South Africa.25 More broadly, democratic values and paternal patterns of political hierarchy can be traced to traditional forms of governance.26 Traditional African society had many mechanisms for communal consultation. These groups were comprised of adult males, including all eligible members of the community, and met in open enclosures of various names (kgotla, inkuntla, pitso). Meetings were held in an empty cattle kraal, under a tree, or in a central point of the community close to the home of the traditional authority. Though colonial and postcolonial institutions have eclipsed these processes, they continue to play an influential role in southern Africa, especially in developmental policies.27 Outside observers often mistakenly equate collective decisionmaking and asset sharing with collective ownership of property—a set of precepts that does not reflect African values. Possessions remain with the individual and the family. Traditionally, individual wealth was known and respected within African society. Ubuntu (collectiveness), in theory, was the order of the day in the new South Africa, but “in practice most Africans had no personal interest in collective distribution of profits.”28 Historically, inequality existed within African societies. Women were excluded from most, though not all, decisionmaking. However, this was an inequality that occurred within the context of African social values and was maintained with a great deal of circumspection and concern for the perception of fair play and compassionate treatment. Inequality was defined by economic activity. For example, farmers who both grew crops and kept cattle and small stock were highly competitive.29 People owned personal equipment such as weapons, axes, hoes, and mats; individuals and families also owned household grain and cattle. Patterns of ownership gave men power over women. There was no concept of individual land ownership, however, since land belonged to the community rather than individuals. Most important, prior to 1700 there were no traditions of the devastating warfare that plagued the farming people of southern Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The value system that is now evolving in South Africa’s civic associations and urban political movements owes much to traditional Africa, even though it is sometimes romanticized for ideological reasons. Increasingly, in schools and training programs, black South Africans sum up their national aspirations with the philosophy of ubuntu.30 Many within the African National Congress feel that traditional society produced a transcendent South African citizen defined by the use of the term “comrade.” This

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identity (for a person espousing ubuntu), which may include whites, Indians, and coloureds as well as Africans, is marked by a spirit of humanity. For example, postapartheid South Africa’s local governance system is referred to as cooperative government, which (and in a policy reversal) now promotes the legitimacy of the institution of traditional leadership in accordance with customary law and practices. Ubuntu, the embodiment of charity, forgiveness, generosity, and an essential humanity, is said to ensure that Africans are not a vengeful people. “We say,” according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “that a human being is a human being because he belongs to a community, and harmony is the essence of that community.”31 Ubuntuism, according to Bishop Tutu, was the basis by which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa was established.32 The concept of ubuntu in South Africa was based on the need for preservation and stability within the whole of the community. During the precolonial period, ubuntu was defined (in mythical terms) as “a golden age without classes, exploitation or inequality.”33 It is “a word of majestic meaning, embracing humanity, decency, temperance, justice—every quality that dignifies the human race.”34 Ubuntu, for example, is said to underlie Xhosa social laws with the primary goal of preserving tribal equilibrium and avoiding tribal disintegration.35 The preservation of the wholeness of the family, the chiefdom, and the society was considered essential to maintain balance among their wellestablished social harmonies.36 There is nothing uniquely South African about the concept of humanism. Both Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia made humanism central to their political ideologies. Kaunda used the term humanism to describe his political philosophy, while Nyerere spoke of unity and communitarianism (Umoja na Ujamaa). The terms ubuntu in Xhosa and botho in seSotho represent this concept. Cynics argue that postcolonial (and, to some, hopelessly romantic) humanism and communalism, with the emphasis on social needs, led to the collapse of economies throughout the African continent in the 1970s. This is an empirical question that is outside of the focus of this book. However, the concept of ubuntu is not without significance when thinking about the future of South Africa in southern Africa. Throughout the world, ethnic consciousness has evolved out of traditionalism without losing the efficiencies of the market or the fundamental requirements of individual and human rights that will increasingly define the post–Cold War world of the twenty-first century. The definitions of political space and economic relationships in nonracial South Africa likewise have had to incorporate traditional political, social, and economic values. Traditional leaders have played a major role in contemporary political

The Colonial Origins of Local Control in South Africa

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movements, and the particular challenge of cultural politics coming out of KwaZulu-Natal, for example, provides a contemporary backdrop to precolonial and colonial influences.

Dutch Control in the Cape The origins of South African administrative control can be found in the Cape Colony, an area administered both by Holland and England beginning in the seventeenth century. As a result of the unique history of the Cape, the Xhosa-speaking peoples in the Cape Colony had a separate status and were always administered differently from other Bantu-speaking peoples in South Africa. The earliest European influence in the Cape was Dutch, followed by French, German, and English settlers. The Dutch East India Trading Company (DEITC) established a garden colony and small settlement in the Western Cape in 1652 to provide fresh produce for ships on the way to the East Indies. The original intent was neither to settle nor to control the Western Cape but to use the peninsula as a stopping off post. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Dutch East India Company officials had a monopoly over formal authority. Company decisions were reviewed by the governor general in Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies, and by the Council of Seventeen in Amsterdam. The majority of the Cape immigrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were of German and French origin, rather than Dutch. In fact, Germans outnumbered Dutch immigrants two to one. French Huguenots settled in South Africa after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 forced Protestants to flee France. Many went first to the Netherlands, then to Cape Town. Other settlers to the Cape came from lower-class Dutch and German societies. By 1692, there were about 600 European people in the Western Cape peninsula. Table 3.1 provides a breakdown of the population in 1692.

Table 3.1 Cape Population, 1692 Company employees Freedmen Women Children European servants Slaves Total

370 64 39 65 53 63 654

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

Dutch rule had important contributions to the bureaucratic and political development of the South African state.37 Dutch administrators stimulated a value system of cultural hegemony and independence among Dutch settlers (burghers) that would continue into the modern era. The mythology of Dutch frontier society served as a backdrop to the establishment of the National Party in the 1930s and 1940s. By 1700 Dutch settlers had become restless under continued DEITC rule. In the early eighteenth century, settlers began to move out of the Cape area and established independent settlements outside the company area. The burghers, or free citizens, separated themselves from company employment and instead contracted to deliver foodstuffs to the company on demand. Shorn of allegiance to the DEITC after they moved away from the Cape, the burghers established homesteads in the valleys just north of the peninsula in Stellenbosch and Drakenstein (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3). These trekboers, as they came to be named, lived as pastoralists and hunters. As settlers moved out of the peninsula in the eighteenth century,

Table 3.2 Cape Town Population in the 1700s Date 1711

1743 1778

Population Slaves Company employees Freemen (burghers) Slaves Free population (burghers) Slaves

1,781 475 175 5,361 9,721 14,000

Sources: Leonard Monteath Thompson, A History of South Africa (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); T. R. H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1977).

Table 3.3 Population by District in the Cape Colony, 1700 District Stellenbosch Graaff-Reinet Cape Town Swellendam

Population 4,540 3,100 4,155 1,925

Source: Compiled from T. R. H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1977), p. 47.

The Colonial Origins of Local Control in South Africa

51

the company experienced increasing difficulty in administrating local affairs in the outlying areas of the colony. Challenges to company rule and the subtle influence of subversive ideologies from prerevolutionary Europe forced the Dutch to establish control mechanisms in the free burgher settlements. Dutch (or Afrikaner)38 group consciousness developed prior to the beginning of British rule in the early eighteenth century. Burgher conflict over the payment of rates began with Cape Governor W. A. van der Stel in 1700. By 1707, when there were 2,000 settlers and 700 people working for the company throughout the territory, the company had ceased providing free transport back to the Cape from their forward settlements. The number of people working for the company prior to the nineteenth century was small. In 1708, there were 1,700 men, women, and children in the free burgher class. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Cape economy was completely dependent upon slaves (mixtures of local indigenous peoples and people captured in the Dutch East Indies and today’s Angola). The institution of slavery stimulated the development of a racial order. Though the treatment of slaves varied, the relationship between burghers and slaves was characterized by paternalism, “an ideology that structured and legitimized subordination and exploitation and was expressed in a blend of affection and coercion.”39 For most of the subordinated people of the Cape Colony, life was “nasty, brutish and short.”40 Cape society in the eighteenth century also was “stodgy, bucolic and provincial.” 41 In the eighteenth century there were clear castes and classes, but none specifically of color. In 1793, there were 13,830 burghers in the Cape. By 1800, the free burgher population in the Western Cape consisted of 16,000 people. In addition there were 17,000 slaves and another 20,000 San, Khoi, and mixed-race people under Dutch administration, a total of 53,000 in that year. (See Table 3.4.) By comparison, in 1800 there was a total European population of over six million people in North America. The beginning of British overrule solidified Dutch group solidarity and led to a century of settler resistance to imperial control. By 1806, when the British took over the Western Cape, the area had a total registered population of 86,000, of whom 26,000 were Europeans, 30,000 were slaves and 30,000 mixed-race freed slaves and Khoi. The nonwhite free population was 20,000, excluding unregistered Khoi.42 In summary, by 1820, prior to the British migration, the European population in the Cape numbered 40,000. The 5,000 British settlers had increased the total by more than 20 percent. The 1864 Cape Colony official census found 180,000 whites, 300,000 “Hottentots and Others,” and 100,000 kafirs.43

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Table 3.4 Cape Peninsula Population, 1800–1934

European Slaves San, Khoi, and mixed raced Africans Total

1800

1806

1864

1934a

16,000b 17,000

26,000 30,000

180,000c

1,800,000

20,000

30,000

g

g

53,000

85,000

300,000e 100,000 480,000h

800,000f 5,500,000 8,100,000

Notes: a. The 1934 figures are for South Africa as a whole. b. Burghers and other freemen. c. All whites in the Cape Province. d. Nonwhite freed persons. e. All coloureds in the Cape Province. f. Coloureds and “Asiatics.” The 1934 figures are from Ivan I. Evans, Native Languages in Southern Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), p. 60. g. The figure for Africans, defined as those who spoke a Bantu language, was likely in the millions but no figures are available until the mid-nineteenth century. h. Excludes Bantu-speaking peoples.

The Dutch Prefect Local administration in prerevolutionary Holland was primarily judicial in nature and had two main components. The landdrost functioned as a sheriff and magistrate, and the heemraden, created in thirteenth-century Holland served as a lower council with primarily judicial responsibilities. The company transferred the Dutch system of administration and the office of prefect to the Cape peninsula, and the landdrost became the link between Cape Town and the outlying territories in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Dutch appointed a landdrost in Stellenbosch in 1679. Over time, the prefect would become a significant agent of government control throughout South Africa. By the middle of the seventeenth century, there was still only one administrative post outside of Cape Town (Swellendam village), 72 miles east of the mountains that encircled the Cape area. Thirty years after its establishment, the village still had only four houses. In 1682, Governor Simon van der Stel (father of W. A. van der Stel) provided local councils with a modicum of decentralized administration by strengthening the landdrost’s authority.44 The South African landdrost tried petty cases, collected taxes, registered wills, notarized documents, paid rewards for the destruction of wild animals, and controlled the burgher militia. He was assisted by a field coro-

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net (a local-level official) and was advised by the unpaid heemraden. The field coronet was a local burgher (atyers, or district officer) who assisted the landdrost within each village.45 The name landdrost was one of the few relics from the old Dutch East India days that survived in South Africa.46 The district was administered from official DEITC buildings, called the drostdy, provided as an office and residence for the landdrost. The drostdy commander, originally appointed from the Cape, appointed the landdrost to deal with company matters, such as the company’s farms, cattle runs, and other interests.47 He also presided over the college of landdrost and heemraden (also referred to as a district advisory council, which functioned as a court). College decisions were made by majority vote and therefore were more than a rubber stamp.48 However, the landdrost’s loyalty was primarily to the DEITC. In 1785 the Cape government proposed the creation of a new district at Graaff-Reinet, and in 1786 the village of Graaff-Reinet was established as a frontier outpost with its own landdrost. The Graaff-Reinet drostdy functioned as a residence, administrative office, judiciary, and military headquarters. Graaff-Reinet at the time was described as little more than “an assemblage of mud huts located at some distance from each other . . . forming a kind of street. At the upper end stands the house of the landdrost, built also of mud, and a few miserable hovels that were intended as offices for . . . public business.”49 Outside of Cape Town, at the end of the eighteenth century, the only centers of authority were the drostdys (commander or magistrate’s offices) of Stellenbosch (established in 1679), Swellendam (1746), and GraaffReinet (1786). Two new districts, Tulbach and Uitenhage, were established in 1803 after the British government temporarily rescinded the Cape to the Dutch after the Treaty of Amiens, a pause in the Napoleonic Wars. By the end of the eighteenth century, Dutch farmers (Boers) had begun their move east and later north, a movement that would result in their distribution over all of what would later become South Africa. These trekboers became a part of the African landscape, establishing a socially based civil religion, a strong sense of political independence, and a disdain for any written language other than the Bible. As they made contact with Bantuspeaking peoples, they established relationships with them, sometimes fought with them, but more often, despite the separatist ideology of later years, moved in with—and sometimes married—them or at least lived in close proximity. In many cases the result was an increasing trekboer dependency upon Africans. By the mid-1830s, the Boers had fled again from the Eastern Cape to the north in order to escape both the English settlements and the missionaryinduced ideas of abolitionism and assimilation. When the voortrekkers

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

(those who traveled very far)50 moved across the Orange and Vaal Rivers in the mid-nineteenth century, they always established a landdrost and heemraden.51 In the interior, the college/council functioned as a lower court, administering justice and other local affairs (and making no clear-cut distinction between the administration of justice and the administration of other local affairs). As a local authority, the college also dealt with the apportionment of erven (plots), construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, public buildings, water supplies, public safety, fire protection, public health, bakeries, and butchers.52 Dutch settlers in South Africa were never completely outside of European influences even as they began to define themselves as Africans (Afrikaners) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even after the trek into the interior, the voortrekkers remained Eurocentric. For example, one remote settlement engaged a town planner from the Netherlands to plan the layout of their new villages. Dutch settlers continued to move to South Africa throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth centuries, though in smaller numbers than their British counterparts. In the Orange Free State, after the establishment of an independent government in 1854, the issue of the nature of local administration was raised. In 1856 the office of landdrost was reintroduced there. During the period of the South African Republic in the Transvaal (1858–1901) the settlers went even further, electing a landdrost between 1884 and 1901 and making the position one of local government rather than field administration. Though the Dutch system of local administration was racially defined, it was not an imperial administration of the kind introduced by the British and the French in sub-Saharan Africa in the late nineteenth century. As with the later introduction of town and city government, it was adapted from the European metropole. The model combined pre-Napoleonic prefectoralism with an element of populist judicial authority. The arrival of the British would see attempts to separate the judicial and administrative functions and place the magistrate’s position within a broader imperial context.

Apartheid and the Geographical Administrator Throughout South African history, the most important local administrative unit of government has been the magisterial district, a colonial-era institution originally established by the British in the Cape to administer justice and collect taxes. For the country’s African population, the local state was a system of extractive, prefectoral administration that evolved in various forms during the past 300 years. In the cities and towns of independent

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55

South Africa, administrative boards and a bureaucratic management system headed by a clerk replicated this system. The movement toward apartheid began long before 1948. There has been a continuous trend of racially based bureaucratic rule that began in the Dutch period (1652) and ran through the British period (1815–1910), the Union (1910–1948) era, and into the apartheid period itself. With it there is a logical sequence of events: from the nineteenth-century policy of identity, through the abandonment of “assimilation” in the Cape at the end of the century, to paternalistic views and racial exclusiveness that led first to “trusteeship” and then separate development. The shift in policies and the contradictions among the various racial and ethnic identities of the ruling elites, in turn, influenced institutional arrangements within the state. Colonial bureaucratic structures and procedures were influenced both by Dutch control of the Cape and the Boer Republics and, later, by British colonial rule in the Eastern Cape frontier, the Transkei, Natal, and in northern territories of South Africa after the Anglo-Boer war. The movement toward Union between 1901 and 1910 defined policies of segregation, debates over federalism, and patterns of African resistance that characterize the South African political struggle to the present. The triple legacy of (1) apartheid, (2) fractured governance, and (3) centralized institutional control will constitute the major focus of this book. An examination of local governance in the broadest sense—and local government, in particular—is thus important to understand how local-level institutions respond to policy directives from the top and grassroots demands from the people. It also presents opportunities to look into the problems that constrain the effective performance of local-level institutions. After the first Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881), the British colonial state, with outposts in the Cape and Natal, established control over the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. These controls were tightened after the second Anglo-Boer conflict (1899–1902). Because of racial exclusiveness and white hegemony, the South African state, at the time of Union, was made up of “colonies within colonies.”53 The Act of Union in 1910 created the Union of South Africa but did not end colonialism. Colonial rule throughout Africa and Asia required centralized control, and in South Africa after 1910 prefectoralism as a system of governance was the preferred tool of the colonial and imperial systems and their successors. Bureaucratic autonomy along the colonial model existed within the Department of Native Administration and its successors for most of the twentieth century. The South African prefect has changed little over time. During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, few changes were made in the role of the magistrate and the political divisions among the four territories

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The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

precluded any standardization of the position. Nor did the scant ten years of British rule (1901–1910) in the four territories provide much opportunity for change. In South Africa, liberalism in the twentieth century spawned and defined separate development. Built into the definition of the prefect’s role was the liberal concept of trusteeship that had evolved in the Eastern Cape and the British policy of indirect rule in Natal and the Transvaal. The magistrate continued to function as an agent of judicial authority and control in South Africa throughout the twentieth century. The South African prefect performed a control function in administering the country’s diverse peoples and linking frontier territory to the colonial headquarters in Cape Town and, later, Pretoria. Local administration meant control over a geographical area by a central government–appointed official. Administrative control was hierarchical and centralized, a structure that has continued over into the period of nonracial government. British rule allowed a degree of administrative decentralization in the control of African groups and Dutch settlements. However, local authorities had no sovereign authority over their regions.54 It was only toward the end of the nineteenth century, first with the definition of new governmental arrangements in the Transkei, then in debates over union, that local-level institutions, restructured along the lines of the British system, were linked with racially defined and decentralized structures, based on the principles of segregated land allocation.55 South Africa created its own colonial-type structures after 1910.56 As a result, the Union of South Africa “automatically became an empire whose colonial subjects lived within her borders.”57 The British regime then transferred its powers in all four territories and provinces to the settled white population and the professional cadres of the Department of Native Administration (English and Afrikaner), which constitutionally excluded the majority of the population from political participation. Legalized segregation and apartheid quickly became embedded within the administrative culture of the institutional state in South Africa. The public sector of the white national state became a refuge for unemployed, Afrikaans-speaking whites after 1930. As the self-described “state within the state,” the Department of Native (later Bantu) Administration administered rural reserves and (increasingly after 1948) urban administration, and, after 1970, what came to be called administration boards. Supervised by the Department of Bantu Administration, the administration boards functioned in a fashion similar to British colonial administrations in British territories north of the Molopo and Limpopo Rivers. Prior to 1994, a single pattern of local-level administration never existed in what is now the Republic of South Africa. There were different patterns of settlement in the four territories (the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Natal, and the Cape) and differences between and among nineteenth-

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century colonial and settler elites. In 1860 South Africa was made up of a number of miscellaneous territories—some white, some black; some under British rule, some not. In the late nineteenth century they were a “ramshackle collection of polities, a congeries of peoples, united by little more than poverty.”58 By the end of the century, when the whole of the region had come under British rule, the Union of South Africa was created out of a hodgepodge of local administrative arrangements. In the Eastern Cape, local level bureaucratic control operated directly through subchiefs and headmen but without the bureaucratic structures and institutional mechanisms (tribal treasury, secretary, clerical staff) envisioned in the Lugardian brand of colonial administration based on indirect rule through chiefs. The system of bureaucratic control that developed in the Transkei and the Ciskei was significantly different from that which evolved later in Natal, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and the Northern Cape. Administration in the former areas more closely resembled the classical prefectoral model than the looser pattern of British colonial administration, often labeled indirect rule, as it evolved in Northern Nigeria and Tanganyika. It was the Natal system of indirect rule, later transferred to the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and the Northern Cape, which provided the core assumptions for the segregationist state that became dominant in South Africa in the 1930s and led to separate development after 1948. The Afrikaner pattern of racial exclusiveness merely adapted the dual rule ideas that came out of nineteenth century Natal. There is a remarkable “degree of continuity from the colonial period through the Union segregationist era to the age of apartheid.”59

The South African Local State After Union Over the last one hundred years in South Africa local-level mechanisms of political control developed in both urban white South Africa and the rural African homelands. These dualistic governance structures (dyarchy) were unique to the South African state when compared to mechanisms of political control common to lesser-developed states in Africa and other parts of the developing world—but only by a matter of degree rather than of kind. While the legal structures of apartheid may be gone, the nonracial, postapartheid government has inherited the long-standing mechanisms of control, both formal and informal. With the establishment of the Union in 1910, “South Africa became habituated to an intensely etatiste [state-centered] system with an enormous superstructure of labour relations, pass laws, ‘influx control’ laws and other instruments of misplaced social planning.”60 Eighty years of this top-down

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strategy defined political control at the local level. Prior to the nonracial elections of April 26–28, 1994, the legacy of the local state system and the violence it produced threatened to damage the social fabric of postapartheid South African society. In South Africa’s major cities, despite violence, new forms of governance were negotiated between 1994 and 1996. By contrast, rural government and governance patterns in small- and medium-sized towns remain little changed from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The effect of the state’s top-down strategy placed local government at the forefront of national political struggles.61 The local state is not synonymous with local government. Under apartheid, the local state delineated the state’s impact upon society and involved all the myriad forms of political and bureaucratic control at the local, intermediate, and national levels of government. By 1990, this included the existing state apparatus, its several parastatals, ten homelands, municipal and city councils, provincial administrations, nine regional planning and development units, and the country’s eleven administrative/ security areas formed under the state of emergency in the 1980s. By the end of the 1980s, a vacuum of social control had developed in South Africa’s urban areas. A variety of somewhat tenuous institutionalized social organizations (nongovernmental organizations and civic associations) had been established. Each of these vied for community control and successfully challenged the institutional structures of the local state. However, the result was not the development of autonomous institutions of local government, but rather a situation where millions of people were caught in the gap between declining state power and potentially authoritarian local leaders.62 Without an end to violence and crime in the urban areas of the Witwatersrand and in the rural and peri-urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal, a successful political transition in South Africa could not be complete. The failure to create viable institutions of local government would continue to have grave implications for civil society into the first decade of the twenty-first century. Prefectoral power was strengthened during the Union period and continued to be used to administer the system on the ground from the 1950s through the 1970s. Prefectoralism as a control mechanism defined the local state in South Africa prior to—as well as during—the apartheid period. During the grand apartheid period of the 1960s when the black homelands were established, the Department of Bantu Administration and the urban Bantu Administration Boards both reflected this dual track, replicating the tensions of counter-role relationships in the urban areas similar to those that existed in rural South Africa.

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The Bantu Authorities System under apartheid, as we will see in Chapter 6, amounted to an elaboration of the old British colonial technique of indirect rule and prefectoralism that had been developed by Lord Lugard in Nigeria. Its origins were in colonial administrative theory rather than nationalism or democratic theory.63 At the base of the apartheid system was a bureaucratic structure that was almost identical to that of British colonial Africa. The job description of a resident magistrate (or equivalent) in the rural areas of South Africa remained virtually the same in 1990, as it was 100 years before, although the position was slowly Africanized in the homelands. Under apartheid, magistrates usually had organizational links with the office of chief minister in the homeland or with the provincial administration.64 By the 1980s the different homeland administrations had modified the position in different ways, but they all used the prefect as a mechanism of grassroots control. Similar conflicting authoritarian roles governed in the urban townships, with a town clerk or administrator exercising control. In a number of homelands, serious tensions developed in the counter-roles between the magistrate and later the district administrator and traditional authorities prior to 1990. While the magistrate took on a more judicial role in the early 1990s, he continued to supervise tribal and rural authorities outside of the major cities in addition to his control functions in the towns and cities. Though the apartheid political system ended in April 1994 with the election of a nonracial government, the grassroots structures and bureaucratic institutions that controlled rural South Africa remained in place and, more than twenty years later, still need to be addressed. The evolving bureaucratic structures within the black reserve areas—that became the black homelands after 1948—continued to be important after the abolition of the black homelands in 1994 as fledgling new provincial governments attempted to absorb the homeland structures and bring them under control.

Conclusion As part of the apartheid framework, the National Party introduced segregated local authorities throughout South Africa in the 1960s through the 1970s. The failure of these institutions led directly to revolt and violence in the townships after 1985, as the grassroots goal to “make the townships ungovernable” became a reality. The townships revolts, in turn, directly influenced the shift of the National Party leadership from repression and political control to negotiations and the move toward a nonracial government. Critics suggest that the prefectoral system in the homelands created a vacuum of responsibility, transparency, and participation developed between

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the grassroots and the homeland administrative center. Thus, it would not be surprising if in the postapartheid period there were attempts to retain these or similar authoritarian patterns of control. A colonial-style prefectoral system at the district level in the rural areas using a co-opted traditional authority would ensure administrative influence and control over departmental representatives and local-level political and administrative structures. All local governments form an integral part of the total political and administrative apparatus used to govern African countries. Although central governments in Africa developed later than the traditional local units, in a legal sense all local government units are dependent upon and derive their authority from central governments. This hierarchy allows central governments to exercise almost unlimited control over local authorities, and they have done so by many interrelated means. Since 1994 state-centric patterns of governance have lost their allure in many parts of Africa. The need and demand for a suitable replacement is generating new arrangements for power sharing. Opposition political parties, community-based and functionally based interest groups, and a new generation of bureaucrats all have a role to play in postapartheid South Africa. Likewise, subnational governments have again become a viable forum for competing interests, a consensus-building mechanism, and an alternative to state-centric governance models. Democratic governance and civil society can only develop in South Africa if the colonial legacy of prefectoralism and the built-in tensions between the local state and community-based groups can be tamed and modified without sustained violence, crime, or political authoritarianism. As the following chapters will show, local authorities have at times been agents, partners, and autonomous actors in the governance process as they sought to influence, resist, or even openly defy central policy.65 The creation of an institutional state that is based upon principles of democratic governance rather than organizational norms is the challenge to be examined in the remainder of this book.

Notes 1. W. A. de Klerk, The Puritans in Africa: A Story of Afrikanerdom (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), p. 16. 2. Christopher R. Hill, Change in South Africa: Blind Alleys or New Directions? (London: Rex Collings, 1983), p. 7. 3. Emile Boonzaier, Candy Malherbe, Andy Smith, and Penny Berens, The Cape Herders: A History of the Khoikhoi of Southern Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1996), p. 4.

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4. Called variously “bushmen” by Europeans and “Basarwa” by SothoTswana speakers. 5. Called “hottentots” by Europeans. 6. See Peter Becker, Tribe to Township (London: Panther, 1974), pp. 36–37. 7. The use of the term is not to suggest anything about the claims of any people to South African citizenship but merely a notice that their origins were external to Africa. 8. Anthony Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Biography (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1999), p. 10–11. 9. David Welsh, The Roots of Segregation: Native Policy in Colonial Natal, 1845–1910 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 112. 10. Pierre du Toit, State Building and Democracy in Southern Africa: Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), p. 21. 11. T. R. H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1977), p. 45. 12. John C. Comaroff, “Rules and Rulers: Political Processes in a Tswana Chiefdom,” Man 13, no. 1 (March 1978): 1–20. 13. See Noel Mostert’s masterful work, Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), p. 200. 14. Thompson, History of South Africa, p. 25. 15. Frank Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History (New York: Kokdansha International, 1999), p. 69. 16. Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Biography, p. 9. 17. Peter Delius, The Land Belongs to Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p. 58. 18. A fenced-off area that can contain and control cattle. 19. Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History, p. 83. 20. Comaroff, “Rules and Rulers,” pp. 12–18. 21. Ivan Thomas Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 204. 22. D. A. Kotze, African Politics in South Africa, 1964–1974: Parties and Issues (London: C. Hurst, 1975), p. 83. 23. See I. Schapera, Tribal Innovators: Tswana Chiefs and Social Change, 1795–1940 (London: Athlone Press, 1970). 24. See Hilda Kuper, An African Aristocracy: Rank Among the Swazi (London: Oxford University Press, 1944); and the essays in M. Fortes and E. E. EvansPritchard, African Political Systems London: Oxford University Press, 1950). 25. For a discussion of this, see Lungisila Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of Land in South Africa (Leiden: Brill Academic, 2005). 26. Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 27. See, for example, Louis A. Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana: A Model for Success? (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1987), pp. 116–125. 28. Denis Beckett, Madibaland (Johannesburg: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 99. 29. See, for example, the competitive nature of Kas Maine, The Seed Is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894–1985 (Oxford: James Currey, 1996).

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30. Barbara Loftus, “Vibrant, Humming—A Lesson in Life,” Cape Argus, May 31, 1998, 9. 31. Patti Waldemeir, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), p. 268. 32. See Alex Boraine, Janet Levy, and Ronel Scheffer, eds., Dealing with the Past: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa, 1994). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established after the end of apartheid to deal with issues of responsibility for crimes and violence in a nonjudicial and conciliatory manner. Several other countries have taken the model of the TRC from South Africa. 33. Ibid., p. 11. 34. Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History, p. 69. 35. John Henderson Soga, quoted in Mostert, Frontiers, p. 197. 36. Ibid., pp. 958 and 197. 37. See Eric A. Walker, A History of Southern Africa (London: Longmans, 1968), p. 50, for a discussion of the first appointment of the landdrost. On the history of South Africa, see Monica Wilson and Leonard M. Thompson, eds., The Oxford History of South Africa, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). See also C. W. de Kiewiet, A History of South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1957); and his Economic History (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965). On the political system in South Africa, see Pierre L. van den Berghe, South Africa: A Study in Conflict (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1965); Leo Marquard, The Peoples and Policies of South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1969); L. M. Thompson, Politics in the Republic of South Africa (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966); and Denis Worrell, ed., South Africa: Government and Politics (Pretoria: J. L. Van Schaik, 1971). 38. The term Afrikaner came to be used in the late nineteenth century as a part of the development of national consciousness among whites of Dutch and Huguenot origin. 39. Thompson, A History of South Africa, p. 43. 40. Ibid., p. 59. 41. Ibid. 42. Leo Marquard, A Short History of South Africa (New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 40, 56, 91. 43. Thompson, A History of South Africa, p. 66. 44. Davenport, South Africa, p. 18. 45. Marquard, A Short History of South Africa, p. 64. See also Leonard Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 241. 46. See Mostert, Frontiers, p. 990. 47. Walker, A History of Southern Africa, p. 50. 48. L. P. Green, History of Local Government in South Africa (Cape Town: Juta, 1957), pp. 4–5; W. B. Vosloo, “South Africa: Local Government in the White Areas,” in Local Government in Southern Africa, ed. W. B. Vosloo, D. A. Kotze, and W. J. O. Jeppe (Pretoria: Academica, 1974), pp. 13–53. 49. R. W. Johnson, South Africa: The First Man, the Last Nation (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2004), p. 265. 50. Literally, “those who traveled far ahead.” It was applied to Afrikaners who lived a nomadic life and moved into south-central South Africa in the nineteenth century. 51. Green, History of Local Government, pp. 47–49 and 79–81.

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52. Vosloo, “South Africa: Local Government,” in Local Government, p. 18. 53. Marquard, A Short History of South Africa, p. 220. 54. Ibid., p. 36. 55. Jeffrey Butler, Robert I. Rotberg, and John Adams, The Black Homelands of South Africa: The Political and Economic Development of Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 26. 56. The phrase was apparently first used by the South African Native Affairs Commission in 1903. See Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 2. 57. Ibid., p. 220. 58. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Randlords: The Men who Made South Africa (London: Weidenfeld, 1993), p. 25. 59. A. J. Christopher, The Atlas of Apartheid (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994), p. 13. 60. L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, Why South Africa Will Survive (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1981), p. 50. 61. Jeremy Grest, “The Crisis of Local Government in South Africa,” in State, Resistance, and Change in South Africa, ed. Philip Frankel, Noam Pines, and Mark Swilling (London: Croom Helm, 1988), p. 110. 62. du Toit, State Building and Democracy in Southern Africa, p. 198. 63. Allister Sparks, The Mind of South Africa (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 195. 64. W. van Niekerk (director, Directorate of Self-Governing States, Department of Constitutional Development), interview with Picard, July 18, 1988, Pretoria. 65. Rhodes describes the various resources that both the central and local authorities possess and how they can be used against other actors in R. A. W. Rhodes, Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations (Farnborough Hants, UK: Gower and Social Sciences Research Council, 1981).

4 Authoritarian Institutions and Governance: The British Come to the Cape

Native policy is a fundamental aspect of our whole national life . . . in fact, all South African politics are Native affairs.1 Jy beboort nou aan my. [Now you belong to me.]2 The chief resides in the life and well-being of the tribe, and [is] the repository of wisdom, endowed with the power to guide the collective members of the tribal body.3 [A] man of one race can have no self-respect if he is ruled by a man of any other.4

O

verseas imperial rule effectively began in South Africa after the Napoleonic Wars, when the British took over the strategic Cape as a spoil of war. British settlers began to arrive in the Western and Eastern Cape after 1820, and this settler expansion led to direct contact between British colonialism and the independent African polities of that region. In this chapter we take a close look at the evolution of British rule in the various parts of South Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Initially, the imposition of British rule in the Cape, provisionally in 1806 and officially in 1815, did little to change the system of local-level administration. The British simply took over the existing landdrost and heemraden system, and there were few changes that affected the free

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burghers’ daily existence. Gradually, the British would mold the office to fit the imperial norms that were evolving in other British dependencies. The Eastern Cape soon became a target of settlement for British colonists, and some 4,000 British settlers arrived in the 1820s. By 1875 some 129,000 British subjects had migrated to or been born in South Africa, out of a total European population of 380,000. From the early 1800s there was a de facto Western Cape alliance among the British, the Western Cape Boers, and the Khoi (Cape coloureds) that was only breached once, when elements of the Khoi revolted during the Kat River Rebellion of 1801.5 The British authorities began to Anglicize district-level judicial and administrative arrangements in the Cape, and, in 1827 restyled the landdrost and heemraden posts as magistrates and councils. The British saw the resident magistrate as a prefect and a district officer along the lines of staff at other imperial outposts. With the introduction of British reforms in 1827, the judicial powers of the local-level district officers, the field cornets, were removed in the interest of enforcing the rule of law more effectively.6 British magistrates and civil commissioners replaced Dutch burghers. Law enforcement was the concern of higher, external authorities, which now legislated in English but gazetted the law in Dutch. The office of district officer/prefect had encompassed both administrative and judicial functions in much of Africa, but Britain unsuccessfully tried to transfer the administrative responsibilities of the landdrost to a civil commissioner, separating these functions from the judicial responsibilities of the resident magistrate.7 In practice, this distinction never became complete. Under British rule, magistrates in the Cape followed the practices of English law, including trial by jury and cross-examination.8 As a result, South African law became a combination of British and Dutch law sometimes referred to as Roman Dutch law.9 From a governance perspective, the 1828 British modifications in the administrative system in the Cape were probably a mistake. The British administration lost legitimacy among the Dutch-speakers by scrapping the familiar and popular landdrost and heemraden system. Dutch frontier settlers particularly resented these changes, as they regarded the members of the heemraden as men like themselves rather than impersonal, alien officials. Two factors inhibited the full implementation of the new British policy. First, because of the need for cost savings, the first civil commissioners appointed in the Cape Colony generally also acted as resident magistrates. This, in effect, contradicted the British policy of separation of judicial and administrative functions. The debate surrounding separation continued in government circles until well into the twentieth century.10

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Second, the majority of the Dutch-speaking colonists in the Cape wanted the landdrost and heemraden system restored, or at least the terminology.11 By the mid-nineteenth century, elements of this older system had been reestablished. The degree of separation of civil administration from the magistrate differed from area to area but tended to occur in African areas where native commissioners began to function separately from judicial magistrates in the white areas.12 In 1854, the Cape Parliament, in one of its first measures after the colony received internal self-government, revived and refurbished the old landdrost and heemraden system, which would function in white South Africa down to the mid-1980s. The district officer, called variously resident or district magistrate in English and landdrost in Dutch/Afrikaans, was presumed to work through his citizen council. However, the political role of local councils was minimal. As chairman, the magistrate could generally ensure that the council would follow his lead in administrative matters. The councils themselves became political rather than judicial in nature, and their chief responsibilities were for such things as district roads, bridges, weed control, public health, animal control, and schools.13 During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, few changes were made in the role of the magistrate/landdrost. The political divisions among the four territories (the Cape with its capital at Cape Town, the Transvaal with its capital at Pretoria, the Orange Free State with its capital at Bloemfontein, and Natal with its capital at Durban) precluded any standardization of the position. Nor did the scant ten years of British rule (1901–1910) in the four territories provide much opportunity for change. The merging of Dutch and British rule created an administrative officer with colonial administrative responsibilities—the South African prefect. The resident magistrate became the primary mechanism of colonial control in South Africa (and the High Commission Territories of Bechuanaland, Basutoland, and Swaziland) later in the century.

European Military Conquest of the Eastern Cape, 1819–1847 Imperial rule began in the Eastern Cape as a result of wars of conflict and conquest over the Xhosa in a period of 100 years. Black and white social relations evolved beyond that of master and slave in the Eastern Cape largely because of missionaries and mission schooling, which allowed the oppressed to express their grievances in writing and in legal terms.14 The Xhosa, or Southern Nguni, first came into contact with Dutch hunters around 1687 and would later became the first to come under colo-

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nial rule in southern Africa. The diverse Xhosa remained separated into a number of individual subgroups with competing traditional leaderships.15 In the early eighteenth century, the westward boundary of the Xhosa land in the Cape was approximately at a line north from the Gamtoos River mouth, west of Algoa Bay, and the Bruintje’s Hoogte in the north.16 In time, Boers outside of the Western Cape accommodated themselves with their neighbors, the Xhosa, who regarded them as “just another frontier tribe.”17 In 1778, during a visit to the Eastern Cape, Governor Joachim van Plettenberg found that there were Xhosa and Boer farmers living together on both sides of the Great Fish River.18 British observers during the early nineteenth century saw many rural Boers as radicals who were, as one historian put it, “infected with the rankest poison of Jacobism.”19 After 1800, Dutch settlers and Dutch and British administrators began to move east in large numbers and came into direct contact with large numbers of Bantu-speaking peoples. The Northern Nguni, the Swazi, and the Zulu had formed hierarchical state systems. The European settlers, backed by the British military, forced the Bantu-speaking peoples further east. On May 22, 1819, a new boundary line was drawn at the Keiskamma River. Missionaries, the Cape military, and traders were often in the forefront of the colonial penetration of the subcontinent. The intrusion of the Dutch and later the British disrupted settled patterns of social mediation and control among indigenous South African and triggered conflict between Boer and British settler polities. The late nineteenth century is defined by these intra-European conflicts throughout southern Africa.20 The colonial government in Cape Town at first maintained—both in spirit and in substance—the myth of “sovereign independence” of the Bantu-speaking peoples they encountered. All dealings with Africans by the British officers in the Eastern territories were on a diplomatic basis.21 The Cape administrations’ stated strategy was to be persuasive rather than authoritative. In reality, the South African prefect reflected the frontier settler values of the nineteenth-century Cape. In the 1830s the British made several attempts to take over portions of Xhosa territory. In 1834 the governor of the Cape, Benjamin D’Urban, annexed a large area of land in what is now the border area of the Eastern Cape. The Cape boundary was extended from the Keiskamma to the Kei River. After the 1835 treaty with the Xhosa, all Xhosa to the west of the Kei River were considered British subjects and were to submit to the general laws of the Cape Colony. D’Urban proposed to expel the Xhosa to the east of the Kei and open up the area to white settlement. However, under criticism from London, the territory was de-annexed in 1836. This back and forth movement reflected confusion over expansion into what was then called “Kaffirland.”

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The 1835 Stockenstrom Treaties, negotiated by Andries Stockenstrom, lieutenant-governor of the Eastern Cape, were an attempt to define clear boundaries between black and white territories. The treaties stated that tribal law should operate in the black areas and colonial law in the European territory. Stockenstrom appointed diplomatic agents (usually missionaries) near the residences of the chiefs. These agents served as mediators in interracial disputes and in all negotiations with chiefs. Despite the presence of large numbers of Xhosa-speaking peoples, a new settlement policy for Queen Adelaide Province provided that the province would remain open for white settlement. However, some African groups (the Ngqika, Ndlambe, and Gqunukwebe, in particular) would be placed in separate locations under white resident agents since segregated government had not yet become the norm in parts of the Eastern Cape. Colonial leaders realized settlers were the cheapest way to maintain the frontier and keep out the Xhosa.22 The military controlled movement across the frontiers and established garrisons inside African territory, but they were not permitted to patrol on the black side of the frontier.23 British administration in the Eastern Cape in the first half of the nineteenth century was significantly different from the pattern London used on the rest of the continent later in the century. Britain was less an imperial power than it was a colonial government of the late eighteenth century variety, with self-defined responsibility for a European population that had settled overseas. The relationship between Britain and the whites in Cape Colony was more comparable to British relationships with its North American colonies or the Australia–New Zealand group than it would be to Uganda, Nigeria, or Malawi. This was reflected in the British approach to local administration. The British experience governing the black population of the Eastern Cape, in what later became the Ciskei, the Transkei, and the Border regions,24 changed Britain from a colonial power to an imperial power in southern Africa. The British annexed the land between the Fish River and the Keiskamma River in 1847, which would become the district of Victoria East, and declared the area between the Keiskamma and the Kei Rivers a separate colony, “British Kaffraria.” With the end of the seventh Kaffir War, known as the “War of the Axe” in 1847, the British treaty system came to an end. The colonial government then informed the defeated Xhosa chiefs “that all negotiations thereafter would be on the basis of their absolute subordination to the Whites.”25 The Xhosa areas had been the only British colonies ruled through military law and personnel, but Sir Henry Pottinger was appointed governor in 1847, becoming the first civil governor in the Cape in forty years. His goal was to incorporate the Xhosa people into the British Empire.

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British Kaffraria provided a new model for relationships between the colonial administration and the Xhosa. Civil commissioners from Cape Town were appointed to serve as magistrates in the new territories, review the actions of the chiefs, and serve as political advisers.26 Traditional authorities were to be paid salaries and given responsibility for law and order. In a radical departure from earlier policies, the British plan for the direct administration of the Xhosa had a double goal of breaking up the power of the chiefs—since the British decided against using indirect rule in these areas—and converting African communities to European habits and Christianity as part of an assimilationist policy.27 Police officers, missionaries, and traders followed the magistrates into the new territories.28 Several missionaries were recruited to serve as magistrates and political officers for the Cape government. They brought distinct views about the role of Christianity and the “civilizing mission” of the Europeans. “Assimilation” became the professed goal of the colonial administration in Cape Town, a policy that had a long-term impact both on the Cape Province and South Africa as a whole.

The Ciskei: Integration Within the Eastern Cape The Ciskei (as the western part of Kaffraria came to be known) was always seen as part of the Cape Province. The first British magistrates, appointed in 1847 in the territory between the Kei and the Keiskamma Rivers, were primarily political officers. By the time the full-scale colonial occupation of the Ciskei took place, precolonial Xhosa society had been destroyed and local chiefs subordinated to the British magistrates.29 The primary functions of the magistrate were to serve as a political agent, to quell unrest in the reserves, to report any disruptions to law and order to higher authorities, and to supervise land allocation. Magistrates in the Eastern Cape accumulated more power than their counterparts in British tropical Africa and came to represent “an extreme case of the concentration of bureaucratic authority.”30 In the Eastern Cape, the field administrator ruled directly, was the responsible authority in the field, and had overall authority over other field agencies.31 He was also in a position where his powers could easily be abused. In many parts of the British Empire there was a tendency to expand the power of the chief and for the office to become increasingly formalized, both because of European influences and the theory of indirect rule and because of the growth of literacy among the chief’s advisers. This form of indirect rule did not occur in the Eastern Cape where Europeans very early put an end to autonomous traditional political structures while in seeming

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contradiction continued to use some of the traditional leaders but without the autonomy implied in indirect rule. The Eastern Cape administration inherited by the Union government divided the territory into magisterial districts and gradually replaced Bantu chiefs with magistrates for administrative purposes.32 Rule by chiefs had given way to a system of direct rule, though white magistrates relied on the location headmen, at the grassroots level, as their main means of liaison with rural dwellers.33 Elements of traditional influence did survive, however, leaving chiefs and their representatives less tainted in the eyes of their own people than was the case in other parts of the Union.34 Throughout the colonial period and into the Union administration, chieftainship in the Ciskei continued to function as a parallel or alternative form of government. Though the chiefs had little power compared with that of the magistrates, they were seen as a source of governance separate from the colonial regime.35 As a result, in many areas the chieftaincy survived attempts to undermine it.36 Magistrates in the Ciskei were to assist the chief where necessary. However, the magistrate did not completely replace the chief in the Ciskei in the way that would later occur in Transkei. By 1900 the magistrate in the Eastern Cape exercised judicial authority jointly with the chiefs. Locallevel bureaucratic control was at a “pre-indirect rule” stage in which the magistrate operated through subchiefs and headmen but without the bureaucratic structures (tribal treasury, secretary, and other clerical staff) envisioned in the Lugardian brand of colonial administration based on indirect rule.37 Magisterial rule was direct, and the Cape administration remained formally committed to the assimilation of its African inhabitants to European culture throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. In the Ciskei, urban blacks fell under a common Cape administrative system. The headman (rather than the chief) became the focal point for administrative control, and throughout the Eastern Cape he functioned as a kind of noncommissioned officer in what remained a quasi-military system. Headmen, unlike chiefs, were appointed officials and depended on the good graces of the magistrate for their positions. Headmen and subheadmen provided a mediating mechanism within society and were responsible for administration at the local level. Headmen were assisted and guided by superintendents, who were responsible to the district-level civil commissioner.38 By Union, the power of the magistrate in the Eastern Cape had increased significantly. First, the magistrate had assumed responsibility for the allocation of land. Second, the magistrate became chairman of the rural local government councils established under the 1884 Glen Grey Act. Throughout the twentieth century the magistrate/commissioner performed a

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political function, served as a communications mechanism, and was presumed by the colonial regime to articulate the needs and interests of the people in his district to higher authorities in Cape Town. In reality, after 1947 under the “declaration of martial law the commissioners could apply traditional law and customs according to their own discretion.”39 Surprisingly, in light of later developments in the Union of South Africa, in the Eastern Cape a hard line was not always drawn bureaucratically between the administration of Europeans and non-Europeans. The percentage of a non-European population within an area highly affected local administration. Prior to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there was little effective separation of the district administration according to race.40 Separate native affairs commissioners were appointed after 1990 as distinct “native affairs” departments were created in predominantly African areas of the Transkei.

Direct Rule and Segregation in the Transkei Colonial rule in the Transkei took a different form than in the Ciskei. The British first annexed parts of the Transkei in 1868, when Cape Town appointed magistrates to the territory. All of the Transkei, except Pondoland, came under Cape magisterial rule in 1878. Griqualand West became a crown colony in October 1871 and was absorbed into the Cape Colony in 1880.41 By then colonial expansion in the Cape Colony outside the northern Cape had ended. Thembuland, in the northwestern part of the Transkei, was colonized in the 1880s. It was controlled by a parallel system of magistrates, traditional chiefs and headmen, and an advisory elected district council system.42 Unlike the situation in the Ciskei, colonial administrators envisioned the Transkei as a single territorial unit with clearly defined and common African interests similar to that of neighboring Basutoland.43 But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, turmoil continued in much of the Transkei, as Xhosa chiefs used military force to resist British and Cape advancement. In order to destroy the existing political kingdoms, administrators concluded they had to break the power of traditional chiefs. The administration created a grid of twenty-seven magisterial districts throughout the territory that cut across traditional boundaries and paid no attention to existing traditional political units. Colonial administrators extended many of the patterns of local administration that had developed in the Ciskei, making governance on the ground less different than the grand vision defined by the British administration. In order to end the resistance of chiefs, the government imposed what they called direct rule in the Transkei.

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By 1910 colonial policy in the Transkei had assumed a form that would be compatible with the separate development policies introduced by the National Party government when it came to power in 1948. Assumptions of separatism (racial segregation) and legislation by proclamation (authoritarianism) were extended to the rest of the Union after 1910 and became the basis of the apartheid system after 1951. The role of the magistrate was fully developed in the Transkei. Hammond-Tooke, in his detailed analysis of field administration in the Transkei, describes the magistrate system as it developed in the Ciskei and Transkei and was transferred throughout the country: The whole area was coordinated into a clearly defined administrative unit through the bureaucratic structure of district magistrates. Side by side with this system the traditional courts of chiefs and headmen still operated, handling mainly civil matters under law and custom. Appeals from these courts were heard de novo by the magistrates . . . [and on to this] the District and General Councils were grafted. The structure was locked into the bureaucratic system at each level. The chief Magistrate was the Chief Executive Officer of the General Council and his chief clerk acted as treasurer [and] the magistrates were chairmen of the District Councils.44

Because the office of chief was not entirely co-opted in the Eastern Cape, it retained a legitimacy there that the office did not have in other parts of southern Africa. Although the chief frequently had civil and (limited) criminal jurisdiction, it was often possible for Africans to bypass his court and directly appeal from the headman to the magistrate. At the same time, and unlike in the Ciskei, the chiefs in the Transkei, now considered outside of the Eastern Cape, retained much of their prestige, and traditional loyalties remained extremely strong. In the Transkei, Cape officials attempted to use traditional law as the basis of both land allocation and judicial procedure. Judicially, as well as administratively, the magistrate had effectively replaced the chief by the end of the nineteenth century by working directly through headmen. During the British period and under the Union, the indigenous system of government operated side-by-side with the colonial bureaucratic structure. Chiefs presented a barrier to the spread of “civilization but also to the movement of African workers into a wage-earning economy.” 45 Also in the Transkei, “the old system of decision-making through consensus operated as an alternative to that of the white bureaucracy.”46 Traditional authorities often were able to adapt to their loss of autonomy and their ambiguous relationship to the state in the Transkei by maintaining effective lines of communication with their communities. However, traditional elites were often frustrated by this ambiguity, though they had

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no choice but to live with it. Traditional leaders in the Eastern Cape, though relatively powerless in the colonial system, were put on a salary in lieu of the fines and other rewards of office that had come to them traditionally. To summarize: as a result of colonialism, headmen and chiefs intersected with each other in competing interhierarchical roles, bringing them into conflict with each other. They were at the meeting point of two conflicting systems of role expectations that often involved them in insoluble dilemmas. Role conflict became particularly intense in the Transkei. Traditional leaders could either support government policy or be against it. Their choice determined their relationship with their community. Particularly after 1960, chiefs and headmen had to “walk a veritable tightrope.”47 In the Cape Colony, the colonial administration also began to pay chiefs and headmen, bringing them under more direct control.48 Many subchiefs in the Transkei became paid headmen responsible directly to the magistrate rather than to paramount chiefs. Over time the position of headman became essentially hereditary, though magistrates could suspend a headman or veto a new appointment. The Xhosa regarded local headmen as paid government functionaries, not part of the traditional chieftainship system.49 Throughout the Eastern Cape, the position of headman was very difficult, as they had to balance the magistrate’s demands against the will of the people.50 The white magistrate at the district level, though responsible to the chief magistrate in Umtata (capital of the Transkei), was given complete control over of his district and unlimited jurisdiction over civil cases. 51 In criminal cases the magistrate’s ordinary jurisdiction was limited to the imposition of a fine not to exceed £100. He could inflict a prison sentence of not more than a year and up to twenty-five lashes.52 Traditional authority in the Transkei fell between two schools, the policy of identity in the Ciskei on the one hand and the Natal system of indirect rule described below. Under British rule, the chief in the Transkei did not fit logically into a bureaucratic structure, though traditional authority remained important. Local traditional authorities in the Transkei administered very limited tribal funds, and headmen were left alone as long as they submitted to the authority of the magistrate. Administrators in the Transkei after the time of Union (presaging later separate development arguments) stressed the importance of self-help and the need to teach the “natives” to govern themselves through their own quasi-segregated structures, rather than through participation in white politics. Gone were earlier ideas of assimilation and equality. The Transkei administration would be a separate government structure, along the lines of neighboring Basutoland, not a part of the Cape Colony.

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Natal and the Conquest of Zululand Zululand, or Northern Natal, was located north of the Tugela River.53 After the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, was defeated in 1879 at the Battle of Etshaneni, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the British high commissioner, announced that the Zulu kingdom would be abolished and divided into thirteen Britishappointed chieftainships under a British resident. The British annexed the rump Zululand in 1887, destroyed the Zulu capital in the Battle of Ulundi in 1889, joined it to Natal in 1897, and in that year appointed a resident commissioner with authority over the six resident magistrates administering the province.54 The third area, Western Natal, was Zulu territory initially granted to the Boers in 1884 but finally added to Natal only in 1902 after the Anglo-Boer War. Natal provided the blueprint for later colonial arrangements all over British Africa.55 In Natal, as in the rest of South Africa, black-white relationships were built on myth. To the Afrikaner, the Battle of Blood River on December 16, 1838, marked the end of Zulu control over Natal. However, in reality, it took the British Army to finally defeat the exceptionally militant Zulu.56 From 1824 to 1839, administrative policy in Natal was not significantly different in intent from that found in the Eastern Cape. Assimilation was built into the Natal annexation documents and British policy was to Christianize the African population in the ceded territories of Natal in order to give them the benefit of the advantages and progress of European “civilization.” Nominally, assimilated Africans could receive the franchise, though very few would be granted the privilege.57 By the 1830s, missionaries and frontier administrators, especially those with experience in the Eastern Cape, began to advocate segregation as a form of trusteeship in Natal.58 In the 1830s, the arrival of Boer voortrekkers put significant pressure on land in Natal, and many settlers objected to African control over potentially rich farming areas. The Boers ruled Southern Natal as a republic from 1839 to 1845. However, in 1843 the British denied the area to the Dutch by annexing Southern Natal as a Cape dependency administered by a lieutenant-governor. Natal was formally annexed in 1845, and in 1853, London granted a representative government to whites in Southern Natal but not in Northern Natal, which would become the Zulu Reserve. By 1870, Natal had a white population of 18,000, of which 15,000 were British and 3,000 were Afrikaners.59 British rule in Natal was dominated by the formidable personality of Theophilus Shepstone, who served in Natal between 1845 and 1876. Shep-

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stone left “an indelible mark on native administration not only in Natal but in the whole of South Africa.”60 After serving as a colonial administrator in the Eastern Cape, he was made diplomatic agent to the Africans of Natal in 1845, and after the declaration of the crown colony he was appointed secretary of native administration in Natal. Shepstone’s ideas about colonial administration differed significantly from the direct rule ideas of the Cape and were directly linked to the patterns of control that later became known as apartheid. Shepstone’s differences with Sir George Grey, governor of the Cape Colony during this period, were both philosophical and practical. Grey believed that traditional law and the authority of chiefs should give way to European law adjudicated by magistrates. Shepstone rejected this assumption and the—at least potentially—egalitarianism upon which it was based. In 1846, M. T. West, the lieutenant-governor for Natal, on the advice of Shepstone, appointed a commission to arrange a system of reserves for Africans. The term “trusteeship” came to be applied to Shepstone’s ideas. Shepstone is said to have respected and, from his perspective, both protected and wielded immense influence over Africans, particularly in his early years. In Natal, Shepstone was all-powerful. In the territory, “without any police force or military aid, without striking a blow, he [Shepstone] moved to the locations more than 80,000 Zulus, the majority of whom were completely detribalized and had been wandering about as fugitives since the wars of Shaka.”61 In order to achieve his indirect rule goals, Shepstone had to restore some measure of authority to traditional leaders among a people whose traditional organizations had been disrupted by the Mfecane62 of Dingaan and Shaka. The Shepstonian model thus created a legal dualism in the administration of Natal that would be transferred throughout South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Settler communities became jealous of African prosperity in Natal, increasing pressures on the colonial government to create a situation to depress economic conditions for Africans and force them into the labor market. After his arrival in Natal, Shepstone immediately came into conflict with white Natal farmers who believed that the locations his commission had set aside for Africans were too large. They claimed it kept Zulu workers from coming forward to work on settler farms. Shepstone agreed to settler demands in Natal and enacted a series of anti-African policies. Lack of development activity allowed the settlers to justify forced labor, believing it was better for Africans to work for whites than to “stagnate in the reserves.”63 Shepstone himself early saw the need for what would become influx control in order to turn black movement on and off. Pro-settler labor policies were created by taxing the Africans and

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imposing forced labor on them in order to collect taxes from them. By the late 1870s, Shepstone had earned the reputation in South Africa as the mastermind behind the policy of segregation. This rigid structure, which Shepstone himself may have disapproved, became the governing principle of Natal and, later, of the Union. Land pressures in the relatively compact Natal also caused Shepstone to establish parallel structures with segregated reserves in Northern Natal. Restricting Africans to these segregated reserves freed up additional territories for white settlement. The use of traditional authority structures and the system of indirect rule established in the mid-nineteenth century were also the results of demands for cheap administration in a poor country, and Shepstone concluded that using traditional authorities would be cheaper than direct rule. Administrative policy was based on the Natal Code, a special set of laws proclaimed by the colonial government for black South Africans. Critics of indirect rule also argued that these structures undermined the legitimacy of the position of traditional chiefs during the colonial and later Union periods.64 Practically speaking, given the conditions at the time, Shepstone probably had little choice in the development of colonial administration in Natal. British rule over the Zulu Kingdom under Shepstone established a pattern of colonial administration similar to systems later developed throughout British tropical Africa. After the conquest, Shepstone concluded that the only course open to the Natal administration was to allow traditional authorities to play a part in the administration of the territory. His policy called for the establishment of Zulu tribal reserves and government by indirect rule through the chieftaincy. At the apex of the system, the colonial lieutenant-governor, representing the governor-general, would hold the title of “Supreme Chief” of all Africans in Natal and replace the Zulu king as the final repository of “custom.”65 Paternalism thus was a predominant strand in the historical development of the imposition of white government on Africans.66

Differentiation and Separation Shepstone justified the Natal system because he saw Africans as a separate people, socially, culturally and politically—who must be governed and taxed separately. A. G. McLoughlin has called Shepstone’s system of colonial administration a “policy of Differentiation.”67 Differentiation came to mean the complete separation of Europeans from African and mixed race peoples.68 All Africans ultimately were segregated in special reserve areas.

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By the 1850s the Natal administration had forced large numbers of Africans into locations and allocated vacated lands to European settlers. Shepstone saw traditionalism as a stabilizing device that assured political control by colonial administrators. The system replicated patterns of indirect rule that would be common in other parts of Africa. Indirect rule became the norm outside the Cape in the nineteenth century, though Shepstone’s own ideal would have been to introduce a more direct system in Natal.69 In rejecting the nonracial liberalism of the Cape, Shepstone assumed that Africans would be permanently separated from settler populations. Some Africans, of course, would temporarily leave the reserve areas in order to work for Europeans on farms and in the city. Ultimately the province of Natal was geographically splintered into African and European areas to avoid “friction” between the two races.70 Under the Natal system, Africans were controlled by their own customs. Judicial affairs were based upon customary law. The function of traditional elites was based upon their judicial powers and traditional law. Kotze places the judicial system within its nineteenth-century context: It is true that the constitution of the court did not conform to Western concepts of judicial procedure, but it is equally true that Shepstone had never purported to model the administration of justice among the Natives on European lines; and it can definitely not be said that the procedure adopted by him was contrary to Bantu law as he understood it. . . . The jurisdiction conferred on it had previously been exercised by the Secretary for Native Affairs [Shepstone], who, as the representative of the Supreme Chief, had heard and determined all appeals against judgments of magistrates.71

African law was to be recognized as sovereign in so far as it did not conflict with British sensibilities. In 1871, there were only eleven magistrates in Natal that had jurisdiction over both whites and Africans; here magistrates served as administrators of native law.72 Indirect rule within southern Africa had created varied systems of governance. Possessing legitimacy to Africans, indigenous chiefs and councils governed.73 Shepstone’s “tribal administration” and its policies, however, undermined the legitimacy of the position of chiefs,74 whose actions were increasingly subject to the overriding control of the secretary for native affairs in Pietermaritzburg.75 Colonial administration in Natal was patriarchal beginning with the head of the family, moving to clan, and subchiefs. The hierarchy carried on through several subdivisions of tribal political structure to the chief, and from there through the magistrate and the secretary of native administration, culminating in the British lieutenant-governor in his role of supreme chief.

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Change in nineteenth-century Zululand was defined by the colonial state from an imperial perspective. Colonial and traditional role relationships provided for contrasting perceptions of governance patterns in Natal. From a colonial perspective, government played a leading role in Zulu life where the magistrate applied government regulations and was also the chief head of the organization bringing new enterprise to the Zulu.76 The ambiguous relationship among the colonial state, white Natalians, and the remnants of Zulu leadership created tensions that were passed on to twentiethcentury Natal and much of the rest of South Africa. Zulu attitudes toward the government were mainly hostile and suspicious, as they blamed the government for the new conflicts in their community. Education often determined one’s view of colonial authority, where the more-educated Zulus were more favorable to the magistracy than the uneducated. The best-educated Zulu, to many British administrators, had a tendency to react violently against his own people and culture. The result was an increasing amount of role conflict between traditional rulers and colonial officers. Max Gluckman provided a vivid picture of the impact of colonial rule on the former Zulu kingdom: Zululand is divided into a number of magisterial districts, which are divided into tribes under chiefs, who are granted a limited judicial authority and who are required to assist the Government in many administrative matters. He cooperates with other Government departments, and with the chiefs and their indunas [assistants]. This, according to statute, is the political system. In Zulu life the magistrate and the chief occupy different, and in many ways opposed, positions.77

The indirect rule system contained a built-in flaw, as social changes created tension between the chiefs and the magistrates. While the government required the chiefs to support its measures, the people expected their chiefs to support the will of the people and oppose the government measures. The magistrate, despite the backing of the military power of the British Empire and the authority of the white upper class in the South African community, could not cross the barrier between white and black.78 Under the supreme chief, the chief native administrator (first located in Pietermaritzburg and later in Cape Town and Pretoria after Union) expected the chief to exert his influence on behalf of the government even if it would make him unpopular with his own people. Inevitably, the chief became a remote authoritarian figure linked to the colonial system, and the Shepstone system became the justification for “a harsh and arbitrary bureaucratic despotism” symbolized by the British magistrate and, later, the native commissioner.79

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Thus, the English-speaking South Africans, though never the creators of the ideology of apartheid, laid the basis for the political and administrative framework for apartheid and its exploitative labor system.80

The Northern Territories Between 1835 and 1840, the Boer voortrekkers founded Transvaal South African Republic and the Orange Free State. Native administration in the Transvaal was based upon the twin assumptions of noninterference and nonequality. The development of a policy toward Africans in the Transvaal is particularly instructive and, as Edgar Brookes notes, the history of the evolution of Transvaal African administration “is full of interest. In the early days . . . there was no special Native Affairs Department. The concern of the Republic with African tribes was chiefly its defence against them: Locally, so far as jurisdiction was extended to Africans, the Landdrost [magistrate] was the responsible officer.”81 The Transvaal economy, as in Natal, was underdeveloped, and the government had few resources, necessitating an inexpensive system of administration.82 During the presidency of Paul Kruger (1883–1900), there was widespread corruption and nepotism in the Transvaal South African Republic.83 This atmosphere of corruption in the Transvaal indicated that the Kruger regime was unable to establish a well-ordered policy.84 The British annexed the South African Republic in 1877. By the end of the 1870s, the polities in the Northern Transvaal had been “bludgeoned into submission by British-led armies” in what is sometimes referred to as the first Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881).85 In 1879 the British forcibly annexed the Pedi, the largest ethnic group in the Northern Transvaal. In the next few years, the British conquered the Swazi, Ndebele, Shaangan, and Venda. Shepstone implemented his indirect rule system across all of the Northern and Eastern Transvaal, in large part, because he “believed that his administrative procedures would easily govern ‘any class, country, or nation’ of Africans.”86 He thus was able to “apply his theory of cheap government through black chiefs, black taxes and black police to the Transvaal.”87 Shepstone set up the first separate Department of Native Affairs, as well as a secretary of state for native affairs to supervise the native administration system. The administrative apparatus set up in the Transvaal contained most of the provisions of Natal’s institutions of traditional government. These included clearly defined boundaries of native reserves, magisterial rule, the use of customary law, the recognition of the chieftainship, and the appointment of the governor as the supreme chief over the six African populations in the Transvaal region.

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Natal’s conflicting jurisdictions, “a maze of pseudo-legal arguments,”88 was transferred to the Northern Transvaal, as well. The primary responsibility of the landdrost in the Northern Territories was to collect taxes. By 1880, Shepstone and his administrators had established a system of centralized administration and revenue collection. By the turn of the century, the Transvaal government produced a handbook, Guidance for Magistrates, which focused on Pedi customs and laws. Because the size of the Transvaal precluded direct communications between the magistrate and the center, Shepstone decided to create regional commissioners for every several magistrates, thus creating an intermediate form of government in the Northern Transvaal and later replicated throughout South Africa after Union. For the rest of the Transvaal, patterns of control were imported from Natal and given a more centralized authority.89 The Orange Free State was annexed by the British in 1881 as part of an aborted federation move, but was given back its sovereignty in 1884— along with the Transvaal—when a new government in Britain came into power and rejected expansionism in southern Africa. By 1900 the Shepstone system had been introduced in the Orange Free State, had influenced Cape policy, been introduced in modified form by Lugard in northern Nigeria, and was soon transferred throughout Africa. The Shepstonian system became central to the control mechanisms defining British Imperial Africa. In the Orange Free State, prior to 1899, administrative responsibility over non-Europeans was carried out entirely by Justice Department magistrates, with the exception of the Witzieshoek Reserve, which had a commandant for native affairs. Though there were large numbers of Africans in the Orange Free State, many of them lived on white farms, and there were few African reserve areas. By 1950, only three areas were designated reserves—Witzieshoek, Thaba Nchu, and Seliba. In these areas, the pattern of African administration in the Orange Free State was similar to that of Natal and the Transvaal and differed significantly from that in the Transkei and the Eastern Cape. In reality it was left to the magistrate to define relationships between the polities of the Northern Transvaal and British authorities prior to the second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902). This war ended with the annexation of the two Boer states (Transvaal/South African Republic and the Orange Free State) by Britain and the eventual creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. When administrative structures were transferred to the Northern Cape (British Bechuanaland), it was the Shepstone model from Natal rather than the Ciskei/Transkei model from the Cape that was adopted. Indirect rule was the norm, although there was only limited devolution of political authority to traditional leaders, nor were Transkei-style district councils

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formed as had been established in parts of that territory in the 1870s and 1880s. In British Bechuanaland, magistrates from the Cape Justice Department had authority over both European settlers and Africans. The Northern Cape and the Western Transvaal, though separated by colonial boundaries, became a common administrative system, which would later become known as the Western Reserve Areas. These areas, as well as the Bechuanaland Protectorate under British colonial rule, were largely populated by Setswana-speaking peoples.90 Later, in several heavily populated urban districts near Rustenberg and Pretoria, a subordinate officer called the superintendent of natives, assisted the magistrate. More power was given to the chiefs in British Bechuanaland than in either the Transkei or the Ciskei. Proclamations provided that the chiefs would have criminal jurisdiction according to Bantu Law in all criminal cases arising between natives of the same tribe.91 Additionally, they were given exclusive authority over all civic actions and original jurisdiction over lower-level criminal cases under tribal law. As a result, the native commissioner used the chiefs as judicial administrators and chiefs were responsible for primary-level criminal and civil justice.92 In both the Northern Cape and the Western Transvaal, traditional law played an important role in the judicial process.93 After Union, Tswanaspeakers became part of the Western Reserves, ethnically linked to Bechuanaland (now Botswana) but politically part of the Union. In the twentieth century, the division of the Tswana resulted in a complex set of loyalties and a divided territory. After becoming the homeland of Bophuthatswana, the area of the “Western Reserves,” including the white farmlands of the Western Transvaal, became the North West Province. Cape rule over Basutoland (1871–1884) and the annexation of British Bechuanaland in 188194 may in turn have influenced colonial administrators in the Cape in their approach to both the Transkei and the Ciskei. By 1900 a native administration system, separate from the Department of Justice, had been set up in the Eastern Cape region, though the title of “supreme chief” was never created in the Eastern Cape.95 At the end of the British period (1910) both regions were transitioned toward modified indirect rule. By 1890, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, and Swaziland had all been defined as British-controlled areas outside of the jurisdiction of what would later become the Union of South Africa. The boundaries between British Bechuanaland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate and between the Orange Free State and the rump British Protectorate of Basutoland (now Lesotho) were not natural but in the latter rather separated the fertile areas, which became part of the Orange Free State, from the rocky mountainous territories and later became Basutoland. The boundaries separating South Africa from the British Territories were drawn in large part because of the scramble for diamonds and defined in peace settlements after the Batswana and

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the Basuto Wars. These boundaries divided the Sesotho- and Setswanaspeaking peoples between South African and British territories and created the independent countries of Botswana and Lesotho in the twentieth century.96 In the Eastern Transvaal, the Swazi nation also was partitioned between the British-controlled Swaziland Protectorate, which gained its independence in 1968, and South Africa.

Conclusion Role relationships at the grassroots level changed considerably as a result of the interface between traditional authorities and the South African prefect. Collaboration occurred as a rational response to the power of the colonial state to impose its will. Along with collaboration, there was more than a tinge of resentment and occasionally resistance. Magistrates captured the institution of the chief and used it to suppress their own tribesmen, almost destroying the chieftaincy.97 At the time of Union in 1910, the nature of the local state had already been defined. Much of it would remain in place in the rural areas of the country after the end of apartheid. Apartheid at the grassroots was directly descended from the segregation introduced by Lord Milner when he created the intercolonial Native Affairs Commission during the colonial period. Fully segregated governance and later apartheid, though a part of the post-Union period in their origins, lies in the nineteenth-century developments described here. A number of independent polities in 1800 were partially integrated and became subordinate components of the Union and later the Republic of South Africa. What began as reserves came to be called Bantustans and homelands and sustained prefectoralism as a control mechanism in a nonracial South Africa.

Notes 1. M. V. Ballinger, “Native Representative Council Again in Session,” Umteteli Wa Bantu, August 12, 1944, reprinted in Phyllis Lewsen, Voices of Protest: From Segregation to Apartheid, 1938–1948 (Johannesburg: A. D. Donker, 1988), p. 263. 2. “Now you belong to me,” white farmer to an African woman after he collected reference books. Zeerust district, April 1957, quoted by Charles Hooper, Brief Authority (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989), p. 179. 3. J. H. Soga, Amaxhosa Life and Customs (Lovedale, n.d.), p. 8, quoted by Noel Mostert, Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), p. 199. 4. Rayne Kruger, Goodbye Dolly Gray: The Story of the Boer War (London: Cassell, 1959), p. 493. 5. Mostert, Frontiers, p. 481.

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6. Described by Davenport as “the farmers’ friends.” T. R. H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1977), p. 32. 7. L. P. Green, History of Local Government in South Africa (Cape Town: Juta, 1957), p. 3. 8. Frank Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History (New York: Kokdansha International, 1999), p. 133. 9. Diana Gordon, Transformation and Trouble: Crime, Justice, and Participation in Democratic South Africa (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), p. 218. 10. The creation of separate native commissioners in African areas was designed to separate the judicial functions of the magistrate from the administrative control functions of the commissioner. However, in the reserve areas, commissioners continued to carry magisterial powers. 11. W. B. Vosloo, “South Africa: Local Government in the White Areas,” in Local Government in Southern Africa, ed. W. B. Vosloo, D. A. Kotze, and W. J. O. Jeppe (Pretoria: Academica, 1974), p. 19. The magistrate was still called landdrost in Afrikaans in 1994. 12. William M. [Lord] Hailey, An African Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 353. 13. Vosloo, “South Africa: Local Government,” p. 19. 14. Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (New York: Times Books, 1998), p. 46. 15. Welsh, South Africa, pp. 66–67. 16. Mostert, Frontiers, p. 224. 17. J. M. Coetzee, “A Betrayed People,” New York Review of Books (January 14, 1993), p. 9. 18. South Africa: History (Reprint from the official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa) (Cape Town: Government Printer, 1986), p. 2. 19. Mostert, Frontiers, p. 261. 20. Alan Mabin, “Dispossession, Exploitation, and Struggle: An Historical Overview of South African Urbanization,” in The Apartheid City and Beyond, ed. David M. Smith (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1992), p. 14. 21. D. A. Kotze, Native Administration (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1970), p. 23. 22. Mary Benson, A Far Cry: The Making of a South African (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989), p. 220. 23. Davenport, South Africa, pp. 99–100. 24. The border region is the area formerly classified as white that runs between the Ciskei and Transkei. It includes the city of East London. 25. Kotze, Native Administration, p. 25. 26. See Paul Maylam, A History of the African People of South Africa from the Early Iron Age to the 1970s (London: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 89–99; and D. A. Kotze, African Politics in South Africa, 1964–1974: Parties and Issues (London: C. Hurst, 1975), p. 83. 27. For the above, see Davenport, South Africa, p. 35 and passim. 28. Maylam, A History of the African People, pp. 99–101. 29. Mostert makes this point, Frontiers, p. 115. 30. Roger Southall, South Africa’s Transkei: The Political Economy of an “Independent” Bantustan (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), p. 88. 31. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 99.

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32. Kotze, Native Administration, p. 39. 33. Location headmen are stationed in a settled as opposed to a village area. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 2. 34. Maylam, A History of the African People, p. 102. 35. Patrick Laurence, The Transkei: South Africa’s Politics of Partition (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1976), p. 20. 36. Ivan Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 191. 37. Hailey, An African Survey, pp. 419–422. 38. D. A. Kotze, “The Evolution of the Ciskeian District Magistracy” (Pretoria: unpublished paper, 1982). 39. Ibid. 40. Edgar H. Brookes, White Rule in South Africa, 1830–1910 (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1974), pp. 73–84; and W. J. O. Jeppe and D. A. Kotze, “Local Government in the African Areas of South Africa,” in Local Government in Southern Africa, p. 81. 41. Leo Marquard, A Short History of South Africa (New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 29–30, 215–216. 42. Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 7. 43. Comparisons were often drawn with Basutoland and Bechuanaland in this context. See Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 201. 44. Ibid., p. 92. 45. Gwendolyn Carter, Thomas Karis, and Newell M. Stultz, South Africa’s Transkei: The Politics of Domestic Colonialism (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967), p. 34. 46. The following paragraphs are based on Carter, Karis, and Stultz, South Africa’s Transkei, p. 34. 47. Ibid., p. 90. 48. Gordon, Transformation and Trouble, p. 37. 49. Laurence, The Transkei, p. 20. 50. Ibid., p. 50. 51. Marriage cases were outside of the magistrate’s control. 52. Laurence, The Transkei, p. 81. 53. This is the area often referred to after 1990 as “deep KwaZulu,” a largely rural area with strong ties to both the Zulu king and the Inkatha Freedom Party. 54. Maylam, A History of the African People, p. 81. 55. Welsh, South Africa, p. 214. 56. W. A. de Klerk, The Puritans in Africa: A Story of Afrikanerdom (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), p. 46. Though the Afrikaners won the Battle of Blood River, there were many struggles between the Zulu nation and the whites in South Africa. It was only when the military power of the British Empire was turned against the Zulus, and after the British lost a number of battles, that the most powerful nation in southern Africa was brought under imperial rule. 57. Davenport, South Africa, p. 5. 58. Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, From Apartheid to NationBuilding: Contemporary South African Debate (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 4. 59. Thompson, A History of South Africa, p. 97. 60. Kotze, Native Administration, p. 49.

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61. Ibid., p. 54. 62. The term refers to the 1820s and 1830s period of warfare and chaos caused by King Shaka, which led to the movement of large numbers of people to the west and north of the Zulu homeland. 63. Ibid., p. 88. 64. Gerhard Mare and Georgina Hamilton, An Appetite for Power: Buthelezi’s Inkatha and the Politics of “Loyal Resistance” (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), p. 18. 65. David Welsh, The Roots of Segregation: Native Policy in Colonial Natal, 1845–1910 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 29. 66. Jeffery Butler, Robert I. Rotberg, and John Adams, The Black Homelands of South Africa: The Political and Economic Development of Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 158. 67. A. G. McLoughlin, The Transkeian System of Native Administration (master’s thesis, University of South Africa, 1936), p. 13. 68. Allister Sparks, The Mind of South Africa (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1990), p. 160. 69. Ibid., p. 66; and Edward Roux, Time Longer Than Rope: A History of the Black Man’s Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), pp. 46–47. 70. Heribert Adam and Hermann Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilized: Can South Africa Change? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 284. 71. Kotze, Native Administration, p. 61. 72. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 111. 73. L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, Why South Africa Will Survive (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1981), p. 48. 74. Mare and Hamilton, An Appetite for Power, p. 18. 75. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 118. 76. The following pages are based heavily on Gluckman, “Kingdom of the Zulu,” in African Political Systems, ed. Fortes and Evans-Prichard, p. 48. 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid., p. 49. 79. Ibid., p. 147. 80. Sparks, The Mind of South Africa, p. 66. 81. Brookes, White Rule in South Africa, p. 156. 82. Mostert, Frontiers, p. 1246. 83. Kruger, Goodbye Dolly Gray, p. 30. 84. Welsh, South Africa, p. 304. 85. Peter Delius, The Land Belongs to Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p. 1. 86. Ibid., p. 220. 87. Ibid., p. 221. 88. Delius, The Land Belongs to Us, p. 33. 89. For a discussion of the above, see ibid., pp. 4, 149, 246, and 222. 90. Jeppe and Kotze, “Local Government in the African Areas of South Africa,” p. 81. 91. Kotze, Native Administration, pp. 43, 44 citing Section 32 of the British Bechuanaland proclamation No. 2/1885. Section 21 of the Native Administration Act of 1927 retained the jurisdiction of the Bechuanaland chiefs, except in those cases that concerned the validity or dissolution of marriages contracted according to Christian rites or civil law.

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92. Jeppe and Kotze, “Local Government,” p. 81. 93. Brookes, White Rule in South Africa, pp. 130–137. 94. Now the northwestern district of Cape Province, including Mafeking, Vryburg, Kuruman, Taung, and Gordania, not to be confused with Bechuanaland Protectorate to the north, the area that in 1966 become the Republic of Botswana. 95. Howard Rogers, Native Administration in the Union of South Africa (Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand Press, 1933). 96. Leo Marquard, A Federation of Southern Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 36. 97. Anthony Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Biography (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1999), p. 12.

5 From Colonialism to Apartheid: State Structures at the Base

The only other exciting thing that happened this week was a dog fight. . . . Oh yes, a kaffir was killed in the shaft.1 The pattern [in the Department of Native Affairs] has been [to create] a “state within a state.”2 I hanged my two murderers . . . today.3 It was the old story of liberalism in South Africa. The Natives must not put forward extreme demands: this would simply play into the hands of the reactionaries.4

T

raditional authority in precolonial Africa was both authoritarian and consensual. But the introduction of European rule to Africa often created conflicts at points where the two systems intersected, particularly if the traditional authority and the prefect clashed. Indeed, the colonial-colonized relationship is often defined in conflictual terms.5 Role theory has influenced us as authors in our approach to traditional-colonial relationships. Without allowing it to constrain our analysis we find that it offers insights for local governance in South Africa, especially given the contradictory nature of existing constitutional and institutional local government structures. Role theory suggests that individuals adapt their behavior to the behavior of others and identifies role relationships that are defined in one or more respects in a relationship with another individual as counter-roles.6 For many roles, there is a counter-role, which may be either consensual or con-

89

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flictual. To pursue this argument, we look at how the local state changed in the first half of the twentieth century. With the beginning of colonial rule in Africa, new actors were introduced into traditional institutions. When colonial administrative officers were appointed to administer the local community, community-level relationships had to react and adapt. As a result, tensions developed between colonial administrators and traditional elites, as the latter perceived their powers to be in decline.7 In South Africa, counter-roles defined the interaction among the colonial state, its representatives, and traditional leaders. This interaction transformed African legal concepts and changed the nature and use of customs, which became a resource wielded by the apartheid government. European agents imposed on African elites the command system of distant, alien states. Chiefs were vested with the authority of the colonial state in their counter-role relationship with the district administrator and functioned as intermediaries between the state and African society.8 The institutional structures that evolved in South Africa created a duality separating territorial administrators and traditional authorities from the national civil service and from each other, transforming older social structures and processes.9 Traditional leaders were caught in the “pincers” because of their interface with both the Native Affairs bureaucracy and the natives.10 Where there were multiple tiers of traditional leadership, the different tiers often found themselves in role conflict with other tiers.11 The system of local-level administration as it evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries created roles that were inherently conflictual in nature. Chiefs, for example, could act as a “loyal” representative of the white bureaucracy or support the people in opposition to commands from above—but rarely both at the same time. Often, they might side-step the conflict altogether.12 Throughout southern Africa, traditional leaders under indirect rule were faced with contradictions that they could not resolve.13 The tensions and ambiguities in the traditional system introduced by the Department of Native Administration meant the creation of a role/counter-role tension labeled “hybrid traditionalism.”14 Solomon Ka Dinuzulu, the Zulu king who died in 1934, played just such an ambiguous role. According to Shula Marks, he felt pressure from both his subject people and the white administration and was able to manipulate both. The ambiguity of the colonized leader’s role often forced him to play a different role—or wear a different mask—with each group of blacks or whites he confronted.15 Academics, who developed the “science of colonial anthropology” and the “library of ethnicity” to study this duality influenced role definitions.16 This role conflict, according to a number of academic observers, poisoned

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perceptions about local administration—and the role that traditional authorities might play in it—without defining a counter set of proposals that might incorporate elements of civil society into grassroots administration. In South Africa, the traditional leadership became locked into a counterrole relationship with the South African prefect and faced a choice of collaboration or resistance. The consequences of this conflicted and compromised local state are evident in postapartheid South Africa.

Traditional Leadership and the Prefect Critics have targeted traditional leadership in South Africa, in particular pointing to the excessive power given to chiefs and subchiefs at all levels. 17 The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, noted one observer, “revised and reinforced tribalism, conferring extensive powers upon chiefs and headmen, and providing for the establishment of tribal, regional and territorial authorities, dominated by the chiefs as agents of the white government.”18 Under apartheid, the rural areas often suffered under incompetent chiefs and headmen, rural neglect, and insufficient funds. The commissioners, magistrates, and governors were a source of animosity that left a feeling of rejection on the part of many rural dwellers. It comes as no surprise that one of the first acts of the South African government after the March 1994 overthrow of the Bophuthatswana regime was to fire the politically appointed regional governors in that territory. The checkered history of magisterial rule in South Africa casts doubt on whether prefectoral administrators might lend legitimacy to contemporary South Africa or other parts of the African continent. Not surprisingly, traditional authority remains particularly strong in the former homelands, and traditional leaders continue to retain significant authority in rural South Africa in the postapartheid period. In the Transkei, Lebowa, Bophuthatswana, and the other former homelands, millions of people in the rural areas still live directly under the influence and control of the local chief and headman. During and after the Government of National Unity (GNU), the magistrates in the former homeland areas retained much of the former legal and administrative power of a colonial district commissioner, though they exercised it only sporadically. Rural black South Africans fear changes in South African society for complex reasons.19 In South Africa, particularly in the rural areas, life demanded that an African be a “chameleon” and lead a “bifurcated existence” within the colonial order.20 On a daily basis, interactions with the white bureaucracy were characterized by an occasional “minor triumph over government bureaucracy [that] was low-key, pragmatic and highly

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personal.”21 In the end however, for Africans interacting with the state bureaucracy, the “normal rules . . . applied: paying in cash was very easy, getting an answer to a simple question was almost impossible.”22 Given sensitive ideological and ethnic divisions, there was great potential for conflict within the control-oriented prefectoral system. Zulu attitudes toward government were hostile and suspicious, as Zulus blamed the government for community conflicts or suspected them of trying to take their land and cattle.23 Contemporary information on district authorities in the rural areas in today’s South Africa is hard to come by. Historically, district authority differed from one former homeland to the other and between formerly white and black areas. Nonetheless, fragmentary evidence suggests that the rural magistrate remains an important local-level official. Conflicts between government authority and traditional leaders, and between traditional leaders and rural civil society, are likely to be major concerns even beyond the Zuma period. Beyond South Africa’s seven urban centers,24 tens of millions of South Africa’s citizens have been governed by a prefectoral system and a traditional administration that has changed little from its eighteenthcentury roots. An examination of traditional authority in South Africa should try to assess the extent to which role definitions can survive in a different context. Whether one discusses traditional authority historically or in contemporary South Africa, it is necessary to provide a contextual analysis of role definition within the local state. The decision by the South African government, in the late nineteenth century, to recognize and institutionalize the role of traditional authorities makes this question pertinent in contemporary debates about local government in South Africa.

The Department of Native Administration The Union of South Africa had a dyarchic national bureaucratic system with the national white bureaucracy, modeled along British lines, combined with a separate set of administrators who staffed the Department of Native Administration and its successors. In 1957 the Tomlinson Commission aptly referred to the Department of Native Administration as a “state within a state.”25 Prior to 1910, each of the four entities that would make up the Union of South Africa—the Cape Colony, the South African Republic/Transvaal, the Orange Free State/Orange River Colony, and Natal—had separate systems of native administration. After 1910, the structures of native administration became more centralized and standardized, and nineteenth-century paternalism evolved into a much more authoritarian system of racially

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defined political control. For 70 percent of South Africa’s population, the country remained institutionally colonial for most of the twentieth century. In style and substance, colonial structures in the Union of South Africa closely resembled patterns of control that had operated in the former British colonies of Eastern and Central Africa. At the apex of the state-within-the-state, undiluted power lay in the hands of the minister of native affairs, the minister’s political head of the department, and a government secretary (the civil service head of the department who nominally reported to the minister). The minister appointed magistrates and native commissioners in the reserves and approved or named chiefs, subchiefs, and headmen within the tribal administration. Both rural native/Bantu administration26 systems and (after 1972) the urban administration boards were located under the Department of Native (later Bantu) Administration. The colonial administrative system transferred to the Union government was based upon the British system developed in the nineteenth century, as seen in Chapter 4. However, the central administration in Pretoria inherited diverse systems of local-level administration from the four provincial governments after Union. The South African Act of 1910 transferred the special executive authority for native administration from the governors of Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, but not the Cape, as supreme or paramount chiefs, to the governor-general of the Union. The governor-general thus received unrestricted and absolute power to legislate by edict over the four territories. Legislation was by proclamation and did not pass through the South African parliament. Departments of Native Administration had been established in Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State late in the nineteenth century. After Union, the new government established a single Department of Native Administration to be the executive authority over all African affairs in South Africa, absorbing the provincial-level structures. By the end of World War I, the reserve areas of the Transvaal and Natal had been incorporated under the Union Department of Native Administration, but beyond this, little was done administratively to centralize bureaucratic control over the African population until 1927. The 1927 Native Administration Act gave the Department of Native Administration extraordinary power over all Africans and instituted the political control system that would later be called apartheid. The act formalized segregated government and established colonial-style control mechanisms at the local level in the reserve areas. The native commissioner even had the power to arrest and to imprison people without trial. After 1927, the Department of Native Administration increasingly took on the characteristics of a state structure and exercised a pattern of administrative control that would continue throughout the apartheid period.

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The 1927 act systematized the structure of magistrates, chiefs, and headmen, created native commissioners, and established Native Appeal Courts in all four provinces.27 By the late 1940s, the principle of territorial segregation had become firmly entrenched, and the Department of Native Administration and its successors administered a system of internal colonialism that continued to function in South Africa until the end of the 1980s. The African majority remained separated from the core state, governed by a parallel system of government until 1994. The control and administration of African affairs throughout the country historically was vested in the governor-general (in-council) and in the Ministry of Native Affairs—later styled as the Department of Native Administration. The governor-general (in practice the government of the day) reigned supreme, while the minister of native affairs was responsible for approving all local council decisions.28 The governor-general, as supreme chief, had, on the advice of the minister of native affairs, bureaucratic authority, including the right to alter tribes, over all natives in the Transvaal, Free State, and Natal. The supreme chief did not rule over the Cape, where the tribal system was breaking down.29 European rule gave the governor-general, or supreme chief, power that had never been possessed by African chiefs, and white rule disrupted the well-regulated institutions that had existed prior to colonial rule.30 The secretary of native administration, styled “Chief Induna,” was an imperialstyle governor who controlled the lives of the African population of South Africa—four-fifths of the total population. The British, as part of the Union agreement, retained residual authority over the Union’s African population in order to protect Africans from any excesses by the Union government, although that authority was never exercised. Until 1933, the governor-general served as the ceremonial head of state in South Africa, the British representative to the Union, and the appellate administrator over African affairs.31 British residual claims to authority over the African population eroded over time. Until the interwar years, the boundaries of sovereignty among the white Dominions and Britain were unclear, and it was only as a result of the 1926 Balfour Declaration, the 1931 Statute of Westminster, and the loss of influence by Britain during the Depression and World War II that the Commonwealth was defined as a group of sovereign, independent states.32 By the end of World War II, Britain had recognized the independence of the British Dominions, including South Africa’s de jure independence within a racially restricted franchise. In effect, the South African state’s authority to control the lives of the country’s African population became enshrined in international law. The governor-general legislated by proclamation in the native areas, believing that such flexibility made it possible to quickly meet ever-

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changing needs.33 In 1924, E. W. J. Muller, secretary of the Transkeian Territories General Council, addressing a delegation of the Empire Parliamentary Association on Administration in the Transkei, reflected the racial views of the time. According to Muller: Natives’ place on the scale of evolution is probably more nearly allied to the primitive man than to that of the more advanced people. There is an enormous difference between the social and political organization of the Bantu and of the European, and the difference in their mentality is as great. Too much stress cannot be laid on at this point.34

The Department of Native Administration resembled a miniature civil service. Four undersecretaries in the department headed bureaus for Bantu Areas, European Areas, Staff and Administration, and Bantu Education. The bureaus were divided into several technical divisions (sub-bureaus), including agriculture and engineering, housing, departmental administration, labor and identification, community affairs, and land and finance. The department supervised a unit of Bantu police constables, Labor Bureau offices, and an information service. The Department of Native Administration operated at a territorial level in a manner similar to their counterparts in the British colonial administrative service. However, the Department of Native Administration was much too small to undertake influx control functions. Likewise, municipal non-European affairs administrations were very small and, until 1972, fell outside of the department’s control. Until 1948, the Department of Native Administration maintained a rural bias, tending to exclude the African population living in urban areas from its mandate. The South African government sought to concentrate as many government functions pertaining to Africans as was practical in the Department of Native Administration.35 In 1948, the department contained 1,750 European officers and over 2,000 African staff, excluding teachers. In the early 1950s less than a dozen people working for the Department of Native Administration would control a district, an area of 40,000 people and 4,000 square miles.36 Table 5.1 shows staff growth and vacancies among whites in the Department of Native Administration. Though the department grew rapidly, the number of vacancies almost doubled between the 1930s and 1950s. The personnel profile of the Department of Native Administration in the early 1950s is presented in Table 5.2. The department budget also increased significantly, from over £500,000 to just over £3 million in 1946. On January 1, 1954, 22,000 teachers and forty-three school inspectors, as well as the five regional directors of Bantu education, were transferred out of the Department of Native Administration to a separate Department of Native Education (later called the Department of Bantu Education and still later the Department of Education and Training). In 1960, the Department of Bantu Education had grown to over 3,000 European employees.

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Table 5.1 Staff Growth and Vacancies Among Whites in the Department of Native Administration

Increases in staff Staff vacancies

1947

1951

1953

3,479 284

3,914 384

4,053 549

Source: Ivan Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 74.

Table 5.2 Employees in the Department of Native Administration, 1948 Division European Higher administrative division Higher professional division Lower professional division Other Subtotal African General (clerical) Total

Number of People

295 58 962 445 1,760 0 4,056 5,816

Source: Ivan Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 72–76.

The Native Affairs Commission served as an advisory board to the Department of Native Administration, Department of Native Education, and government on all issues of African affairs, an arrangement that had its origins in provincial structures prior to 1910. The five-person commission, made up of the minister as chair, the two assistant ministers, and two additional members, functioned as a kind of subcabinet for dealing with African issues. The members of the commission were often more conservative than the prefectoral Native Administration Service or the government of the day, and African leaders often considered the commission politically offensive. In 1944, for example, several African members of the restyled Native Advisory Council were said to be “much perturbed by the powers, personnel and indeed by the continued existence of the Native Advisory Commission.”37

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Native Commissioners During the Union period, the prefectoral native administration was “essentially local in nature,” where the magistrates were highly paternalistic.38 The administration was also antirationalist, being opposed to “scientific management” techniques becoming popular at the time. The Department of Native Administration made increasing demands for centralization, bureaucratization, and consistency during the interwar period. During the first years after Union, the top local official in the reserve areas was the magistrate assigned by the Department of Justice. In 1912 Natal and Zululand were also assigned to the Department of Native Administration, and the Ciskei followed in 1923. Over time, an understanding developed between the Department of Justice and the Department of Native Administration that magistrates appointed to areas with large numbers of Africans would only be announced after consultation between the two departments. In the Transkei territories, the Department of Native Administration appointed commissioners in addition to magistrates.39 Throughout the apartheid period officials at the district level continued to defer to the resident magistrate, whose decisions and rulings were unquestioned.40 Commissioners were the district heads of the Department of Native Administration’s administrative empire. Outside African areas, the civil magistrate, an official of the Department of Justice, often doubled as native commissioner. Although the commissioner and the magistrate were classified at the same level within the civil service and the terms are often used interchangeably, a commissioner in the reserve areas had a much wider range of responsibilities than his counterpart in the white areas.41 After Union, government departments often acted in isolation within the district, and the commissioner ensured coordination among departments. A native commissioner was expected to coordinate planning for his district, including the technical operations of the agricultural officer, surveyor, and engineer; collect taxes and control funds; and settle disputes. The commissioner specialized in law, while magistrates controlled land allocation in several black areas, including the Transkei.42 In the reserve areas, the commissioner had the power to punish an area by withholding services and removing traditional leaders.43 In theory, questions or problems regarding government policy were to be directed to the commissioner, as the senior government representative in the district. As in many British colonies, the commissioner would “tour” his district to inform village populations of government policy and answer a few safe questions raised in the local assembly. The commissioner’s office controlled tribal funds for the chiefs, a practice that continued in some rural areas until the mid-1970s.

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Historically, the native commissioner coordinated government activities and liaised with local leaders, but this responsibility became less important over time as specialized departments and other organizations moved into the districts. The magistrate continued to be the government’s business hub, particularly in the rural areas, and played a role in law and order, as well as political and security control matters. As a result, government officials often bypassed traditional leaders in later years.44 Chief Native Commissioners The 1927 Native Administration Act provided for chief native commissioners and chief magistrates. The Department of Native Administration deconcentrated considerable bureaucratic power to the level of the chief native commissioner. The role of the chief native commissioner in the South African colonial system was analogous to that of the colonial governor in British colonies and provided the main channel of communication among the Department of Native Administration, the commissioner, and the population under control. Under the 1927 act, the native commissioner acted as magistrate with civil and criminal jurisdiction, and his court served as court of appeal from traditional chiefs’ decisions in his district.45 The commissioner was also responsible for collecting taxes and administering social services and projects. According to the secretary of native administration in 1932, the role of the native commissioners was to serve in the interests of the native population through assistance, guidance, and protection. 46 Unfortunately, most commissioners lacked higher education and familiarity with African customary law and were not skilled in local administration.47 There was extreme concentration of bureaucratic authority in the hands of commissioners with full power over the district based on executive decisionmaking out of the range of white party politics, leaving little deference to indigenous authority structures.48 Nonetheless, most magistrates sought consensus rather than using force prior to 1960. Administration in the reserve areas was imposed from above. Bureaucratic officers handled all decisionmaking. The African reserve areas were grouped into six scattered ethnic regions in the 1930s: (1) Transkeian Territories, (2) Ciskei, (3) Natal, (4) Northern Transvaal, (5) Western Areas of the Transvaal and the Northern Cape (Western Reserve), and (6) Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (PWV). The Union government consolidated its rule over the reserves in the interwar years, creating regional administrative authorities. Chief native commissioners administered Africans in these six territories that formed the Bantustan/homeland system after 1956. Additional chief commissioners were created as government established additional reserve areas after World

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War II. The chain of bureaucratic command ran from the department secretary, to the chief commissioners, to the native commissioners of districts, and then to traditional authorities.49 Throughout the country, the chief commissioners controlled the lives of millions of people in these internal colonies. The chief commissioner in Potchefstroom, for example, controlled the lives of all Africans living in the Western Areas of the Northern Cape and Western Transvaal (the Western Reserve)—the area that would later be designated the homeland of Bophuthatswana. The chief commissioner in the PWV served as director of native labor for the whole country.50 The chief commissioner in the Transkei supervised the territory’s native commissioners, who were each responsible for the supervision of a wide array of government functions in the territory’s twenty-six districts.51 The Umtata chief commissioner in the Cape province ruled and enjoyed the lifestyle of a colonial governor. At best, the system of native administration was paternalistic. Prior to 1948, the magistrate or native commissioner coordinated events in his district to some extent by virtue of the position he held and the authority he exercised. All consultation and negotiations with chiefs, headmen, and tribal councils took place through the commissioner or in consultation with him. Magistrates and commissioners had no formal control or even coordinating authority vis-à-vis officials from other departments. However, magistrates performed informal coordination, as “most field officers recognize[d] the all-purpose tradition of the magistrates’ offices [of the past]—when almost all aspects of deconcentrated government activities fell under the direct supervision of the magistrates.”52 Above the chief commissioners at the apex of the system was the chief native commissioner in the Department of Native Administration. (See Figure 5.1.) Recruitment of Magistrates The office of magistrate in black areas in the early nineteenth century had both military and missionary origins. Early magistrates, often missionaries, functioned as diplomatic agents, serving as a neutral go-between for European settlers and African communities. After 1848, when the Eastern Cape fell under the military jurisdiction of the British Army in South Africa, magistrates often were serving military officers. Until well into the twentieth century, magistrates in southern Africa carried military-style titles: deputy magistrates were lieutenants, magistrates were captains, and chief magistrates were colonels. Civil magistrates came into power in the 1870s. Out of this early period came the ruling families of the Eastern Cape and later Natal: the Ayliffs, Brownlees, and the Shepstones. South African families contributed to the stable of administrators in southwest Africa, Rhodesia, Bechuana-

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Figure 5.1 Native Administration in 1948 Governor General Prime Minister

Minster of Native Affairs, Supreme Chief Department of Native Administration

Chief Native Commissioner Native Commissioner

Native Commissioner

Native Commissioner

Chief Subchief Headman

land, Basutoland, Swaziland, and beyond. Magistrates in the Transkei were often the sons of magistrates, and throughout southern Africa colonial authorities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often transferred their responsibilities to their sons.53 In the twentieth century, recruitment to the Department of Native Administration was not formally based on patronage or political preference but was considered part of the civil service, and officers were subject to typical bureaucratic regulations regarding behavior and dismissal. However, it was not a merit-based system of recruitment. Early on a number of Afrikaners served as magistrates, but by 1910, most commissioners were of British stock. Between 1910 and 1925, South Africa and Britain (for the High Commission Territories) recruited locally within South Africa from the same

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pool of potential colonial administrators. Many of those recruited to either the Protectorate or the Union magistracy lived in the reserve or protectorate areas and spoke an African language.54 To reiterate, the style of recruitment remained highly nepotistic down to the end of the apartheid period.55 The Department of Native Administration began to recruit its own people after 1927 and established a colonial-style esprit de corps within the cadre of prefectoral administrators who worked in the reserve areas. The department continued the nineteenth-century tradition of recruiting potential commissioners from a few families. Until the 1940s, South Africa limited its pool of recruits to work in the reserves to a network of potential candidates from a few English-speaking families with ties to the reserve areas. Recruitment to the reserve services continued to involve second- and third-generation sons of imperial or colonial society. The magistrate’s office always contained one or more assistant magistrates and a number of white clerks. Translators, junior clerical officers, and messengers were typically African, but higher, more responsible, posts were closed to Africans.56 The African clerk or translator often found himself squeezed in between the white magistrate and African society as part of the role conflict between European administrators and African subordinates.57 By the end of 1980s, only a few blacks had been recruited as magistrates, even in the homelands. Prior to 1948, English speakers, some with more moderate United Party sympathies and who were more experienced and pragmatic than their Afrikaner counterparts, dominated the Department of Native Administration. Rural commissioners often looked to the views of the urban municipal administrators who were less ideological than the Afrikaner-speaking leadership. The department justified the continued presence of English speakers by arguing that there was a lack of qualified Afrikaner applicants with the required matriculation certificates.58 There continued to be a certain amount of disdain and discrimination against Afrikaners, and department officers felt that many National Party leaders were inexperienced and unskilled in matters of “native” administration. The internal colonialism that evolved in South Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries created a bureaucratic culture that may be difficult to break in future. This culture defined the value system embedded in the successor regime and oriented the bureaucracy toward political control and routine administration. In many African countries, inherited bureaucratic values have had a negative impact upon government capacity to plan and implement economic and social development and on the creation of civil society. 59 Similar patterns could prevail in South Africa well into the future.

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The Bureaucratic Culture The bureaucratic culture that evolved out of the Department of Native Administration was not specifically associated with the National Party or the apartheid system that it espoused. Rather, it reflected a European contempt for black men. Missionaries, in particular, challenged both traditional beliefs and traditional political structures and attacked African social beliefs as “heathenism.”60 The prevailing view among district officers was that Africans were not ready for democratic rule since African and European values were different. They believed that African, “traditional” structures were the natural form of government in Africa, which excluded the democratic process. A corollary to the principle of white supremacy was the white monopoly over the use of force: only whites could own or bear arms, and only white policemen could carry guns. In the reserves, nonwhite constables armed with clubs or spears were supervised by white officers.61 The commissioner functioned, colonial-style, with an authoritarian, paternal attitude toward traditional authorities.62 African chiefs pledged their undying servility and gratitude to their “Great White Fathers,” and the latter condescendingly received tribal honors and assured their “children” of their sympathy, and dispensed government favors.63 In a 1932 speech, J. T. Kenyon of the Transkei administration defined the role of the native administrator as follows: “They [Africans in the Transkei] know the ‘Government’ is their ‘father’ and if they have grievances to be remedied they make their representations through the [Transkeian] General Council to that father.”64 Traditional leaders, prior to 1948, were not progressive; most remained deeply conservative during the apartheid period. Jealous autocratic chiefs used various means to prevent others from becoming more successful.65 Contemporary critics of the prefectoral system often accused magistrates and native commissioners of not respecting local customs or the judgment of chiefs and of introducing procedures and principles foreign to traditional law. Apartheid reinforced this distorted kind of authoritarianism, in which the magistrate or commissioner was portrayed as a fatherly figure with an avuncular relationship with “his” chiefs, headmen, and Bantus.66

The Distortion of Traditional Administration After the colonial state extended control over African societies in the Eastern Cape in the nineteenth century, traditional rulers were excluded from administrative work. Government-appointed headmen were used in their place.67 Traditional leadership eroded because of the confusion between the

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role of the magistrate and that of the elders, making it difficult to remove a chief from office.68 The relationship between traditional authorities and government officials continued to vary considerably from one part of the country to the other after Union. In the Eastern Cape, chiefs served as minor judicial officials, and location headmen served as community administrators. In the Transvaal and Natal, traditional leaders maintained a modicum of administrative authority. As in the Eastern Cape, however, European rule resulted in considerable distortion of traditional authority. This distortion deepened when the Hertzog government came to power in 1924.69 The headman functioned at the leading edge of a system of political control that evolved in the reserve areas. The role of headman, which required formal appointment by the secretary of native administration, became, in effect, a nontraditional civil service post. At the grassroots level, superintendents, responsible to the civil commissioner, guided location headmen in the administration of each location.70 Headmen could be cruel and vindictive and spent much of their time acting as an agent of the police in the village. The 1927 Native Administration Act reflected this distortion of precolonial traditional roles in that it delinked headmen from chiefs in theory and often practice. The purpose of the act was to better control and to manage “native” governance and to coordinate African administration throughout the four provinces. Chiefs and headmen became local agents for judicial and administrative functions.71 The act authorized chiefs and headmen to hear and determine civil claims between Africans arising out of traditional law and custom. The act effectively removed Africans from the rule of law that applied to other South Africans, and it significantly increased the power that administrative officials had over them, particularly in the reserve areas.72 The Native Administration Act constructed a three-level system of bureaucratic rule over Africans in South Africa: through the bureaucratic structure of the district magistrate, through the extension of that bureaucratic structure via the administrative rule of salaried headmen and subchiefs and, finally, where they existed, through a system of advisory rural councils designed to serve as mechanisms of communication and as extensions of a service-delivery bureaucracy in the reserve areas. The legislation extended the full authoritarian powers that had been given to the governor-general in Natal under the Natal Native Code of 1891 over Africans in every province except the Cape where Africans had limited legal protection going back to the nineteenth century. By proclamation, the governor-general now had total control over all Africans outside of the Cape Province.73

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The 1927 legislation codified the role of traditional authorities as government agents, provided procedures for the recognition and appointment of chiefs and headmen, and defined the restricted powers that were conferred upon them. The act gave chiefs limited civil and criminal jurisdiction with the line of appeal to the native commissioner. Chiefs and headmen were appointed and, if necessary, deposed by the Department of Native Administration.74 As a bureaucratic official, the headman was subordinate to the magistrate and the lowest level in a long system of command administration. At the location level, lip service was paid to participation through a village gathering called a “moot,” a body that included all male adult members of the location. In practice, however, because the majority of villagers either did not attend regularly or made very little effort, decisionmaking was in the hands of a small caucus.75 Headmen had an inner council, selected informally by the headman from within the village, made up of three relatives, and actual decisionmaking was greatly influenced by the “big men” of the village.76 During the Union period, the Department of Native Administration gradually downgraded the role of traditional leaders, although patterns of traditional influence differed in the various regions of the country. Administrative perceptions of the utility of chiefs and subchiefs waxed and waned prior to 1948. As a result, traditional authorities often faced a dilemma. Chiefs were expected to provide political support for the government, but they were excluded from the administrative hierarchy in favor of government-appointed subchiefs and headmen.77 They were simultaneously responsible for carrying out the wishes of their people and obliged to act as loyal representatives of the white bureaucracy.78 The Union government unwittingly strengthened the political role of some traditional authorities that had weak administrative capacity. Many traditional leaders believed that the commissioner and the Native Administration Department had no legitimate authority over them. Nelson Mandela’s father, Henry Gadla, was dismissed from his post as village headman, which was prompted by a dispute over the extent of his jurisdiction with the local magistrate.79 “When it came to tribal matters,” Mandela remembers, “the chief was guided not by the law of the king of England but by Thembu custom. This defiance [in this case, by Mandela’s father] was not a fit of pique but a matter of principle. He was asserting his traditional prerogative as a chief and was challenging the authority of the magistrate.”80 African traditional leaders were not acquiescent and, given the ambiguity of the role relationships, magistrates and chiefs often found themselves in opposition to each other. In the interwar period, many traditional lead-

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ers opposed segregation vociferously and vigorously and used every possible forum, including the legal system, to demand justice for their people. Traditional leaders fought against the loss of voting rights in 1936, sought the extension of the existing franchise to include African women, and often mocked the various land divisions and settlements imposed on Africans by the central government.81 Many became vocal critics of the government and used such institutions as the Native Advisory Council to raise their concerns. There were significant numbers of traditional leaders in the African National Congress. As noted in Chapter 4, outside of the Cape, traditional rule came close to what the British called indirect rule. South African indirect rule within the reserves varied a great deal, where conquerors governed through legitimized indigenous chiefs and councils.82 The resilience of the institution of the chieftainship enabled it to survive the imposition of European rule.83 Chiefs continued to function in South Africa as an alternative system of authority, particularly in the Northern Cape, Natal, and the Transvaal, although they had little real power. Traditional institutions retained their political resiliency only so long as they were perceived to be outside of the bureaucratic apparatus. Chiefs, for example, were able to retain respect within their society since the ruling whites did not create the chiefs’ position.84 Isolation from administrative responsibility tended to insulate them from the tensions inherent in the bureaucratic system.85 Despite the independence of some traditional leaders, the Department of Native Administration enjoyed an extreme concentration of bureaucratic authority with executive and judicial decisionmaking. The administration expected the chief and subchiefs to exert their influence, though implementation of Department of Native Administration policies made them unpopular with their people.86 While chieftainships continued to function as a parallel or alternative system, chiefs could not act without the approval of their district magistrate.87 Traditional leaders by 1946 thus had become subordinate units of the local administration, under the control of the native commissioner. In each reserve district there was a commissioner’s court that had the same powers as a magistrate’s court in the European areas. Though the tasks of the commissioners were mostly routine and regulatory, their political mediation and control functions were always important. Together with the administration of the district, they were charged with maintaining law and order and ensuring stability in the reserve areas. Native commissioners also controlled the police in their areas. Inevitably, the paramount chiefs throughout South Africa became remote authoritarian figures linked to the colonial system, and the Shepstone structures became the justification for “a harsh and arbitrary bureau-

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cratic despotism.”88 The legacy of native administration extended well beyond 1948. The Black Administration Act of 1984 89 merely modified earlier practice and regulated traditional custom and the way in which magistrates and other legal officials dealt with “so-called tribal practices.”90 The law, based on pre–World War II proclamations, was still on the books in 1995. The native commissioner was always the focal point of the political control system in South Africa’s reserves.91 The magistrate’s office had a tradition of praetorian administration, and the native commissioner gave priority to law and order and regulatory functions based on clearly established routines.92 In practice, the Union government allowed white officials broad latitude in dealing with Africans, which resulted in denying Africans protection against arbitrary state behavior.93 Supplementary legislation introduced between 1927 and 1948 significantly increased the power that administrative officials had over Africans, particularly in the reserve areas. The Department of Native Administration increasingly was given authority to use coercive measures.

The Department of Bantu Administration and Development After the National Party came to power in 1948, the Department of Native Administration continued to operate in the colonial mode.94 The department functioned as a bureaucratic empire, which could be molded by the apartheid ideology. In 1950, the Institute of Administrators of NonEuropean Affairs was established to represent native administrators throughout the country.95 This body over time developed considerable influence with the National Party.96 When the National Party came to power, the Department of Native Administration bureaucracy was very small, had limited influence on state structures, and was considered a backwater within the civil service. Under the National Party the department grew rapidly and became the focal point of apartheid administration in the homelands. After 1948, apartheid politicians set out to “expunge the paternalist and gradualist ethos inherited from the segregationist years.”97 Many Afrikaner politicians resented the English flavor of the department. In 1954, the minister of native affairs, E. G. Jansen, refashioned his department into a more powerful and self-sufficient policymaking organ that would implement apartheid goals. During Jansen’s first two years, 308 new posts were created for whites and 250 posts for blacks. Jansen’s goal was to purge what he considered the liberal English-speaking element from the department

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and, in so doing, to transform the organization. He also implemented operational changes drawn from administrative science and organizational theory. Under National Party rule, the purpose of the white Bantu commissioner in the homelands was to defend white interests against a perceived racial onslaught. To white society, the district magistrate/native commissioner was the grassroots guardian of civil order, which was white South Africa’s only hope of peace and tranquility. For forty years, the architects of apartheid and their administrators tried to use the homelands system to control the growth of the urban African population. The new Bantustan administrations created in the 1960s inherited local state structures (magistrates, chiefs, and headmen) from the South African government. Though new constitutional arrangements changed the political structures in the homelands, as each gained territorial status, self-government, and, in four cases, “independence,” the nature of local-level control mechanisms and the prefectoral system of administration remained constant and would, in turn, be passed on to the postapartheid government. The role played by the Department of Native Administration after 1956 is of major significance in understanding the dynamics of the internal workings of apartheid. An oversized apartheid bureaucracy in the department became the stronghold of the defenders of the Verwoerdian ideology. Under Henrik Verwoerd, minister of native affairs from 1950 to 1958 and prime minister from 1958 to 1966, ideological considerations first came into play when making senior appointments, with more liberal senior officials either being forced into retirement or forced out of the department.98 Liberal critics complained about bureaucratic intolerance and the single viewpoint within the department during the 1950s. By 1956, most white administrators in the Department of Native Administration were Afrikaans-speaking and National Party supporters, and the department became a “powerful, ideological hot-house” with major appointments going to officials sympathetic to apartheid policy.99 The Broederbond (a secret membership group of Afrikaner elites who supported apartheid policies) would dominate the department for the next forty years. As a result, during apartheid rule Bantu administration officials acquired an interest in maintaining the status quo.100 In 1956, there were 8 chief native commissioners and 149 native commissioners in South Africa, 47 of whom were Department of Native Administration officials appointed in areas with a predominantly African population. The rest were serving magistrates under the Department of Justice. In addition, there were 9 special commissioners and 85 assistant native commissioners. In all, the district administrative staff in the Department of Native Administration consisted of over 300 Europeans

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plus the magistrates from the Department of Justice who served outside of the reserve areas. Native affairs commissioners administered all aspects of Bantu administration policy in the rural areas. In the 1960s, the government downgraded the authority of local officials and centralized administrative power over financial management and staff recruitment in the Bantu areas.101 The Nationalist government changed the name of the Department of Native Administration to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development (BAD)102 in 1958—one of several name changes that would occur over the next twenty years.103 Most of the legislative underpinnings of separate development were written by BAD administrators and implemented by the department. BAD later was renamed the Department of Plural Relations and Development, then the Department of Cooperation and Development, and finally (in 1985), after many functions had been transferred to other departments, the Department of Development Aid. The changes reflected evolving National Party political goals to soften the image of black administrators. For the next forty years, these euphemistic changes of names would be applied to apartheid structures and correlate with the apartheid government’s fruitless search for legitimacy within the context of changing priorities and policies and in its attempts to meet the challenge of the African nationalist movements.104 The change of name from “native” to “Bantu” was particularly important. By the late 1950s, the term “native” had a derogatory connotation. In addition, the concept of native sent the wrong ideological message at a time when the Nationalists portrayed the African population as foreign to South Africa. During the apartheid period, BAD “had to develop regulations [and] genealogical standards for the thousands of persons whose race could not be determined by the cursory glance of an Afrikaner functionary.”105 The Department of Bantu Administration and Development became a bureaucratic empire committed to the Verwoerdian ideology. By 1958 Verwoerd ruled 8.5 million Africans, which amounted to nearly four-fifths of the population.106 Though Verwoerd took great pride in his position as “Chief Induna,”107 the department suffered from bureaucratic regulation, as well as a lack of cooperation from other departments and from many of the bureaucrats themselves in the implementation of its policies.108 With the introduction of the Bantu administration system, under Grand Apartheid (Verwoerd’s scheme to create separate black homelands), the government modified the chain of administrative command. The commissioner continued to carry primary responsibility for law and order in the rural community and performed certain agency functions on behalf of other departments. However, commissioners were no longer expected to carry out

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a coordinating function in their districts, and they were too overburdened with security duties to coordinate administratively. The almost totalitarian nature of Bantu administration masked a “banality of routinization [which depoliticized] the technicist consequences of administration.”109 Beyond this, Bantu administrators operated within the context of faith in authoritarian management concepts, including central planning, internal coordination, and ideological conformity. By 1960 the minister of BAD commanded a vast bureaucracy with enormous power over the African population.110 The department itself had almost 6,000 officials by 1962. Another 5,000 taught in reserve schools and served in black hospitals. Table 5.3 profiles employees in BAD in 1960 and 1962. After the declaration of a republic in 1961, the titular chief of all Africans became the president of the republic, with discretionary powers over African land occupation and use.111 As late as 1975, official sources and even the press referred to the state president as the “Paramount Chief of all the black people of South Africa.”112 The Department of Bantu Administration and Development was tasked with establishing and administering the eight (later ten) Bantustans and establishing homeland government structures. Homelands creation led to a doubling of the BAD budget. After 1959, South African administrators were seconded from central governmental service, rather than contracted by the homelands, as the government moved to build up administrative structures and traditional authorities at the territorial and district levels and build up the homeland civil services. Senior officials in the homelands were usually Afrikaners, seconded from BAD. Seconded officers were loyal to the South African government, which issued their paycheck.113

Table 5.3 Employees in the Department of Bantu Adminstration and Development, 1960 and 1962

White officers Bantu officers White employees Bantu employees Total

1960

1962

2,157 819 342 1,829 5,147

2,345 1,082 341 1,907 5,675

Source: Ivan Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 77. Note: Total excludes homeland employees.

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The state-within-the-state was growing. By 1960 the Department of Bantu Administration and Development budget had increased to just over £7 million (R14 million).114 At its peak in the mid-1960s, the department had a total budget of R647 million and was responsible for the administration of over 9,600 laws and regulations. Organizationally, however, BAD was an old system. Many department structures and bureaucratic processes were almost seventy years old. By 1966, the Department of Bantu Administration and Development had become the most significant part of the South African bureaucracy. The department’s functions were regulatory in nature, and attitudes were rigid in terms of relationships to its subject populations. It was a colonial structure that controlled the lives of 18 million blacks with a staff of nearly 74,000 people (including homelands). By that time, most of the separate development legislation was passed, and within a few years even within the government, apartheid policies would have few supporters. However, the colonial apparatus would continue to the end of white minority rule.115 During the more prosperous years of the 1960s and 1970s, the South African government, including BAD, heavily overspent. Because the civil service was large, some money was unwisely used or wasted.116 The corruption of the 1980s and 1990s was linked to the overspending and waste that began in this earlier period. By 1971, with the homeland system firmly in place, the BAD supervised 429 tribal authorities in which a government-recognized chief and council ruled; there were 47 regional authorities consisting of a grouping of tribes, and 5 territorial authorities comprising a number of regional groups. The number of authorities increased as homelands were given self-government. During the apartheid period, there were over 400 magistrates in the Transkei homeland alone, almost as many magistrates as in the rest of South Africa. The first black magistrates were only appointed in the late 1960s and then only in the Transkei.117 The 1971 Bantu Homelands Constitution Act distinguished between various levels of authority—tribal bodies, on the one hand, and the more important territorial structures, on the other.118 Overtly, only first-tier tribal authorities were built upon the traditional system. Second-tier (regional) and third-tier (territorial) authorities, though dominated by traditionalists and later homeland military leaders, were geographically based and without any traditional significance.119 There was no historical legitimacy for the Bantustan system created by apartheid. In the early 1970s, the government appointed a Council for Bantu Authority Services to act as the managerial body for all the Bantu homelands in South Africa. The council replaced the Native (Bantu) Advisory Commission and consisted of three senior officers of the Department of

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Bantu Administration and Development and two senior officers of the South African Public Service Commission (later the Commission for Administration). This action was the last attempt to define a centralized administrative policy in the African areas. By that time, territorial selfdetermination had become de facto policy. After 1973, the Department of Plural Relations and Development (BAD’s new name) also had direct responsibility for the Bantu Administration Boards that employed thousands of officials and controlled the lives of urban blacks. In 1978, a government commission described the department as a “public service within a public service.”120 Under apartheid, the population of the homelands grew from 4.2 million people in 1960 to over 11 million people in 1980 and close to 16 million people by 1994. Most of these settled in peri-urban areas just inside homeland boundaries near major cities. The largest informal settlement, Winterveld, had an estimated 700,000 residents by the early 1980s and continued to grow because it was within the commuting range of Pretoria and Johannesburg.121 By 1980, well over 50 percent of all Africans lived within homeland boundaries. In 1981, whites still made up 73.6 percent of the then Department of Cooperation and Development, and there were only 778 black Africans in the department outside of the industrial level. The highest post occupied by a black African was senior clerk. Of the white officials, 992 were seconded to the black homelands.122 In 1984, Minister of Cooperation and Development Piet Koornhof announced the breakup of his department. Large sections such as labor, education, housing, and justice were transferred to other departments. However, a portion of the department was kept to promote development in the homelands and bolster relations between whites and blacks.123 The Bantu Administration System during this period unsuccessfully tried to blend the traditionally and functionally varied norms of the civil service.124 The department remained a colonial apparatus until 1986 when it was finally abolished as the apartheid system it tried to defend was coming to an end. Up until 1994, South Africa operated as the largest remaining colonial empire in the world. Much of the bureaucratic apparatus would survive into the postapartheid period. Recruitment of Commissioners Rightly or wrongly, stereotypes developed about the type of administrator posted to the homelands. Critics suggested that administrators worked in the African areas because they could not function in white South Africa. At the lower levels, many of those who served in BAD were selected ran-

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domly from the pool of recruits to government. In practice, the National Party often was not careful in its selection of personnel for the BAD nor was any significant training provided. Political and ideological loyalty remained paramount. Commissioners recruited in the 1940s and in mid-career had secondary education and training in some law. Most subordinate personnel who had contact with Africans (clerks, agricultural officers, postal workers) had little education beyond primary school and came from rural Afrikaner families. Many bullied, harassed, or humiliated Africans. Such behavior was, of course, largely endemic to white society, not just BAD. English-speaking administrators continued to be recruited into the administrative cadres of the Transkei, Eastern Cape, Natal, and the Northern Transvaal long after the rest of the civil service became mostly Afrikaner. According to one former Bantu commissioner, the government was afraid to put Afrikaans-speaking magistrates in some areas such as the Eastern Cape, believing they would not gain the respect of traditional leaders—many of whom remained solidly Anglophile.125 Native administration in the Transkei remained identical to the administrative approach developed by British colonial administration in the nineteenth century.126 The more experienced and better-informed English-speaking officers generally were assigned to the rural areas of the country as native affairs commissioners after 1960. The South African government maintained a bureaucratic support system for whites on secondment to the homelands under conditions similar to the British colonial model.127 Seconded officers lived in grand style and had all of the privileges (housing, inducement allowances, automobile allowances, and leave privileges) that colonial officials had in other parts of Africa.128 As late as 1989, the government continued to assign white advisers to support institutional development efforts in the homelands. White secondment also allowed government to monitor and control events in the homelands. The use of seconded officials often led to problems within the homelands in terms of loyalty and the perceived quality of service provided, since political loyalty to the white government rather than administrative, technical, or judicial training became the most important criterion for assignment. The quality of these new advisers was very uneven, leading to doubts about their loyalty and capacity to perform their jobs. The homeland bureaucracy remained, though organizationally separated, part and parcel of the civil service of South Africa, regardless of the political status of a particular territory. Until the end of the homeland period, senior civil servants in the homelands often continued to be white officials on secondment by the South African government. Their bureaucratic interests, rather than the goals of the homeland authority, remained

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paramount. Many would at least initially move into provincial government after 1994. Apartheid, the Bantu Commissioner, and the Revival of Traditional Authorities Separate development was, in theory, predicated on a revival of the status of traditional authorities. The new National Party government in 1948 codified the segregated structures established during the interwar period and began to enforce existing legislation that had atrophied under the wartime United Party government. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 redefined traditionalism with the revival of tribal authorities. The act revised and reinforced ethnicity in South Africa and conferred extensive powers upon traditional leaders. Overall, the legislation provided for the establishment of tribal, regional, and territorial authorities, dominated by the chiefs who the population regarded as agents of the white government. In reality, there were few changes in traditional rule after the National Party came into power. Within the reserve areas (and later the homelands), magistrates and their staffs controlled tribal authorities and carried out homeland government policies, leaving the chiefs as puppets.129 The introduction of apartheid structures strengthened the bureaucratic system already in place where bureaucratic roles, although occupied progressively by a succession of individuals, were coordinated into a single administrative system.130 Through legislation, the National Party government conferred extensive authority over traditional leadership in the years after 1951.131 The new tribal authorities were used by Nationalists to extend the power of government to the rural areas at the expense of the African nationalists.132 Traditional leaders were in an ambiguous position under apartheid. 133 Though they had become government officials, local administration remained dualistic.134 The Bantu administration system operated from the top down, giving the Bantu commissioner concentrated bureaucratic authority.135 Parallel government in the reserves remained personified by the Bantu commissioners and their staffs and control mechanisms.136 Those who were charged with pass-law violations were brought to the Bantu commissioner’s courts, “the lowest level of the apartheid judicial system.”137 Traditional leaders were conservative and were suspicious of any proposed changes. They had opposed the council system in the Eastern Cape because they feared that appointed councils would become puppets of the colonial order. The community saw traditional leaders who obeyed the instructions of the apartheid government as government stooges.138 Under the Bantu administration system, the headman functioned as a grassroots administrator whose sole function was to enforce government

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policy. He was appointed formally by the secretary of the BAD and confirmed by an indirect election.139 Certain matters, especially the allocation of residence sites and lands in urban areas, were reserved for the white administration, in effect the commissioner, who made his decisions, in practice, on the advice of the headman. The BAD kept all traditional authorities under tight control. In 1966, one observer was told that the minister of BAD, or his director, could at any time, at his complete and absolute discretion, depose any chief or headman in South Africa or cancel the appointment of any councilor. In the peri-urban areas where government often relocated people displaced from the “white” cities, the Bantu commissioner maintained absolute control over society. Even the repair and expansion of housing had to be approved by the Bantu commissioner. In the end it was the responsibility of traditional leaders to impose government policy on a submissive population. The system was different from the traditional system before colonialism but only marginally different from the system that had evolved under British and Union rule prior to 1948. The structure beyond the tribal authority level, however, gave chiefs power far beyond their traditional powers.140 Thus, the Bantu administration system was not traditional at all, but rather a distorted parody of it. Traditional leaders were imposed from above and often had no formal links to indigenous authority structures. Decisionmaking was firmly in the hands of white bureaucrats. Traditional councils were manipulated by both chiefs and magistrates, and chiefs tried to ensure that their supporters sat on their councils. Moreover, commissioners often loaded their councils with “educated” members who would support separate development. Many traditional leaders were excluded from councils. Chiefs and headmen continually clashed with the commissioner. This pattern carried over, and role conflict between the commissioner and the chief increased significantly after the establishment of the homeland system. There were four major areas of potential conflict between the commissioner and traditional authorities (and the subject population) in the reserve areas: (1) the collection of taxes, (2) the use of forest reserves, (3) environmental controls and the imposition of stock limitations, and (4) clan and family boundary disputes. The nature of the role conflict was between the impersonal norms of modern bureaucracy and the personalized norms of the traditional structure.141 At the location level, there was “a built-in incompatibility between the Administration’s conception of a headman’s role, which is essentially bureaucratic and coercive . . . and the traditional isiduna142 pattern of consensual authority which the people have transferred to their expectations of the headman’s role.”143 There was often a contradiction between the desire for traditional status and respect and the economic and political realities of the homeland

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system. Apartheid gave traditional leaders increased honor and prestige and brought them the perks and gifts rural people were obligated to give their rulers. However, collaboration with commissioners and other white officials did much to discredit traditional authorities and apartheid called into question the potential for traditional authorities, to survive into the postapartheid period. In many cases, chiefs became autocratic and elitist. 144 Favoritism and corruption among chiefs became very common after the introduction of separate development and the bureaucratic powers given to civil servicecontrolled headmen allowed for a certain amount of bribery. Corruption was one of the main reasons for the breakdown of the tribal structure under apartheid.145 The Local State and the Security Imperative Both during the Union and later under apartheid, traditional leaders were often caught in a dilemma. They were both responsible in some vague way to represent the needs of their community and carry out government policy wishes. They were given, in theory, responsibility for all of the political, legal, and developmental functions of the territory under their control. At the same time, they were obliged to act as the local representative of the apartheid regime. Traditional authorities had to keep quiescent the dispossessed Africans in the new settlements and the landholders and small number of middle-class populations, as well.146 The use of force by chiefs and headmen in the completion of their duties became increasingly acceptable in order to assure community acceptance of government policy. As the security imperative became more pressing throughout the twentieth century the social contract gave way to a more authoritarian control system that discredited chiefs as community leaders. The security problems in South Africa date to the imposition of colonial rule in the late seventeenth century. The coercive state apparatus of apartheid laws emerged after 1948 in response to demands from specific constituencies. The Nationalists, increasingly pressured by urban Africans and taunted by liberal whites who claimed to be the conscience of South Africa, perpetuated a system of white supremacy with neither vision nor purpose. As a result of Verwoerd’s social engineering, Africans were subjected to racial discrimination in every area of society, enforced by the bureaucracy.147 The political control functions of the commissioner intensified and political repression increased significantly after the 1948 elections.148 State power became increasingly authoritarian.149 Under apartheid, the restyled Bantu commissioners were used to coerce Africans and intimi-

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date individuals or black political organizations. Banning and detention became the basis for internal control in South Africa. A Bantu commissioner in charge of a district was in a position where his powers could easily be abused, and force was used often. 150 By 1949, tensions had developed between political activists in the ANC and government representatives throughout the country. After the National Party came to power, a pattern of district administration evolved that increasingly involved the use of force by native (later Bantu) commissioners. The picture of political control measures as reported in the contemporary press was grim: “On 14 November [1950] it was reported in the Cape Times that the native commissioner had said that force was necessary to carry out betterment works; and on 18 November 1950, the minister of Justice said at Excelsior that police reinforcements would be sent again, and that the police had orders to shoot when necessary.”151 The “purist” theoretical assumptions upon which apartheid was based were breaking down, and by the late 1950s apartheid “theory” began to decline in importance as state policy became increasingly directed by a politicized civil service and from the mid-1960s by a burgeoning security policy and military apparatus. State power was increasingly characterized by the increased use of force by the police and security forces. The security forces received increased latitude to use coercion after 1960, as the homeland policy met with political and economic resistance and as the African nationalist movements went underground. Government in the rural areas used the BAD, its commissioners, and the system of tribal authorities to control the growing influence of the two major liberation movements, the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress, that operated from exile after 1960. Commissioners monitored opposition movements in the homelands, controlled the movement of people, and tried to ensure political quiescence. Extraordinary powers were given to the magistrate, who was seen as the most efficient mechanism for controlling the African population. The magistrate was given the power to ban any meetings and, through a “hostility clause,” could forbid certain individuals from attending a meeting. Increasingly, petty white officials in the BAD had nearly unlimited endorsement powers (the ability to order any African out of urban areas).152 After 1960, the government began to regulate the movement of people. Now individuals could be forbidden to go into certain areas of the country. In order to move from place to place, an African needed permission from the nearest district labor bureau, headed by a Bantu commissioner, before he could get a work-seekers permit.153 The magistrate coordinated police surveillance and recommended legislative acts to control the black population. Bantu commissioners and police officers could authorize detention without trial. Additionally, nearly all meetings were unlawful unless author-

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ized in writing by the Bantu commissioner.154 In the Johannesburg area, magisterial permission was required for any meeting of more than twenty persons. During the 1960s, there was increasing unrest in the reserves as homeland rule came into place. The coercive power of the Bantu commissioner in the homelands was based on Proclamation R400 of 1959, under which the Bantu commissioner could detain people in the reserve area for interrogation for an unlimited period.155 Proclamation R400 was amended often over the next twenty years and became the basis of authoritarian rule in the homelands. The government used the security proclamations to detain “dissidents” and to put down disturbances. Censorship increasingly became a weapon of political containment, and the district officer often served as an ad hoc local censor, using his own judgment (and prejudices) rather than any national standards.156 Parliament passed the Riotous Assembly Act on March 15, 1974, even before the Soweto uprising. The act allowed magistrates to ban for fortyeight hours any meeting or gathering “whether such purpose is lawful or unlawful.”157 The commissioner had the right to forbid any person to attend a meeting and to use force to stop illegal meetings. As the security function of the commissioner increased, he lost some of his administrative functions, though in the rural areas of South Africa, the chief commissioner continued to control the movement of black labor.158 The primary burden of security control fell on traditional leaders within the homelands. Traditional leaders, who earlier had stayed out of the security apparatus, now had primary responsibility for the supervision of political activity. The headman administered the location, the lineage courts,159 and thus the rural population.160 Under the homeland authority system, traditional leaders were given a variety of law and order, social control and security functions. Much of their time was spent on information gathering, the dispersal of unlawful assemblies, and on reporting dissidents to the police. As a result of the apartheid system, there [was] the habitual use of administrative coercion and security legislation to intimidate [citizens in the homelands] or to harass individuals or [groups] opposing incumbent governments [and in some cases, the] . . . chieftaincy [was] revived, corrupted and bureaucratized, while otherwise the apparatus of the state [or proto-state] has been expanded and simultaneously indigenized by the devolution from above of a host of administrative and municipal functions.161

At the grassroots level, social stratification remained important. Influential villagers, headmen, and chiefs were exempt from labor conscription. Government mandated that traditional leaders maintain control over the

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movement of people into the urban areas and chiefs and headmen served as primary labor recruitment officers. Otherwise they were unable to garner benefits from the system. Tribal authorities were expected to establish tribal labor bureaus where tribesmen would have to register to work outside the area.162 Even influential villagers did not involve themselves in the migrant-labor system despite the fact that the National Party government saw labor migration as a security issue. Migrant labor matters were left to the recruiting agencies, the commissioner, and the chiefs and headmen.163

Conclusion This chapter surveyed the system of values and governance patterns that controlled black South Africans prior to the beginning of the apartheid period. Patterns of domestic colonialism, as they have evolved in South Africa since the nineteenth century, have influenced both apartheid South Africa and the nature of provincial and local government in the post-1994 nonracial government. Separate development, or apartheid, rather than being a departure from earlier patterns of racial domination, evolved out of pre-1948 assumptions. Several themes stand out in the evolution of the institutional state. Values and myths provided a context for local state formation and the way that it has evolved over time. The nature of the institutionalized local state defined state-societal interaction and role relationships between white administrators and traditional leaders. Racism based specifically on skin color became the norm in South Africa in the nineteenth century with the formal transfer of colonial rule to Britain in 1815 and the arrival of the first British settlers in the 1820s. In the last half of the nineteenth century, European imperialism in Africa was buttressed by social Darwinian (racist) theories of biological evolution. Social Darwinism espoused that races existed in a hierarchy of civilization and that this biological hierarchy of supremacy justified European domination. Segregation was justified in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to prevent the intermingling and corruption of whites by “lesser” races.164 The legacy of overseas imperialism and colonialism was racism based upon cultural chauvinism and nineteenth-century pseudoscientific assumptions. Most significantly, the origins of the colonial state in South Africa were coterminous with a period of “virulent racism” in the world.165 This was the basis of the prefectoralism that defined “native administration” in South Africa. African administration and governance in South Africa fit into a pattern of control that existed throughout the African continent prior to majority

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rule elections and political independence. Administration was prefectoral in nature, and patterns of control improvised by traditional authorities who mediated between African society and the white government. Administration was neither Afrikaner in its origins nor hostile to Afrikaner nationalism. Instead, its origins were in the governance mechanisms of the British Empire. The historical context of state formation and a mindset of prefectoralism influenced the way the political and administrative roles, particularly at the grassroots, have been defined in postapartheid South Africa. At the national level, the National Party leadership created a sectional bureaucracy that was tied to its political ideology. As they evolved in South Africa later, segregation and apartheid also led to the creation of a second authoritarian state at the subnational level, outside of and only partly linked to white government and politics. The origins of apartheid lie in the segregated African reserves that were established in the 1920s and the bureaucratic structures that were put in place to manage them. Though the South African government recognized the need for representative mechanisms, the various local, regional, and national councils established were little more than symbolic. These institutions only now reflect a paternalistic Victorian gentility by comparison to the brutality and inefficiency of the homelands systems set in place after 1948.

Notes 1. Maryna Fraser, ed. Johannesburg Pioneer Journals: 1888–1909, no. 16 (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1985), p. 185, quoted in Frank Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History (New York: Kodansha International, 1999), p. 344. 2. F. L. Tomlinson, Summary of the Report of the Commission for the SocioEconomic Development of the Bantu Areas Within the Union of South Africa (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1955), p. 67. Hereafter referred to as the Tomlinson Commission Report. 3. Sir Charles Rey, Monarch of All I Survey: Bechuanaland Diaries, 1929–37, ed. Neil Parsons and Michael Crowder (London: James Currey, 1988), p. ix. 4. Edward Roux, Time Longer Than Rope: The Black Man’s Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (1948; repr., Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), p. 74. 5. See Lloyd A. Fallers, Bantu Bureaucracy: A Century of Political Evolution Among the Basoga of Uganda (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 196–203. 6. Picard has grappled with role theory and its utility (perhaps not always successfully) for some time. The first iteration appears in Louis A. Picard, “Role Set Changes Among Field Administrators in Botswana: Administrative Attitudes and Social Change” (PhD diss., 1977). On role theory, see Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968); Michael Banton, Roles: An

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Introduction to the Study of Social Relations (London: Tavistock Publications, 1963); and the discussion of role theory in New Perspectives in Social Research, ed. William W. Cooper, H. J. Leavitt, and M. W. Shelley II (New York: John Wiley, 1964), For further discussion, see John A. Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 49. 7. P. C. Lloyd, Africa in Social Change (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), p. 166. 8. Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 107. 9. Shula Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa: Class, Nationalism, and the State in Twentieth-Century Natal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986), p. 112; Louis A. Picard and Michele Garrity, “Development Management in Africa,” in Managing Sustainable Development in South Africa, ed. Patrick FitzGerald, Anne McLennan, and Barry Munslow (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 67–68. 10. Ivan Evans, Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 207. 11. Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa, p. 34. 12. W. D. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus: The Development of Transkeian Local Government (Cape Town: David Philip, 1975), p. 218. 13. Pierre du Toit, State Building and Democracy in Southern Africa: Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), p. 8. 14. Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa, p. 39. 15. Ibid., p. 30, citing Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. viii. 16. Young, The African Colonial State, p. 233. 17. Patrick Laurence, The Transkei: South Africa’s Politics of Partition (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1976), p. 28. 18. Alexander Hepple, Verwoerd (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), p. 117. 19. Charles van Onselen, The Seed Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, A South African Sharecropper, 1894–1985 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990), p. ix. 20. Quoting Kas Maine, in ibid., pp. 9–10. 21. Ibid., p. 221. 22. Ibid., p. 252. 23. Max Gluckman, “The Kingdom of the Zulu of South Africa,” in African Political Systems, ed. M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 48. 24. Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London, Pretoria, and Bloomfontein. 25. See Tomlinson Commission Report, p. 67. 26. The name Bantu Administration began to be used in 1958. 27. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 83. 28. T. B. Floyd, Better Local Government for South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1982), p. 185. 29. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 97. 30. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, pp. 192–193. 31. In addition, the British governor-general also served as colonial governor for the High Commission Territories of Bechuanaland, Basutoland, and Swaziland. In 1933, a separate high commissioner was appointed to represent Britain in the Union and to administer the High Commission Territories.

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32. Young, The African Colonial State, p. 192. 33. Howard Rogers and P. A. Linington, Native Administration in the Union of South Africa, rev. ed. (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1949), p. 20. 34. E. H. J. Muller, Address on the Administration of the Transkeian Territories (Cape Town: Government Printer, 1924), p. 13. 35. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, pp. 64–68. 36. Charles Hooper, Brief Authority (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989), p. 36. 37. M. V. Ballinger, “Native Representative Council Again in Session,” Umteteli Wa Bantu, August 12, 1944, reprinted in Phyllis Lewsen, Voices of Protest: From Segregation to Apartheid, 1938–1948 (Johannesburg: A. D. Donker, 1988), pp. 165–168. 38. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 10. 39. There has been much confusion about the terms “native commissioner” and “magistrate.” The offices overlapped and were often the same person. Every magisterial district had a magistrate who reported to the Department of Justice and did much the same work as magistrates do today in South Africa. In the native areas, native commissioners were appointed by the Department of Native Administration and responsible to that department. Many magistrates outside of the native areas were also designated native commissioners. The terms were used interchangeably. Gwendolyn Carter, Thomas Karis, and Newell M. Stulz, South Africa’s Transkei: The Politics of Domestic Colonialism (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967). 40. Andre Spiegel, “A Trilogy of Tyranny and Tribulation: Village Politics and Administrative Intervention in Matatiele During the Early 1980s,” in Undoing Independence: Regionalism and the Reincorporation of the Tranksei in South Africa, ed. Andrew Donaldson, Julia Segar, and Roger Southall. Special Issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 11, no. 2 (1992): 34–37. 41. Raymond Suttner, “African Customary Law: Its Social and Ideological Function in South Africa,” in Resistance and Ideology in Settler Societies, ed. Tom Lodge (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986), pp. 119–143. 42. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 99. 43. Hooper, Brief Authority, p. 38. 44. Alastair McIntosh, “Traditional Leaders and Local Government in Kwa Zulu Natal” (paper prepared for the ICIC Workshop for Traditional Leaders, n.d.), p. 1. 45. W. J. O. Jeppe and D. A. Kotze, “Local Government in the African Areas of South Africa,” in Local Government in Southern Africa, ed. W. B. Vosloo, D. A. Kotze, and W. J. O. Jeppe (Pretoria: Academica, 1974), p. 84. 46. G. G. Hoexter, chair, Commission of Inquiry into the Structure and Function of the Courts (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1983), p. 386. 47. du Toit, State Building and Democracy in Southern Africa, p. 168. 48. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 221. 49. Ibid., p. 97. 50. This strategically located office enforced influx control regulations. 51. Roger Southall, South Africa’s Transkei: The Political Economy of an “Independent” Bantustan (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), p. 88. 52. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 67. 53. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 176. See, for example, Shaun Johnson’s novel based upon his father’s papers, The Native Commissioner (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2007). T. R. H. Davenport, The Transfer of Power in South Africa (Cape Town: David Phillip Publishers, 1998), p. 56.

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54. After 1935, Britain began to recruit senior administrators to serve in the High Commission Territories. Until independence, however, technical and professional staff in the Protectorates continued to be recruited from South Africa. 55. Leo Marquard, The Peoples and Policies of South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 114–115. 56. E. H. Brookes, “Where Do We Go From Here,” The Forum, August 30, 1947, cited in Lewsen, Voices of Protest, pp. 276–281. 57. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 101. 58. Deborah Posel, The Making of Apartheid, 1948–1961: Conflict and Compromise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 118. 59. Louis A. Picard, “Administrative Attitudes and Time in Bechuanaland and Botswana,” American Society for Public Administration, SICA Occasional Paper Series, fall 1984. 60. Ibid., p. 71. 61. Pierre L. van den Berghe, South Africa: A Study in Conflict (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1965), p. 77. 62. Govan Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants’ Revolt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 41. 63. van den Berghe, South Africa, pp. 66, 121. 64. J. T. Kenyon, “An Address on the General Council Administrative System of the Transkeian Territories, delivered at the University of Stellenbosch on the 12th, 13th and 14th October, 1932” (Cape Town: Government Printer, 1932), p. 7. 65. Leo Marquard, The Native in South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1948), p. 7. 66. Mbeki, South Africa, p. 41. 67. D. A. Kotze, African Politics in South Africa, 1964–1974: Parties and Issues (London: C. Hurst, 1975), p. 137. 68. Sibongile Zungu, “Traditional Leaders’ Capability and Disposition for Democracy: The Example of South Africa,” in Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Local Participation and Self-Government in Africa, ed. Wilhelm Hofmeister and Ingo Scholz (Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, 1997), p. 166. 69. General J. B. M. Hertzog, former Afrikaner leader during the Boer War, held the post of prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1924 to 1939. 70. Kotze, Development Administration, p. 437. 71. Edgar H. Brookes, White Rule in South Africa, 1830–1910 (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1974), pp. 130–137. 72. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 83. 73. David Welsh, “The Executive and the African Population: 1948 to the Present,” in Leadership in the Apartheid State: From Malan to De Klerk, ed. Robert Schrire (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 135. 74. Hepple, Verwoerd, p. 104. 75. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 143. 76. Hoyt Alverson, Mind in the Heart of Darkness: Value and Self-Identity and the Tswana of Southern Africa (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978). 77. Kotze, African Politics, p. 137. 78. Newell Stultz, Transkei’s Half Loaf: Race Separatism in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1980), p. 51. 79. Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 3. 80. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (New York: Little, Brown, 1994), p. 6.

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81. Butler et al., The Black Homelands, p. 27. 82. L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, Why South Africa Will Survive (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1981), p. 48. 83. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 94. 84. See Paul Mayer, “The Tribal Elites and the Transkeian Election of 1963,” in The Elites of Tropical Africa, ed. P. C. Lloyd (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 286–308, cited in Patrick Laurence, The Transkei: South Africa’s Politics of Partition (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1976), p. 22. 85. Max Gluckman, “The Kingdom of the Zulu in South Africa,” in African Political Systems, ed. M. Fortes and E. Evans Pritchard (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 49. 86. David Welsh, The Roots of Apartheid: Colonial Policy in Natal, 1845–1910 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 125. 87. Laurence, The Transkei, p. 20. 88. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 147. 89. Transferred from earlier legislation three years prior to Nelson Mandela’s release from jail. 90. Anton Harber and Barbara Ludman, eds., A–Z of South African Politics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995), p. 190. 91. Tomlinson Commission Report, p. 204. 92. Louis A. Picard, “Role Set Changes Among Field Administrators in Botswana: Administrative Attitudes and Social Change” (PhD diss., 1977). 93. Butler et al., Black Homelands, p. 158. 94. The name of the Department of Native Administration was changed to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development in 1958. 95. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 55. This superseded the earlier Association of Administrators of Non-European Affairs. 96. Giliomee, “Afrikaner Politics: How the System Works,” p. 221. 97. Ibid., p. 9. 98. See ibid. for an excellent discussion of the evolution of the Department of Bantu Affairs. 99. Welsh, “The Executive and the African Population: 1948 to the Present,” p. 136. 100. Giliomee, “Afrikaner Politics,” p. 227. 101. Deborah Posel, “Whiteness and Power in the South African Civil Service: Paradoxes of the Apartheid State,” Journal of Southern African Studies 25, no. 1 (1999): 105–107. 102. Critics of apartheid quickly gravitated toward the acronym (BAD). 103. Before 1957 the Department had also been referred to as the Department of Native Affairs at various points in time. 104. D. A. Kotze, “Rise and Decline of Native Administration,” Teaching Political Science 4, no. 2 (January 1977): 244. 105. Robert Kinloch Massie, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa During the Apartheid Years (New York: Nan A. Talese Doubleday, 1997), p. 21. 106. Hepple, Verwoerd, p. 104. 107. Induna is the assistant to a chief in Zulu and Swazi terminology. 108. Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries, From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administrative Boards in South Africa, 1971–1983 (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1985), p. 29. 109. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 52.

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110. Martin Meredith, In the Name of Apartheid: South Africa in the Post-War Era (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988), pp. 72–73. 111. For a somewhat apologist view of separate development and for the ANC tradition during this period, see Butler et al., The Black Homelands, pp. 121, 195. 112. Hans Strydom, “Botha—King of 18m,” Sunday Times, May 11, 1975, 15. 113. Kotze, African Politics, p. 217. 114. In 1960, effective with the declaration of the republic, the South African government created a new currency with two rand being equal to the old South African pound. 115. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, The Quest for Democracy: South Africa in Transition (London: Penguin, 1992), p. 19. 116. L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, Why South Africa Will Survive (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1981), p. 143. 117. Diana Gordon, Transformation and Trouble: Crime, Justice, and Participation in Democratic South Africa (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), p. 73. 118. Butler et al. The Black Homelands, p. 36. 119. Kotze, African Politics in South Africa, p. 26. 120. Commission of Inquiry into the Structure and Functioning of the Courts, Mr. Justice G. G. Hoexter, Chairman (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1986), p. 407. Hereafter referred to as the “Hoexter Commission.” 121. William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 198–199. 122. “Whites Have the Big Majority in Dr K’s Dept,” Rand Daily Mail, September 26, 1981, 4. 123. Ibid. 124. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 223. 125. W. B. Mathews (chief secretary, Office of the Chief Minister, Gazankulu), interview with Picard, June 27, 1984, Giyani, Northern Transvaal. 126. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 164. 127. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 43. 128. Colin Legum, South Africa: A Year of Great Decision (London: Rex Collings, 1972), p. 36. 129. Jeppe et al. “Local Government in the African Areas of South Africa,” pp. 77–78. 130. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 201. 131. Hepple, Verwoerd, p. 117. 132. Anthony Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Biography (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 79. 133. Hooper, Brief Authority, p. 152. 134. Butler et al., The Black Homelands, p. 28 135. Ibid., p. 195. 136. Native commissioners and magistrates serving in the reserve areas were restyled Bantu commissioners at the time that the Department of Bantu Administration was relabeled. 137. Gordon, Transformation and Trouble, p. 81. 138. Hooper, Brief Authority, p. 103. 139. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 123 140. Ibid., p. 208. 141. Evans, Bureaucracy and Race, p. 212. 142. Induna, king’s representative or assistant to the chief.

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143. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 126. 144. G. M. Carter, Which Way Is South Africa Going? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 46. 145. Mbeki, South Africa, p. 119. 146. Ibid., p. 109. 147. Gann and Duignan, Why South Africa Will Survive, p. 76. 148. Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1912–1952 (London: C. Hurst, 1970), p. 388. 149. Davenport, South Africa, p. 292. 150. University of South Africa, UNISA Documentation Centre for African Studies, Judgement of Justice E. M. de Beer, Rex v. Daniel Letibe, quoted in Kotze, “Development Administration,” p. 129. 151. Die Burger, November 11, 1990, quoted in Kotze, “Development Administration,” p. 132. 152. van den Berghe, South Africa, p. 103. 153. Posel, The Making of Apartheid, p. 104. 154. Laurence, The Transkei, p. 38. 155. Barry Streek and Richard Wicksteed, Render Unto Kaiser: A Transkei Dossier (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1981), p. 10. 156. One of the most extraordinary examples of censorship at the national level occurred in 1963, as a result of intervention by the Publications Control Board. “The second volume of the Oxford History of South Africa could be bought in South Africa only in a special edition, with fifty-three blank pages substituting for a chapter entitled ‘African Nationalism in South Africa’ which contained policy statements by African leaders.” Martin Meredith, In the Name of Apartheid: South Africa in the Post-War Era (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988), p. 114. 157. Quoted in Keesings Contemporary Archives (London: Keesings, June 3–9, 1974), p. 26. 158. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 22. 159. These courts adjudicated clan and other familial relationships. 160. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 172. 161. Southall, South Africa’s Transkei, p. 283. 162. Jeppe and Kotze, “Local Government in the African Areas of South Africa,” p. 92. 163. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 170 164. Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, p. 68. 165. Young, The African Colonial State, p. 72.

6 The Urban Local State in the Apartheid Era White South Africans are born paternal.1 [Power is a] socio-political ideal . . . the spirit of capitalism. For money presents itself as the alternative certitude for those who have already acquired political dominance.2 Whether this would help them he did not know, and he wondered if he might not be creating a dependency that did more harm than good.3

I

n this chapter we explore the development of the urban local state in South Africa with a special emphasis on the impact of segregation on urban and regional development. While urban apartheid, which relegated nonwhites to segregated townships within larger cities, was the most visible sign of racism in South Africa, changing social and economic patterns had already changed patterns of governance long before the end of white rule. We examine these political, social, and economic patterns in the next few pages.

White Rule in Segregated Towns The English Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 was the framework for the establishment of a British system of local government in the white areas, including the selection of mayors, town clerks, councilors, and municipal corporations.4 From 1910 to 1923 there was no segregationist national legislation that applied to South Africa’s cities; rather, separation was de facto and based on common practice. 127

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The governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Milner (later governor of all four South African territories, 1897–1905), established modern institutions of local government in South Africa modeled on English practice in the early twentieth century.5 In the Cape Colony, local government institutions were, in theory, open to all races. In reality, local governments followed patterns of segregation and land alienation that were then in use in the United States and throughout the non-Western world. After Union, a series of provincial ordinances created local authorities and defined the scope of their legal jurisdiction. The 1923 Urban Areas Act defined the apartheid city: nonwhites would live in separate locations administered by white local councils. The 1923 act also laid the foundation for influx control, that is, keeping nonwhites from moving to white urban areas. The lack of safeguards led to the whittling away of local council authority even before 1948—a process that accelerated after the Nationalists came to power.6 In white South Africa during the apartheid period, a functional system of deconcentration came to be the norm at the subnational level. The local bureaucratic system under apartheid was complicated and inefficient. Local officials were responsible for influx control, the destruction of urban freehold tenure houses, the enforcement of pass laws, and hundreds of other laws. Bureaucratic procedures, not legislative choices, were the governing force of South Africa in the twentieth century. Segregated residency and labor restrictions defined apartheid. Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries have described the maze of regulations faced by those seeking labor.7 Segregated local government remained the order of the day in South Africa during the interwar period. The debate about the apartheid city came out of the 1948 National Party Sauer Report, which manifested unresolved conflict over a variety of policy options in South Africa’s cities. After the National Party came to power, “the state . . . displayed a strong centralising dynamic [rhetoric and] the state began vertically centralising.”8 While few immediate changes were made in urban local institutions, by the 1960s, this centralizing dynamic led to the establishment of central government control over townships—the black-populated urban areas. Throughout the 1950s, the Department of Native Affairs, working through municipal authorities, tried to make townships financially selfsufficient in order to reduce central government subsidies to them.9 Several options were tried. A beer levy was considered the safest and easiest way, as there was a correlation between a municipal monopoly of beer and the finances of the revenue accounts.10 Under the 1952 Services Levy Act black labor employers in urban areas were required to pay a monthly levy to the municipalities for each of their employees. Townships, however, never had

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an economic tax base, and there was a decrease in self-sufficiency over time. The National Party created advisory Urban Bantu Councils (UBC) in 1961. Though nominally elected bodies, they had no authority and little impact on township life. The Bantu Affairs Administration Boards (responsible for administering black townships) usually ignored UBC recommendations. According to National Party ideology, blacks were to be represented only by homeland political institutions. Historically, white city councils were mandated to meet the needs of European and, to a lesser extent, coloured and Asian residents. Only Europeans could vote; the needs of the two latter groups were met by nominated committees linked to the white city councils. This representation imbalance led to the allocation of almost all public goods to the white areas. White councils had a watchdog function over township development and many other township issues.11 In terms of population, whites remained the largest single group in the metropolitan areas (see Table 6.1). Black South African townships were excluded from even the nominated committee system and had no representative institutions. Instead, prior to 1972, segregated departments of the municipal authority administered black urban townships. White local governments, such as in Johannesburg, had been vested with the power to legislate and ratify provincial ordinances for the black areas, and councils administered adjacent township areas.12 Some white city officials felt a commitment to the creation of a “civilized” mode of living out of a concern for their nonwhite constituents. During the postwar period this local political activity often revolved around the very limited influence of elected black advisory boards in the townships.13 Local governments in the 1950s and 1960s carried some semblance of a paternalistic representative function. Communists and other left-wing whites played a prominent role in this process in a number of South Africa’s bigger cities, such as Cape Town and Johannesburg. Left-wing whites ran for local office—sometimes successfully—on a policy of racial

Table 6.1 Johannesburg Population, 1966 Whites Blacks Soweto Township

867,652 733,339 505,950

Source: Allen Drury, “A Very Strange Society”: A Journey to the Heart of South Africa (New York: Pocket Books, 1968), p. 105.

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equality.14 Hilda Bernstein served as a Johannesburg city councilor for three years during this period and remembers: As a councilor, I could go to the locations and the shantytowns. I went to places forbidden to outsiders: the compounds where African municipal employees lived; the lowest paid of all workers. . . . I served on a Slums Court and went to unknown backyards in the heart of Johannesburg.15

Those representatives began a role that members of the liberal Progressive Party would later play in the internal politics of African townships. Glen Grey and Local Advisory Councils For over a century, various South African regimes searched for a formula that would provide Africans with a mechanism for black representation that did not threaten white rule. Local councils in the Eastern Cape, the Native Representative Council, urban Black Local Authorities, and the various homeland institutions all illustrate the futility of these efforts. Here we examine these abortive efforts prior to 1948. The Glen Grey Act of 1894 created segregated African areas in the Eastern Cape and provided for individual land tenure in the region. The Glen Grey system, with some changes, was extended from the Ciskei to all parts of the Transkei and later very selectively to other parts of South Africa.16 The Glen Grey Act also provided for a poll tax that was designed to push Africans into the agricultural and urban labor pool. Since Glen Grey conveniently restricted African voting power to local government in the Eastern Cape, the government introduced local councils as part of the act in order to appease Africans when they were disenfranchised in the Cape Colony proper. Grassroots traditional authorities in the Eastern Cape were integrated into a common bureaucratic structure and by 1910 had become completely bureaucratized. Cultural assimilation remained a distant goal, but in practice—particularly in the Transkei—the colonial bureaucratic system was based upon arbitrarily defined boundaries that often did not follow traditional patterns. Sir George Grey’s successors continued to give lip service to policies of assimilation and identity, but most came to accept Shepstone’s ideology of indirect rule that kept Africans physically separate from the settlers.17 By the end of the colonial period in 1910, there were locally appointed advisory councils in the nine districts of the Ciskei and in all twenty-six magisterial districts in the Transkei. The nine district and local councils represented in the Ciskei council included: Glen Grey, Tamacha, Herschel, Peddie, Victoria East, Middledrift, Keiskamahoek, East London, and Hewa. 18

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Not everyone approved of the system. Traditionalists in the Eastern Cape opposed the Glen Grey council system because they feared appointed councils would become puppets of the colonial order.19 District councils in the Eastern Cape only had advisory authority and could not influence executive or budgetary decisions.20 Inevitably, this allowed chiefs to appoint their supporters to these bodies.21 The councils typically were dominated by traditionalists.22 Moreover, the local council system was deliberately placed outside the policy decisionmaking process, thus limiting its policy relevance. They provided the appearance rather than the reality of governance, and they provided a channel of communication between the central government and rural dwellers living in the reserve areas.23 Each district council had the local native commissioner or magistrate as chair plus six other members. In practice, the council system became an extension of the system of magisterial rule, and councilors were directly tied to the administrative hierarchy.24 Between 1894 and 1920, the South African government established a number of councils based on the Eastern Cape model in other parts of South Africa. In 1906, the councils were strengthened with the decision to allow for direct election of some district councilors.25 The 1920 Native Affairs Act created a system on paper that would govern Africans through a series of district councils headed by an annual conference of African leaders and a white Native Affairs Commission.26 The 1920 act formalized councils and gave them a modicum of at least symbolic popular representation. By 1940, five local councils had been set up in the Transvaal, two in the Orange Free State, and three in Natal. After World War II, few additional councils were established outside of the Eastern Cape. Local councils were significant for two reasons. First, they functioned as mechanisms of political mediation and control and, long before the Nationalists came to power in 1948, they established a pattern of separate, local-level political institutions.27 The government saw the establishment of racially exclusive local and district advisory councils as a substitute for the granting of a multiracial or nonracial franchise to all South Africans. Though the African local councils were only advisory, the National Party opposed even this limited form of representative government in rural South Africa. For the architects of apartheid, elected councils were excessively democratic, annoying forums for debate, as well as platforms for requesting increased government services. More importantly, councilors were able to use council debates as a vehicle to criticize government policy, and the Nationalists feared they could be used to promote passive or even active resistance to the apartheid system. In their place, the government sought to entrench traditional tribal institutions and structures. At the national level the demise of local repre-

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sentative councils was linked to the introduction of grand apartheid (the idea that all blacks could be territorially separated from white South Africa and granted citizenship in one of the ten black homelands) and the establishment through the 1951 Bantu Authorities Act of tribal, regional, and territorial authorities that gave chiefs and headmen increased political power in the reserves.28 In 1953, under the authority of the Bantu Authorities Act the South African government ratified existing local government structures in the black areas of South Africa. At the time, black local government in South Africa consisted of over 600 tribal authorities, 20 community authorities, and 75 regional tribal authorities.29 Taxation and control were critical to the housing question and urban local government more generally. No thought was given to representative institutions for urban blacks during the 1950s. In the 1970s, a number of homeland governments tried to revive local advisory councils to provide the appearance of participatory governance. Local government bodies in the homelands, however, continued to be dominated by traditional leaders and had no more authority than their predecessors. Rural local government, throughout the apartheid period, remained hopelessly compromised. This was a legacy that had profound implications for the postapartheid period and especially after 2010 when the ANC government embraced traditional authorities. Bantu Affairs Administration Boards After 1948, the National Party resented United and Progressive Party domination of white urban councils and sought a more centralized mechanism for black administration and control in the cities. By the late 1960s, the government was determined to accommodate urban blacks in adjacent homelands, if possible, keeping all rural-urban migration behind the homelands’ artificial boundaries. The South African government introduced three changes in urban policy that affected blacks in the late 1960s. First, the thirty-year leasehold in the townships was abolished, leaving blacks without housing rights. Second, all building programs in the black urban areas were suspended and replaced with projects within homeland boundaries. Third, the government forbade the creation of any new black townships within 75 kilometers of a Bantustan. The purpose of these moves was to ensure that all urban blacks understood that their permanent domicile was in the reserve areas. In order to protect themselves in case they were ever forced to leave the urban townships, some middle-class urban Africans began building second homes in the Bantustans.30 Urban Africans had no political representation in local government except through affiliation with homeland governments, although white local

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authorities could establish elected advisory Urban Bantu Councils to symbolically represent local African interests in urban residential areas.31 By the 1970s, most African townships had Advisory Bantu Councils, but white administrators carried out all decisionmaking, planning, service delivery, and revenue collection functions. The so-called Urban Bantu Councils were supposed to be more robust instruments. In 1972, the bureaucratic maze expanded further when the apartheid government created the Bantu Administrative Boards to control the country’s black townships. The government was determined to separate urban black townships from core (central) white cities. Townships were separated from the responsibility of white city and town administrations because National Party leaders felt that municipalities (often controlled by the opposition) were not adequately implementing apartheid legislation.32 The goal was to create a segregated, hierarchical national black administrative system for all urban Africans. The indirect representative function of white local authorities ended when townships were placed under the authority of the separate administration boards in 1973. The Vorster government introduced the new system of township administration: Bantu Affairs Administration Boards (BAABs) in 1971. The BAABs were headed by a township manager, who took responsibility for African, but not Indian and coloured, townships away from white city and town councils in urban areas. The administrative boards were created to streamline and centralize township management and tighten influx control. BAABs and their administrators, appointed and supervised by the Department of Bantu Administration, controlled every aspect of the lives of black South Africans. These nonelected boards were entirely selffinanced from the limited resources of the black areas and bore the burdens of administration.33 Throughout South Africa, blacks and whites were territorially separated for purposes of residence and ownership.34 The country was divided into twenty-two regions, each with a BAAB.35 The twenty-two regions were later reduced to fourteen. In all, some 230 townships were administered by the regionally authoritative boards, which held more comprehensive functions than those normally associated with local authorities. The BAABs were a top-down bureaucratic apparatus that governed the townships without any significant political input from the black urban community. The boards were an extension of the Verwoerdian ideology and based on the assumption that blacks were merely temporary residents in urban South Africa. 36 The creation of BAABs greatly increased the presence of the state bureaucracy in African urban areas.37 The boards retained the political control functions of earlier forms of township administration and formed the backbone of South Africa’s authoritarian political system.

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The role of Bantu commissioners and magistrates, holdovers from an earlier period, did not change significantly as a result of the creation of BAABs. Above the board system there were nine chief Bantu commissioners who controlled the mobility of black workers and, in theory, delivered a wide range of social services.38 In practice, the boards were authoritarian bodies that regulated and limited black movement to the urban areas. There is substantial empirical evidence of board involvement in homeland resettlement policy and forced removals. With the introduction of BAABs, the South African government accelerated policies to force black South Africans in the urban areas back to the homelands. When deemed necessary by the Department of Cooperation and Development, the boards sometimes supervised the resettlement of black people to homeland areas out of their jurisdiction.39 Even moderate critics called urban administration, specifically the West Rand Administration Board, a dictatorship or totalitarian state under the guise of bureaucracy.40 After 1973, the government transferred responsibility for townships to local black governments and budgets in an effort to conserve white manpower.41 From January 1974, local employers made contributions to Bantu Affairs Administrative Boards through a transfer tax that funded manpower departments. This pattern of financing was later transferred to regional services councils.42 Changes in homeland administration were also linked to the privatization of certain basic services in the townships and “privatization of these traditional sources [such as sorghum beer] came at a time when the impetus behind their growth in consumption had largely declined.”43 There were both push and pull factors that caused the BAABs to fail. The board’s actual role was undefined because homeland urban areas lay outside their responsibility. The boards were further discredited when it was revealed that they were deeply involved in the forced movement of people into the homeland areas. In the 1970s, BAABs defined the complicated process of searching for work in urban areas. Bekker and Humphries describe the rather irrational process: A qualifying work-seeker could travel from East London to Port Elizabeth, for instance, and remain within one Board area; whereas the shorter journey from Pretoria to Witbank could take him across Board boundaries and therefore require him to visit a Board labour bureau for a housing assessment.44

The financial support given to BAABs was never enough to replicate even the limited services that had been provided by the white city councils before 1973. As a result, “within 10 years, the finances of the Boards had changed dramatically, from large annual surpluses to almost equally large

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deficits.”45 At the time, homeland administration did not foster development because net expenditure did not allow for industry and job creation. Thus, resettlement actually increased poverty.46

The Beginning of Black Representation The idea of black representative bodies was only seriously considered in the mid-1970s. The Vorster government had originally proposed strengthened local government structures that had some support from verligte (enlightened, sometimes incorrectly translated as liberal) National Party members. By the late 1970s, reformers in the National Party had recognized that urban black communities had important middle-class elements. In 1979, from the perspective of verligte reformers: It seems increasingly likely that the government’s aim is to win the support of a crucial sector of urban African opinion by ultimately limiting the settled urban African population to a largely middle-class group that will be freed of most, if not all, the restrictions under which Africans in all walks of life presently suffer. Such a group would not only be allowed a good standard of living but also probably be associated, in one way or another, with the evolving multiethnic constitutional structure the government is said to envisage. The objective, of course, is to provide these middle-class Africans with conditions sufficiently satisfying that they will respond to class interests rather than racial ones.47

From the mid-1970s there were conflicts at the state level between those who wanted to provide more housing and public service and those who wanted to ensure that township development and administration would be paid for out of community-based taxes. Restructuring of township local government was in part directed at these conflicting priorities, as authorities attempted to upgrade township conditions while ensuring that township residents, rather than white taxpayers, paid for services provided through local government tax and fee increases. By the end of the 1970s, the boards had become financially and administratively unviable. Many BAABs became embroiled in scandal with accusations of mismanagement, corruption, bureaucratic intolerance, poor service, and stockpiling massive amounts of unused project money in the face of poverty and squalor in the black townships.48 In July 1981, a number of boards came under fire for having lost millions of rand through poor investments and bad debts.49 Similar charges were made about specific boards throughout the period.50 Urban Bantu councils collapsed in the late 1970s, resulting in the creation of new, vaguely representative community councils. Parliamentary

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legislation provided for the creation of these new community development councils (CDCs), after 1978.51 The purpose of the new organizational units was to provide a venue for urban consultation similar to that available to black homelands. The opposition United Party, which dominated most white local governments in large cities, supported this move, noting that they had long opposed the creation of BAABs.52 The CDCs provided nominal representation for blacks in the urban areas. Introduced in the wake of the Soweto riots, the CDCs operated with the goal of developing third-tier local authorities in urban black communities. In principle, the BAABs “had already fulfilled this goal before the Community Council Act of 1977.”53 For reformers, new councils (though segregated) provided a new approach to black politics with “full and equal participation in economic institutions and in urban residential areas . . . for permanent urban black residents.”54 CDCs provided the sole basis of representation for Africans outside the homelands. Representation on CDCs was corporate in nature and, in theory, included a cross section of the community. In corporate fashion, township managers encouraged the formation of special interest groups with representation on the CDCs. These civic-based groups, such as women’s organizations, school councils, youth organizations, clinic committees, and farmers associations, were to coordinate various aspects of development in the townships. Within the CDC, the nonrepresentative executive council (EXCO) and its manager were the ultimate decisionmakers in the planning process. The interest-group-dominated councils were required to submit three alternative development budgets to the EXCO for review, possible modification, and decision. Aspects of the civics model incorporated in community councils resembled the role that civic organizations played in the 1980s, though cooptation deprived these early bodies of any credibility within the black community. In practice, a narrow, dependent business class dominated CDCs, including cafe owners and liquor distributors. CDCs in theory had allocative power over worker housing, trading sites, and services.55 CDCs, later renamed black local authorities (BLAs),56 operated virtually without resources, had little autonomy, and were little more than vehicles in the search for township-based taxation and financing. In 1980, with crisis looming, elections scheduled for the Soweto Council were postponed until 1982.57

P. W. Botha and Attempts at Reform in the 1980s Following the Soweto uprising in 1976, civil society challenges to the state played out at the local level. There were attempts to continue the politics of

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symbolism through controlled participation within segregated political units, as P. W. Botha’s Nationalist government tried to impose segregated local government authorities on the country’s black townships. These politics of symbolism involved the use of black local councils as mechanisms of political control in the urban and peri-urban areas. In 1982, the Botha government established the legal structure for local authorities that would take over responsibility for the administration of the townships. Housing, utilities, sanitation, and other functions of local administration that had been managed by the BAABs became the responsibility of the new black local governments after 1984.58 In 1983 and 1984 Botha introduced a series of reforms at the national level. These included the establishment of an executive presidency to replace the Westminster model, the creation of a tricameral parliament that would bring Indian and coloured politicians into the political system as junior partners to the National Party, and the rationalization of the public service with the expansion of direct management responsibility over social and political activities.59 Representation was to be corporate in nature, while authority was to be centralized within the office of the president. The package also included creation of black local authorities (BLAs). Devolution and the Botha Reforms Although the National Party government paid lip service to devolution in its 1983 constitution and its subsequent local government reforms, and there was some deconcentration of power, in practice, there was no devolution of authority in the normal political sense. The reforms themselves provided for a high level of central government control, both directly through the requirement for ministerial concurrence and, indirectly, through the power given to state-appointed provincial executives.60 When the National Party government talked about decentralization of powers to local authority, it meant deconcentration rather than devolution of power. The local government reforms led to “enhanced centralisation in all spheres of government.”61 The extent of this centralization left both existing and new local government authorities with almost no space within which they could maneuver.62 At the base, the South African government looked to compliance through coercion during this period.63 After 1983, the Nationalists feared giving extra-parliamentary forces power at the local level that could undermine state structures and capitalist ideals.64 The third tier of government during the Botha period could properly be called the “local extension of central government.”65 The term used here, after South African usage, is the local state. A theory of “the local state” had evolved in government circles and among academics in South Africa by the mid-1980s. Responsibility for

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maintaining control and implementing policy was devolved to the grassroots level. Decisionmaking at the top and spending in local authorities, as was the case with all the Botha reforms, were characterized by the corporate style of management. National stability rather than social service was the primary purpose of local government. Social and class relations at both the national and the local levels were superseded by the bureaucratic authority of the state. Local-level social transactions were removed from the domain of political debate, and state services and processes were hierarchical and bureaucratic. Few blacks and fewer whites, according to the Botha administration, would object to control over protest groups, believing that living conditions in the townships would improve. “One of the fallacies embraced by an ethnic technocracy is the assumption that it can solve the racial problem by budgetary means alone. More township housing, better Black educational facilities, and higher wages, necessary as they may be for stability, do not eliminate discontent.”66 Representation would occur through interest groups rather than electoral processes. Through depoliticized regional arrangements (what would become regional service councils), most citywide services and functions were removed from electoral control.67 Black Local Authorities There were differences about how to respond to the urbanization crisis.68 Advocates of local-level negotiations in the 1980s hoped to create “nodes of interracial cooperation that would be conducive to the growth of political structures in spite of intransigence at the center.” 69 The Botha reforms included the creation of black local authorities (BLAs). By 1983, the South African government had established thirty-four BLAs and intended to have more than a hundred functioning by 1985. Prior to 1985, BLAs appeared to enjoy some legitimacy.70 BLA reforms were designed to provide some political relief for the growing black middle class in the townships. After their formation, the strongest support came from small businessmen and traders.71 With the outbreak of township violence in 1984–1985, BLAs and councilors quickly lost all credibility within the townships. Both the Soweto BLAs and the Soweto Civic Association were better organized and had better access to experts than was the case in other parts of the country.72 Initially, however, BLAs had inadequate revenues, administration, and technical skills.73 The effect of the new segregated voting dispensation of segregated BLAs was immediate in black areas and led to the outbreak of township resistance between 1984 and 1987 that radicalized South African politics. Neither black administrators nor white seconded

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officials were able to stem the tide of township revolt between 1984 and 1987. The outbreak of violence led to a draconian security clamp-down and the establishment of authoritarian controls over the townships after a second state of emergency was imposed in 1987. Historically, all local government employees were outside of the public service establishment. In the late 1970s, there was a move to make town clerks full-fledged governmental officials, and the central government began to play a role in the selection and appointment of town clerks. In the black townships, the town clerk was particularly powerful and took on a prefectoral role in his relationship to local inhabitants. After 1984, the government saw town clerks and senior local government employees as a subsection of the civil service subject to the direction of centrally managed provincial authorities.74 All other local government employees officially remained outside of the public service establishment. Black local authorities were financially separate from the core white cities that contained central business districts and the bulk of the commercial and industrial activity in the country. Officials envisioned loose, undefined links among BLAs, white cities, and even homeland settlements.75 The powers and functions allocated to local structures were linked to the newly introduced tricameral system at the national level. Little thought was given to the financial costs involved in the creation of BLAs. Spatially, South Africa’s urban areas were characterized by metropolitan urban sprawl radiating outward from a business core in white areas and encompassing black townships and substantial parts of neighboring homelands.76 Within this structure, there was no tax base upon which to create a viable local government. Almost immediately after the BLAs were created, the state indicated that it would stop subsidizing local authorities. BLAs would be rapidly weaned from government financial support. Despite the administrative support given to BLAs, no amount of technical expertise could disguise the fact that BLAs were created without financial viability, inheriting the responsibilities but few of the resources of the old BAABs. Political reforms were being introduced at the same time the economic base of the township administration was being reduced. In the urban areas, the financial inadequacies that caused the BLAs to collapse in 1985 could be identified as early as 1980.77 Within government there had been little debate about the implications of the nonviability of BLAs. Surprisingly, it was only in 1988 that the government intervened to try to alleviate the financial crisis facing the BLAs by agreeing to include them in the regional services councils. A distinction was made between BLAs and the councils for other racial groups. What was true of previous community councils in the early 1980s

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was just as true of the black councils after 1990 where the reserves or homelands (referred to as “independent” states in some cases) were intended to be constitutionally separate from the Republic of South Africa, and black communities were treated differently from those of other South Africans.78 Consequences of the Botha Era Between 1948 and 1980, political control mechanisms approached, but did not become full-blown, totalitarian authoritarianism. This changed under Botha, when the government became a kind of personality-based authoritarianism with a bureaucracy closely identifying with the Botha administration and with the public service itself, running along increasingly authoritarian lines.79 A new antiapartheid movement developed in response to the Botha reforms. The creation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983 marked a turning point in South African history. This was to be a new, multiclass democratic movement that would share goals and have a close relationship with the African National Congress. By 1984, violent resistance in South Africa’s urban townships focused new international attention on South Africa leading to the negotiations that ended apartheid in 1994. The development of the UDF and the township violence that followed is beyond the scope of this narrative. The failure of Botha’s local government reform and the international economic pressures that followed the outbreak of violence in 1985–1986 meant that government economic and political policy was “increasingly shifting, incremental and dominated by crisis-to-crisis considerations.”80 The major challenge to central state authority in the 1980s was the dramatic growth of extra-parliamentary political and socioeconomic organizations at the municipal level.81 Ultimately, the move toward negotiations with the ANC was in large part a result of the breakdown of local state institutions that led to the rise of civic institutions and the United Democratic Front. In the late 1980s, township resistance organization representatives and local white government officials and business people negotiated heavily.82 The regime eventually established the segregated black local authorities that at the same time replaced the old influx control system with a new method of “orderly urbanization” legislation that granted urban status to those who had “approved accommodation.”83 These were to function in conjunction with the existing tricameral parliament. Botha would never move beyond this position.

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Reforming local government was an important issue in and of itself in the 1980s. However, local government reforms also had enormous implications for national negotiations. Ultimately the township revolts, at least in part, led to the post-1990 negotiations, but changes at the local level had to wait until the national structure was resolved in the April 1994 elections, which brought the ANC into power in a Government of National Unity (GNU) with its old foes from the National Party. The local government control system created under Botha was never completely dismantled. Its authoritarian structures remained available to a future regime and leaders less committed to democracy than President Mandela and his GNU and the Mbeki administration that followed. Critiques suggest that the Zuma administration has started to use these control tools, and future administrations could be tempted to greater use of these control mechanisms as well.

The Limits of Devolution and the Need for Democratic Governance Local Government Support Systems The new local authorities inherited all of the responsibilities and the credibility gap of the old administrative boards and community councils. As reform apartheid institutions, BLAs managed the local needs of the townships, maintaining separate racial areas, each with their own local authorities, areas, amenities, and institutions.84 Black local authorities, along with envisaged coloured and Indian counterparts, were to be autonomous from the state, assuming all administrative board responsibilities, as well as a new development authority. The creation of BLAs, as we have seen, was linked to a decision to downgrade and phase out BAABs and should be seen within the context of an effort to modernize apartheid in order to give urban blacks a modicum of at least symbolic participation in the wake of the Soweto crisis. Government policymakers concluded that they could sell black local government as a part of their broader apartheid-reform packages and expected the reforms to defuse black opposition to apartheid, increase employment opportunities, and increase the size of the black middle class. The Botha administration assumed that urban blacks were more motivated by material goods than by political rhetoric and would become stakeholders in reform apartheid (the idea that apartheid could be made more acceptable and less repressive to South African blacks). These assumptions

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were ill-founded, and the limited reforms set the stage for the massive internal resistance campaign of 1984–1987.85 Out of this policy of symbolism came attempts at regional spatial planning based on ideas of economic decentralization. This involved the creation of regional services councils (RSCs) that linked up black and white areas and presaged a new regional dispensation in the postapartheid era in both urban and rural South Africa. By the late 1980s, it became clear that RSCs required large numbers of personnel.86 This spatial decentralization included continued attempts to establish management systems to control urban growth, and, in the long run, RSCs became the forerunners to the system of developmental local governance that emerged after 1994.87 However, even after the abolition of administrative boards (later renamed development boards) in 1986, top-down control over BLAs was sustained through the community service divisions of the provincial administrations.88 The BAABs, still separated from BLAs, became development boards in 1982 and had undefined, overall responsibility for township development when governance of the black townships was turned over to segregated, elected BLAs. By this time, development administration theory had become popular in South Africa, and the development boards transformed from control institutions to development institutions, where the boards took an active approach to housing, service delivery, and community affairs. This approach fostered cooperation and guardianship with black residents and communities. Directors and their staff took courses in native administration, languages, and development administration. Boards, in theory, were responsible to the black councils (BLAs) for the construction, distribution, and management of housing in the townships.89 The development boards were scrapped in June 1986 when the passlaw system of influx control was abandoned. At that point, the 12,000 bureaucrats who worked on the thirteen development boards were transferred to the four provincial administrations, which also inherited management of BLAs. Some were then seconded back to BLAs. The rest of the development responsibilities remained with the provinces during the transition to nonracial government. With the end of BAABs, many conservative officials found homes in provincial administrations in community services and assumed managerial roles.90 They often continued the “paternal views of [white] local bureaucrats”91 and would have a profound effect on the politics of transition in the early 1990s. Three technical bodies were created in the mid-1980s to assure viable BLAs: the Local Government Training Board, the Municipal Development Board, and the Demarcation Board.92 The Local Government Training Act of 1985 provided for the establishment of the Local Government Training Board, a nationally coordinated body whose function was to train local government officials and provide guidance to councilors. National norms

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and values were imposed on the training of local government officials, including the ideological stamp of the government. The new institutions were intended to begin training black local officials, although the existing Manpower Act of 198393 could have been used for training standards on a decentralized basis. When the BLAs were created, they were hailed as a great leap forward by the Nationalist government and some moderate liberals. To academic reformer Willem de Klerk (brother of F. W. de Klerk), compromise politics had necessitated the creation of autonomous municipalities for blacks. Even some moderate black leaders saw the local government reforms of the 1980s as transitional and positive, and some black political leaders considered contesting the local government elections. As one commentator put it: The local government structures which have been proposed are relatively flexible and the legislation has made provision for the detailed form of the new system to differ from region to region. It can therefore be expected that the functions taken on by the new structures and the role which they play in relation to “civil society” in each region will be influenced by the particular problems which are encountered in terms of management of dominated classes.94

In May 1985, Minister of Cooperation and Development Gerrit Viljoen admitted that it had been a mistake to establish BLAs without providing them with a viable revenue base.95 Indeed, it was the rent and services issue that brought the township conflict to a head. By 1985, “conflict between the Councils and residents over housing had become sufficiently acute for the transition from passive resistance to active protest and direct action to occur.”96 By the late 1980s, a system of tying development aid to BLAs had developed. In a number of border (Eastern Cape) settlements,97 the Department of Foreign Aid (the penultimate successor to the Department of Bantu Administration) promised R12 million in assistance but refused to allocate the amount until the settlements established government-recognized BLAs. Resource provision became linked to acceptance of a Pretoria-designed segregated local authority. The new authorities never got off the ground, however, since Pretoria had few resources to provide and therefore was not in a position to co-opt significant portions of black urban communities. The 1988 black local government elections were the last attempt to generate legitimacy for BLAs. Thus, the state increased participation during the elections in the townships, particularly through the provincial administration and the Bureau of Information. More than R4.5 million was spent on publicity.98 Nevertheless, voter turnout was extremely low. The elections, however, did increase the number of councilors who were committed to full participation in higher levels of government.99 At the same time, both coun-

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cilors and civic association leaders reacted to the new reality of the late 1980s by opting for local-level negotiations.100 Despite their relationship to white city councils, Indian and coloured townships suffered from the same handicaps as African local authorities. No Indian or coloured management committee area was capable of financing a viable autonomous local authority without extensive state assistance. The Browne Committee of Inquiry into Local Government in 1979101 noted that significant transfer payments from white local authorities would be needed to keep Indian and coloured management committees afloat.102 Twenty years later the situation was unchanged. In reality, the BLAs and Indian and coloured councils lacked autonomy and could do little more than symbolically bridge the gap between the administration in the townships and the community.103 A year after the new, segregated local authorities were created in 1983, urban South Africa broke out in prolonged violence that led to the collapse of the apartheid system, and in 1994 (ten years after urban violence began) a nonracial government came into power. In the end the reform failed, but in the process the issue of local-level transition was put on the negotiating table. The creation of BLAs stimulated a sustained and violent reaction in the townships and was a major factor in launching the process that led ultimately to negotiations and the transition to majority rule after 1990. Negotiations and Local Government As early as 1968 the head of the ANC Legal Affairs Department saw local government in East Germany as a model for South Africa because local authorities there had substantial control over many areas of industry and trade and, at least in theory, carried considerable decisionmaking authority. Prior to 1990 the ANC leadership tended to support large deconcentrated metropolitan structures that would link white wealthy suburbs to the poverty of the townships under the authority of the national state. For this reason, financing the fledgling Johannesburg Metropolitan Chamber became a major issue after 1990.104 Decentralization discussions sent mixed signals to South Africa’s different political groupings. The Democratic Party and the National Party favored strong, devolved local authorities. Many in the African National Congress saw decentralization as inherently conservative because decentralization to the community level allowed wealthy communities to finance a higher level of services than would be possible in strong metropolitan systems. This would allow privilege to be masked by a strategy that accommodated different perceived needs. The solution was large deconcentrated authorities under central government control.

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In May 1990 the National Party government unilaterally announced that the existing system of local government was unviable and would be replaced by a nonracial system through a local-level negotiation process that would build up to nonracial national institutions. The National Party saw a three-step process: inauguration of highly decentralized local councils; establishment of indirectly elected regional authorities; and the creation of supra-regional authorities, building up to an indirectly elected single national authority with a very weak central government. The problem, as Denis Beckett pointed out with tongue in cheek, was that this process would result in “one single Parliament, [weak though it was] in the composition of which every adult South African has an equal vote.”105 Thus, for the National Party, the national parliament had to be deliberately weakened in order to dilute the impact of black majority rule. One unusual component of this gradualism in South Africa was the idea of a workplace vote that would effectively disenfranchise those without employment (mainly black South Africans). Local government reform under the National Party strategy was deliberately slow and given a lengthy timetable. Negotiations on the transition in South Africa began at the local level in the mid-1980s, in response to the township violence that had finally pushed the National Party toward negotiations.106 Many involved in local government negotiations also participated in national and regional level discussions. After 1990 ANC leader Thabo Mbeki played a major role in the negotiations process that led to the agreements on the form and process of local governance in South Africa. This would see municipal elections carried out with temporary, unequal local government structures and postponed the full integration of black townships into municipalities with an equal franchise until 2000. Prior to that integration, the white municipalities continued to receive the bulk of the resources and had 50 percent of the representation on councils.107 Until 2000, transitional local governments still provided special privileges and protection for whites, Indians, and coloureds in their respective communities.108 Local government negotiations can be divided into three distinct periods: 1. A pre-interim period (prior to 1995) with multiparty negotiations, local forums, and transitional local authorities (TLAs), which were divided into official and nonofficial (ANC-aligned) components; 2. An interim council period beginning with the first nonracial local government elections (October 1995–April 1996) and elected interim local authorities under a government of “local unity” for a four-year period; and 3. A final phase that would include final constitutional agreement on local government (1996), a final model of local government

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(1999), and a second set of nonracial elections scheduled for the year 2000.109 The National Party initially resisted majority-rule local government during the transition because it clashed with their wish for separate subnational political institutions. Some within the National Party in the early 1990s argued for the devolution of some municipal powers to individual wards to protect wealthy areas and to allow ward or neighborhood communities, citizens associations, and professional groups to retain some countervailing influence vis-à-vis an overall majority rule dispensation.110 In Johannesburg/Soweto, the metropolitan forum was finally agreed to on August 30, 1990, between the Soweto people’s delegation and the Transvaal provincial authority. It became the basis for interim local government throughout the country. The agreement was built on a payment schedule for the bulk supply of electricity at R55, with a flat rate of R23 plus a metered rate for the use of electricity above that flat rate. The Metropolitan Council Management Committee would formulate policy on an interim basis. The agreement was signed on September 24, 1990.111 Local government in South Africa’s cities went through a series of changes after 1990. By the early 1990s hundreds of local-level negotiations had developed at the grassroots level across the length and breadth of South Africa.112 Throughout the country, local government negotiations were based on the Soweto forum model, which was in part also played out at the national level because of the special status of Soweto given its international visibility and many foreign visitors. Through a series of negotiated arrangements, forums developed in all of the major cities. As part of the negotiated transition, interim arrangements were made so that there was equality of power between historically white cities and representatives of the major township polities in the region. At question was whether local government issues would be negotiated nationally, regionally, or locally. By April 1991 the Metropolitan Chamber (Met Chamber) was the most developed model for local government negotiations. However, financing the Johannesburg Metropolitan Chamber became a major issue during the GNU.113 None of the signatories of the Met Chamber had the authority or the capacity to get residents to pay their bills. Ultimately, the Met Chamber as a preinterim structure did not have (and could not have) legislative authority without a national legislative mandate. The Witwatersrand Metropolitan Chamber was designated a formal preinterim transitional forum for greater Johannesburg after 1991. Activists feared that the renamed metropolitan council would fail as a result of the declining influence of social movements, bureaucratic intransigence, security force action, or a poor policymaking process.114

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By 1992 local-level negotiations had stalemated. Local government issues had received only vague formulation in the negotiations on the interim constitution. Unresolved local government issues included financial liability, effective public management, and cultural diversity.115 There were five local government issues at the beginning of 1993: 1. All sides agreed that local government negotiations were stuck and awaited a national settlement; 2. In the interim, local governments needed to have an appointed administrator; 3. Civics (community organizations that supported the ANC in the townships) were unable to force the collapse of the state, but the state could not prop up local government; 4. The National Party government unilaterally intended to terminate bridging finance to local governments as soon as they could, since majority-ruled local authorities would have little sympathy for the National Party electorally; and 5. The old white provincial authorities took de facto charge of interim negotiations and arrangements, including service fee collection. The stalemate in the cities occurred in part because the ANC did not like the idea that local agreements might be reached before national negotiations were completed. The ANC and government would make local negotiations possible but also kept them in line with the national process.116 Given the popularity of the civics in urban areas, there was a danger that they might emerge as alternative power centers to the ANC.117 Each of the five issues would have to be addressed by the series of local government forums that came to negotiate grassroots government between 1994 and 1996. What came to be called the local government “forum model” (based on the Metropolitan Chamber) confirmed the bipolar division of membership in transitional local authorities with a nonstatutory membership of 50 percent selected under the banner of the South African National Civic Organization (SANCO). A statutory 50 percent consisted of representatives of existing segregated local government authorities, representatives of local government associations, white provinces, and the National Party government. On the unofficial side within the Mass Democratic Movement, an internal coalition of political forces aligned to the African National Congress, SANCO was particularly important in defining patterns of governance and civil society in South Africa.118 Between 1990 and 1994, levels of conflict remained high in the urban areas. Among many people in the townships, hostilities were often based on

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dominant feelings of ethnic identity. In residential single-sex hostels, which housed miners and other workers, the leadership had strong social control elements and there was evidence of middle-class pride. Between 1990 and 1994 the so-called third force came to define both urban conflict and police action. A Zulu hostel commander admitted police bias and in 1992 observed that the security forces would generally pull away when shooting began in hostel attacks on township residents. Ultimately, local-level negotiations in Soweto and in several other metropolitan areas would have to include single-sex hostels that were residential communities, recognizing that reconciling the popular demonology of the Inkatha-ANC conflict with social stability and aspiration was difficult.119 The first step in transforming local government was to suspend all of the existing racially elected local councils in the country.120 Negotiating forums had developed in all of the major cities, and as part of the negotiated transition interim arrangements were made (prior to the 1994–1996 elections) that allowed the bipolar equality of power between historically white cities and representatives of the major civics in the area. At the local level, a new structure of multiracial local authorities was created. Quotas were allowed in urban municipalities, with 30 percent of seats reserved for whites. Coming out of the stalemate in late 1993, the bilateral Local Government Negotiating Forum was established to negotiate the local government transition nationally.121 The establishment of the National Local Government Negotiating Forum occurred on March 22, 1993, after five months of centralized local government negotiations at the national level; it became the basis of local government transformation after 1994. There were to be four stages to the process:122 1. The replacement of all existing apartheid-based local authorities with nominated and equally balanced Transitional Local Authorities (TLAs); 2. The establishment of a forum of sixty members drawn equally from statutory and nonstatutory organizations, as the basis for the TLAs; 3. Elections of transitional local governments (weighted in favor of whites) in 1995; and 4. Nonweighted, reconstituted local governments, elected after a second round of national elections, in late 2000.

Conclusion In South Africa at the beginning of 1994, local government often remained in the hands of unelected local-level officials from the central government,

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white councils, and regional services. With only minimal capacity, much administration lay in the hands of the administrative entity that represented the South African late apartheid state (the superintendent, the magistrate, boards, and segregated councils that passed for local government in 1990). Some local councils had a modicum of staff, and, in the former homeland areas, there continued to be the magistrates, traditional administration, chiefs, subchiefs, headmen, and their immediate staff. Administrators, in turn, had to intersect with elected local government councilors who often had very limited human capacity and fiscal responsibility. Rural development prospects improved with the announcement in 1999 that the South African government under Thabo Mbeki was committed to a policy of integrated rural development.123 Local governance systems in postapartheid South Africa resulted in the conundrum of unfunded mandates that could be traced to the negotiations described above and elaborated upon in Chapters 7 and 8.

Notes 1. Comment of a South African academic, Picard’s research diary, July 15, 1990. 2. W. A. de Klerk, The Puritans in Africa: A Story of Afrikanerdom (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), p. 285. 3. Shaun Johnson, The Native Commissioner (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2006), p. 78. 4. W. B. Vosloo, D. A. Kotze, and W. J. O. Jeppe, eds., “South Africa: Local Government in White Areas,” in Local Government in Southern Africa, ed. W. B. Vosloo, D. A. Kotze, and W. J. O. Jeppe (Pretoria: Academica, 1974), pp. 55–99. 5. For a discussion of this, see T. R. H. Davenport, The Transfer of Power in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998), pp. 49–50 and 72–73. 6. Robert Cameron, “The Institutional Parameters of Local Government Restructuring in South Africa,” in Government by the People: The Politics of Local Government in South Africa, ed. Chris Heymans and Gerhard Totemeyer (Cape Town: Juta, 1988), p. 50. 7. Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries, From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administration Boards in South Africa, 1971–1973 (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1987). 8. Annette Seegers, “The Head of Government and the Executive,” in Leadership and the Apartheid State: From Malan to De Klerk, ed. Robert Schrire (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 49. 9. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 125. 10. Revenue Accounts registered all income paid into local authorities through taxes, rates, or payments for services. in Local Government in Southern Africa, ed. W. B. Vosloo, D. A. Kotze, and W. J. O. Jeppe (Pretoria: Academica, 1974), p. 121. 11. Nigel Mandy, A City Divided: Johannesburg and Soweto (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 184–187. 12. Vosloo, “South Africa: Local Government in White Areas,” p. 42.

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13. George M. Fredrickson, Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 119–120. 14. Stephen Clingman, Bram Fischer: Afrikaner Revolutionary (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998), p. 176. 15. Hilda Bernstein, The World That Was Ours: The Story of the Rivonia Trial (London: SAWriters, 1989), p. 18. 16. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Randlords: The Exploits and Exploitations of South Africa’s Mining Magnates (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 148. 17. Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, From Apartheid to NationBuilding (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 5. 18. T. B. Floyd, Better Local Government for South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1982), p. 189. 19. William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 96. 20. Floyd, Better Local Government, p. 183. 21. W. D. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus: The Development of Transkeian Local Government (Cape Town: David Philip, 1975), p. 209. 22. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 222. 23. D. A. Kotze, African Politics in South Africa, 1964–1974: Parties and Issues (London: C. Hurst, 1975), p. 25. 24. William M. [Lord] Hailey, An African Survey, Revised 1956 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 426; Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, pp. 195–196. 25. Patrick Laurence, The Transkei: South Africa’s Politics of Partition (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1976), p. 23. 26. R. W. Johnson, South Africa: The First Man, the Last Nation (London: Phoenix, 2006), p. 116. 27. The governor-general could commit to district and local councils any functions that he regarded as suitable to local administration. Councils were authorized to make regulations for locations and commonages, grazing, enclosing of arable land, number and position of huts and kraals upon commonages, beer drinking and native dances, forests, and outspans. Floyd, Better Local Government, pp. 185–186. 28. Gwendolyn M. Carter, Which Way Is South Africa Going? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 35. 29. According to the Bantu Authorities Act of 1953. See Progress Through Separate Development: South Africa in Peaceful Transition (New York: Information Service of South Africa, 1973), p. 46. 30. Laurine Platzky and Cherryl Walker, “Review of Relocation,” South African Review One: Same Foundations, New Facades? (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p. 85. 31. Kotze, African Politics in South Africa, 1964–1974, p. 27. 32. Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries, From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administration Boards in South Africa: 1971–1983 (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1985), p. 10. 33. Martin Meredith, In the Name of Apartheid: South Africa in the Post-War Period (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988), pp. 142–143. 34. Leon Louw and Frances Kendall, South Africa: The Solution (Bisho, Ciskei: Amagi Books, 1986), p. 33. 35. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 11.

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36. Leon Louw and Frances Kendall, The Solution (Bisho, Ciskei: Amagi Publications, 1987), p. 12. 37. Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, “South Africa Since 1976: An Historical Perspective,” in South Africa: No Turning Back, ed. Shaun Johnson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), p. 23. 38. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 22. 39. Ibid., p. 73. 40. Neil Hooper, “Oppressive! Dictatorial, Totalitarian South Africa,” Sunday Times, August 9, 1981, 8. 41. Jeffrey Butler, Robert I. Rotberg, and John Adams, The Black Homelands of South Africa: The Political and Economic Development of Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 228. 42. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 136. 43. Ibid., p. 133. 44. Ibid., p. 77. 45. Ibid., p. 132. 46. Cosmas Desmond, The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 33. 47. Carter, Which Way Is South Africa Going? p. 44. 48. See ibid., p. 1; and “Government Comes Under the Lash,” Rand Daily Mail, July 24, 1981, 1. 49. Ameen Akhalwaya, “Boards Under Fire Over Lost Millions,” Rand Daily Mail, July 24, 1981, 4; “Government Bungling Comes Under the Lash,” Rand Daily Mail, July 24, 1981, 1. 50. “Government Bungling,” pp. 1–2. 51. South Africa: History (Reprint from the official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa) (Cape Town: Government Printer, 1986), p. 23. 52. “Obie Calls for a Minister of Local Government,” Rand Daily Mail, February 10, 1981, 2. 53. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 27. 54. Officials used the terms “free enterprise” and “avoidance of discrimination” to describe the system. See ibid., p. 28. 55. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, pp. 99–100. 56. Marks and Trapido, “South Africa Since 1976,” p. 31. 57. “Soweto Elections Are Postponed Until 1982,” Rand Daily Mail, August 1, 1980, 1. 58. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 90. 59. The British system of government in which the legislative branch (parliament) selects the prime minister. 60. Simon Bekker, “Devolution and the State’s Programme of Reform at Local Level,” in Government by the People, ed. Chris Heymans and Gerhard Totemeyer (Johannesburg: Juta, 1988), p. 31. 61. Chris Heymans, “The Political and Constitutional Context of Local Government Restructuring,” in Government by the People, ed. Chris Heymans and Gerhard Totemeyer (Johannesburg: Juta, 1988), p. 36. 62. Cameron, “The Institutional Parameters,” p. 49. 63. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 34. 64. Cameron, “The Institutional Parameters,” p. 60. 65. Ibid., p. 61. 66. Adam and Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid, p. 232.

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67. Vanessa Watson, “Towards New Forms of Local Government in a Future South Africa,” in Government by the People, ed. Chris Heymans and Gerhard Totemeyer (Johannesburg: Juta, 1988), pp. 167–181. 68. Steven Mufson, Fighting Years: Black Resistance and the Struggle for a New South Africa (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990), p. 49. 69. Van Zyl Slabbert and David Welsh, South Africa’s Options: Strategies for Sharing (London: Rex Collings 1979), as quoted in Donald L. Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa: Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 145. 70. Jeremy Seekings, “Political Mobilization in the Black Townships of South Africa,” in Frankel, Pines, and Swilling, State, Resistance and Change, p. 206. 71. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 106. 72. Steven Friedman, “SOWETO: Managing the Transition,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 106. 73. Chris Heymans and Roland White, “Playing Politics Without Power: The State of Black Local Governments in the South Africa of the 1980s/90s,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science, 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 3–27. See especially p. 7. 74. Cameron, “The Institutional Parameters,” p. 56. 75. Jeremy Grest and Heather Hughes, “State Strategy and Popular Response at the Local Level,” in South African Review 2, ed. South African Research Service (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984), pp. 45–46. 76. Nicoli Nattrass, “The KwaNatal Indaba and the Politics of Promising Too Much,” in Can South Africa Survive? Five Minutes to Midnight, ed. John D. Brewer (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 168. 77. Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, pp. 113–114. 78. Section 10 of the Blacks (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act. See ibid., p. 26. 79. Allister Sparks, The Mind of South Africa (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1990), p. 322. 80. Philip Frankel, Noam Pines, and Mark Swilling, “Beyond Apartheid: Pathways for Transition,” in State, Resistance and Change in South Africa, ed. Philip Frankel, Noam Pines, and Mark Swilling (New York: Croom Helm, 1988), p. 282. 81. Gerhard Mare, “The New Constitution: Extending Democracy or Decentralising Control?” in South Africa Review 3, ed. South African Research Service (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986), p. 219. 82. Alan Lester, From Colonialism to Democracy: A New Historical Geography of South Africa (London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1998), p. 220. 83. Sparks, The Mind of South Africa, p. 331; Lawrence Schlemmer, “South Africa’s National Party Government,” in A Future South Africa: Visions, Strategies and Realities, ed. Peter L. Berger and Bobby Godsell (Cape Town: Human and Rousseau, 1989), p. 13. 84. Willem de Klerk, The Second (R)evolution: Afrikanerdom and the Crisis of Identity (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1984), p. 42. 85. Jeremy Grest, “The Crisis of Local Government in South Africa,” in Frankel, Pines, and Swilling, State, Resistance and Change, p. 110; and William Cobbett, Daryl Glaser, Doug Hindson, and Mark Swilling, “South Africa’s Regional Political Economy: A Critical Analysis of Reform Strategy in the 1980s,” in South African Review 3, ed. South African Research Service (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1990), pp. 150–151.

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86. Richard Humphries, “Whither Regional Services Councils?” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khehla Shubane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 88. 87. Sakhela Buhlungu and Doreen Atkinson, “Politics: Introduction,” in State of the Nation South Africa 2007, ed. Sakhela Buhlungu, John Daniel, Roger Southalll, and Jessica Lutchman (Pretoria: HSRC Press, 2007), p. 28. 88. Heymans and White, “Playing Politics Without Power,” pp. 3–27. See especially p. 6. 89. See Bekker and Humphries, From Control to Confusion, p. 90 and passim. 90. Paul Hendler, “The Housing Crisis,” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khehla Subane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 200. 91. Ibid. 92. Alison Todes, Vanessa Watson, and Peter Wilkinson, “Local Government Restructuring in South Africa: The Case of the Western Cape,” in Regional Restructuring Under Apartheid: Urban and Regional Policies in Contemporary South Africa, ed. Richard Tomlinson and Mark Addleson (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), pp. 129–130. 93. This began to dismantle South Africa’s system of influx control. 94. Todes, Watson, and Wilkinson, “Local Government Restructuring in South Africa,” p. 124. 95. Gerrit V. N. Viljoen (minister of constitutional development and planning, Pretoria), interview with Picard, August 21, 1990. 96. Seekings, “Political Mobilization,” p. 209. 97. The Border area of the then Eastern Cape was located between the two black homelands of the Transkei and the Ciskei. The major cities in this area were East London and King Williams Town. 98. For a discussion of the above see Richard Humphries and Khehla Shubane, “A Tale of Two Squirrels: The 1988 Local Government Elections and Their Implications,” in South Africa at the End of the Eighties: Policy Perspectives, 1989, ed. Robin Lee and Lawrence Schlemmer (Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, 1989), p. 94. 99. Interviews with Picard, S. S. Mokone, then mayor of Mamelodi (township near Pretoria), August 14, 1990; J. D. Nel, town clerk, Mamelodi, August 14, 1990; and Simon Mabusela, city secretary, Mamelodi, August 1, 1990. 100. BLA budgets were above white politics by the late 1980s. The 1989/1990 budgets were agreed to easily by all parties (Humphries and Shubane, “A Tale of Two Squirrels,” p. 108). Conservative Party–controlled white city councils in the Northern Transvaal faced the same challenges from the townships as did liberal councilors in Johannesburg and Cape Town. 101. The committee was appointed to investigate financial implications of BLAs on white local government. See Nigel Mandy, “Local Government Finance and Institutional Reform,” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khehla Shubane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 123. See also, G. W. G. Browne, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Finances of Local Government in South Africa (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1980). 102. Todes, Watson, and Wilkinson, “Local Government Restructuring,” p. 118. 103. Humphries and Shubane, “A Tale of Two Squirrels,” p. 91.

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104. Mandy, “Local Government Finance and Institutional Reform,” p. 134. 105. Denis Beckett, Permanent Peace: From Apartheid to Democracy (Johannesburg: Saga Press, 1985), p. 14. 106. Fanie Cloete, Local Government Transformation in South Africa (Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, 1995), p. 3. 107. William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (Johannesburg: Zebra Press, 2005), p. 78. 108. Buhlungu and Atkinson, “Politics: Introduction,” p. 29. 109. Ibid., p. 6. 110. Lawrence Schlemmer, “Challenges of Process and Policy,” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khehla Shubane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 363. 111. Mark Swilling and Khehla Shubane, “Negotiating Urban Transition: The Soweto Experience,” in Transition to Democracy: Policy Perspectives 1991, ed. Robin Lee and Lawrence Schlemmer (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 253. 112. Mark Swilling and Lawrence Boya, “Local Government in Transition,” in Managing Sustainable Development in South Africa, ed. Patrick FitzGerald, Ann McLennan, and Barry Munslow (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 168–194. 113. Mandy, “Local Government Finance,” p. 134. 114. Swilling and Shubane, “Negotiating Urban Transition,” p. 255. 115. Tom Lodge, Consolidating Democracy: South Africa’s Second Popular Election (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1999), pp. 41–45. See also Dirk Kotze, “The New South African Constitution,” in South Africa: Designing New Political Institutions, ed. Murray Faure and Jan-Erik Lane (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 38–47. 116. David Ottaway, Chained Together: Mandela, De Klerk, and the Struggle to Remake South Africa (New York: Times Books, 1993), p. 124. 117. Tom Lodge, “The African National Congress in the 1990s” in South African Review 6: From “Red Friday” to CODESA, ed. Glenn Moss and Ingrid Obery (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1992), p. 61. 118. Mungo Soggot, “SANCO Crippled by Debt,” Weekly Mail and Guardian, April 25–May 1, 1997, 4. 119. For a discussion of the above see Bill Keller, “Island of Fear: Inside a Soweto Hostel,” New York Times Magazine, September 14, 1992, pp. 33–37 and 48–49. 120. T. R. H. Davenport, The Transfer of Power in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998), p. 72. 121. Cloete, Local Government Transformation in South Africa, p. 4. 122. Adrian Guelke, South Africa in Transition: The Misunderstood Miracle (London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1999), p. 160. 123. “Smooth Transition in South Africa,” Finance Africa (August/September, 1999): 13.

7 The Local State vs. Local Governance After Apartheid

I

n the transitional years preceding 1994, debate about local governance in the townships was dominated by progressive organizations of the Mass Democratic Movement and a system of grassroots committees that came to influence social and political policy and the nature of urban conflict. The ANC was not a fully democratic organization during the apartheid period—a factor that was to create problems in the future. At the local level, the ANC often mobilized around “Big Men” who distributed patronage favors.1 Reports of authoritarian inclinations among the new ANC local leaders surfaced in a number of townships.2 The lack of popular participation in democratic local government produced inefficient, corrupt ANC councilors. The new local-level African councilors elected in 1995 and 1996 were at times befuddled by the complexities of municipal governance. Political power, by default, often remained where it had been, in the hands of the white politicians and bureaucrats of the old regime.3 Because of the weakness of local government prior to 1994, the opposition National Party at the local level was on the lookout for black allies.4 In this chapter we examine the debates and the policy choices that were made at the local governance level during the Mandela and Mbeki years. Given that local governance was central to the negotiations process, it was inevitable that much of the competition for resources would occur at the local level, particularly in the country’s large metropolitan areas. Debates about policy would merge into a growing realization that a resource base did not exist for urban or rural service delivery, as we will see in Chapter 8.

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The Local Governance Plan The new nonracial government that came to power on May 10, 1994, initially did not understand all of the implications of local government at the national level. Critics pointed to the Government of National Unity’s (GNU’s) failure initially to establish a Ministry of Local Government in 1994. The ANC leadership in that year belatedly added local government to the Department of Constitutional Government’s portfolio and determined that it had the authority to appoint local government transitional forums where they had not evolved locally. Throughout 1994, critics of the GNU argued that the ANC’s credibility was at risk because of the continuing difficulties it faced in establishing legitimate interim local-level authorities. Although the legal structures of apartheid were at least partly removed, the postapartheid government inherited existing mechanisms of control and budgeting. In urban South Africa, new forms of governance were negotiated (albeit accompanied by urban violence), a process that would take several years to complete. Local government responsibilities under the Local Government Transition Act of 1994 included water supply, sanitation, transportation, electricity, primary health services, education, housing, and security.5 Despite the transitional arrangements made during the negotiations, after 1994 there was a substantial disconnect between civil society and the state. The ANC national elites continued to prefer centralization after 1994.6 Self-governance debates were directly linked to the civil service debate, where attempts to restructure the civil service at the local government level were in danger of being stymied because of a statist nationallevel policy administered by a national bureaucracy that appeared to function as a rigid, rule-driven hierarchy.7 But a strong developmental state would require strong regional and local-level self-governance, a tolerance for internal and external debate and criticism, and a strong and vibrant civil society, actively involved at all levels of government.8 The new ANC-dominated GNU faced the immediate task of rationalizing some 1,200, mostly racially based, local authorities. As an interim move ahead of local elections scheduled for 1996, existing racial councils were replaced by nonracial structures, giving equal representation to former white councils and (except in KwaZulu-Natal) ANC-dominated civics in the black townships. By mid-1994, 104 local forums had applied to government to take over local authorities, and throughout South Africa black mayors and chief executive officers took formal control of municipal councils. Pre-interim authorities and the central government faced the problem of deficient population data at the local government level, which made it dif-

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ficult to ensure adequate representation. However, by 1995 the number of local government entities had been reduced from 1,262 to 855. ANC policy toward local government retained a strong urban bias.9 Though it opposed autonomous federal provinces, the ANC advocated powerful, although not fully autonomous, metropolitan local government authorities. However, it invested little effort in planning for the 1996 local government elections. One exception was in Gauteng, where Gauteng development planning and local government executive committee member Sicelo Shiceka announced the formation of a multiparty task force in December 1996, which it should be noted, was not fully representative, to investigate the transformation of provincial local governments in accordance with national policy. The transformation process included evaluating the composition of town councils and councilors to eliminate the duplication of staffing and resources within local government structures.10 The GNU sought to streamline local government. According to one authoritative observer, the key to local government reform was to progressively “do away with the massive imbalances between regions and between urban and rural areas within regions.”11 In the metropolitan urban areas, existing local government structures gave way to interim ones that possessed full executive power.12 Several of the new provinces, such as Gauteng, the Western Cape, and surprisingly (given its frontier reputation), the Northern Cape, had quite efficient local authorities. In the Northern Cape, local governments were unusually effective organizationally.13 Local authorities were well-established and merely had to incorporate additional (though numerous) citizens. In most of the rest of the country, however, local authorities faced critical fiscal, human resources, and political challenges that limited their ability to deliver social and economic services. In terms of local civil society, professional associations had substantial power, while ratepayers associations had little. SANCO, the South African National Civic Organization, which exhibited significant independence, was particularly troublesome for the ANC on this issue.14 In most cases, local government changes in the urban areas were a belated adjustment to what was already happening economically and often incorporated attempts by the central government to control and guide the new urban economy.15 Despite economic changes proposed under the Reconstruction and Development program (RDP), the postapartheid South African government still had to transform local government into a “more democratic, transparent and open system without elite decisionmaking.16 In the cities, “numerous tenuous institutions [fought] for community control, [where] established social institutions [were] substantially weakened and state control [receded], opening up opportunities for potential strongmen to consolidate power.”17 The economic transformation meant

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that urban local governments had to deal with a continuing influx of people who established squatter settlements. When the Johannesburg City Council attempted to forcibly expel squatters from the city, the resulting criticism was reminiscent of earlier times when white council authorities demolished squatter settlements. In June 1994, as a result of the controversy, the city council abandoned meaningful control of squatters. Local government elections were held in 1995 and 1996 and again in 2000 and 2006. In the transitional elections (1995–1996), little provision was made for the needs of rural voters, who made up at least one-third of the electorate, and operations in the rural areas were incomplete and ad hoc.18 Afterward, the newly elected rural representatives discovered that there were no administrative structures to enable them to perform their duties and that “community mobilization depended largely on the cooperation of the traditional leaders.”19 In many parts of rural South Africa, traditional leaders still had the capacity to mobilize, influence, or block their community activities. Local governments were not equipped to meet the challenges of economic pressures. By early 1995 newspaper reports suggested widespread confusion over local government structures, considerable disillusionment over basic services, and a perception that the Government of National Unity (GNU) led by the ANC had failed to deliver on its 1994 campaign promises. Polls suggested there would be low voter registration and widespread voter apathy during the forthcoming local government elections. Despite these uncertainties, local government elections were held in November 1995, except in two provinces. Elections were postponed until mid-1996 in the Western Cape over district boundary issues and in KwaZulu-Natal due to controversy over the role of traditional authorities. The June 1996 local government elections in KwaZulu-Natal ended a two-year process of local government electoral transition that began with the 1994 national elections. Except in the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal and in the Western Cape, the ANC won majorities comparable to the results of the 1994 national elections. However, voting patterns in local government elections reflected the same deep ethnic and regional cleavages that were present in the 1994 general elections.20 Due to the weighted voting schemes that favored existing voters (whites) agreed to as part of the negotiations in the 1995–1996 local government elections, on average whites received three votes (mandates) for every black vote and enjoyed virtual veto power over budgeting.21 The 1996 Constitution provided for strong, entrenched local government.22 The framers had focused on three critical issues related to local government: original powers, resource transfers, and local representation at higher levels of government. In the final document, the different branches

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of government would, in theory, exercise exclusive powers and perform their functions in a way that did not encroach on the geographical, functional, or institutional integrity of another branch.23 The constitution made local government a separate sphere with original powers. 24 Local government was to focus on the basic needs of its constituents by undertaking a number of agency functions for higher levels of government. They followed the subsidiarity principle in which the lowest level of government with the capacity to carry out the function implemented government policy. Many small town and rural councils, however, were unviable financially and did not have the human resource capacity to deliver services.25 In terms of representation, the local government would be populated based on the number of inhabitants in each jurisdiction and a first-past-the-post electoral system rather than proportional representation.26 In March 1996 Minister of Constitutional Development Mohammed Valli Moosa announced that the national government would turn its attention to the powers of local government, which had not been addressed in the interim negotiated constitution. Instead of a federal system, in which local governments would fall under provinces, Moosa stated that local government, following the constitution, would be an autonomous tier. Eventually, there would be a separate Ministry of Local Government at the central level to deal with local government issues.27 The 1996 Constitution prevented a “provincial government from impeding or interfering in municipal powers.”28 The performance of local authorities continued to be a sensitive issue. Interestingly, the creation of the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (MCGTA) in 2010 continued the control of provincial and local government through the MCGTA. The country’s new final constitution was approved by the National Assembly in 1996, and the National Party—to the surprise of the ANC and many observers—resigned from the Government of National Unity. With no elections scheduled for three years, South Africa embarked on the institutional transition that would begin defining the postapartheid state. Local government jurisdictions, for the most part, were limited to urban areas, with rural areas clustered in separate upper-tier district councils with rural advisory boards or, in some areas, fully developed rural transitional councils.29 Debate continued over the role of special interest groups such as ratepayers, commercial farmers, and female farm workers, all of whom demanded seats on local government bodies.30 At the heart of the issue was the extent to which any nonelective vehicle for representation should be built into the local governance system. Outside of the mega-cities, boundaries needed to be rationalized in order to create fewer, more effective, local and district councils.31 According to one observer, “Serious developmental problems have now been

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dumped into the laps of previous artificially viable white local governments.”32 By 1997 local government had become a source of conflict between the ANC and the National Party over representation in the restructured upper house (formerly the Senate and then the National Council of Provinces, which had replaced the tricameral body in 1994). The National Party demanded minority (i.e., white) representation, while the ANC insisted that the principle of majority rule prevail in the selection of local government representatives. Political tensions remained high at the grassroots level (particularly in the Western Cape and in Johannesburg) between the National Party and the ANC throughout the GNU period. In one incident, demoted councilors in Johannesburg refused to resign to reduce the size of the council. 33 In some cases, leaders of both parties would refuse to appear on the same stage with their opponents.34 In Johannesburg, officials alleged their posts were downgraded after the ANC restructured the city’s local authorities in January 1997 despite the agreement to restructure the councils as part of the move to nonracial governance.35 At the local level, according to one ANC councilor, the “municipal functionaries [were] adept at throwing up a seemingly imperceptible array of bureaucratic chaff.”36 African National Congress politicians would complain of bureaucratic tyranny but in practice often allied with old apartheid-era bureaucrats to ensure speedy processing times for implementing decisions. Tensions were particularly high in the Western Cape, where black South Africans only represented one-quarter of the population. In the poverty-stricken areas of the Western Cape Province, very little changed after 1994 from a developmental perspective. Within the GNU, there was a particularly deep-seated lack of understanding about the role of local government in the rural areas of the province.37 Throughout the Western Cape, apartheid bureaucrats, of which about 80 percent was Afrikaner, still controlled local governments.38 Almost all of the residents of the rural Western Cape also spoke Afrikaans. For many residents of urban areas, majority rule did not bring changes for the better. In one black township, a sign at the entrance stated, “NO NEW HOME CONSTRUCTION ALLOWED , BY ORDER OF THE COUNCIL .” 39 This was a futile attempt to stem the rapid influx of rural people into urban areas. The disturbing image of local government in South Africa’s postapartheid cities was far too often that of urban centers “in decline, from the cessation of road marking services to the cessation of rates collection to the cessation of decision-making and minute-taking.”40 One of the main issues that faced metropolitan local government remained the problem (and probability) of urban violence.41 Central Johannesburg was an example of an area whose future was in doubt with the decline of the former central business district.42 Privatization

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of assets, reluctantly agreed to by the ANC in order to control costs, was particularly controversial in Johannesburg, with massive demonstrations in October 1999 against what was labeled economic apartheid. Over 10,000 workers clashed with police over the issue on October 26,1999.

The Local Government White Paper The limited capacity at the local government level under the GNU meant that development projects could not be sustained at the local government level. For example, 25 percent of water projects had ceased to function by 1998.43 Where expansion did occur, municipal funds were mainly “expended on existing services, which were . . . concentrated in historically white neighborhoods.”44 Improving the townships would have to depend upon capital grants from the central government. The problem with primary local government was an absence of operating systems and differences in the nature of subsidies.45 For most of the GNU, budgets continued to relate closely to the needs of the former white local governments. The pass through (or revenue transfers) continued to be constant through the end of fiscal year 1996–1997 given the inability of local government to raise its own revenues. The fiscal year 1997–1998 was the last year based upon apartheid-era bridging finance. Civil society capacity also declined during the GNU. The restructuring of local government was meant to end the existence of independent local government associations in order to create lean, efficient administrative systems. This was not achieved, however. Municipalities, in line with GNU policy, would have to join the highly centralized South African Local Government Association (SALGA) in order to receive central government funding. The local government transition was lengthy and only completed after the November 2000 elections.46 In large part because of the decline in the capacity of local government (and the services that it was supposed to deliver), surveys in several parts of the country in 1997 and 1998 revealed widespread disillusionment with local government. Voters in several surveys felt that their local government had not delivered the services it had promised, and, according to polls, many township dwellers stated that they would not vote for their representatives again. In response to the local government crisis, the central government published the White Paper on Local Government in March 1998, which provided a concise summary of the status of local government in South Africa.47 The White Paper noted that there were 843 primary local authorities and over 11,000 democratically elected councilors. It pointed out that over half of the population of South Africa was urbanized. The remain-

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der of the population, mainly black and totaling over 40 percent of the population, remained in the rural areas. Instead of a federal system, the 1998 local government White Paper mandated separate authorities for provincial and local government, with both reporting directly to the national government. Local government in South Africa, according to the White Paper, would be complex and would have two tiers—local and district. The White Paper used the term “municipality” as the basic unit and seemed to apply it to both rural and urban areas. Every geographic part of South Africa was said to be included as part of a municipality—hence the use of the term “wall-to-wall municipality.” The three higher tier categories of councils identified in the White Paper were Metros with subdivision, such as Johannesburg and Cape Town, Metros without subdivisions, and district councils, which included small towns and rural areas. The White Paper was long on policy prescription, as was the case with many of GNU reports, and short on strategies for implementation. The White Paper on Local Government described local governments as instruments of planning, coordination, and mobilization that were responsible for local economic development and preparations for integrated development. In order to promote social and economic advancement, local authorities would have to “actively develop ways to leverage resources and investment from both the public and private sectors to meet development targets.”48 To ensure the best quality of life for all of South Africa’s citizens, the national government, according to the White Paper, would have to adopt a more prescriptive approach toward municipal transformation. At the local government level, there was no provision in the allocation process for monitoring and evaluating implementation. The White Paper candidly described many local authorities as weak and characterized them as having “hierarchical line departments, poor coordination between line departments, and authoritarian management practice.”49 The paper regarded many local government employees as poorly skilled. In order to address this severe capacity problem, the White Paper proposed provincial training structures coordinated by provincial local government associations and by the South African Local Government Association. Local authorities would also have the option to contract-out training. The White Paper also suggested the possibility of seconding staff to local authorities from provincial and national governments. Implementation of the Local Government White Paper’s recommendations only began in late 1998, at the end of the GNU. After 1994 urban municipalities had to absorb large numbers of people from the urban townships who had been excluded from the municipality under the apartheid dispensation. In 1999 a decision was made to form

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“unicities” in the large metropolitan areas. These were to be Category A municipalities that would incorporate all, or most, of the large metropolitan areas. “Unicities” would allow for greater redistribution of resources and would incorporate huge bureaucratic structures. The goal of the unicity was to centralize decisionmaking at higher levels, as part of a broader centralization process allowing for cross-subsidization of resources.50 The national government also wanted to have more district councils and fewer local-level councils in the rural areas.51 The goal of these changes was to link poorer peri-urban and rural entities with the former white cities.52 The average small-to-medium size white city of 20,000 people employed about 200 people in 1990. 53 By 1994 the number of administrators might have increased by about 25 percent to 250, while through the inclusion of black areas, the number of residents might have grown to over 300,000. Ventersdorp, after 1994 a town of over 20,000 people, had only forty municipal workers in 1999. Of these, only three were black. Because of government subsidies, over 60 percent of the budget had been earmarked to upgrade infrastructure in the black and coloured townships.54

Subnational Governmental Structures, 1994–2009 Next we turn to the evolution of local government during the Mandela and Mbeki administrations. (The situation during the Zuma years is examined in Chapter 11.) Local government institutions were created legislatively in a series of actions and phases after 1994 and lacked institutional protection, fiscal independence, or administrative control over their employees. Even metropolitan authorities are considered to function largely as social service delivery systems rather than as political decisionmakers, though this is an important function in South Africa. Though South Africa functions entirely within the framework of its written constitution, it remains highly centralized politically, fiscally, and administratively. There is no direct local government representation at the provincial or national level (though there is token representation of local government in the National Council of Provinces) and the provincial and local governments function with different mandates.55 Local government is not considered a subunit of provinces, although they do have (a sometimes confusing) shared responsibility for policy implementation. The institutional framework for decentralization is based on three things: the 100-year history of white local government, which goes back to the 1890s in the Cape; the urban base of challenges to apartheid, which focused resistance largely on segregated local government structures in the

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1980s; and a series of constitutional and legislative arrangements that evolved out of the negotiations between the National Party and the ANC between 1990 and 1994. This legacy affected the administrative and political interface in local government between 1994 and 2010. Many of these mechanisms are well established and institutionalized, while others are more transient or fluid. Observers saw local government components as critical to the successful completion of the negotiations leading to nonracial elections and a democratic government. The agreement was hammered out during the ANC– National Party negotiations at the Johannesburg World Trade Center between 1990 and 1994 especially after the 1992 escalation of violence in several townships and at Bisho in the Ciskei brought both sides back to the negotiations table after talks nearly collapsed.56 The sequencing of decentralization has been complex. The rationale for decentralization came out of the negotiations between the ANC and the National Party. The timing of decentralization, relative to other major governance changes, was based on the negotiations process. Political decentralization thus came first as a result of the 1990–1994 negotiations. That said, it was built atop a set of administrative and fiscal practices that had been introduced much earlier and conformed to the policies of P. W. Botha in the 1980s. Many of these fiscal and administrative procedures remain in place today. At the local government level, the focus was on combining black and white units of local government and creating new entities that incorporated all segments of the population into devolved political units. The National Party preferred small units, while the ANC lobbied for larger units in large cities and the creation of metropolitan entities. As was the case with most elements of the negotiations process, the ANC won out, resulting in large urban and six metropolitan governments, which in practice were also more deconcentrated than devolved. After 1994, the ANC-dominated government sought to increase the administrative capacity of local authorities to deliver services, not to increase citizen participation in their government.57 The ANC-led government had two concerns regarding decentralization: ideology and political control. ANC leaders believed in a planned process of economic development even within the framework of market principles adopted after 1996. It did not wish to see deviations from its policies, as has been the case at various times in Natal and the Western Cape and occasionally in opposition-led local governments in medium and small municipalities elsewhere. Secondly, both the ANC leadership and the public regarded subnational governments as administratively weak and corrupt. This led to increased central government control of fiscal authority of all subnational authorities after 2000.58

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Several political, social, and economic factors all help to explain the decision to decentralize and the limits placed on decentralization. Politically, opposition to the ANC plays itself out at the subnational government level. Politics remains intimately defined by regional political culture in South Africa. Opposition from both the left and the right is geographically delineated. The social dimensions of provincial, and especially local government, continue to be determined by racially defined distinctions. Residency, service delivery, size of local government units, and taxation issues all indirectly link to race and to residential patterns, which remain, except for a narrow elite, largely segregated. The Northern Cape, the Western Cape, Gauteng, and Natal all have large numbers of non-African groups (white, mixed-race, and Asian). Only 25 percent of the population of the Western Cape is African, a fact that makes its politics much different there than in neighboring provinces, particularly in the three rural provinces that were carved out of the old Transvaal.59 In turn, it is the magnitude of the problems in South Africa’s largest cities, especially Johannesburg and Cape Town, that have defined—or failed to define—economic reform. South Africa, rhetoric to the contrary, is a moderate state that has managed a growth-oriented liberal and privatized economy. Urban poverty and the accompanying crime remain and have not been addressed.60 Authority over subnational government is defined constitutionally, but that definition was influenced by the ANC’s political culture of centralized control and by historical patterns of state relationships with subnational government in South Africa. The balance among national, provincial, and local governments inherited from the National Party era and from earlier regimes has remained constant, if deracialized. South Africa is a unitary state, with subnational governments playing a largely deconcentrated, social service delivery role, albeit with elements of opposition located in certain geographical areas. This deconcentrated centralism has contributed to the stability of the South African political system in the years since the beginning of nonracial government, but it has meant an increasingly depoliticized and, in some cases, alienated electorate.61 The evolution of institutional decentralization can be divided into three parts. The first stage was the year 1994, when the interim constitution came into place. This constitution was more federal and devolved in nature than the later permanent constitution. Second, the 1996 permanent constitution removed most of the federal elements in national-provincial relations and defined a more unitary system of government. A third period began post-2000, when a series of legislative decisions and executive actions created a more streamlined local government system by reducing the number and strengthening national controls over local authorities.62

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The result was a more deconcentrated policymaking and implementation process. The legal framework for decentralization rests in the 1996 constitution and amendments. Legally, all subnational political institutions have de jure legislative and executive authority in their own spheres. Local government elections occur in five-year cycles. One person, one vote, defines all elections, though because of the use of higher-level district councils in the rural areas, rural voters enjoy a slight advantage in terms of weighted voting. Though the ANC is the dominant party in South Africa, close to a dozen political parties are represented at the provincial or local levels. Local government has provided a significant challenge for South Africa. While the country has made great strides in economic development, social equity has worsened, and local governments have failed to address issues of poor social service delivery. Municipalities are almost entirely financed by transfer income, with the exception that the large metros such as Johannesburg and Cape Town collect as much as 97 percent of their revenue. The South African government has admitted that municipalities have come under increased levels of stress since 2002 and carry unacceptable levels of unfunded mandates.63 Since 2006, South Africa has experienced a significant number of public demonstrations and violence resulting from the lack of social services.64 Bureaucratic inefficiency, political arrogance, corruption, and resistance to tax collection, according to ANC policy elites, can all been blamed on the local government crisis of 2006–2007.65 Authority outside of the national sphere is both deconcentrated and delegated. National programs in education, health, housing, water, and land use all define deconcentrated authority in South Africa’s deconcentrated departments and subnational authorities. The South African state has historically owned a wide number of enterprises and other parastatal bodies that control large sections of the economy. In practice, these bodies historically were used to recruit large numbers of Afrikaans-speakers into the public sector from the 1920s through the 1940s, and many of them carry out the governments’ current affirmative action goals. Historically, the government has controlled a wide range of economic sectors, including agricultural production, water, electricity and other energy, manufacturing, telecommunications, radio and television, transportation, mineral development, tourism, and defense and weapons management. In the late-apartheid period, the South African government, including the homeland governments, owned or controlled over 40 percent of the economy. Currently, the government participates in less than 25 percent of economic activity, though it still owns economic entities in several strategic sectors. Public corporations, at all levels of government, are legal entities

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with autonomous boards selected by the government and, in certain cases, interested groups. Except for scientific and social parastatals, they are legislated as commercialized entities. After decades of discussion, only limited powers and resources have been devolved to subnational government in South Africa. Most authority and the bulk of fiscal resources have been deconcentrated or delegated to government departments and public authorities. Moreover, the shortfalls of money at the local-government level have been significant and appear to be increasing. While the delegated sector appears to be shrinking as a component of the public sector, according to academic observers,66 a culture of oligarchy seems to be evolving that combines political and bureaucratic inefficiency with political arrogance and disdain for media scrutiny and public openness.67 Journalists and academics alike have raised concerns over the increasingly sluggish, openly elitist, and progressively closed system of political leadership within the ANC. The inability of opposition parties to make themselves relevant at the national level appears to have also limited their ability to challenge state authority at provincial and local government levels. Devolved local governance is needed to ensure the future of South African democracy.

Elections, Accountability, and Capacity Local Governance and Municipal Elections In terms of political accountability, local authorities are both devolved bodies with limited powers and deconcentrated agencies with strong central control. They are selected on a partisan basis in scheduled local government elections. Virtually all urban centers now function with executive mayors supported by a city manager and staff. In smaller municipalities, the town clerk has been replaced with more professionally trained municipal managers. While the structure and process of local government administration is English-style administration, the post-1994 municipal structures follow European practice and incorporate rural and urban areas into the same municipality. The enactment of the Municipal Demarcation Act, intended to revise municipal boundaries, led to the establishment of an independent Demarcation Board. The act provides the board with the criteria and procedures for the determination of municipal boundaries. The act stipulates demarcation objectives meant to enable the municipality to fulfill its constitutional obligations and the provision of democratic and accountable government for

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local communities. The controversial Demarcation Board is appointed by the president and consists of a full-time chair and between seven and fifteen members in total. There are currently 283 municipalities in South Africa, and their local government structures are divided into three categories. Category A is comprised of 6 metropolitan (or metro) councils, Category B includes 231 local councils, while Category C has 46 district councils, which bring together local councils in rural areas and small towns to provide economies of scale for service delivery. Voters will only be allowed to vote if they are registered on the voter roll for a particular voting district (the area around one voting station). The electoral process, considered free and fair by international standards, serves as the fundamental mechanism of political accountability and so far has ensured political stability in South Africa. Elections and responsible government are based upon political party majorities and a party-list system at the national and provincial levels and party-based elections at the local government level. It is to the electoral process that we now turn. The South African system of government relies on the constitution and legal framework; the electoral process; the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC); and the media, watchdog groups, and civil society representation to promote and safeguard transparency at the municipal level. The constitutional and legal architecture in South Africa is designed to promote and safeguard fundamental freedoms and human rights. Additional legislation provides for the establishment of watchdog institutions such as the public protector (similar to an ombudsman). Electoral law provides for mechanisms to address transparency in the electoral process. The formation of the nonpartisan IEC as an independent, statutory body provides avenues for all stakeholders to participate unhindered. The manner in which the IEC is constituted and the nomination process—members are selected by the president and approved by the legislature—is designed to guarantee transparency and hence impartiality in its operations. The IEC’s mandate is clear and the institution is adequately funded to execute its functions. Other than the special arrangement for indirect representation from local councils to district councils and the rather toothless National Council of Provinces, there is virtually no special representation at national, provincial, or local levels in South Africa. This is no doubt a reaction to the racially based, nondemocratic elements of the P. W. Botha regime. Council chairs are not appointed nor are there appointed seats in local institutions. The role played by traditional, but not democratically elected, leaders remains somewhat controversial.

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Local government elections occurred in postapartheid South Africa in 1995, 1996, 2000, 2006, and 2011. The next local government elections are scheduled for 2016. Local government is delineated in the Municipal Structures Act of 1998 (one of the several important legislative acts passed between 1996 and 1999), the Municipal Demarcation Act of 1998, the Electoral Commission Act of 1996, and the Municipal Electoral Act of 2000. As one seasoned observer has noted, South Africa has progressive basic laws, but South Africa’s politicians and administrators have been unable to implement them. The country maintains a common voter roll and conducts periodic general registration drives. Municipal councils, like their counterparts in the provincial and national governments, are elected every five years. Local government elections are held separately from national and provincial levels. The South African electoral system features a hybrid design that is inclusive and guarantees the participation and representation of minority and disadvantaged groups, including women. Elections occur under a mixed system composed of proportional representation (PR) and a ward system and configuration. At the metropolitan level there are two ballots: a ward ballot and a PR-list ballot. In local councils with wards there are three ballots: a ward ballot, a PR local council ballot, and a district council PR list. In local councils without wards there are two ballots—a proportional representation list for the local council and a proportional representation list for the district council. Each municipal voter is given a ballot for the ward and one for proportional representation. The ward ballot will have names of ward candidates and the candidate receiving the most votes wins the ward and becomes ward councilor. Ward candidates may stand as representatives of parties or as independents, but in practice almost all councilors are members of parties. All voters are given a PR ballot to indicate their party preference. The parties will then be given seats according to the percentage of votes that they received in the municipal area as a whole. Parties will consult a party list submitted to the IEC, and the councilors will be drawn from this list. Large metropolitan councils may also have subcouncils that are elected in a similar fashion. PR seats are divided according to a 40–60 ratio. For municipal councils, 40 percent of the seats are distributed from PR lists and 60 percent directly elected from wards. Provisions were made for ward representation to ensure that individuals identify with their local representatives. For district councils, 40 percent of the seats are given to parties based on the votes they got on the PR ballot. The remaining 60 percent of district council seats are allocated by the local councils in that area. Each local council will be

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given a number of seats and must send councilors from their ranks to fill those seats through indirect representation. The seats should be filled according to the support that parties have in a specific local council. For example, if a local municipality is given five seats on the district council and the ANC gained 60 percent of the seats on the local council, the ANC councilors should fill three of the five seats. The other two seats should be allocated to other parties according to the number of votes received. To date, local government elections have been dominated by symbolic historical issues and party loyalty rather than issues of policy or implementation. Thus far, electors do not appear to have been swayed by reports of patronage and corruption at the subnational level. Political parties are historically strong in South Africa and based upon a fused-government style of party discipline that is common in continental Europe. This did not change after the advent of nonracial government. A strong ideology and an orientation toward development planning are important components of this process. Party discipline has been particularly strong within the ANC. Private member bills and maverick legislators at any level of government are uncommon. At the municipal level, in ANC-dominant provinces, there continues to be a considerable amount of loyalty to the national party leadership, particularly in larger cities. In smaller cities and rural areas, there is considerable informal loyalty to provincial party leaders. However, the links between the grassroots and the national party leadership remain strong, and the ANC continues to function as a mass mobilizing party, although it is becoming less issue driven and more patronage based, using ethnic and racial loyalties to continue to solidify their support. There have been a number of political splits and realignments between and among South Africa’s political parties including a split within the ANC with a splinter group (seen to be aligned with former president Thabo Mbeki) forming a new political party, the Congress of the People (COPE), in 2008. The party attracted some former ANC supporters at the local government level and in that year was the third-largest party in South Africa. Both COPE and the Democratic Alliance made gains in the local governments in the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, and Gauteng. Inkatha and splinter groups maintain influence in KwaZulu-Natal. A further party realignment is likely given ANC losses in the 2014 national elections and the success of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters. Transparency, Autonomy, and Local Control Administrative control over local government employees is limited and intermittent. In principle, patterns of administrative control (recruitment,

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payment, discipline, retention) are controlled by national policies formulated and under the guidance of the national government and local government administrative heads. However, in practice, the supervision of public sector employees/administrators is both formalistic and in many cases based on patronage relationships. Many positions are considered sinecures. Administrators tend to be erratically controlled and have little capacity to practice what is sometimes called administrative entrepreneurship.68 Formally, local government administrators report to their superiors, and their unit head evaluates them. Since local government officials are not part of the public service corps, they may function without supervision for long periods of time. The South African government, however, heavily regulates local government officials, and the government is committed to creating a unified public service system that incorporates all levels of government. Even the South African government admits that local government has at times suffered from political interference, patronage, and corruption. South Africa has a rich history of citizen participation and political activism in terms of civics and local government processes. Draft national or provincial legislation that affects the status, institutions, powers, or functions of local government must be published for public comment. Consequently, the newly established local government system very early on emphasized citizen access and participation in the electoral, planning, and budgetary processes and accordingly enacted several pieces of legislation and policies to put this into effect. For example, the Batho Pele Principles (People First), the Municipal Structures Act and the White Paper on Local Government (1998), the Municipal Systems Act (2000), the Municipal Finance Management Act (2003), the Municipal Property Rates Act (2004), the Guidelines for Operation of Ward Committees (2005), and the National Policy Framework for Public Participation (2007) all call for active participation and input from the public. Meetings and report-back sessions are a part of South Africa’s political culture. Despite all the legislation, policies, and participation mechanisms in place, however, public participation has still not been effectively achieved and what does occur is often largely symbolic. A major challenge highlighted by local government public representatives and officials is the costly nature of public participation. A majority of South Africa’s local governments are cash strapped and have a limited tax base; thus only limited resources can be committed despite the government’s directive for municipalities to institutionalize public participation, through the National Policy Framework on Public Participation. Exactly how municipalities will achieve effective participation without the necessary resources is uncertain. Local government in South Africa is not autonomous, but part of a larger system of “cooperative governance” that reflects the holistic view of

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the ruling ANC. Local-level political elites tend to be ANC activists and members of local civil society institutions. Many elites cite their roles in the liberation struggle to demonstrate their leadership credentials. The nature of local government associations and other supportive civil society institutions concerned about subnational governance and the existence of traditional parallel local-level governments is part of a whole governing party network within the ANC at all levels of government—national, provincial, and local. The rituals of participation are provided for by political and government participation but are often largely symbolic and superficial. They also reflect the lingering characteristics of the ANC as an aging, one-party system. Cooperative governance is crucial to understanding intergovernmental processes in South Africa. Section 154 of the constitution calls for the establishment of the “principle of cooperative governance” in the country’s local government relationships. In short, the national and provincial governments are called on to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, to exercise their powers, and to perform their functions. This includes urban, rural, and traditional governance mechanisms. At the same time, opposition parties resist cooperative governance, as they see it as a mechanism to impose ANC policies on subnational government. Critics argues that cooperative governance strips South Africa of the richness of dialogue, debate, and difference, which are at the heart of democratic governance. The Intergovernmental Relations Act (2005) was passed to enact the principles identified in the constitution. The legislation provided for the setting up of structures and institutions to foster intergovernmental relations and promote cooperative governance. The act further called for coordination of policy efforts, implementation, and legislative arrangements among national, provincial, and local governments and all organs of the state within the government, including traditional authorities. It promoted government coherence and the effective provision of services, public accountability, coordination and integration, effective implementation, and dispute resolution. Cooperative governance is designed to help achieve national priorities, a concept that can be traced back to prefectoralism and the supervisory mechanisms established by colonial authorities in Africa—whether Dutch, French, British, or Portuguese—including that imposed by the Union and National Party governments in South Africa. This new, neoprefectoralism gives executive and political leaders political and policy authority over administrators, law-enforcement agents, and technical operatives in a particular geographic area. Magistrates, on the judicial side, and provincial

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premiers, executive mayors, and municipal managers on the political side form the core of the new prefectoralism. Subnational Capacity There are forces in the academic community, the media, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that continue to press South Africa’s central government to increase political decentralization and capacity for service delivery, fiscal autonomy, and development promotion. Capacity levels are in part contextual. South African academics and political activists tend to be critical of government capacity at all levels. This is normal, but it should be remembered that, compared with the public sectors in the rest of Africa (and indeed in other parts of the world), the South African government at all levels is both efficient and effective. Government departments have technical specialists available to support decentralization. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs provides administrative support to all provincial and local governments, including the newly strengthened traditional administrations. After several years of ambiguity, since 2010 the national government has recognized a strategic governance role for traditional leaders in the area of rural development. The Treasury Department and the commissions dedicated to intergovernmental relations support subnational governments fiscally and are in the process of setting up regulatory and operational frameworks. Focus since 2010 has been on the government’s policy to strengthen local government capacity. Capacity building is coordinated by the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA) but delivered by numerous university and institute training programs. These programs are the mother-lode of capacity-building systems, but are underutilized by the government of South Africa. There have been several earlier attempts to strengthen subnational government. However, all have faced two fundamental problems. First, there is a shortage of skilled persons in the public sector generally. Second, since the late 1990s there has been a pattern of almost continual loss of skills at the local government level, outside of the metropolitan areas, as bureaucrats steadily move into the central government or, more lucratively, into the private sector. The ineffectiveness of earlier capacity-building programs illustrates the limits faced at the subnational levels. The capacity for monitoring and pressuring subnational government is largely external to government whether at the local or national level. It lies

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in the hands of the press, local-level organizations, national and regional civil society groups, and interest associations.

Political Incentives Context and Constraints on Decentralization Although decentralization was negotiated in 1994, the reality of governance meant that there was a significant degree of recentralization after the final constitution came into being in 1996. This represented the interests of the second president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, his cabinet, and administrative heads of department. The corporatist thrust of cooperative governance supports the ANC’s stated goal of national leadership, and the ANC regards it as an essential component of regime maintenance. Decentralization to achieve stability, not democracy, is the primary regime focus. National government is meant to play a strategic role by ensuring that local government operates within an enabling legislative and policy framework and is structured and equipped to promote the development of citizens, local communities, and the nation. Much of what local government has done since 1996 is compatible with the legislative framework created by national government. In line with constitutional precepts, the South African national government has provided a framework for municipal capacity building and support; Section 154(1) of the constitution tasks both national and provincial governments with supporting and strengthening the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, exercise their powers, and perform their functions. The central government after the ratification of the 1996 constitution was intended to provide administrative supervision over both provincial and local government authority. What evolved instead was the imposition of (or attempt to impose) the ANC’s political will over subnational governments with weak administrative supervision, nepotism, patronage, and significant levels of corruption, which, it should be noted, is less widespread in the technical areas of government than in the enforcement, regulatory, and service-delivery sectors. There are a number of reasons that both political stakeholders and decisionmakers oppose decentralization programming, and the ANC faces technical and political constraints that impede decentralization. The incentives and political motivations of decisionmakers are threefold. First, there is a genuine feeling that development management is a national project and requires centralized guidance. This is a Keynesian assumption and is common throughout the developing world. Second, there is a historical memory

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of federalism, decentralization, and local government as tools of apartheid. From the beginning of the liberation struggle in 1912 there was a commitment to a unitary government in South Africa. Historically, decentralization has been associated with a particular brand of elites, namely white political parties and interest groups. Despite practicing heavy-handed authoritarian and centralized government for the better part of 100 years, the National Party, in a last-ditch effort to cling to power, embraced an extreme form of decentralized government. The cynicism of this turnabout was not lost on the liberation leadership. ANC leaders were also quite aware that the people who advocate federalism and decentralization tend to come from the white, upper-middle-class business sector, live in guarded neighborhoods, and vote for the opposition Democratic Alliance. Third, there are technocratic arguments for retaining central control. Specifically, given the limited professional skills in the country, these skills need to be used most effectively at the national level. Most development planners, union leaders, and other stakeholders in the camp of the ANC tend to oppose decentralized governance. That said, there is a group of urban and regional development planners who see that they, and their constituents in local government, have much to gain from strong regional and local government. For academics, consultants, and other intellectuals who advocate decentralization, this support comes from what might be called “noble” motives such as improving democratic governance rather than narrow, political, or personal concerns. The problem is these advocates tend to be apolitical, and many political elites in South Africa, including some in ANC intellectual circles, are members of a minority group. Those who stand to lose from decentralized governance represent the dominant political elite and see as their constituents the majority African population. These constituents have no issue with decentralized governance if it means they will receive better social services from a centralized system. This is the group within the ANC that has never been won over or outmaneuvered in the 100 years that they have led the organization. Subnational leaders have developed a patronage-type relationship with local governments; political leaders are broadly representative of local populations, and most local-level administrators are embedded in the community. The local government networks in South Africa represent what are sometimes called minor patronage networks and are easily captured by local political and traditional elites. This relationship defines the nature of the support for local government in terms of projects, local-level contracts, and a search for grant money that will filter down to the grassroots level. In the end, decentralization has only taken place in some sectors and largely through deconcentration, which is seen to provide stability rather

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than the risk of political schism that devolution represents. South Africa is a unitary state with a level of deconcentrated and delegated decentralization, characterized by responsibilities that are simultaneously distinctive, interdependent, and interrelated. With 283 municipalities, the challenge remains consolidation and institutional capacity-building within all of these structures. While the national sphere provides a fulcrum and strategic leadership for the other spheres, South Africa’s leaders believe that they require a sound mechanism to coordinate policy implementation or to pass legislation affecting the material interest of other governments. Sound coordination mechanisms, it is assumed, will avoid unnecessary and wasteful duplication or jurisdictional contests and will allow leaders to take all reasonable steps to ensure that they have sufficient institutional capacity and effective service delivery procedures. That said, political elites perceive that the evolution of a stable and a relatively well-functioning intergovernmental system could potentially promote democracy and enhanced services. Central-Local Relations and Conflict Management The distinctive nature of each sphere of government symbolically creates a degree of legislative and executive autonomy, which is equally entrenched by the constitution. Each sphere has distinctive legislative and executive competencies. The guiding principle used to allocate local government competencies is based on the assumption that there are particular public interests best served at the local level. Unique local and district councils and local interests are best protected and promoted through a decentralized state. The relationship among the three spheres of government is based on the realization that, to a degree, they are interdependent if they fulfill their constitutionally mandated functions in a deconcentrated form through delegation from central to provincial ministries. While the constitution assigns different service delivery responsibilities to the three spheres of government, municipalities, however, play a pivotal role in the delivery of basic services, particularly to the poor. The reality of service delivery protests since 2006 suggests that municipalities are not up to the task. At the same time, local governments are entitled to and do receive assistance from the national and provincial governments in order for them to fulfill their constitutional functions. Consequently, both provincial and national governments have a duty to monitor and, where necessary, intervene when a local government fails to fulfill its functions. Initiatives such the Masakhane (pay your share) tax collection efforts, Project Consolidate

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(the development of comprehensive local government plans), and various other capacity-building programs by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Leadership (COGTA) and the National Treasury have been designed to remedy these deficiencies. This interdependent relationship is part of cooperative governance, which, to reiterate, means that each sphere must cooperate with one another in mutual trust and good faith for the greater good of the country as a whole. While each sphere is distinctive and interrelated, in principle, all spheres have a relationship of relative equality. Breakdowns occur in the process of intergovernmental relations over issues of administrative weakness, corruption, and public exposure of patronage and nepotism. These are all external to the system and represent the weakness of internal monitoring mechanisms. These external threats mean that opposition to decentralization is self-reinforcing and leads to further resistance. Political support for decentralization, among political actors, faces an uphill battle since these advocates (many of them supporters of the opposition Democratic Alliance) are often discredited within the political ruling class. Legislation and accompanying regulations are in place to allow for further decentralization. However, the discourse of decentralization does not match the reality of where political will lies when it comes to devolved governance, and support for decentralization can limit the prospects for career advancement. While many national figures may support decentralization in theory, they realize that many within the ruling coalition regard decentralization as threatening. The Security Crisis This is not the place for an in-depth discussion of the security crisis that evolved in postapartheid South Africa, but it is the country’s single most important and difficult urban problem some twenty years after the end of apartheid. By April 2007, the country faced dauntingly high crime rates, with a daily average of 50 murders, 700 grievous assaults, and 356 aggravated robberies. After the political violence and the repression of the 1980s, violence after 1994 became criminal and apolitical. Urban violence, which increasingly spread to rural areas as well, would become the major issue facing all levels of government at the end of the Mandela presidency in 1999. At the community level, police were seen as corrupt, and bribery was increasingly necessary. In true South African fashion, local wags in Hillbrow noted, “You cannot drive your car [there] without carrying petty cash for ‘tax’ for the local police.”69

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Critics of the ANC have long concluded that some of the centralizing tendencies inherited through the Government of National Unity have been detrimental to crime prevention. Group competition, patronage, nepotism, and corruption have dominated bureaucratic politics at the provincial and local levels in the administration of criminal justice. Meanwhile criminal activity exploded in Johannesburg and South Africa’s other major cities. By 2006, the public had become increasingly despondent about the issue of public safety in South Africa.70 Discussions of the security situation in South Africa often, and correctly, note the important linkage between poverty and crime, but analysts do not make it clear how this problem can be addressed either through constitutional or community-based mechanisms of justice (such as citizen courts and grassroots patrols). Increasingly, people have suggested that the abandonment of participatory-based justice in the 1980s may have been a mistake. Urban violence and criminal activity were and are signs of how weak grassroots structures have become in South Africa. Vigilantism has become increasingly common in peri-urban areas, as township residents beat and burn criminal suspects caught in the act. 71 Criminal behavior in the black townships has been the Achilles heel of public policy in South Africa. As Goodman notes: For many of South Africa’s approximately seven million urban squatters, life has only gotten worse since the 1994 elections. Tens of thousands of rural South Africans responded to their new freedoms by flocking to the cities to claim their place in the sun.72

Urban communities have an “adopted, urbanized indigenous law.”73 This system of justice is rooted in traditional Africa but has been adapted to the needs of urban life. Community-level procedures are similar to those in rural villages—straightforward and simple. They are based on indigenous values, an indigenous inquisitorial process, and traditional institutions and processes.74 The South African black township is in many ways “an urban version of African village life.”75 The answer to the crime wave in South Africa may be some form of community-based justice, which in effect allows communities to control their own system of justice. At least one author, Diana Gordon, agrees.76 Direct collective justice, rather than institutional-based governance and justice systems, is needed to address security concerns. Gordon calls for consideration of deliberative or collective democracy in the administration of justice, suggesting that the latter best balances the rights of the individual with the rights of the collective. Perhaps this is a best-case scenario, but in

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the worst case collectivism mobilizes conformity and, as in the case of the gruesome “necklacings” before 1990, saw counter-violence as the answer to criminal violence. This is a normative question, of course, but there is good reason for skepticism regarding public empowerment or community justice. By the beginning of 2002, a number of South African towns and cities had sought mechanisms to collect a special levy from its citizens to strengthen security. The money would be put into a trust fund and used to recruit additional police and, if necessary, pay for private security forces to control the streets of the town. 77 Recruitment for police and other security forces, like all other elements of the public service, were largely defined by patronage and political loyalty to the African National Congress after 1994.78 President Mbeki, according to newspaper reports, clumsily handled the issue of crime, making defensive comments in which he acknowledged that crime was serious but also alleging that white-controlled media overstated the magnitude of it.79 As of mid-2014, the issue of violence in President Zuma’s South Africa remained largely unaddressed.

Conclusion The ANC at the end of the GNU was concerned that grassroots anger over national interference in regional matters could resurface electorally, as it threatened to do in the Northern Province and the Eastern Cape. In 1999, at the time of the second national elections, there remained uncertainties and inadequacies in terms of rural local government. 80 During the 1999 and 2000 elections, the major political parties targeted rural dwellers. During the Mbeki administration, dissatisfaction with the performance of local governments began to eat into ANC majorities in the 2006 and 2011 elections. In December 1999, the ANC-led government made their long awaited announcement about local government reform by reducing the number of local government authorities from 843 to 283 municipalities. The creation of fewer entities was intended to accelerate service delivery to the poor. Following the 1999 national elections, opposition parties faced the prospect of competing with each other again in “first past the post” local government elections in 2000. Local government elections in December 2000 completed the transition process. However, the reduction in number and the redemarcation of municipal boundaries stimulated controversy throughout 1999 and 2000.

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The local government elections in 2000 left the ANC with an overwhelming majority, except in the contested areas of the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.81 Local government elections during the Mbeki period and beyond confirmed ANC domination of local government, except in the Western Cape. Local government elections in 2006 and 2011 reaffirmed this dominance though with some slippage on the part of the ANC. This slippage was in large part related to the inability of the South African local government system to deliver social services leaving the bitter pill of unfunded mandates in virtually all sectors of South Africa local government. By 2009, when Jacob Zuma assumed the presidency, the momentum to develop local governance and social service systems had largely disappeared. Corruption and inefficiencies increasingly defined the commentary on grassroots governance.

Notes 1. Tom Lodge, T. Moss, and I. Obery, “The African National Congress in the 1990s,” South African Review 4 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1992), p. 65. 2. Tom Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1999), p. 35. 3. David Goodman, Faultlines: Journeys into the New South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 212. 4. Denis Beckett, Madibaland (Cape Town: Penguin, 1998), p. 118. Within two years of the transition to nonracial government, the National Party had ceased to function as a credible force in South African politics. 5. S. Moodley and D. Sing, “Local Government Financing in South Africa,” in Readings in Local Government Management and Development: A Southern African Perspective, ed. P. S. Reddy (Cape Town: Juta Publishers, 1996) p. 184. See pp. 183–208 for the whole chapter. 6. See Joel Barkan, Steven Friedman, Claude Kabemba, Chris Landsberg, and Khehla Shubane, “USAID/South Africa Democracy and Governance Programme,” (Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, February, 1998), p. 3. 7. See interview summaries with Patrick FitzGerald, coordinator of the Gauteng (PWV) premier’s Strategic Management Team in Drew Forrest, “One Province, Two Worlds Apart,” Weekly Mail and Guardian, 11, no. 2 (October 21–27, 1994): 12; and Jovial Rantao, “Time to Strive Towards a More Civil Service,” Star Weekly, (November 10–16, 1994): 11–12. 8. For a discussion of decentralization, see Dennis A. Rondinelli, James S. McCullough, and Ronald F. Johnson, “Analyzing Decentralization Policies in Developing Countries: A Political-Economy Framework,” Development and Change 20, no. 1 (January 1989): 57–87. 9. Alastair McIntosh, Anne Vaughan, and Thokozani Xaba, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal: Stakeholders’ Perspectives” (unpublished Paper, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Durban–Westville, December 1994), p. i.

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10. Kees van der Waal, “The Rhetoric and Practice of Participation in Rural Development: Anthropological Perspectives from South Africa” (paper presented at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 1998), p. 11. 11. Hendri Kroukamp, “Preconditions for Sustainable Reform and Development in the South African Public Sector” (paper prepared for Subject Area 11, International and Comparative Public Administration, of the Annual American Society of Public Administrations Conference in Seattle, Washington, May 9–13, 1998), p. 3. 12. Steven Friedman, “SOWETO: Managing the Transition?” in Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science, 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 100. 13. Lodge, Consolidating Democracy, p. 41. 14. Errol Spring, interview with Picard (June 6, 1996). 15. Anthony Lemon, “Preface,” in Homes Apart: South Africa’s Segregated Cities, ed. Anthony Lemon (Cape Town: David Philip, 1991), p. ix. 16. Fanie Cloete, “Local Government: Cradle or Death of Democratic Development,” in State of the Nation 1997/8, ed. Bertus de Villiers (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1998), p. 155. 17. Pierre du Toit, State-Building and Democracy in Southern Africa: Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), p. 198. 18. Heribert Adam, Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, and Kogila Moodley, Comrades in Business: Post-Liberation Politics in South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1997), p. 73. 19. Pelonomi Venson, “Civil Society and Forms of Political Participation in South Africa,” in Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Local Participation and Self-Government in Africa, ed. Wilhelm Hofmeister and Ingo Scholz (Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, 1997), p. 278. 20. Lawrence Schlemmer, “People Voted for Parties, not Policies,” Sunday Tribune, June 30, 1996, 28. 21. See F. Khan, “Local Economic Development: Reflections on the International Experience and Some Lessons for the Reconstruction of South Africa’s Cities,” in Readings in Local Government Management and Development: A Southern African Perspective, ed. P. S. Reddy (Cape Town: Juta Publishers, 1996), pp. 209–238. See especially p. 227. 22. Cloete, “Local Government: Cradle or Death of Democratic Development,” p. 147. 23. Nazeem Ismail, Saheed Bayat, and Ivan Meyer, Local Government Management (Johannesburg: International Thompson Publishing, 1997), p. 139. 24. Alastair McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model for South Africa” (paper prepared for the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, n.d.), p. 8. 25. Cloete, “Local Government: Cradle or Death of Democratic Development,” pp. 149–155. 26. In US congressional elections and in British parliamentary elections, the person who receives the most votes, a plurality, wins the seat. 27. Marion Edmunds, “From Pumpkins to Parliament,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (March 15–21, 1996): 10. 28. Craig Doonan and Cyril Madlala, “Inkatha’s Costly Poll Flop,” Sunday Times, June 30, 1996, 1. 29. Ibid., pp. 151, 153. 30. McIntosh, “Revising the Local Government Model of South Africa,” p. 6. 31. Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994, p. 52.

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32. Cloete, “Local Government: Cradle or Death of Democratic Development,” p. 154. 33. Celean Jacobson, “Pay Us R9mm, Say Idle Officials,” Sunday Times Metro, July 9, 1997, 1. 34. Trevor Oosterwyk, “Political Tiff Mars Town’s Big Moment,” Cape Argus, May 17, 1999, 1. 35. Jacobson, “Pay Us R9mm, Say Idle Officials.” 36. Goodman, Faultlines, p. 242. 37. Marianne Merten, “The Daily Struggle of the ‘Ordinary’ People,” Mail and Guardian (May 14–20, 1999): 6–7. 38. Goodman, Faultlines, p. 230. 39. Observed by Picard. 40. Beckett, Madibaland, p. 140. 41. Marianne Merten, “Confusion over Cape Town Blasts,” Mail and Guardian (December 23, 1999–January 6, 2000): 12. 42. Ibid., p. 91. 43. Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994, p. 35. 44. Ibid., p. 49. 45. Financial and Fiscal Commission, Financial and Fiscal Commission Technical Report: Annual Submission on the Division of Revenue 2010/2011 (Pretoria: Government Printer, 2009), p. 3. See p. 48 for list of local government functions. 46. “SA Local Government Association Set to Undergo Major Restructuring,” Business Day (December 13, 1999): 3. 47. White Paper on Local Government (Pretoria: Ministry for Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development, March, 1998). 48. Ibid., p. 19. 49. Ibid., p. 8. 50. Xolani Xundu, “Board Gears Up for Municipal Elections,” Business Day, (July 1, 1999): 2. 51. Ibid., p. 3. 52. Rachel L. Swarns, “South Africa Local Overhaul,” New York Times, December 18, 1999, A4. 53. See Charles Simkins, “Local Government Finance in South Africa’s Cities: Some Preliminary Notes,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 47. 54. Goodman, Faultlines, p. 305. 55. In terms of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act, the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is accorded somewhat ineffectual representation in various forums, including the Premier Forum, National Coordinating Council, and NCOP at the Fiscal and Financial Commission and at provincial and national levels. 56. Allister Sparks, Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 142–152. 57. Doreen Atkinson, “The State of Local Government: Third Generation Issues,” in South Africa: State of the Nation, 2003–2004, ed. John Daniel, Adam Habib, and Roger Southall (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 2003), pp. 118–143. 58. Bill Freund, “The State of South Africa’s Cities,” in South Africa: State of the Nation, 2004–2005, ed. Sakhela Buhlungu, John Daniel, Roger Southall, and Jessica Lutchman (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 2006), pp. 303–352.

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59. Louis A. Picard, The State of the State: Institutional Transformation, Capacity and Political Change in South Africa (Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand University Press, 2005), p. 313. 60. Patrick Bond, Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development, and Social Protest (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press 2002). 61. See Patrick Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberal in South Africa (Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2000). 62. Allister Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa’s Road to Change (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), p. 18. 63. Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, “A Silent Revolution: South African Voters, 1994–2006,” in State of the Nation: South Africa 2007, ed. Sakhela Buhlungu, John Daniel, Roger Southall, and Jessica Lutchman (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 2007), p. 38. 64. Doreen Atkinson, “Taking to the Streets: Has Local Government Failed in South Africa?” in State of the Nation: South Africa 2007, ed. Sakhela Buhlungu, John Daniel, Roger Southall, and Jessica Lutchman (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 2007). 65. Greg Cuthbertson, “South Africa’s Democracy: From Celebration to Crisis,” African Identities 6, no. 3 (August 2008): 293–304. 66. Bond, Unsustainable South Africa. 67. Cuthbertson, “South Africa’s Democracy: From Celebration to Crisis.” 68. One might note the role played by the annual independent audit provided under the Municipal Finance Management Act, the role of the auditor general, internal audits, and Standing Committee of Public Accounts, imperfect though these mechanisms might be in addressing irregular activity. 69. Rachel Donadio, “Post-Apartheid Fiction,” New York Times Magazine, (December 3, 2006): 50. 70. Rich Mkhondo, “Public Safety Lies in Our Hands,” Star, July 25, 2006, A14. 71. Anna Cox and Fikile-Ntsikelo Moya, “Angry Diepsloot Mob Burns Four Murder Suspects to Death,” Star, June 15, 1998, p. 3. 72. Goodman, Faultlines, p. 214. 73. See G. J. van Niekerk, “Democratic Aspects of Traditional Conflict Management: Unofficial Dispute Resolution,” in Traditional Authority and Democracy in Southern Africa, ed. F. D’Engelbronner-Kolff, M. O. Hinz, and J. L. Sidano (Windhoek: New Namibia Books, 1998), pp. 84–85. 74. Ibid., pp. 83–101. 75. Goodman, Faultlines, p. 214. 76. See Diana Gordon, Transformation and Trouble: Crime, Justice, and Participation in Democratic South Africa (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006). 77. Pangeni Bureau, “Town to Pay Levy for Added Security,” Star, December 31, 2001, 3. 78. See Sharon LaFraniere, “A South African Journey: Bomb Maker to Police Chief,” New York Times, February 28, 2004, A4. 79. Craig Timberg, “High-Profile Attacks Put Crime on Political Radar in S. Africa,” Washington Post, February 3, 2007, A12. 80. McIntosh et al. “The Emerging Local Government System in KwaZulu Natal’s Rural Areas,” p. 3. 81. Farouk Chothia, “NNP Calls on Opposition Not to Split Local Government Vote,” Business Day, June 9, 1999, 4.

8 Where’s the Money? The Fiscal Debate

When asked why he robbed banks, American gangster Willie Sutton reportedly responded, “Because that’s where the money is.” The rule is, jam tomorrow, and jam yesterday—but never jam today.1 I don’t know how they will feel in the dark houses, in streets where the refuse has not been collected.2

A

s we discussed in previous chapters, after 1994 South Africa shifted from a highly centralized system to one that was supposed to be administratively and fiscally highly decentralized. The new constitution established three autonomous, yet interdependent and interrelated, spheres of government: local, provincial, and national. Although the country always had a three-tier government, the newly created structures were now designated as spheres to connote a degree of individual political and administrative autonomy. Accompanying these far-reaching constitutional changes were a raft of financial and fiscal legislative measures designed to define, inform, and underpin the new mandates of these three spheres of government. This chapter explores the nature and limits of the intergovernmental fiscal and financial changes, their relevance, and their implications. Above all, we look at whether the legal framework for decentralization has actually been implemented. While valuable lessons may be drawn, they must be tempered by cautious skepticism, as the new intergovernmental fiscal rela-

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tions system was only implemented in 1996 after the first postapartheid local government elections. Any effort to assess the fiscal reality in South Africa may be overly ambitious, premature, and unlikely to yield any conclusive results. International experiences suggest that such far-reaching changes in other countries take several decades to show results. Further, the lessons drawn from South Africa may have limited applicability for foreign contexts. However, Roy Bahl and Paul Smoke are sanguine about the prospect, instead suggesting that South Africa is a case that many donors and students of fiscal decentralization closely follow because it has registered important successes in areas of reform that are often difficult.3 An overarching set of policies for South Africa’s intergovernmental fiscal and financing system is the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, created to enforce aggregate fiscal discipline in all spheres of government in order to achieve growth, employment, and redistribution through better service delivery. In local government circumstances, this meant that, among others, budgets must be respected, as all laws should be, and that fiscal aggregates stay within set national parameters. Further, the strategy recognizes the need for efficiency in resource allocation and management, in line with set national and local government priorities. In other words, good programs should be rewarded with additional budgetary incentives. The strategy also is intended to promote operational efficiency, so that more qualitative and quantitative developmental outputs are delivered with fewer resource outlays. In reality, the strategy led to a plethora of unfunded mandates at the subnational level, perpetuating center-periphery tensions in South Africa.

The Legislative Framework The South African fiscal and financing system prior to 1994 reflected the rigid, highly centralized, and hierarchical structure of apartheid. Operationally, the system was characterized by nontransparent allocative arrangements to the white, coloured, Indian, and African local authorities. The post-1994 policy and legislative framework for local government, by contrast, was designed to radically transform funding and financial allocation patterns to a new, nonracial, developmental model. The apartheid system of financing local government was largely ideologically based and rooted in the desire to reinforce racial separation and to preserve the privileged position of white local governments. It ignored efficiency and equity considerations and did not fast-track service delivery to the entire population. There was no demographic or socioeconomic formula

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to determine allocations, so the intended beneficiaries had no firm numbers to use for budgeting. The fiscal system was arbitrary for nonwhites but consistently and disproportionately favored white local municipalities in terms of funding and service provision. The existing tax base was largely concentrated within the geographic space of established white jurisdictions. The 1996 Constitution aimed at remedying these shortcomings and enjoined the national government to develop an equitable revenue-sharing formula for nationally collected taxes, taking into account the inherited developmental deficits in particular regions and impoverished localities. Rural, poverty-stricken regions such as the Eastern Cape, Northern KwaZulu-Natal, and Limpopo and their municipalities were, in addition to their equitable share allocations, to be provided a compensatory allowance to address their impoverished status. Section 152 of the 1996 Constitution, as well as the 1998 White Paper on Local Government, introduced the notion of developmental local government. Specifically, municipalities must structure and manage their jurisdiction in a manner that prioritizes the provision of basic services to communities while promoting overall socioeconomic development. Local governments are also to ensure that services are provided in a manner consistent with sustainability principles and promote socioeconomic development within a safe and healthy environment.

The Problem Money and People: Bureaucratic Processes and Contracting Out As the title of this chapter suggests, the issue is where to find the money to pay for development. Subnational governments in South Africa after 1994 have access to equitable share revenues, designed to provide poor and rural areas with funds through transfers of resources. Compared with many developing countries—especially in Africa—provincial and local government revenue is both extensive and relatively secure. However, public expectation of government services was very high in 1994, and many South Africans are deeply disappointed that the promised improvements at the local level have not materialized. Except in the country’s largest cities, virtually all access to revenue is through transfer income. South Africa’s tax revenues are inadequate to cover decentralized responsibilities and there is almost no money available for developmental activities without central government redistribution. The country suffers from a classic unfunded mandate problem. Local authorities

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cannot provide the services they are instructed to by the national government. There is increasing evidence, as we have seen, that local government failure has contributed to increasing political instability. The root of the revenue problem is clear. Subnational authorities can levy their own taxes, but in many cases the residents are too poor to pay an additional charge on top of the national income tax and a national valueadded tax. Rural local governments (but not district authorities) actually have a number of options to raise additional revenue, including property taxes and user charges for electricity. The main constraints are the lack of a tax base and the poverty of most rural local residents. Some 40 percent of South Africa’s population is poor and unemployed. Many of South Africa’s citizens still refuse to pay taxes or service fees because of their association with apartheid. Despite attempts to encourage or enforce tax payment (the Masakhane campaign, see below), subnational government access to revenue is limited and may be decreasing on a per capita basis. The nature of control over expenditures and spending patterns is highly centralized and highly opaque and likely to remain so. Press accounts suggest that significant amounts of government money disappear through ghost workers, corruption, and administrative waste.4 Property taxes are the main source of income for subnational governments. There are continued calls to reform the country’s property tax system to better provide for local government revenue and to extend property taxes to excluded areas. While taxes are collected at the 95 percent level in former white areas, actual revenue from property and services is very low in historically black areas and nonexistent in former homeland areas. Administrative and fiscal decentralization, for many within the ANC, if monitored and controlled by central government, is more acceptable than political devolution of authority. This leaves policy decisions in the hands of the political elite at the national and, to some extent, the regional level, in line with the preferences of the ruling ANC. Given this reality, decentralization is unlikely to happen in the near future. Opponents of devolution in the administration do not so much resist decentralization as they are indifferent to it, and they are not likely to be overly concerned about locallevel empowerment. Administrators are weak and do not have the capacity to handle the tasks that would come with decentralization. We have already discussed the many human-resources challenges faced by local governments. Without funds to upgrade the skills of local administrators, development projects cannot be implemented. Without professionals trained to disburse and audit transfer funds from the central government, local governments risk losing their limited budgets to waste and corruption. Policymakers have turned to outside consultants to tackle policy analysis, monitoring, and assessment assignments. Subnational governments

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have become particularly adept at finding expert help through private contractors and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) grant programs. They have recruited an army of consultants and academic advisers who staff the investigating commissions, evaluation teams, and assessment missions that seem to proliferate throughout South Africa year after year. Consultants have an impressive level of technical capacity, and many are former apartheid era government officials and academics. It is these consultants, often not well understood by political leaders, who develop policy options, monitor implementation, clean up operations gone wrong, or jump into the breach after corrupt local leaders are exposed by media scandals. The Masakhane Campaign and Local Government Fiscal Problems There is little financial data available at the local government level, especially outside of major cities. Many questions about local government revenue remained unanswered. The director general of the fiscal commission noted the need to develop a transparent flow of resources that would not overtax the capacity or upset the training of personnel.5 In 1994 local governments inherited huge debts, very low levels of payment for services, and endemic violence in some areas.6 In greater Pretoria, for example, Mamelodi township owed over R257 million to bond holders; Atteridgeville owed R114.9 million; and Pretoria itself was R400 million in arrears. In total, the greater Pretoria area was more than R900 million behind in its tax obligations. It was essential to set in place systems of local government finance in 1994. Financing of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council and the other super-metros quickly became a major issue and a portent of things to come after 1996.7 Specifically, the local government needed to institutionalize the principles of income-indexed municipal taxes and need-based services.8 After the antigovernment rent and services boycotts of the 1980s, this became almost impossible. Moreover, according to a Financial and Fiscal Commission calculation in 1996, regional equity could not be achieved before 2002–2003.9 A new mechanism to monitor local government finances and priorities was set up, consisting of the Ministry of Provincial and Local Government and the country’s nine provincial premiers. Also in 1994 the national government launched the Masakhane (pay your share) campaign to get township residents to resume paying for rent and services. Nonpayment threatened the future “functioning of local government and the maintenance of adequate service levels could be seriously affected [by] continuing deterioration.” 10 Still, many local authorities continued to face rent and utilities boycotts, as black community leaders

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claimed that black townships continued to be served at different levels than white areas.11 Local government faced a severe financial crisis because of the backlog of bad debts resulting from residents’ refusal to pay for rent and services.12 The Masakhane campaign did little to improve the situation, as it faced enormous problems from the beginning. Groups argued over which financial needs Masakhane should address. Local authorities and the GNU wanted payment for administrative arrears to come first. Civics wanted payment for nonadministrative services. Eskom, the government-owned electric company, backed the civics’ position. Existing patterns of local government and administration ensured that resources would continue to be supplied to white and, increasingly, to coloured and Indian areas.13 Even if rates were paid, the financial base of local government would still remain inadequate and unsustainable, which exacerbated tensions between rich and poor communities in municipalities.14 The capacity of local authorities was further weakened since national departments, such as Water Affairs, worked on an agency basis through local authorities rather than devolving responsibility to them.15 The Masakhane campaign periodically included crackdowns over nonpayment of basic services including shutting off electricity and water supplies. These accomplished little. By 1998, both black township residents and white ratepayers were refusing to pay service charges and local government taxes.16 Nonpayment for essential services impeded financial independence.17 Despite support from ANC national and local elites, the campaign failed. As Robert Cameron pointed out, “What was of fundamental importance was the need to break the back of the rent and services boycott.”18 The failure of the Masakhane campaign illustrated the strength of the opposition to payment among black residents of South Africa’s cities. The rent and rates boycott outlasted the end of the GNU in 1999 and continued into the Mbeki administration. Local Mismanagement Continues The fiscal crisis at the local level worsened after the 1995–1996 elections, resulting in potential financial chaos and a budget deficit of R1.1 billion.19 At the time, an alternative to provincial autonomy, opposed by many in the ANC leadership, was decentralization to the local level. By 1997 local authorities were virtually without funds. As in many countries, South Africa’s local communities had to apply for funds through higher authorities. The problem with application-based systems is that only betterorganized communities with greater resources had the capacity to articulate their needs and create proposals that easily won approval.20

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In 1996 central government thinking on provincial and national powers over local authorities’ finances shifted and was incorporated into draft legislation. The minister of constitutional development and provincial affairs and members of the provincial executive councils (MECs) reached an agreement that considerably enhanced the powers of provincial MECs, who would now monitor the finances of local authorities.21 This new policy was adopted despite the various calls to separate provincial from local government authority. The Gauteng Association of Local Authorities, in 1998, complained that national and provincial governments were depriving local authorities of essential funds while they were transferring responsibility for services to them as unfunded mandates.22 Many local authorities began to campaign to have their arrears written off, as a postapartheid cost, because of the violence and instability in the late 1980s and early 1990s that destroyed much of the townships’ infrastructure. In one case, the Alberton city council demanded that R12 million for Thokoza township be written off.23 By 1999 there was an increased level of administrative capacity and a lack of proper financial management at the local government level. It became clear from the Presidential Review Commission that the Fiscal and Financial Commission acknowledged that nonfunded mandates were causing major problems for subnational governments. In response, local governments demanded government subsidies to finance large increases in their budgets. Given the shortage of central government funds, many local politicians admitted that economic growth, not increased expenditures, would have to be the basis of economic development in South Africa. Urban local government finance problems continued under Presidents Mbeki and Zuma.24 Social services were not available to most people outside of the urban areas; the so-called deep rural areas were particularly underserved. The 1996 Constitution strongly suggested the separation of local government from provincial government with both under the center, but the practice was never entirely consistent.25 The basic assumptions of decentralized government, applied internationally (and specifically within the European Union), was that lower-tier governments would spend more efficiently and be more responsive to societal needs than upper tiers were. However, this theory did not apply in South Africa. With regard to bulk services, South Africa’s utilities corporations threatened to take responsibility for water and energy away from local governments because of local government administrative and financial weakness and their inability to collect revenues. This despite the decentralization provisions within the constitution. This “recentralization” would

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result in the “heart [being] ripped out of local government,” as its responsibilities would dramatically decrease.26 From the beginning of the postapartheid period in 1994, the central location of service delivery management was local government capacity 27 where local government’s primary goal was to provide the increased delivery of basic municipal services for all citizens within ten years. The key to success was capacity building for the upper-level local government or district councils. Placing responsibility with district councils instead of local councils reduced the number of units from 850 to 48. District councils, however were originally not directly elected bodies. They functioned as a pass-through from provinces to local government bodies. In South Africa, local government specialists assumed that the central government had to accept basic responsibility for the financial stabilization of local government, but the allocation function should be, as much as possible, vested at the subnational level.28 The ANC-led government regarded central decisionmaking as the key to quick socioeconomic development through coordinated service planning.29 The other option, decentralization to the local level, was not feasible, as local governments at this point were without funds. The GNU ended without defining a role for local government or community-level development committees.30 In 1999 local governments were required to play development roles, but their limited revenue and the lack of intergovernmental grants made this very difficult. Financially, support for local government transformation was limited, with the government and international donors pledging only R30 million in 1996 against an expected need for R855 million after the 1999 national elections. In 1999, money for local government grants increased only slightly, from R2.1 billion to R2.3 billion. With increased inefficiency at the national level, there was a need to increase self-sufficiency at the local government level. There were particular problems with towns located within homelands; focus had to be on very basic services such as water points, and municipalities had to share the R2.3 billion in grants in 1999 and 2000 in an effort to make them more efficient.31 This grant pool would decline in future years.32 As a result, there were—or would be—very few funds available to implement local government projects, particularly in rural South Africa.33 Across the country, very few funds were available in 2000 to implement local government projects, and local authorities lacked the professional expertise to carry out their responsibilities.34 This situation was complicated by clashes in some areas between local governments and traditional authorities and an alienation of traditional leaders by ANC political elites. As a result, development projects were left to “self help.”35 There was, as we will see in Chapter 9, a particular absence of revenue collection

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and financial and institutional capacity in the rural areas. At issue was how this would translate in terms of local governments’ mandate for original powers.36 Tensions developed between the provinces and local authorities as they competed for scarce resources. In one important 1999 case, the East London City Council sued the Eastern Province government for R16 million that the city claimed it was owed for maintenance costs for the black township of Mdantsane. A subsidy had been provided by the central government through the province when the township was transferred to East London’s authority. The province claimed that the subsidy needed to be phased out, which occurred in 1999.37 By 2000 and 2001, problems with health-care delivery and housing construction, particularly in rural areas, illustrated the lack of capacity at the subnational level. Decisions in these areas were implemented very slowly, amid significant differences over priorities. The lack of capacity was linked to the limited training and education efforts undertaken for local administrators. Such capacity building was the key to effective local governance, particularly financial management.38 In addition, local governments lacked trained black personnel. The managerial and financial arrangements in many local governments were nonfunctioning or malfunctioning and fell short of what local authorities needed to develop the country’s black areas. The auditor-general found local government finance systems to be extremely weak, which resulted in poor performance.39 According to one source, “The future functioning of local government and the maintenance of adequate service levels could be seriously affected [by] continuing deterioration.”40 There was a significant mismatch between the potential revenues that local governments could raise and local governments’ increased spending obligations under the 1996 constitution. Most of the revenue available for local government was concentrated in South Africa’s largest cities.41 Thus, the issue was finding funds to transfer downward to ensure the level of resources necessary for the implementation of programs. How fiscal issues would be addressed over the next few years would determine the nature of the intergovernmental relations—both between provinces and the national state and among the evolving local authorities that would be at the social service delivery end of the policy system.42 The 1996 Constitution required the internal borders of the whole country to be demarcated. There was speculation that many traditional areas might be left intact. Yet making exceptions for chiefs would open the door for other objections from those who felt the new local government system affected them adversely.43 Instead, the focus was on creating economies of scale.

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About one-third of South Africa’s 843 municipalities were not financially viable in 1996. The Municipal Demarcation Board was assigned the task of investigating the financial and institutional capabilities of all of South Africa’s 843 municipalities. This would help them determine how to allocate powers and functions, according to board chair Michael Sutcliffe. The initial goal was to reduce the number of municipalities to approximately 330.44 Later the board announced a new target of 235. There would be six metropolitan councils, about forty-six district councils, and seven municipalities that straddled provincial borders. The number of municipalities would finally settle on 284 and later 283 after the abolition of the Bohlabela district that straddled Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. But no amount of boundary manipulation would make the overall finances any healthier if most of the newly included areas were impoverished. Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi also published his own policy framework for the allocation of municipalities’ powers and functions, which gave direction to South African fiscal policies during the Mbeki administration. Relevant MECs for local government would, within his framework, adjust the division of functions and powers between district and local councils. Sutcliffe said the board would have this task finished by February 14, 2000. The ANC’s goal was to create a centralized unitary state with local authorities having delegated rather than devolved power.

The Solution? Revenue Sharing Section 214 (a–j) of the 1996 Constitution requires parliament to enact an annual division of revenue act that includes revenue-sharing mechanisms that account for the expenditure needs of various policy spheres in addition to their fiscal capacity. Partly as a result of the above and the need to strengthen coordination and integrated development systems, the Intergovernmental Relations Act (Act No. 97, 1997) was enacted to promote cooperation among the three spheres of government on fiscal, budgetary, and financial matters and to prescribe a process for determining an equitable scheme to allocate nationally raised revenue. In 1999, parliament enacted a package of national laws that eliminated the need for each province or municipality to enact separate legislation on fiscal responsibility. This change was the cornerstone of South Africa’s recentralized fiscal system. The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) (Act No. 1, 1999, as amended by Act No. 29 of 1999) is the most important

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piece of legislation enacted in order to fulfill that purpose. The act was justified as a mechanism to promote good financial management. It was also ostensibly designed to optimally use limited government resources to promote service delivery. The PFMA also implemented provisions of Sections 213 and 215 of the constitution by modernizing the system of financial management in the public sector, and enabling and holding accountable public sector managers. Further, the PFMA was to ensure that relevant, good quality financial information about national and provincial budgets was provided and to eliminate waste and corruption in the sector. The PFMA brought a new approach to South African financial management that focused on outputs and responsibilities rather than the rule-driven approach of the previous Exchequer Acts. The introduction of this new approach raised questions about how to achieve consistency in fiscal responsibility objectives between provinces and among various national government departments. In all these questions, the principle of uniformity and the precedence of national economic policy were invoked. Structurally, Section 154 of the constitution reinforced the centralizing principle of cooperative governance by enjoining the national and provincial governments to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, to exercise their powers, and to perform their functions. The Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act (Act No. 13, 2005) provided for the establishment of structures and institutions to foster intergovernmental relations and promote cooperative governance. Once established, such structures facilitated coordination in the implementation of policy and legislation among national, provincial, and local governments and all organs of the state within those governments. Finally, the act was meant to promote coherent government and effective provision of services, monitor and implement policy and legislation, and maintain national priorities. The most important areas covered by the legislation included service delivery, public accountability, coordination and integration, effective implementation, and dispute resolution. A number of intergovernmental structures were instituted to promote and facilitate cooperative government and intergovernmental relations among the respective spheres of government. These include: • The President’s Coordinating Council (PCC) • National Intergovernmental Forum (MINMECS) comprising the ministers and deputy ministers of the national government, the premiers and members of Executive Councils of the nine provinces and representatives of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA)

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• Provincial Intergovernmental Forums (Premiers Forums) • District Intergovernmental Forums • Intermunicipality Forums Section 215, subsection 1 of the constitution prescribed the nature of national, provincial, and municipal budgets and that budgetary processes be structured in a manner that promoted transparency, accountability, and the effective financial management of the local economy. The Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) (Act No. 56 of 2003) marked a major turning point in municipal financial management and was enacted to bring into effect the modernization of budgeting and financial management practices, as well as a sound financial governance framework that clarified and separated roles and responsibilities of key municipal functionaries. The MFMA is comprehensive and, most importantly, spearheaded by the National Treasury. By enforcing the MFMA and issuing regular financial regulations, the treasury was able to bring about a raft of fiscal and financial reforms that focused on new budget processes, which are linked to integrated development planning (IDP). New accounting standards and formats were introduced to develop a framework that would be applied by municipalities to prepare annual financial statements.45 Accompanying these reforms was the establishment of audit committees and other internal controls, improvements to procurement and supply management systems, performance measurement reporting, and staff competency levels. In reality, the MFMA empowered various stakeholders to perform municipal financial management roles. The constitution prescribes the MFMA to advise in the development of the national, provincial, and municipal budgets, to determine when national and provincial budgets must be tabled, and to require that budgets in each sphere of government show the sources of revenue and how proposed expenditures comply with national legislation. Accordingly, budgets in each sphere of government must contain estimates of revenue and expenditure, differentiating between capital and current expenditure; proposals for financing any anticipated deficit for the period to which they apply; and an indication of intentions regarding borrowing and other forms of public liability that will increase public debt during the ensuing year. Fiscal and Administrative Accountability There are a number of legislative fiscal mechanisms available to ensure fiscal accountability in South Africa. These include internal and external auditing requirements, which are normal to governments around the world.

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It is fair to say that fiscal accountability in South Africa compares favorably with those in the rest of Africa and throughout the developing world. One set of mechanisms is available to central governments and can be used to monitor or control provincial and local government spending. These include budget rules and reporting requirements. The South African Fiscal and Financial Commission plays a major role in advising on the division of revenue, the fiscal stability of provinces, and special development needs at provincial levels. In theory, administrative accountability mechanisms exist at all levels of government. They are common to central and provincial administrators but are also designed to monitor local government officials. In practice, they tend to be formal and unsystematic in their application. Other popular accountability mechanisms are said to be available to subnational actors and civil society to control local administration and civil servants. Metropolitan, district, and local-level institutions all have political, administrative, and fiscal mechanisms that are designed to underpin decentralization. These tend to work better in larger metropolitan areas and in the formerly segregated white areas. There are well-developed ratepayers associations in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, for example, and neighborhood watch associations. According to the ANC, these “popular” mechanisms are a part of the civics tools available to monitor local government activity. Proposed and actual expenditure and revenue patterns occasionally diverge. That said, South African fiscal monitoring is generally well managed at the national and provincial levels. At the national level, however, parliamentary fiscal monitoring mechanisms vis-à-vis the executive are weak. Furthermore, the National Treasury is not always forthcoming in terms of amounts or explanations when mistaken estimates occur.46 Some observers have also questioned the capability of the South African Revenue Service to collect taxes. Others regard the South African Revenue Service as the best-performing department, a benchmark for other departments or entities to emulate. Such differences illustrate some of the remaining unknowns of South African public administration. Over 50 percent of local government revenue comes from user fees and other cost recovery mechanisms. The rest comes from property taxes and revenue sharing, which makes it difficult to expand social services.47 While formally, fiscal management is quite rigid, there is some evidence that rather than monitoring revenues and expenditures, fiscal mechanisms tie the hands of subnational officials who try to implement policy. As noted above, the revenue generating capacity of subnational governments is limited by legislative and executive legislation and practice. That said, the problem in South Africa is less resource availability (though

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that is a problem in urban slums and rural areas), but rather administrative systems, which limit the ability of subnational government to implement programs. A further problem, to some critics, is the use of user fees to deliver services, which limits the extent to which social services can be delivered. Participatory Budgeting, Revenue Allocation, and Planning at Subnational Levels Under the 1996 Constitution each sphere of government is, in theory, empowered to determine its own budget, collect its own revenue, and spend its own funds—subject to the significant restrictions imposed by the national government (through executive orders) on municipalities and the weakness of subnational administrative systems. Provinces and municipalities—though funded in part through their own revenues—receive an equitable share allocation (unconditional grants) and conditional advances on that share. According to the South African government, the grant system is designed to be simple and comprehensive and should not compensate municipalities that fail to collect revenue due to them. South Africa implements performance budgeting through a formula that purports to allocate revenue to subnational governments and, according to at least one observer, the process is transparent and available to media scrutiny. The mechanisms utilized (citizen budget tips sent to the minister of finance), however, are rather trite.48 Local governments use a mediumterm expenditure framework (MTEF) to plan its revenue needs and tradeoffs are inevitable. The Division of Revenue Act (DORA) processes are designed to be driven by national level (and ANC) political priorities and cover all aspects of governance and service delivery. Separate and ad hoc requests for funds fragment budget allocation and undermine the political prioritization process. Subnational governments have the right to secure credit, borrow, enter into contracts, and control financial management. Sections 229 and 230A of the constitution grant municipalities considerable taxation and borrowing powers, but these are subject to national legislation and regulation. Municipal taxation powers are also limited, in that they may unreasonably prejudice national economic policies and economic activities.49 With a sound intergovernmental fiscal-relations system in place, municipal borrowing became both feasible and desirable. Several steps were taken to address financial management challenges inherited from the apartheid system. These included the tortuous route toward the enactment of the MFMA. In addition, the National Treasury supported and encouraged the credit rating appraisals of twenty-three municipalities, including five

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metropolitan councils. Section 98(1) of the Municipal Systems Act (MSA) suggests municipal councils must adopt bylaws to make a municipality’s credit control and debt collection policy, implementation, and enforcement more effective.50 Section 99 of the MSA states specifically that a municipality’s executive committee, executive mayor, or—if the municipality does not have either—the municipal council itself or a committee appointed by it as the supervisory authority must oversee and monitor the implementation and enforcement of the municipality’s credit control. The council is responsible for implementation of the debt collection policy and any bylaws enacted in terms of Section 98, and the council should monitor the performance of the municipal manager in implementing the policy and any bylaws. Other steps included the enactment of enabling legislation for municipal borrowing and the Provincial Borrowing Powers Act of 1996. The existing intergovernmental fiscal relations system provided a framework for ensuring municipal borrowing. This included planned liabilities for municipalities and encouraged the development of enabling institutions to lend to municipalities. In terms of the intergovernmental fiscal relations system, provinces and municipalities can only borrow for capital beyond a financial year. Provinces and municipalities can also borrow for bridging purposes within a financial year. The move toward debt financing in South Africa came at a time when local government units were pressured to alter their traditional funding sources. For instance, the government terminated apartheid-based regional service council (RSC) levies effective July 1, 2006. But and despite interim supplementary funding, municipalities seeking debt funding have found it more difficult to support infrastructure development. For instance, the City of Johannesburg Metro Council has had to issue bonds four times since April 2004. Bank lending to municipalities is not necessarily cheap, and the conditions imposed are often onerous. Banks that continue to operate in this space include the state-backed Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) and the Infrastructure Finance Corp (INCA). Monitoring Processes Imposed on Local Government It is the fundamental assumption of the government of South Africa that subnational governments have the right to secure credit, borrow, enter into contracts, and engage in the normal manner of financial management that is defined throughout the world. In terms of Section 139 of the constitution, the provincial government is empowered to take steps that ensure that the executive obligations of a municipality are fulfilled to achieve service delivery objectives.

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Section 105 of the Municipal System Act enjoins the members of the provincial executive committee (MECs)51 to establish mechanisms, processes, and procedures in terms of Section 155(6) of the constitution to: (1) monitor municipalities in the province in the way that they manage their own affairs and exercise their powers in performing their functions; and (2) monitor the development of local government capacity in the province and assess the support needed by municipalities to strengthen their capacity to manage their own affairs and to exercise their own powers, as well as perform their own functions. In fulfilling this role, the MEC for local government relies heavily on fiscal analyses of the municipality and extensive data generated from municipal interim and annual reports that allow quantitative monitoring and evaluation. Accordingly, under Section 136 of the MFMA, if a MEC becomes aware that there is a serious financial problem in a municipality, the MEC must promptly consult the mayor of the municipality to determine the facts, assess the seriousness of the situation and the municipality’s response to the situation, and determine whether the situation requires an intervention in terms of Section 139 of the constitution. If the municipality has failed to approve its budget or any revenue-raising measures necessary to give effect to the budget, as a result of which the condition for an intervention in terms of Section 139(4) of the constitution are met, the provincial executive must intervene in the municipality in accordance with Section 26 of the MFMA. If the municipality, as a result of a crisis in its financial affairs, is in serious or persistent material breach of its obligations to provide basic services or to meet its financial commitments or admit that it is unable to meet its obligations or financial commitments, as a result of which the condition for an intervention in terms of Section 139(5) of the constitution are met, the provincial executive must intervene in the municipality in accordance with Section 139 of the constitution. The national executive needs to step in (in terms of Section 100 of the constitution) in cases where (according to Section 137 of the MFMA) conditions for a provincial intervention in a municipality have been met; however, the provincial executive does not intervene.

Conclusion The national government’s responsibilities with regard to fiscal provisions for local government include managing the system of intergovernmental relations, situating local government’s roles and responsibilities within the national tax revenue structure, passing legislation to determine local gov-

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ernment’s equitable share of revenue raised nationally, and addressing a range of other topics, such as municipal financial management and budgetary reform processes addressed by the MFMA.52 These are conditions set by legislation that we have discussed in this chapter. The procedures—both constitutional and legislative—are impressive on paper. The policy and administrative framework and procedures appear to be well thought-out and, according to external observers, are among the best in the world.53 The reality on the ground is far different. The problem lies with the human resource condition in South Africa, especially at the subnational government levels. Administrative weakness, bureaucratic corruption, party nepotism, and hierarchical rigidity all combine to create a less-than-optimal example of fiscal management and monitoring. That said, the extent to which South African fiscal systems do work, at least some of the time, if primarily through intergovernmental transfers, should not be underestimated. In the last two chapters, we have seen how local government works in the cities and middle-sized towns of South Africa. Now we turn to the rural areas, home to 40 percent of South Africa’s population, almost all poor.

Notes 1. Lewis Carroll, as quoted by Stefan Kanfer, The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World (New York: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993), p. 351. 2. Thozamile Botha, head of ANC Local Government Department, speaking of those black communities that continued to refuse to pay for local government services after the 1994 elections. Quoted by Kaizer Nyatsumba, “Focus on Steps to Integrate Towns,” Star, January 20, 1994, 8. 3. See Roy Bahl and Paul Smoke, “An Overview of Fiscal Decentralization in South Africa,” in Restructuring Local Government Finance in Developing Countries: Lessons from South Africa, ed. Roy Bahl and Paul Smoke (Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2003), pp. 2–21. 4. Martin Wittenberg, “The Mystery of South Africa’s Ghost Workers in 1996: Measurement and Mismeasurement in the Manufacturing Census, Population Census, and October Household Surveys,” South African Journal of Economics 72, no. 5 (2004): 1003–1022; Louis A. Picard, The State of the State: Institutional Transformation, Capacity, and Political Change in South Africa (Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand University Press, 2005), pp. 331–332. 5. Financial and Fiscal Commission, Financial and Fiscal Commission Technical Report: Annual Submission on the Division of Revenue 2010/2011 (Pretoria: Government Printer, 2009), p. 3. 6. Alistair McIntosh, “The Emerging Local Government System in KwaZulu Natal’s Rural Areas: A Case Study” (paper prepared for a conference on Designing Local Government for South Africa: Structures, Functions and Fiscal Options, n.d.), p. 6.

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7. Nigel Mandy, “Local Government Finance,” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khetla Shubane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 134. 8. Affirmative Action in the Public Service (Pretoria: South African Government Conference Report, March 29–30, 1996), p. 36. 9. See Financial and Fiscal Commission Technical Report. 10. Jovial Rantao, “Provinces Slammed over Cash Waste,” Star, May 26, 1998, 1. 11. Carmel Rickard, “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is,” Sunday Times, February 22, 1998, 21. 12. Tom Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994 (Cape Town: David Philips, 1999), pp. 46–47. 13. Mike Morris and Doug Hindson, “The Disintegration of Apartheid: From Violence to Reconstruction,” in South African Review 6: From “Red Friday” to CODESA, ed. Glenn Moss and Ingrid Obery (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1992), p. 155. 14. Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994, p. 47. 15. Alastair McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model for South Africa,” p. 8. 16. John Seiler and Maggie Seiler, “Squaring the Circle: Meeting Social Welfare Promises in South Africa Through Government/Private Sector Cooperation: A Policy Analysis Exercise” (unpublished paper, 1998), p. 1. 17. V. G. Hillard, “Re-Engineering the South African Public Service for Effective, Efficient, and Economic Service Delivery” (unpublished paper, Port Elizabeth Technikon, South Africa, 1998), p. 5. 18. See N. Ismail, S. Bayat, and I. Meyer, Local Government Management (Johannesburg: International Thompson Publishing, 1997), p. 78; and Robert Cameron, “The Reconstruction and Development Programme,” in South Africa: Designing New Political Institutions, ed. Murray Faure and Jan-Erik Lane (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1996), p. 238. 19. Rantao, “Provinces Slammed over Cash Waste.” 20. McIntosh, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 14. 21. “Provinces to Have Powers over Local Finances,” Business Day, September 23, 1996, 2. 22. Prince Hamnca, “Bitter Attack over Local Govt Funding,” Star, May 17, 1999, 1. 23. Bunty West, “Thokoza Service Arrears of R12-m May Be Written Off,” Star, June 18, 1999, 7. 24. McIntosh, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 25. 25. Anthony Melck, then-vice-chair of the Financial and Fiscal Commission, made this point in discussions with Picard, Picard’s research diary, October 1998. 26. Mark Swilling, “Ripping the Heart out of Local Power,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (March 15–21, 1996): 10. 27. Benny Boshielo, “Local Government and Traditional Leaders,” in Local Government: Focus on Rural Local Government, ed. Seth Ntha (Johannesburg: Bookworks, 1994), pp. 51–61. 28. S. S. Moodley and D. Sing, “Local Government Financing in South Africa,” in Readings in Local Government Management and Development: A Southern African Perspective, ed. P. S. Reddy (Cape Town: Juta Publishers, 1996) p. 186. 29. Ibid., p. 197. 30. McIntosh, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 25.

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31. Ian Clayton, “More Money for Local Governments,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (April 16–22, 1999): 41. 32. “Municipalities to Share R2.3 Billion,” Sowetan, March 4, 1999, 6. 33. McIntosh, “The Emerging Local Government System in KwaZulu Natal’s Rural Areas,” p. 4. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model in South Africa,” p. 2. 37. Eddie Botha, “EL Council to Sue Bisho for R16m,” Daily Dispatch, June 26, 1999, 1. 38. Moodley and Sing, “Local Government Financing in South Africa,” p. 198. 39. “A-G Cracks Whip on Finance,” Pretoria News, June 25, 1999, 1. 40. Rantao, “Provinces Slammed over Cash Waste.” 41. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model for South Africa,” p. 1. 42. The Financial and Fiscal Commission. 43. “Chiefs and New Deal,” Citizen, January 27, 2000, 12. 44. Rachel L. Swarns, “Apartheid’s Legacy Leaves Poor Adrift in the PostApartheid Economy,” New York Times, November 30, 1999, A1, A12. 45. Generally accepted municipal accounting practice (GAMAP); generally recognized accounting practice (GRAP). 46. Public Financial Management Performance Assessment Report, “Budget Brief 1: Revenue Estimation, the Budget Balance and Fiscal Accountability in South Africa” (Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa, September 2008). 47. Barak D. Hoffman, “Assessing the Quality of Local Government in South Africa” (Stanford, CA, unpublished paper, n.d). 48. James L. Nkoana, “Implementing Performance Budgeting in South Africa” (paper prepared for the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Association of Budgeting and Financial Management, Washington, DC, 2007), p. 17. 49. Financial and Fiscal Commission. 50. South African Government, National Treasury Policy Framework for Municipal Borrowing and Financial Emergencies (Pretoria: Government Printing, 2006). 51. In effect, the provincial minister for local government. The term “Executive Committee” is used to label the provincial cabinet. 52. IDASA, “PIMS—Budget Brief 1: Revenue Estimation, the Budget Balance and Fiscal Accountability in South Africa” (Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa, September 2008). 53. Edward Joseph Philip Roberts, “The Financial Relationship Between National and Provincial Governments in South Africa,” Stanford Law School Working Paper, May 2002, http://ssrn.com/abstract=310799; Nkoana, “Implementing Performance Budgeting in South Africa.”

9 The Special Challenges of Rural Local Governance Customary Law is not static.1 The political system has a territorial dimension. . . . The political system, in its own right, incorporates territorial relations and invests them with the particular kind of political significance they have.2 For unless houses replace the hovels and shacks in which most blacks live, unless blacks gain access to clean water, electricity, affordable health care, decent education, good jobs and a safe environment—things which the vast majority of whites have taken for granted for so long—we can just as [well] kiss reconciliation goodbye.3

D

uring the apartheid period, much of the international press coverage of South Africa focused on developments in the urban black townships such as Soweto. Portrayed as poverty-stricken urban ghettos, the townships became symbols of the country’s apartheid systems. However, as Allister Sparks points out, the real poverty and suffering under apartheid was not in the urban black townships but in the rural areas: The homelands are dumping grounds for the economically redundant masses of the black population. “Superfluous” Africans, which often means wives and children, are sent there by the thousands under influx-control laws that are designed to keep them out of the industrial cities.4

This chapter focuses on the population that continues to live and try to make a living in rural South Africa, as well as on the small towns and vil-

205

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lages that dot the landscape. In 1990, there was a strong possibility that these people could be marginalized and neglected. Observers wondered who or what would speak on behalf of the rural areas in the postapartheid period. Depending on how “rural” is defined, close to half of South Africa’s population (over 40 percent and almost all African) lived in subsistence conditions in these rural areas.5 Many of South Africa’s people were living at a subsistence level in the peri-urban areas inside homeland boundaries in 1990. Author Rian Malan described the homelands in that year: “So Msinga [in Natal] isn’t quaint, and it’s not storybook Africa. It is a sprawling rural slum, infested with dope smugglers, gunrunners, and bandits.”6 Above all, Malan suggested that a secret world existed there, “the world of rural black South Africans, the country’s invisible people.”7 It is to that rural world of grassroots governance, focusing on the period after 1994, that we turn in this chapter.

Urban-Rural Linkages Population pressures in the twentieth century had a major impact on the urban areas. Only 10 percent of the African population lived in South Africa’s urban areas in 1910, but by the 1930s that number swelled to more than one million Africans, most of whom had never lived in the reserves.8 The 1936 census found that 21 percent of the 6.5 million Africans lived in the urban areas and 79 percent lived in the rural areas.9 By the end of World War II, there were more Africans than whites in urban South Africa. The fifty-year period between 1940 and 1990 saw a massive relocation of Africans to the urban areas, as they were pushed out of the white farms by mechanization and pulled into the towns by the growing manufacturing and service centers. By 1970 the number of Africans living in the urban areas had more than doubled to 48 percent.10 In 1990 over 45 percent of the African population lived in the homelands.11 Ten years later, in 2000, about 50 percent of Africans were urbanized. Nonetheless, there were still many black South Africans who lived in the rural areas of South Africa—particularly in the former homelands. During the apartheid period, the strategy was to improve the opportunities of urban Africans but at the same time ensure that the unemployed remained in the homelands. Indeed, some planners during the Government of National Unity (GNU) continued to take that position. Urban dwellers living inside the homelands boundaries were a readily available labor pool, but leaders did not focus on their political or socioeconomic aspirations. Economic decentralization, at least in theory, remained an option for the GNU, though international critics of such spatial theory were dubious.12

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The homelands experience made it clear that there needed to be a reconsideration of incentives for industrial and small-business development in selected growth points.13 Urban trends were ominous. Between 1990 and 2010, over 20 million black South Africans moved into the country’s cities and towns and needed at least 6 million jobs. In 2003, South Africa’s population was predicted to grow to 59.7 million by 2015 and as of July 2013 was estimated at 52.9 million. The national population growth in 1994 was 2.7 percent, but in the urban areas it was over 6 percent. The population growth of Africans hovered at just over 3 percent (although the impact of AIDS would lower this marginally). In 1994, South Africa needed more than R22.7 billion to solve the urban housing shortage caused by population movements. The country did not have the money to meet that need, much less address any future shortages. Unemployment and underemployment among Africans was a longterm, predominantly rural problem. The South African Institute of Race Relations had predicted that by 1980 4 million Africans out of a working population of 1 million would be unemployed. By 2005, 40 percent of the adult population—close to 12 million people, or about 25 percent of the total population—were unemployed. Some estimates put current unemployment at 35–40 percent of the entire population. By the end of the twentieth century, South Africa’s population was heavily concentrated in existing urban areas. The Pretoria-WitwatersrandVaal megalopolis (now the province of Gauteng), for example, contained nearly as many people as the entire 1950s South African population.14 Pretoria’s black population (then defined as African, mixed race, and Indian) was predicted to increase by 147 percent, from 848,000 in 1990 to 2.1 million in 2015. In the East Rand area the black population was projected to increase by 145 percent. The overall black population in the Rand was projected to increase by 122 percent, from 5.8 million to 12.9 million, during the same period. Population pressures were important limitations on social and economic development as the country struggled to become an emerging market country. Despite the historic 1994 elections that instituted a nonracial, majority-rule government in South Africa, much remained to be done to consolidate the democratic transition in terms of economic and social development. These challenges were particularly acute in the rural areas where the bulk of South Africa’s poor resided and where apartheid had left a legacy of poor education, a lack of relevance, and the threatened collapse of the youth labor market. Of particular concern, according to John Seiler, was an increasing gap between the urban upper and middle classes, where the urban black upper-middle-class population was approaching the numer-

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ical level of its white counterpart but was politically threatened by waves of rural people moving into urban informal settlements.15 In looking at subnational governance, the key to understanding local government was that “rural” was a good proxy for “poverty.” The reality of South Africa’s industrial decentralization policy was that attempts at movement control were likely to continue in some form in the postapartheid period.16 Capturing bias in the basic grant system required increasing capacity in the remote areas and at the local-government level. An end to the arbitrary nature of the allocation process to local governments, however, only began in 2001. In the smaller cities, towns, and rural settlements, local councils faced demands from three to four times the number of people who were dependent upon local government prior to 1994.17 At the grassroots, “the district level [would be] the lynch pin of the new system” in terms of health and social development.18 The challenge to establishing any type of rural local government, however, was finding a design that conformed to national political priorities since rural local governments had a small, static revenue base.19 The GNU envisioned a shift from policy-level changes to the operational tasks necessary to increase capacity at both the individual and organizational levels.20 However, in South Africa, the idea of devolving responsibility for economic development to the smaller towns and the rural areas had been discredited during the apartheid period. Without question, the rural issue became increasingly important in South Africa. Though the functional urbanization level (including informal urbanization) was 65 percent, 35 percent of the total population lived in “deep rural” South Africa in 1994. In that year, it was not clear what role rural and peri-urban areas would play in the new transitional local authorities. In reality, the local government transition largely passed over the rural areas and their 11 million residents.21 Rural conditions and social and economic needs in South Africa as a whole continue to be debated. Any needs assessment of public sector capacity must include calculations for local government and social-services delivery to the still-disadvantaged rural areas. Human resource development advantages in South Africa, unless controlled, historically have gone to the urban areas. In 1994 there was a lack of in-depth research in human resource development areas. At the local government level, “it was becoming clear that management development was crucial in the transformation process.”22 There was a severe lack of administrative capacity in the rural areas.23 Provinces were unprepared to provide an adequate legal and administrative support system for rural local authorities. Rural local governments were completely dependent upon provinces, and both provinces and national

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government had strong centralizing tendencies and were not prone to set capacity-building as a priority.24 In many parts of rural South Africa, political freedom was still more of a goal than an observable reality despite the political changes of 1994. According to a donor-financed study in 1998, the structure of politics in the rural and peri-urban areas of South Africa was similar to that in other African states. Civil society was fragile, and political authority rested on clientelistic structures. Local government was weak despite the existence of elected local authorities.25 Inevitably, attitudes of rural South African blacks ranged from confusion about the new government structures to hostility and anger at the inefficiency of government services.

Transitional Local Authorities The Local Government Transition Act was particularly inappropriate for the rural realities in South Africa.26 The act established transitional councils, called transitional local authorities (TLAs), that were divided into two parts, half representing existing white local authorities and half representing organizations of the mass democratic movement, including the ANC, the United Democratic Front (UDF), and other liberation groups. As Steven Friedman pointed out, “There was no guarantee that the councils we elect will have a say in anything of consequence.”27 Instead, indirectly elected district councils (higher-tier authorities) would provide (or try to provide) services outside of the cities and towns. The ANC suggested that traditional authorities could have some representation on these higher-level authorities, but how this would be done was not made clear.28 The creation of district councils, by taking governance away from the community, had dire consequences for rural local government.29 Many TLAs were large. In one rural transitional local authority, each of its six wards had 22,000 residents, for a total of 132,000 people in an area that included a few very small towns, some commercial areas, and many very poor people.30 Rural TLAs had no executive authority or personnel in the rural areas, and they had no role beyond electing representatives to district councils. One quasi-urban TLA in the Eastern Cape (in Keiskama Hoek) had fewer than twenty officials working for the council in 1999.31 In the Northern Province, local press reports noted that a large number of rural TLAs were facing financial collapse as a result of corruption and funds misappropriation.32 Most were mismanaged and suffered from gross irregularities and a lack of capacity.33 There was confusion in the rural areas because some TLAs were elected, as were some district councils; others were not.34

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TLAs outside the urban areas had little executive authority or few personnel in the rural areas. South Africa’s rural areas still needed their own local government institutions to speak out for the huge number of poor, marginalized people living in rural and peri-urban areas and in informal settlements that were in or near the country’s cities.35 In the rural areas, the conflict between traditional authorities and local government could be very tense. Rural local government in KwaZulu-Natal, in particular, was characterized by controversy.36 In most rural areas, a single political party dominated: the ANC in the Northern Province and the Eastern Cape; Inkatha in KwaZulu-Natal; and the National Party (and later, to a certain extent, the Democratic Alliance) in the Western Cape. The debate about the Local Government Transition Act raised several issues, including the future role of traditional leaders, the provision of facilities and services to rural villages, border demarcation, the power of provincial and local government, and the role of civic movements in local government.37 Where should ultimate authority over traditional leaders be located? Should traditional authorities be responsible to the central state, a part of local state administrations, or part of local government?38 There were three problems with TLAs. First, they were not fully representative because resources were allocated through the unelected district councils. Secondly, an impasse remained over the role of traditional authorities. Finally, there was a lack of capacity within the administrative local structures, especially within intermediate structures (e.g., district and regional councils).39 Because of its weakness in the rural areas, local government was simply one service provider among many, including NGOs and central government departments. With various parallel forums and committees, local-level institutions became fragmented.40 There was a tendency not to plan for social development even though there was a need at the provincial level to take such planning seriously. The key to long-term planning was to work with other district councils and other regions. Local government authorities faced a severe capacity problem because they lacked both the funding and the skilled administrators needed to deliver promised local government services. In addition, South African local governments “inherited [a] huge infrastructure backlog, declining services, historical imbalances, unemployment, economic stagnation, [and the] need for peace and stability.”41 Following McIntosh, we draw two conclusions from this: local government in South Africa would be engaged in development activities, but it would function within the context of a large and complex state machinery.42 With the backlog of projects, it was clear that in the future, urban and rural local governments and regional services councils would require large

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numbers of personnel to function efficiently.43 In December 1996, the Commission on Remuneration of Representatives proposed a new formula for the payment of city councilors and restricted the number of local government representatives. But the commission did little to address the issue of local government service, particularly outside of the metropolitan areas. Given the weaknesses of even the larger municipal councils, local authorities had little choice but to use whatever resources were available to them to contract out their service responsibilities.44 Nor was it surprising that South African municipal workers’ unions protested against this privatization of local government services.45 When Johannesburg tried to sell off Metro Gas, its stadium, and the Rand airport in 1999, as well as put the Metro Center, worth R500 million, on the market, the unions cried foul. However, due to the lack of qualified staff, contracting for delivery of services could be a viable option for local governments.46 At issue was the unfolding structure of the public services at the subprovincial level. All levels of government had inherited considerable staff from the former regime, much of which was unqualified. 47 Not much was inherited in deep rural areas, other than the remnants of the homeland bureaucracies. One question that had to be addressed early was whether or not local government employees would be considered effectively part of the public service of South Africa.48 The success or failure of any government hinged on solving recruitment problems.49 The key for future local governments in South Africa would be to gain access to skilled personnel.50

Regional Services Councils: From Band-Aid to Model? The origins of regional service councils can be traced to the Browne Committee of Inquiry of the 1970s, though their creation was long delayed for political reasons.51 In 1983, discussions began about the creation of some form of regional or metropolitan boards that would deliver hard, rather than soft, services to the black townships. “Hard” services such as water, electrical power, and regional roads were to be taken over by metropolitan boards represented by local authorities, and “soft” services such as waste collection would remain the responsibility of the various local bodies.52 Regional services councils (RSCs) were created in 1985 as the focal point of deconcentration of authority under P. W. Botha. However, the first eight RSCs came into being only in 1987.53 RSCs were the answer to the technical and managerial requirements of metropolitan and regional economies, a consequence of years of influx control, industrial dispersal policy, and Bantustan development.54 A total of twenty-one functions were transferred to RSCs from primary local authorities. Responsibility for gov-

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erning RSCs was to be shared among the four ethnic groups.55 Each group would be part of an umbrella service organization that would supply infrastructural services to the municipalities.56 Despite the recognized need for the functional responsibilities represented by RSCs, voting in RSCs was weighted with one representative for every ten percent of votes given to a body. The maximum was five representatives per area. Taxation was the basis of the weighted voting system and voting was thus weighted in favor of the high-consumption white local authorities. Co-opted black councilors, provincial authorities, and state bureaucrats were the primary supporters of RSCs. RSCs were given financial control over hard services. One proposal even gave RSCs major responsibility for commuter transportation in the South African metropolitan areas. Importantly, turnover and payroll levies on employers provided revenue for the RSCs.57 In response to urban resistance, some ministers within the Nationalist cabinet recognized the need for a redistribution of resources from white to black areas in order to more equalize the standards of service in different localities. They proposed that RSCs become a mechanism for such redistribution. RSCs were to be cost effective and provide for economies of scale for hard services and the redistribution of resources to black townships. Black local authorities would be able to draw on RSC funds rather than raise rents or rates to provide infrastructure to townships.58 The way that RSCs were set up reflected the racial character of primary local authorities at the regional level and complemented the tricameral system at the national level.59 In each of the three houses of the tricameral parliament, a Department of Local Government was created to supervise “own affairs” at the primary-authority level, while the multiracial RSCs were to control general affairs administration at the local level. Local government in South Africa was characterized by service agreements between large and small authorities for service distribution, contractual arrangements between firms and local authorities for the delivery of services, and eventually the RSC structure required a bureaucracy that implied additional costs. This new bureaucracy set priorities for local residents in the urban areas and especially, but not exclusively, the white areas.60 Eventually RSCs were also established in rural areas outside the homelands. The RSCs’ main function was to create hard-capital investment services.61 Employment and turnover levies were to both control labor opportunities in the metropolitan areas and create revenue for RSCs. Initially, there was concern within the business community that this would raise the operating costs of businesses in the Central Business Districts (CBDs), as would occur in the 1990s.62 Under the revised RSC scheme, metropolitan

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areas included urban and quasi-urban settlements within parts of the Bantustans that were within commuting distance of the industrial and commercial centers of the country. These areas fell under RSC control.63 In theory, though hardly ever in practice, urban and peri-urban areas across homeland borders were to be included in RSCs. The Regional Services Councils Act of 1985 explicitly stated that the RSCs would have jurisdiction over sections of the Bantustans.64 Ultimately, homelands were left out of these arrangements. There were no cross-border mechanisms created, and without those, residents of the homelands did not have access to RSC revenue. Despite claims that RSCs were part of a reform process, movement from homelands during the 1980s to urban areas remained controlled in order to avoid greater urban unemployment.65 There were a number of financial and fiscal implications of local government restructuring. First, the RSCs allowed central government to have a significant role in the redistribution of wealth in an urban area. Second, levies for RSCs were such that they discouraged businesses from locating within the RSCs’ jurisdiction. Third, though the RSCs were supposed to be redistributive, the low subsidy level indicated the low level of importance actually placed on local government. The government’s intention was to use the RSCs to upgrade the standard of basic infrastructural services in the segregated coloured and Indian local authority areas lacking an independent fiscal base.66 Though in theory RSCs allowed for crossing into homeland areas, in fact, few homeland townships and squatter camps benefited from RSC projects.67 Initially, BLAs were not included in the regional service scheme. It was only in 1988 that the government intervened to try to alleviate the financial crisis facing the BLAs by finally agreeing to include them in the RSCs. Having created RSCs, government then attempted to use them as a means to improve the legitimacy of BLAs. Contrary to initial intentions to spend RSC funds on capital development, given the security crisis, RSCs were brought directly into the operating account of BLAs in order to pay recurrent deficits.68 In 1987 the United Democratic Front claimed that RSCs would “entrench segregated local government structures by hoodwinking the public into believing the new system represented a ‘broadening of democracy.’”69 Regional services councils and joint services councils (as they were styled in some areas) were based on wealth and used local structures that were not representative but rather based on apartheid spatial divisions, not on popular support.70 In addition to their unequal treatment of different regions of the country (black from white), RSCs were cumbersome; they included an administrative structure embedded in white local authorities, twenty-seven working committees, three advisory committees, nine joint

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working committees, a regional liaison committee, and several ad hoc committees.71 At the third tier of government, 37 (later, 42) RSCs were introduced in the late 1980s. These were the basis of higher-tier, indirectly elected councils. Theoretically, RSCs linked to 783 traditional councils and 45 rural community councils.72 In Natal alone there were said to be close to 300 traditional leaders.73 The variety of third-tier governments that had to interact with RSCs meant that local government did not fit into neat patterns. The Pretoria region, for example, had the special problem of Soshanguve 74 and the Bophuthatswana peri-urban areas that had to form a separate municipality. Functional integration with Mabopane and Winterveld were logical. In Pretoria, the RSC area included Mamelodi, Atteridgeville, Eesterus, and Laudium. Verwoerdburg (Centurion) and Akasia would also survive as separate entities.75 It was only in 1988 that RSCs were mandated to redistribute substantial resources into township urban renewal programs—particularly to poor black areas.76 RSCs were designed for the maximum deconcentration of power and decentralization of administration to a regional metropolitan authority, yet they were not devolved, participatory bodies. Instead, RSCs carried responsibility for citywide services and were designated as administrative bodies. The services that the RSCs provided were no longer subject directly to electoral influence.77 Critics of the local government reforms and decentralization focused on the loss of political accountability that was involved. RSCs were established as an upper tier of local government. This restructuring, as was the case at the provincial level, involved not a devolution of political participation and election of representatives, but rather a deconcentration of administration and corporate-style interest representation. These changes amounted to a further reduction of political accountability and public examination of government even within the context of a racially segregated local government system.78 Extra-parliamentary groups opposed these top-down structures and demanded integrated urban systems on the one-city model. Both racially segregated local authorities and multiracial bodies such as RSCs were unacceptable to the mass democratic movement. The pivotal figure in the functioning of RSCs was the provincial administrator (who had an appointed Provincial Executive Committee which managed functional departments at the provincial level). The administrator was a prefect-style central government appointee responsible to the Department of Provincial Affairs and Planning.79 RSCs theoretically provided a primitive way of linking up the various parts of the metropolitan area, and there were provisions for homeland metropolitan participation in these new local government structures that should

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have brought peri-urban residents trapped across homeland boundaries into the system. RSCs had the potential to become powerful administrative and fiscal centers, as well as a form of metropolitan government, paving the way for a policy of planned urbanization. Rural RSCs were even more vulnerable to criticism, and there were strong reasons to doubt the viability of RSCs in the rural areas such as Natal, the Eastern Cape, and the Northern Transvaal.80 There were bureaucratic implications to the creation of RSCs. The idea was to create administrative autonomy for municipal officials, seconded to RSCs, that would lead to a metropolitan form of government.81 With the publication of the Thornhill Report in 1991, there were suggestions that RSCs would undergo far-reaching changes as part of the negotiations process. They would remain in the new dispensation, but there would be a distinction between rural and urban RSCs. Rural RSCs would change less than urban ones. Urban participating authorities would not be constituted on a racial basis, and RSCs would integrate into metropolitan areas. Urban areas would have a large number of personnel as part of metropolitan councils.82 In the early 1990s Roger Southall suggested there was some potential to transform or reform regional and local government structures within a deracialized RSC system, and he proved to be right.83 However, as Table 9.1 illustrates there were dramatic inequities between black and white areas in terms of income that would limit the utility of the RSC model. When RSCs were created, there was some suspicion that they might be the testing grounds for a new regionalized system of provincial administration. Instead, RSCs, though not strictly local authorities, came to be regarded as vertical extensions of local government—or more accurately the local state.84 Though deracialized and renamed, the Government of National Unity used RSCs after 1994 as the basis of local government both in the smaller urban and rural areas. Government departments and the

Table 9.1 Recurrent Costs and Income, Johannesburg and Soweto, 1990 (in millions of rand)

Johannesburg Soweto

Cost

Income

786 104

203 26

Source: Nigel Mandy, “Local Government Finance and Institutional Reform,” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khetla Shubane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 124.

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provincial administrator played a central role through the RSCs and patronage in defining the parameters of day-to-day decisionmaking at the local level.85

From Regional Services Councils to District Councils RSCs successfully survived the transition to nonracial government at the national level through the bipolar arrangements that governed local government. After 1994, RSC-like structures (district councils) continued to be used in both urban and rural areas. The district council system, established in 1996 in rural South Africa, was based on rural RSCs. Their role in upgrading infrastructure and the manner of their representation through indirect elections remained key issues in the postapartheid era.86 After 1994, the regional council model, shorn of its racially biased voting mechanisms, became the vehicle to provide support for social and infrastructure development outside the country’s major cities, and RSCs were incorporated into metropolitan authorities in larger cities. In May 1995 they still existed in their original form in a number of medium-sized urban areas, such as the East Rand, and in rural areas outside of former homelands. Several of the new provinces were subdivided into regions or districts after the nonracial elections. In Northern Province in 1996, there were two subprovincial structures (regions or districts), twelve urban transitional local governments, and thirty-nine rural transitional local governments. In the short term, the GNU concluded that rural local government would have to be built upon the existing administrative structure in the old RSCs and joint services boards (as the RSCs were referred to in Natal).87 Counterpart meetings within a department were difficult, as was working with district councils and preparing joint district and regional integrated development plans, where competition and duplication were challenges.88 The 1997 fiscal commission report described district councils as an extension of a regional services model based on metropolitan councils. District councils took over certain local government functions under the GNU but were without direct financial or personnel support. District council boundaries were not drawn in ways that assured a revenue source. There was no available source of revenue, particularly in the former homeland areas.89 Rural areas became dependent upon district councils for the limited services available in the rural areas.90 If district councils were to become planning agencies, there was danger of smaller communities being eclipsed by the larger majoritarian process of the local bureaucracy or planning establishment.91

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The upper tier of local government, outside of the urban areas, was indirectly elected, which was a characteristic of the RSCs that preceded them. The indirect election mechanism, carried over to the GNU, was part of the package of goals the National Party had put into place in the late 1980s in order to depoliticize basic service delivery.92 As a mechanism of depoliticization, the shift to rural district councils survived the end of the apartheid period, allowing elites to work with their counterparts in other district councils. The provincial level needed to take planning seriously. In the rural areas, district councils were the key to linking up to the regional offices of the provinces. Capacity was the critical issue.93 Thus, as with metropolitan government, there would be two levels of government: local and intermediate below the region. The original two-tier model was made up of a primary level of local government that included elected councilors, traditional leaders, and district/regional councils that were indirectly elected with influence from commercial interest groups. The primacy of governance at the local government level was threatened because of the weakness of primary structures.94 District councils were nonrepresentative and limited the influence of grassroots interest groups and stakeholders. At issue was the extent to which the use of district councils presaged a move toward a single tier of local government, represented by district councils in the rural areas. “Country wide,” according to one local government specialist in 1999, “primary local governments have to disappear and be replaced by elected district councils.”95 This would only occur after 1999. District councils were severely undermined in terms of representation.96 They did not represent local constituencies, and they had too many councilors (this in part because of the need to offset the large number of chiefs with ex-officio status).97 A second problem was that their constituencies were too large, in many cases.98 For example, in 1999, the Greater East London (Amatola District) Council contained 585,000 people (see Table 9.2).

Table 9.2 Population of Amatola (East London) District Council, 1999 Asians Coloureds Whites Blacks (Duncan Village) Blacks (Mdantsane) Total

5,000 80,000 70,000 80,000 350,000 585,000

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District councils were mechanisms to get around the problems of insufficient funding and human resource capacity. However, it was feared that these intermediate bodies, would “become a large staff complement in its own right” and would function as large, inefficient bureaucratic structures.99 In addition, there were difficulties with regard to district councils, such as: the impasse around the role of traditional authorities; the absence of a role for primary local authorities; and an inadequate level of capacity at the intermediate level to implement service delivery.100 Central government gave rural local authorities wide functions without the human or financial resources to implement them.101 Local government during the GNU was comprised of district councils (in Natal they were labeled regional councils) and urban metropolitan councils. Rural district councils were not directly elected, leaving no effective primary, elective local government. After 1999 many rural local government areas were considered too large, and government was concerned that several district council areas were even larger.102 In rural South Africa, the district council functioned as a regional, unified, local government personnel service by regulating, providing recruitment and retrenchment patterns, as well as training and education opportunities. It appeared likely that some form of local government service or commission “would become a permanent support system to council staff at the sub-provincial level.”103 As local government evolved, it would need to begin with a systematic needs analysis and an organizational effort to integrate the service vertically and horizontally. A five-year training program was also planned.104 In 2007, the Mbeki administration announced that South Africa would move to a single civil service that included local governments. In 2010, the decision was made to incorporate traditional authorities in rural local governance.

Notes 1. F. M. d’Engelbronner-Kolff, M. O. Hinz, and J. L. Sindano, “Introduction,” in Traditional Authority and Democracy in Southern Africa (Windhoek: New Namibia Books, 1998), p. ix. 2. M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, “Introduction,” in African Political Systems (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 7. 3. Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 274. 4. Allister Sparks, “The Real Soweto,” Sunday Observer Magazine (May 13, 1984): 24–31. 5. Reg Rummey, “SA’s Whites Are Grasping at Straws,” Weekly Mail (August 2–8, 1991): 26.

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6. Rian Malan, My Traitor’s Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, His Conscience (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990), p. 296. 7. Ibid., p. 310. 8. David Welsh, “The Executive and the African Population: 1948 to the Present,” in Leadership in the Apartheid State: From Malan to De Klerk, ed. Robert Schire (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 138. 9. Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa (Cape Town: A. D. Donker, 1987), p. 135. 10. Jill Natrass, The South African Economy: Its Growth and Change (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 78. 11. S. F. Coetzee (director of policy analysis, Development Bank of South Africa), interview with Picard, August 10, 1990. 12. For a discussion of this see Thomas Mathukhu Mogale, “Public Sector Intervention and Regional Economic Restructuring: Induced Industrial Relocations in the Northern Transvaal, South Africa (1982–1993)” (PhD diss., 1997). 13. Job Mokgoro, “Incorporation of the TBVC States,” in Policies for Public Service Transformation, ed. Fanie Cloete and Job Mokgoro (Kenwyn, South Africa: Juta, 1990), pp. 51–70. 14. Keith Gottschalk, “State Strategy and the Limits of the CounterRevolution,” in South African Review 4, ed. Glenn Moss and Ingrid Obery (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), p. 503. 15. John Seiler, “South Africa in the Middle Distance: Continuing Democratization, Growing Centralization, a One-Party State, or Social Disintegration?” (unpublished paper, September 15, 1997). 16. Roland Hunter, “Managing Sustainable Economic Development,” in Managing Sustainable Development in South Africa, ed. Patrick FitzGerald, Ann McLennan, and Barry Munslow (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 254. 17. Heribert Adam, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, and Kogila Moodley, Comrades in Business: Post-Liberation Politics in South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1997), p. 74. 18. Bio Nio Ong and Dawn Joseph, “Health: A District Level Perspective,” in Managing Sustainable Development in South Africa, p. 540. 19. Adam, van Zyl Slabbert, and Moodley, Comrades in Business, p. 74. 20. J. C. N. Mentz makes this point. See “The Role of Personal and Institutional Factors in Capacity Building and Institutional Development” (paper prepared for the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration, Durban, South Africa, May 1–5, 1995), pp. 3–8. Mentz divides capacity building into “personal” and “nonpersonal” components. 21. Alistair McIntosh, “The Emerging Local Government System in KwaZulu Natal’s Rural Areas: A Case Study” (paper prepared for the conference Designing Local Government for South Africa: Structures, Functions, and Fiscal Options, n.d.), p. 9; Mathole Motshekga, “Written Speech,” in Seth Nthai, ed., Local Government: Focus on Rural Local Government—Conference Proceedings (Johannesburg: Bookworks, 1994), p. 98. 22. Y. Penceliah, “Human Resource Management for Local Government,” in Readings in Local Government Management and Development: A Southern African Perspective, ed. P. S. Reddy (Cape Town: Juta, 1996), pp. 113–126.

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23. Alastair McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model for South Africa” (paper prepared for the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, n.d.), p. 8. 24. C. S. van der Waal, “The Rhetoric and Practice of Participation in Rural Development: Anthropological Perspectives from South Africa” (unpublished paper, n.d.), p. 15. 25. Joel Barkan, Michael Bratton, Steven Friedman, Claude Kabemba, Chris Landsberg, and Khehla Shubane, Strategic Assessment of Democracy and Governance in South Africa (Pretoria: Report for USAID/SA, February 1998), p. 3. 26. “SA Needs Local Govt Ministry,” Star, June 2, 1994, 1. 27. Noted in Picard’s research diary, June 2, 1995. 28. Patrick Bulger, “District Council Role Mooted for Chiefs,” Star, May 24, 1995, 8. 29. Jacob Dlamini, “Row over Proposals for Rural Government,” Sunday Times, June 4, 1995, 4. 30. van der Waal, “The Rhetoric and Practice of Participation in Rural Development,” p. 15. 31. Picard’s research diary, June 28, 1999. 32. Hennie Smit, “TLCs to Investigate Themselves,” Review (Pietersburg), June 11, 1999, 5. 33. Ibid. 34. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model in South Africa,” p. 4. 35. van der Waal, “The Rhetoric and Practice of Participation in Rural Development,” p. 20. 36. Alastair McIntosh, “Traditional Leaders and Local Government in KwaZulu Natal” (paper prepared for the ICIC Workshop for Traditional Leaders, n.d.), p. 1. 37. Nthai, “Towards Democratic Rural Government Structures,” in Local Government, pp. 8–10. 38. See M. O. Hinz, “The ‘Traditional’ of Traditional Government: Traditional Versus Democracy-Based Legitimacy,” in Traditional Authority and Democracy in South Africa, pp. 1–13. 39. McIntosh, “The Emerging Local Government System in KwaZulu Natal’s Rural Areas,” p. 3. 40. Ibid., pp. 2–5. 41. Kinuthia Wamwangi and Phillip Kundishora, “Regional Scan of Decentralization Issues and Crosscutting Themes in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region” (paper presented at the African Local Governance Program of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, August 2003), p. 29. 42. Ibid., p. 30. In some areas, of course, no historical precedent or tradition of local government existed and a fresh start had to be made. 43. Richard Humphries, “Whither Regional Services Councils?” in Apartheid City in Transition, ed. Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khetla Shubane (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 88. 44. “Local Authorities Lead Restructuring,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (September 20–26, 1996): B3. 45. “Workers in Privatisation Protest,” Citizen, September 2, 1997, 10. 46. Fanie Cloete, “Local Government: Cradle or Death of Democratic Development,” in State of the Nation 1997/8, ed. Bertus de Villiers (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1998), p. 158.

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47. Nazeem Ismail, Saheed Bayat, and Ivan Meyer, Local Government Management (Johannesburg: International Thompson Publishing, 1997), p. 55. 48. Cloete, “Local Government: Cradle or Death of Democratic Development,” in State of the Nation 1997/8, p. 148. 49. Gerhard Croeser, “Autonomy in Local Government Finance,” in Apartheid City in Transition, p. 143. 50. Ibid. 51. Richard Humphries, “Regional Services Councils: A Preliminary Evaluation,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 59–74. 52. Craig Charney, “Restructuring White Politics: The Transformations of the National Party,” in South African Review 1: Same Foundations, New Facades? ed. South African Research Service (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 138–139. 53. Anthony Lemon, “The Apartheid City,” in Homes Apart: South Africa’s Segregated Cities, ed. Anthony Lemon (Cape Town: David Philip, 1991), p. 25. 54. Mark Swilling, “Introduction: The Politics of Stalemate,” in State, Resistance, and Change, p. 17. 55. Whites, coloureds, Indians, and Blacks. 56. Willem de Klerk, The Second [R]evolution (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1984), p. 44. 57. Daryl Glaser, “A Periodisation of South Africa’s Industrial Dispersal Policy,” in Regional Restructuring Under Apartheid: Urban and Regional Policies in Contemporary South Africa, ed. Richard Tomlinson and Mark Addelson (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), p. 46. 58. Alison Todes, Vanessa Watson, and Peter Wilkinson, “Local Government Restructuring in South Africa: The Case of the Western Cape,” in Regional Restructuring Under Apartheid, p. 127. 59. Gerhard Totemeyer, “Local Government: Where Politics and Administration Meet,” in Government by the People, ed. Chris Heymans and Gerhard Totemeyer (Johannesburg: Juta, 1988), p. 9. 60. David Solomon, “The Fiscal and Financial Aspects of Local Government Restructuring,” in ibid., pp. 77–94. 61. William Cobbett, Daryl Glaser, Doug Hindson, and Mark Swilling, “A Critical Analysis of the South African State’s Reform Strategies in the 1980s,” in State, Resistance and Change in South Africa, ed. Mark Swilling, Philip Frankel, and Noam Pines (London: Croom Helm, 1988), p. 24. 62. Richard Tomlinson and Mark Addelson, “Is the State’s Regional Policy in the Interests of Capital?” in Regional Restructuring Under Apartheid, p. 68. 63. Cobbett et al., “South Africa’s Regional Political Economy,” in South African Research Service, ed., South African Review 3, p. 103. 64. Ibid., p. 14. 65. Ibid., pp. 7–10. 66. See Jeremy Grest, “The Crisis of Local Government,” in State, Resistance and Change, p. 104. 67. Ibid., p. 25. 68. Mark Swilling, William Cobbett, and Roland Hunter, “Finance, Electricity Costs, and the Rent Boycott,” in Apartheid City in Transition, pp. 174–196. See also Charles Simkins, “Local Government Finance in South Africa’s Cities: Some Preliminary Notes,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 50–51.

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69. “RSCs Will Hoodwink the Public Says UDF,” Star, July 3, 1987, 11. 70. McIntosh, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 13. 71. R. Fox, E. Nel, and C. Runtges, “East London,” in Homes Apart, p. 68. 72. A. J. Christopher, “Port Elizabeth,” in ibid., p. 43. 73. McIntosh, “Traditional Leaders and Local Government in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 1. 74. Acronym for Sotho, Shangaan, Nguni, and Venda. 75. P. S. Hattingh and A. C. Thorn, “Pretoria,” in Homes Apart, pp. 146–161. 76. Mark Swilling, “Stayaways, Urban Protest and the State,” in South African Review 3, p. 44. 77. Ibid., p. 132. 78. Cobbett et al., “South Africa’s Regional Political Economy,” in South African Review 3, ed. South African Research Service, pp. 137–168. 79. On regional services councils, see Pierre du Toit, “Regional Services Councils: Control at the Local Government Level,” in Government by the People, pp. 63–76. 80. Nigel Mandy, “The Central Witwatersrand Metropolis: Divided It Falls, United It Stands,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Science 18, no. 1 (January 1991): 87. 81. Humphries, “Whither Regional Services Councils,” in Apartheid City in Transition, p. 85. 82. Ibid., p. 88. 83. Roger Southall, “Negotiations and Social Democracy in South Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 28, no. 3 (September 1990): 487–509. 84. Richard Humphries and Khehla Shubane, “A Tale of Two Squirrels: The 1988 Local Government Elections and Their Implications,” in South Africa at the End of the Eighties: Policy Perspectives 1989, ed. Robin Lee and Lawrence Schlemmer (Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, 1989), p. 105. 85. Todes et al., “Local Government Restructuring,” in Regional Restructuring Under Apartheid, p. 130. 86. Humphries and Shubane, “A Tale of Two Squirrels,” p. 111. 87. McIntosh, “Rural Local Government in South Africa,” in Readings in Local Government Management and Development, p. 247. 88. Interview by Picard with senior administrator, May 7, 1994. 89. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model in South Africa,” p. 5. 90. Ibid., p. 3. 91. Laurence Schlemmer, “Challenges of Process and Policy,” in Apartheid State in Transition, p. 364. 92. Andries Cornelissen (provincial secretary, Transvaal Provincial Administration), interview with Picard, August 12, 1988. 93. Christo Theart and Nomagugu Mgijima (development planners with Theart Mgijima and Associates), interview with Picard, East London, June 22, 1999. 94. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model in South Africa,” p. 4. 95. Errol Spring (presidential project team leader, Eastern Cape local government administration), interview with Picard, East London, June 23, 1999. 96. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model in South Africa,” p. 6.

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97. McIntosh, “The Emerging Local Government System in KwaZulu Natal’s Rural Areas,” pp. 1–2. 98. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model for South Africa,” p. 8. 99. McIntosh, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 18. 100. Ibid., p. 5. 101. Ibid. The phenomenon of “unfunded mandates,” quite common in the aftermath of the 1996 local government election, has only been addressed to a limited extent subsequently. 102. Ibid., p. 7. 103. McIntosh, “Rural Local Government,” in Readings in Local Government Management, p. 243. 104. George Mayevu (director of management services, Northern Province Department of Local Government), interview with Picard, June 26, 1996.

10 The Continuing Role of Traditional Authorities

O

ne of the African National Congress’s primary concerns when it came to power was what exactly its policy should be toward the country’s approximately 700 traditional authorities.1 In this chapter, we examine the debate over traditional authorities and the difficulty that the new government had in defining a rural development policy. In the Eastern Cape, many chiefs, particularly in the Transkei, allied themselves with Bantu Holomisa’s breakoff party, the United Democratic Movement, triggering deep concern over this issue within the ANC.2 In response—and just in time for the 1999 election—the ANC-led government announced that traditional leaders were entitled to large pay increases, pensions, and medical benefits.3 In the decade that followed, the ANC leadership changed its views several times on rural local governance, eventually coming to the conclusion that it needed traditional leaders to ensure political quiescence in the rural areas of the country.

The Rural Governance Problem Rural areas were effectively excluded from the transitional local authorities (TLA) system.4 When the Government of National Unity (GNU) came to power in 1994, it was not known who would speak on behalf of the rural areas in the postapartheid period. There was a strong possibility that these

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areas would be marginalized and neglected. 5 Close to half the population, over 40 percent, lived in subsistence conditions in the rural areas.6 Many more South Africans lived at subsistence levels in the peri-urban areas inside homeland boundaries. The informal settlements located inside homeland boundaries, but on the peripheries of metropolitan economies, proliferated after 1990. The rural local governance problem was compounded when TLAs were added to the equation. In some cases, adjustments in income transfers negatively affected rural provinces and the less densely populated areas because the government had to spend more than the population allotment justified; this was a problem in that rural local authorities could not administer funds. The Local Government Transitional Act was full of loopholes and gaps and in large part failed to address the rural question.7 As Malcolm Wallis pointed out in 1995: The new transitional councils in rural areas of former homelands such as Lebowa [were], in some instances, entirely without staff and . . . obliged to depend on provincial officials over whom they had no direct authority and who [were] limited in capacity.8

Perhaps the largest challenge within rural provinces, such as the Northern (now Limpopo) Province and the Eastern Cape, was the transformation of regional and local government that took place over the five years of the GNU. The provincial and local governments had to design and manage a process that would allow rural development interventions to effectively conform to national political priorities. The need began with the provincial Departments of Local Government, which faced problems similar to those of other provincial departments. At the national level, the Department of Local Government had to be created as a separate department, though this policy had not yet been turned into law by mid-1996. Ultimately, it was named the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in 2010. Very little had changed for the rural poverty-stricken areas of the Western Cape after 1994, and there was a deep-seated lack of understanding about the role of local government in the rural Western Cape.9 Nor was rural local government in the Western Cape much different than it was in the rest of South Africa. In one Western Cape area, by law and by convention the Karretjie People [of the Western Cape] were thus for long, and to an extent still are, excluded from the South African political process. Also by virtue of the relative isolation and remoteness that their lifestyle entails, political activities have by and large passed them by or they have been simply ignorant of them.10

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The Apartheid Legacy and Traditional Authorities In 1971, South Africa had 429 tribal authorities ruled by a governmentrecognized chief and council, 47 regional authorities consisting of a grouping of tribes, and 5 territorial authorities comprising a number of regional groups. By 1994, estimates put the total of traditional leaders at over 800, and there were approximately 10,000 subordinate traditional leaders in South Africa. When the GNU came to power in 1994, approximately 40 percent of all Africans either lived under or at least accepted traditional rule. Moreover, the migrant labor system had, over the years, brought traditional rule principles to the urban areas.11 Plans to establish elected local governments threatened the status and the power of traditional leaders, who had little knowledge of the norms of democratic governance.12 As a senior level homeland administrator put it: The problem with traditional administration is that there is a lack of definition of the various roles. . . . The modern political function has taken over the modern roles of government. The problem with the National states [homelands] is that they are artificially drawing chiefs into modernized traditional systems. Traditional systems do not work. We need to transform the traditional system.13

By 1996, one-third of South Africans lived in the former homelands, and in 2006, at least 25 percent of the population continued to live on traditional lands under accepted traditional authorities.14 In 2012, over 45 percent of South Africa’s African population was subject to some form of direct authority exercised by traditional leaders.15 These traditional authorities continued to enjoy wide discretionary powers in areas such as the settlement of disputes and the allocation of land.16 Traditional leaders are particularly strong in the former Transkei, the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal, North West Province, and Limpopo.17 Traditional courts still dispense traditional justice that may appear arbitrary; in many cases critics suggest that the verdicts are gender biased.18 In 1999, Northern (now Limpopo) Province alone had 194 traditional leaders and 1,600 headmen.19 In KwaZulu-Natal there were close to 300 traditional leaders.20 As far as possible, the apartheid South African government after 1970 avoided interfering in tribal administration; and if traditional authorities did not function properly, the South African government made clear that it should not be blamed. This hands-off approach helped discredit traditional leaders, who were placed in a precarious situation because of their dualistic

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role; they were accountable to their people as well as the central government.21 Prior to 1994 traditional leaders had been strengthened as political leaders and were drawn into the homeland party systems and legislatures in a co-optation process that undermined their traditional authority.22 As the transition approached, it became clear that in seven of the nine new provinces, traditional authorities would be a factor in the establishment of democratic local authorities after May 1994.23 The nonracial but interim constitution abolished homelands and the old white provinces and in their place established nine provinces that were governed with elected regional legislatures, premiers, and cabinet style executive committees. However, despite a rhetoric of inclusion, traditional leaders remained outside the loop. Power over traditional leaders was formally transferred from the state president to the premiers of the nine provinces in 1994.24 In the rural areas, the councilors and the royal family were often one and the same, and members of the council staff might also have the same background in the traditional aristocracy.25 Negotiations prior to 1994 left obscure the role that traditional leadership would play in the future and what role there would be for indigenous or customary law.26 The role and institution of hereditary rule and the issue of land was particularly difficult. 27 It was agreed during the negotiation of 1993–1994 that there would be traditional leaders’ forums that would advise national and provincial leaders, but the issue remained unresolved in practice after the ANC came into power. The relationships between chiefs and their followers could not be ignored. After all, traditional authorities had some jurisdiction over almost half of South Africa’s population in 1994. The spiritual force of traditional leaders remained strong in rural areas, and the chief commanded some reverence by birthright. 28 It was all very well to say that in a modern democracy there was no place for traditionally based patronage. But in South Africa nonelected traditional leaders could often determine who did what on which property. Many people were content with traditional processes even if their standard of living was low. ANC officials could not simply discard traditional leaders and systems without causing immense dissatisfaction. The nonracial government had to treat chiefs with respect. Chiefs, in turn, had to show some willingness to adapt to democracy if the material conditions of their subjects were ever to improve. Traditional leaders could not demand the status quo forever. Less clear was how improvements would be financed. Chiefs rallied support by warning that their followers would have to pay rates under the new local government system. Government spokesmen denied this. As a result, it remained unclear how the new local government system would be funded.

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Threats to traditional authority crystallized around the issue of local government boundaries. Traditional leaders had reason to oppose the demarcation of new municipal boundaries, and they complained that the Demarcation Board did not consult them. Although this could be remedied over time, there was no doubt that the new arrangements would undercut the chiefs’ influence. Chiefs resented the erosion of their authority after 1994.29 There were no simple solutions to this problem. Forms of land ownership in traditional areas did not always fit neatly into categories amenable to municipal demarcation. There was particular unease within traditional administration now that they had lost their former patrons in the homeland governments.30 There were several cases of traditional law and custom clashing with the basic principles of human rights of individuals (particularly with regard to the rights of women who were excluded from traditional decisions about land use, for example). Nonetheless, among the rural population, confidence in chiefs remained strong. Most importantly, in postapartheid South Africa, chiefs exercised wide power in a variety of areas that included land distribution and the settlement of disputes.31 Given the limited human resource possibilities, changes in the chiefs’ responsibilities would have been difficult during the GNU. In much of the country, the traditional chiefs resisted the democratization of local government.32 The views held by traditional rulers regarding women and gender were particularly troublesome to the ANC. One area of culture clash was the duties and customs of chiefs with regard to marriage, death, and widowhood.33 In the Eastern Cape, women who acted as chiefs and “queens” formed the women’s wing of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (CONTRALESA) and wanted representation in the provincial House of Traditional Leaders. Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana, chair of CONTRALESA Eastern Cape, noted that women had formed their own wing within CONTRALESA, in order to counter perceptions that Xhosa culture was unfavorable to rural women.34 In many parts of South Africa, however, traditional leaders themselves were often poor and inadequately educated.35 While they are generally welcome participants and accepted in land reform projects,36 traditional authorities are unlikely to fully understand the legal system framing the reform.37 Traditional authority functions included the development and improvement of land and land administration, soil conservation, hygiene, sanitation, and the introduction of certain taxes and levies.38 Other responsibilities included the administration of justice; support for the development of roads, schools, and health services; and conflict mediation.39 In the Eastern Cape, in KwaZulu-Natal, and to a lesser extent in North West and Northern provinces, traditional leaders became deeply suspicious

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of the new ANC-dominated GNU and its allies. The attempt to organize the local government transition resulted in a further outbreak of partisan violence in KwaZulu-Natal between the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the late 1990s. In rural KwaZulu-Natal, the issue reflected deep differences between the two parties. The IFP moved to appoint traditional leaders as rural local-government authorities to eliminate the role and power of the amakhosi, the Xhosa word for chiefs.40 Inkatha, as a political party with Zulu nationalist motivations, led by traditionalist Mangosuthu Buthelezi said it would do all it could to preserve the power of chiefs and other traditional leaders. Many traditional leaders in the province saw the ANC as a threat to their very survival.41 In addition, the ANC, at the request of the king, refused to support the creation of a provincial house of chiefs. In spite of the massive changes that have occurred in South Africa since 1994, the chieftaincy continues to exercise authority and influence the way decisions are made in rural local governments, especially on development issues. Traditional leaders also influence the electoral processes. Chiefs have enormous support from rural communities in most parts of South Africa.42 The consensual traditions of African communities were and are still very powerful in postapartheid South Africa, and, despite the disruption of colonialism and apartheid, communal values remain alive in South Africa’s poor townships and rural areas.43 Traditional leaders are particularly powerful since they rely almost exclusively on informal influence rather than on formal authority.44 Traditions and customs in Africa are dynamic rather than static. Since 1994, traditional leaders have been able to recast themselves as critical intermediaries between the government and society and have taken up the mantel of rural development.45 At issue is the extent to which traditional authorities in South Africa can and will hinder the spread of democratic values, especially in the rural areas where the government has almost no influence.46 Both liberals and many within the ANC movement tended to write off African traditionalism “as a spent force, discredited by its association with apartheid.”47

Traditional Leaders in the New South Africa After 1994, there was a revival of traditionalism, especially in the Eastern Cape.48 Rural people were comfortable with chiefs, causing the ANC to back off from their opposition to traditional leadership. From an ANC perspective, chiefs were now in place, were recognized, and were being paid by the state. The ANC’s goal, however, at least until 2009, remained to eliminate or minimize the chiefs’ impact on rural life. That caused great

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consternation and a vacuum of power. Indigenous leaders and institutions were important both symbolically and functionally.49 It became important to address the question of “indigenous local governance.” A House of Traditional Leaders was not established in the Northern Province because of differences over representation of the former homeland areas. Members of the smaller language groups demanded equal representation for the three homeland areas (Venda, Lebowa, and Gazankulu), while those from Lebowa argued for representation on the basis of population. Each of the former homelands had a paramount chief (or king), area chiefs, and village subchiefs or headmen. At the primary level of government in the Northern (later Limpopo) Province the challenges were overwhelming. The area governed by the Sinthumule local council included twelve villages with a combined population of close to 100,000 people.50 These communities lacked even the most basic of social services: potable water, electricity, adequate health facilities, and schools. Traditional leaders in KwaZulu-Natal were split between pro-ANC CONTRALESA and Zulu monarchists. There were also other “kings” in South Africa who claimed the elevated authority given to the Zulu monarch.51 The ANC also faced an internal conflict between “democrats” and “traditionalists” in the Eastern Cape.52 The South African National Civic Organization (SANCO) was particularly hostile to traditional authorities, and in some parts of the Eastern Cape SANCO used force to expel non-ANC town councilors.53 Local-level civic and youth groups were those most critical of the role of chiefs in local government.54 In the Eastern Cape, traditional leaders refused to allow the ANClinked SANCO to canvass in the rural areas during the 1995 local government elections. Increasingly, the pro-ANC CONTRALESA distanced itself from the new government and challenged its local government policy and the influence of SANCO over it. By 1997 CONTRALESA had split with the ANC over local government issues. Although the gap between local authorities and traditional leaders was wide throughout the country, the hostility of traditional authorities to democratically elected councilors was particularly strong in KwaZulu-Natal. Traditional authorities in Northern (now Limpopo) Province had a developmental function—at least in a regulatory (and sometimes negative or oppositional) sense. The chief continued to approve the applications for business licenses, giving certain retailers a quasi-monopoly at the village level. Patterns found in the Northern Province were replicated throughout rural South Africa. In 1997 the government announced an investigation into the authenticity of every traditional leader in the country. There were at least 133 Pedi, 33 Tsonga, and 28 Venda chiefs in the six districts of Northern Province.

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In an address to hundreds of villagers and traditional leaders who had gathered at the former Venda capital, Thohoyandou, to witness the inauguration of thirty-six representatives in the House of Traditional Leaders, Premier Ngoako Ramathlodi announced that the investigations were intended to oust those who had no right to be leaders and who were appointed to serve the apartheid regime. There was much potential resentment for some critics to mount a political vendetta.55 Three years after the transition, there remained considerable uncertainty about the future of rural local government and the role that traditional leaders would play in it. In particular, there was no agreement on the extent to which the traditional leaders’ service delivery functions could be, and should be, increased in the future.56 The ANC long held the principle that traditional authorities had to function separately from local and provincial government.57 The conflict between modernization and traditional values remained vital in rural South Africa, and there was also controversy about ex-officio representation in local authorities.58 Conflict remained particularly high between traditional and modern leaders throughout rural South Africa during the Mbeki administration (1999–2008).59 An imaginative modernization of customary law within the context of local government was needed.60 Because inherited institutions remained intact, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, much could be done to solidify institutional arrangements, including land reform, within the context of the new dispensation. The debate over traditional authorities continued after the 1995 and 1996 local government elections. Several issues predominated in the debate. First, critics asked who the legitimate traditional authorities were, given the distortions of apartheid. Second, it was not clear what role the traditional authorities would play in the new South Africa. Third, they were still paid according to evolved, jumbled apartheid schemes. 61 Finally, how would chiefs relate to elected local authorities? The ANC itself remained badly divided over the future of traditional authorities.62 Center-periphery relations entered a new era in April 1997 when the first national Council of Traditional Leaders convened. Addressing the council at its April 18, 1997, inaugural session, Nelson Mandela stated that the parliament-created council’s functions were threefold: to promote the role of traditional leadership within a democratic constitutional dispensation, to enhance unity and understanding among traditional communities, and to enhance cooperation between the national council and the various provincial Houses of Traditional Leaders on matters of common interest. In 1977 the Remuneration Commission suggested that members of the provincial Houses of Traditional Leaders should be paid only when the

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houses were in session. The houses had met only briefly during the two years of the GNU. The ANC also decided that chiefs should be paid nationally rather than locally or provincially, but there were fears that paying traditional leaders directly by the central government would compromise their role as local leaders.63 In 1994 traditional leaders received only modest salaries, funds to pay a secretary, and some one-time project grants.64 In 1996 the Commission on Remuneration recommended a salary increase for senior traditional leaders. Announcing the findings, the commission chair, Jan Steyn, proposed that senior chiefs be paid R72,000 a year and headmen R13,000. The commission’s recommendations meant that the total salary bill for South Africa’s roughly 700 chiefs was expected to double to R50 million, while the salary bill for the country’s 2,000 headmen would remain roughly at its existing level of R27 million. Critics of traditional authorities argued that they should not be paid unless they actually provided demonstrated services for their areas. 65 One estimate placed the bill for payment to local authorities, not a part of the local government budget, at R150 million a year in 1997.66 Further salary increases for chiefs occurred just prior to the 1999 general elections. In March 1999, the government announced that it would pay uniform salaries to traditional leaders; ensure continued traditional leadership involvement in land issues; and give traditional leaders a role in the policy development process.67 At the end of the GNU (2000), the salaries of lower-level chiefs averaged R30,000–40,000 per year. For paramount chiefs in the Transkei, the Northern Province, and Natal, salaries averaged R290,000. Representatives in the Houses of Traditional Leaders were the same as in provincial legislatures, R115,000. The opposition United Democratic Movement accused the ANC of buying votes and trying to placate chiefs who had lost authority to regional and transitional local councils and to regain control over land matters. Traditional authority continued to have its advocates during the GNU. Some in the ANC, such as Nthato Motlana, though critical of the role that traditional administration played under the apartheid regime, had a strong admiration for the role of some chiefs.68 Advocates argued that traditional leaders, in decentralized systems, can be used as development agents. Chiefs and headmen can be used to supervise basic service provisions, ensure community participation, and coordinate services provision and planning. Traditional authorities were expected to contribute positively to development efforts but their power has been reduced.69 Politically and socially, South Africa’s new leadership made concessions to traditional leaders in order to implement development programs.70 The relationship between local government councilors and traditional

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authorities was fluid during the Mbeki years, and traditional authority continued to expand particularly in the development area. The posttransition period saw influence of traditionalists, chiefs, and headmen—what Keith Gottschalk has called the “African aristocracy and squirearchy” of rural South Africa—decline.71 In reality though, traditional authorities continued to govern in rural South Africa throughout the GNU largely because they were neglected by the South African government. They continued to hold court, settle disputes, and allocate land.72 In addition, they could influence who would and would not receive state pensions because of their endorsement of identity documents. The nature of local government remained largely undefined outside of South Africa’s major cities.73 The 1996 Constitution guaranteed the existence of traditional authorities and allowed for autonomous third-tier bodies in which traditional leaders would be accommodated as ex-officio members of councils.74 In 1998 a commission was established to make recommendations on the future of local government. Progress was slow on traditional authorities. By the end of the GNU, it was still not clear what role traditional authorities would play in South Africa. As a result of this uncertainty, the opposition United Democratic Movement was able to garner significant support from some traditional leaders during the 1999 elections.75 In 2007, after opposing the recognition and use of traditional authorities for thirteen years, the ANC decided to recognize them and give them a grassroots development role. The view was that traditional leaders represented important social networks, provided access to voters, and could mobilize citizen behavior in rural South Africa. Given that traditional authorities stand to gain from decentralization, they have begun to defend the policy of cooperative governance. To advocates of traditionalism, the recognition of the importance of traditional authorities is one of the best discoveries identified in South Africa, and it is suggested that the South African model of traditional administration may be applicable to other countries.76 To critics—domestic and international—they represent hierarchical authority, corrupt institutions, and mismanagement. President Zuma was much less hostile toward traditional leaders than most other ANC leaders. In April 2010, Zuma created the Department of Traditional Leadership and restyled the Department of Provincial and Local Government as the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. This shift of policy on traditional leaders solidified the ANC’s official view that chiefs and headmen should play a significant role in grassroots governance in rural South Africa. Though resisted by many ANC intellectuals who saw deference to traditional leaders as a part of the neoliberalism that came to dominate the ANC,77 this policy choice was both gradual and not surprising, given the prefectoral themes identified through-

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out this book. Nevertheless, the role of traditional leadership remains uncertain and controversial.78

Lingering Prefectoralism The nature of territorial administration—judicial, administrative, and developmental—has changed over time. The role of the magistrate in South Africa remains crucial and both party and government officials continue to take on a “tutorial” role in relationship to lower levels of government. As discussed in Chapters 1, 2, and 3, this is a legacy of the prefectoral model of local administration, which was almost universally practiced throughout the colonial world. This top-down “neoprefectoral” approach to governance is an important reason why democratic governance at subnational levels is weak in South Africa. Prefectoralism remained the system of governance in the homelands down to their abolition in 1994. After the military took over in the Transkei, the Ciskei, and Venda, the new regimes militarized the prefectoral administration. In some cases military commissioners were appointed to control the district administration. At the village level, a rural settlement could have a resident population of between 4,000 to 8,000 people reporting to a prefect. There was little administrative capacity at the primary level of government. Traditional authority, supervised by the magistrate even after 1994, was the only government present within the primary village. In the homeland areas, variations of the prefectoral model of control continued to function through the 1994 transition. In the Northern Transvaal, for example, what had been the Bantu commissioner, district director, district coordinator, or the equivalent continued to have oversight function for traditional administration. In the former homeland areas, the prefect’s function continued to be that of a counter-role to that of the traditional authority.79 The magistrate, through the lands claim process, continued to mediate between claimants of disputed land, deal with witchcraft issues, and mediate family disputes and property claims.80 The future role of homeland-based district administrators remained uncertain in 1994. In rural South Africa the issue was whether there was a development role for a revitalized South African prefect, in some combination with traditional leadership. At least in the rural areas, the role of the South African prefect at the district level was likely to continue. As Dirk Kotze has argued, “I suggest that district administration in any developing context . . . be strengthened vis-à-vis local government and . . . local government’s activities be closely coordinated with district administration.”81 The field administrator was in a position to coordinate all the institutions of

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local administration with local government to ensure effective development management. Increasingly, the independence of magistrates was called into question after 1994, and magistrates became a target for government control during the GNU period.82 Controversy developed over the role of magistrates after 1996 when the new constitution came into place. A newspaper report accused magistrates of being “effectively part of the civil service and [could] therefore be subjected to political manipulation.”83 In a 1998 court case, the independence of magistrates was challenged. According to a press account the same year, a sitting magistrate, Graham Travers, listed more than twenty regulations and laws governing magistrates in conflict with the constitution, highlighting the dependence of magistrates on the country’s political system. In a strongly prefectoral mode in 1999, the ANC took a series of measures to stop “creeping provincialism within the ANC’s ranks.”84 In this model, the prefect’s primary responsibility, as it was in the past, was to supervise traditional administrative systems and coordinate government policy in the rural areas. Many in the ANC were comfortable with this. As a local level ANC party leader put it, “There will continue to be a need or a regulatory function at the village level.”85 Many magistrates were white throughout the GNU, though Mbeki replaced many with black South Africans. Many magistrates, both black and white, had “little knowledge of the blacks accused in their courts, and [according to one newspaper] should be encouraged to move closer to the people.”86 One argument made was that there was a role for the “cultural socialization of the people” in magistrates’ courts.87 Increasingly, magistrates became so burdened with administrative duties that some threatened to ignore them. Magistrates claimed to be very short-staffed, and much of their responsibility shifted to budgeting and administrative work. The long-term goal was to separate the administrative and supervisory duty from their judicial responsibilities. To some, the problem with the office was with the roles of magistrates, prosecutors, and clerks during the apartheid years. At that time, small town magistrates, who held the power of life and death, needed only to pass matriculation and a two-month training course.88 At the end of the twentieth century, local magistrates continued to control many rural South Africans. According to a 1999 newspaper report in the Eastern Cape, magistrates, “ignorant of the law,” expelled hundreds of farm worker families from land they had occupied, pushing them “out into the cold and into the darkest days of apartheid in the Eastern Cape.”89 The evictions were based on a 1951 law that had been repealed in June of that year.

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Tensions between the magisterial cadre and the government increased significantly after 2000. In June 2001, dissatisfied by salaries, benefits, and working conditions, at least 1,200 magistrates announced that they would “work to the rule” and withdraw from all nonjudicial bodies immediately. Magistracies in Gauteng, Western Cape, KwaZuluNatal, and Eastern Cape were particularly impacted by the work slow down. The magistrates’ body, the Judicial Officers’ Association of South Africa, claimed that magistrates were owed collectively over R1 million in merit awards from 2000.90 The role and status of magistrates has not been changed since 1994, though police and magistrates continued to control efforts at community policing.91 Affirmative action has been slow among magistrates. Outside the homelands, there were only three black magistrates in 1991. The service continued to be dominated by white South Africans after 1994. Some white magistrates, after 1994, were accused of “toadying to the ANC, as the political party that dominates the executive and legislative branches of government.”92 The perception that magistrates and other judicial personnel have been corrupt and indifferent to broad issues of justice is widespread among black South Africans. Between April 1994 and May 2002, a government commission investigated forty-seven magistrates for misconduct. Critics in South Africa have argued, moreover, that the magistrate represented an authoritarianism that was out of line with the demand for economic and social development and the creation of civil society. The use of the magistrate/commissioner to administer apartheid tainted the role relationship with traditional authorities. The argument suggested here, while based on incomplete information, confirms the skepticism of these critics and suggests that the prefect would likely function at the head of a centralized local state structure that would inhibit autonomous political activity and diversity in economic and social affairs. A prefectoral coordinator was likely to have a negative impact on the evolution of autonomous civil society. Such hierarchical authority would only impede the development of grassroots democracy and community development. This book began by suggesting that prefectoralism is both institutional and a mindset. The concept of cooperative governance, with its inherent assumptions of what used to be called democratic centralism, is very compatible with prefectoralism as a mindset. Many in the ANC have continued to take a prefectoral view of governance since 1994. Early on, an ANC government spokesman made it clear that decentralization did not mean the central government would relinquish its decisionmaking powers over development. Decisions being made in 2010 by the South African government suggest that that worldview had not changed in the fourteen years since South Africa’s first nonracial elections.

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Conclusion Most of the debate about local government during the negotiations period, and during the GNU focused on urban rather than rural government.93 At the same time, urban and rural linkages were, and are, still important in South Africa.94 Rural development, however, was for many the key to economic development because it was so difficult for most developing societies. There were continuities in popular resistance over time in both rural and urban areas, even though the more activist environment of the cities appears more significant than was recognized during the transition period. The economic development implications of local government in South Africa remain murky. Rural transformation and local government, given the history of the prefectoral state, was particularly important to the vast majority of South Africa’s black population. The rhetoric of the White Paper on Local Government suggested that focusing on local government in the rural areas was “the only way to make sure the poorest people benefit from government.”95 In reality, postapartheid governments found it very difficult to redirect money to the rural areas because of vested interests and budget inflexibility.96 Because of the dramatic changes in the population and size of urban local authorities, neither national nor provincial authorities were able to fashion working relationships with most rural local authorities after 1994.97 Increasingly after 2000, however, the ANC has begun to divert some resources for social services in the rural areas.98 Capacity building had both a vertical (level of government) component and a horizontal (across the province and between the provinces) component and invariably had to include calculations for local government. Most rural local governments would have little authority and even less capacity after 1994. The capacity issue was and is particularly vexing to rural local government—an issue that remains to be addressed in South Africa in the next decade of the postapartheid state.

Notes 1. Suzanne Daley, “Politicians Court South Africa’s Tribal Chiefs,” New York Times, April 27, 1999, A3. 2. Chiara Carter, “Chiefs Welcome UDM in E Cape,” Mail and Guardian (February 25–March 4, 1999): 10. 3. Ibid. 4. Alastair Charles McIntosh, Anne Vaughan, and Thokozani Xaba, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal: Stakeholders’ Perspectives,” (paper prepared for the Regional Consultative Forum on Rural Development, 1995), p. ii.

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5. S. F. Coetzee, interview with Picard, Picard’s research diary, February 9, 1992. 6. Reg Rummey, “SA’s Whites Are Grasping at Straws,” Weekly Mail (August 2–8, 1991): 26. 7. See the discussions in Seth Nthai, ed., Local Government: Focus on Rural Local Government (Johannesburg: The Bookworks, 1994) and discussions with university specialists on traditional authority in Natal, Picard’s research diary, January 12, 1997. Anonymity requested. 8. M. Wallis, “Local Government and Development Planning in South Africa,” in Readings in Local Government Management and Development: A Southern African Perspective, ed. P. S. Reddy (Kenwyn: Juta, 1996), p. 179. 9. Marianne Merten, “The Daily Struggle of the ‘Ordinary People’ of the Hinterland,” Mail and Guardian (May 14–20, 1999): 6–7. 10. Michael de Jongh, “Asymmetrical Relations and Itinerant Agency: The Indigenous Outsiders of the South African Karoo” (Pretoria: University of South Africa, unpublished paper, n.d.), pp. 25–26. 11. F. van Zyl Slabbert, Tough Choices: Reflections of an Afrikaner African (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2000), p. 120. 12. Sibongile Zungu, “Traditional Leaders’ Capability and Disposition for Democracy: The Example of South Africa,” in Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Local Participation and Self-Government in Africa ed. W. Hofmeister and I. Scholz (Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1997), p. 174. 13. Kobus Jordan (former commissioner general, Gazankulu), interview with Picard, June 27, 1984. 14. F. van Zyl Slabbert, “Threats and Challenges to South Africa: Becoming a More Open Society, in Opposing Voices: Liberalism and Opposition in South Africa Today, ed. Milton Shain (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2006), p. 157. 15. See J. Michal Williams, “Leading from Behind: Democratic Consolidation and the Chieftaincy in South Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 42, no. 1 (2004): 113–136. 16. T. R. H. Davenport, The Transfer of Power in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998), p. 70. 17. R. W. Johnson, South Africa: First Man, the Last Nation (London: Weidenfeld Nicolson, 2004), p. 76. 18. Diana Gordon, Transformation and Trouble: Crime, Justice, and Participation in Democratic South Africa (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), p. 238. 19. Benny Boshielo, “Local Government and Traditional Leaders,” in Local Government, p. 56. 20. McIntosh, “Traditional Leaders and Local Government in KwaZulu Natal,” p. 1. 21. Ismail, Bayat, and Meyer, Local Government Management, p. 124. 22. Ibid. 23. Chris Tapscott, “The Institutionalisation of Rural Local Government in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” in Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Local Participation and Self-Government in Africa, p. 291. 24. See “Discussion Document on Traditional Leaders” (Pretoria: Government of South Africa, mimeo document, 2000), p. 13. 25. See Beckett, Madibaland, p. 144.

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26. Doreen Atkinson, “Principle Born of Pragmatism? Central Government in the Transition,” in South Africa Review 7: The Small Miracle—South Africa’s Negotiated Settlement, ed. Steven Friedman and Doreen Atkinson (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1994), p. 114. 27. Anne McLennan, “Discussion Document on Institutional Change in the Provinces” (Johannesburg: Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of Witwatersrand, unpublished paper, 1993), p. 4. 28. David McNeil, “Even into Rain Queen’s Life, Some Rain Must Fall,” New York Times, April 30, 1998, A4. 29. Tom Lodge, Consolidating Democracy: South Africa’s Second Popular Election (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1999), p. 40. 30. McIntosh, “Rural Local Government,” Readings in Local Government Management, p. 248. 31. Davenport, The Transfer of Power in South Africa, p. 70. 32. R. W. Johnson and Laurence Schlemmer, “How Free? How Far?” in Launching Democracy in South Africa: The First Open Election, ed. R. W. Johnson and Laurence Schlemmer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 1. 33. Abbey Makoe, “Traditional and Human Rights Collide over Mourning Widow,” Sunday Independent, July 5, 1998, 2. 34. Gerhard Mare, “The Inkatha Freedom Party,” in Election ’99 South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki, ed. Andrew Reynolds (Cape Town: David Philip, 1999), p. 106. 35. Ibid., p. 1. 36. McIntosh, “The Involvement of Traditional Authorities in the Land Redistribution,” p. iii. 37. Ibid., p. 14. 38. Ibid., p. 44. 39. William Madonsela, “Address,” in Local Government, pp. 61–64. 40. Farouk Chothia, “Buthelezi Opposes Local Elections,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (October 21–27, 1994): 4. 41. Farouk Chothia, “House Won’t Be Home for King,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (December 2–8, 1994): 12. 42. See J. Michal Williams, “Leading from Behind: Democratic Consolidation and the Chieftaincy in South Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 42, no. 1 (2004): 113–136. 43. Gordon, Transformation and Trouble, pp. 243, 278. 44. See Williams, “Leading from Behind,” pp. 113–136. 45. For the discussion below, see ibid., pp. 113–136. 46. Lodge, Consolidating Democracy, p. 41. 47. Johnson and Schlemmer, “How Free? How Far?” p. 75. 48. John Matshikiza, “When We Were Kings . . . ,” Mail and Guardian (April 23–29, 1999): 3. 49. Nazeem Ismail, Saheed Bayat, and Ivan Meyer, Local Government Management (Cape Town: International Thomson Publishing, 1997), p. 117. 50. Our thanks to Chief Eric Schoeman Sinihumule for his cooperation in this research. The villages are Magali, Madombidzha, Rathidili, Tshidzisi, Gogogole (or Mantsha), Ramahaniha, Ravele, Madabani, Muraleni, Maelula, Raliphaswa, and Yhangani (or Masia). Due to the relocation practices under apartheid the jurisdiction over this area changed as people were forced into the Venda homeland. The area is geographically contiguous to Louis Trichardt and was technically a part of the Louis Trichardt Transitional Council.

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51. Alexander Johnston, “The Political World of Kwa-Zulu-Natal,” in Launching Democracy in South Africa: The First Open Election, April 1997, pp. 168–188. 52. Adam, Slabbert, and Moodley, Comrades in Business, p. 132. 53. Patrick Bulgar, “ANC and Sanco to Discuss Chiefs’ Role,” Star, July 3, 1994, 1. 54. Gerhard Mare, “The Inkatha Freedom Party,” in Election ’99, p. 106. 55. For a discussion of the debates see Ineke van Kessel and Barbara Oomen, “‘One Chief, One Vote’: The Revival of Traditional Authorities in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” African Affairs 96 (1997): 361–585. 56. McIntosh, “Rural Local Government,” in Readings in Local Government Management, p. 249. 57. McIntosh, “The Rural Local Government Question in KwaZulu Natal: Stakeholders’ Perspectives,” p. 21. 58. McIntosh, “Revisiting the Local Government Model for South Africa,” p. 8. 59. C. S. van der Waal, “The Rhetoric and Practice of Participation in Rural Development: Anthropological Perspectives from South Africa” (unpublished paper, n.d.), p. 13. 60. du Toit, Nation-Building, p. 211. 61. In order to answer these questions, the government employed seven anthropologists in the Ministry of Provincial Constitutional Affairs. See Marion Edmunds, “Who Are the Chiefs,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (October 6–12, 1995): 7. 62. Marion Edmunds, “Tension in ANC over Traditional Leaders,” Weekly Mail and Guardian (December 8–14, 1995): 4. 63. See B. Hlatshwayo, “Harmonizing Traditional and Elected Structures at the Local Level: Experiences of Four Southern African Development Community Members,” in Traditional Authority and Democracy in Southern Africa, ed. F. M. d’Engelbronner-kolff, M. O. Hinz, and J. L. Sindano (Windhoek: New Namibia Press, 1998), p. 141. 64. Ibid., p. 1. 65. Farouk Chothia, “Zulu Chiefs ‘Will Not Allow Themselves to Be Sidelined,’” Business Day, June 1, 1995, 6. 66. Marion Edmunds, “Government to Dethrone NPs ‘Kings,’” Weekly Mail and Guardian (February 21–27, 1997): 9. 67. “Pressure Pays Off for Traditional Leaders,” Business Day, March 12, 1999, 4. 68. Ntatho Motlana (ABC activist and former chair of the Council of Ten in Soweto), interview with Picard, Soweto, August 18, 1988. See also Sebastian Mallaby, After Apartheid (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 140–141, for a discussion of Motlana’s complex view of traditional authority. 69. C. Kendler, “Traditional Leaders and Rural Development,” in Traditional Authority and Democracy in Southern Africa, pp. 289–321. 70. Ibid., p. 15. 71. Keith Gottschalk, “The Changing Dynamics of Policy Making in Government,” in State of the Nation 1997/8, ed. Bertus De Villers (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1998), p. 123. 72. Sibongile Zungu, “Traditional Leaders’ Capability and Disposition for Democracy: The Example of South Africa,” in Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Local Participation and Self-Government in Africa, p. 169. 73. See Fred Hendricks and Lungisile Ntwbeza, “Chiefs and Rural Local Government in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” African Journal of Political Science 4, no.

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1 (1999): 99–126; Barbara Oomen, “Group Rights in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Case of Traditional Leaders,” Journal of Legal Pluralism, no. 4 (1999): 73–103. 74. Pierre du Toit, State Building in Southern Africa: A Comparative Study of Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1995), p. 210. 75. See Deborah Fine, “The Future of Traditional Authorities,” Business Day, July 10, 1998, 5; Carter, “Chiefs Welcome UDM in E Cape.” 76. Howard P. Lehman, “Deepening Democracy? Demarcation, Traditional Authorities, and Municipal Elections in South Africa,” Social Science Journal 44 (2007): 302–303. 77. See Thomas A. Koelble and Edward LiPuma, “Traditional Leaders and the Culture of Governance in South Africa,” Governance 24, no. 1 (January 2011): 5–29. 78. Federico Settler, “Indigenous Authorities and the Post-Colonial State: The Domestication of Indigeneity and African Nationalism in South Africa,” Social Dynamics 36, no. 1 (2010): 52–64; Freddie Samuelson Khunou, “Traditional Leadership and Governance: Legislative Environment and Policy Development in a Democratic South Africa,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 1, no. 9 (July 2011): 278–290. 79. John A. Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973). 80. See Ngwako Malatji, “‘Squatter Baron’ Slammed,” Capricorn Voice (July 11–13, 2001): 1; “Eighteen Appear in Witchcraft Trial,” Capricorn Voice (July 11–13, 2001): 3; Leuba Ramakgolo, “‘Traditional Healer’ Faces Incest Charge,” Capricorn Voice (July 11–13, 2001): 6. 81. D. A. Kotze, personal communications, Picard research diary, June 6, 1985. 82. Jackie Cameron, “SA’s Judicial System Could Go on Trial,” Saturday Star, June 13, 1998, 2. 83. On the discussion below see ibid., p. 2. 84. Tom Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1999), p. 24. 85. Isaiah Mphaphuli (ANC party chair, Louis Trichardt, Mukaleni, Northern Province), interview with Picard, July 27, 1996. 86. “Magistrate Stops Maintenance,” Citizen, July 8, 2000, 8. 87. Phomello Molwedi, “White Magistrates Need to ‘Move Closer’ to Blacks,” Star, February 7, 2000, 7. 88. Marianne Merten, “Magistrates Threaten Chaos Unless Given Support Staff,” Mail and Guardian (March 31–April 6, 2000): 8. 89. Peter Dickson, “Back to the Bad Old Days,” Mail and Guardian (June 18–24, 1999): 41. 90. “Magistrates’ Body Spells Out Grounds for Go-Slow,” Sunday Times, July 22, 2001, 2. 91. For the discussion below see Gordon, Transformation and Trouble, pp. 223–225. 92. Ibid., p. 149. 93. See William Fox, Sayeed Bayat, and Naas Ferreira, A Guide to Managing Public Policy (Johannesburg: Juta, 2006) for a discussion of this issue. 94. Alan Mabin, “The Dynamics of Urbanisation Since 1980,” in The Apartheid City in Transition: Contemporary South African Debates, ed. Mark Swill-

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ing, Richard Humphries, Khehla Shubane (London: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 42. 95. Reg Barry (planning officer, Office of the Military Council, Republic of Transkei), interview with Picard, October 1, 1990. 96. Ibid. 97. Bertus de Villiers, “Intergovernmental Relations in South Africa,” in State of the Nation 1997/8, p. 184. 98. Tom Lodge, Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 156.

11 The Dilemmas of Decentralized Governance

There are two things to start with. There is the intellectual argument that South Africa’s social service delivery system has failed. Then there is the mental picture of a small boy drowning in a pit toilet. They are both the same thing and the key to understanding South African politics.1 In terms of local government, there are few alternatives. There will continue to be protests over service delivery at the local level and there will likely be violence.2

I

n the previous chapters, we examined the state of governance at the local level in South Africa. In this chapter, we summarize some of the outstanding issues that continue to define the debate. These include the conflictinfluenced model of local governance, the role of the international community, the impact of the presidencies of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, and the vexing conundrum that is traditional administration, especially in rural South Africa. Decentralized governance in South Africa came out of the conflict resolution process (1990–1994) that ended the system of apartheid in the country. After the establishment of nonracial government, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) abandoned most of the devolution arrangements in its quest to ensure government control over the development planning processes in rural and urban South Africa and to manage political processes at the subnational level. The result is a set of contradictory processes that includes a governance theory emphasizing decentraliza-

245

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tion and local control and a political (fiscal and administrative) process that is both highly centralized and often inefficient. The government describes this situation as “cooperative governance.”3 The most salient issues of subnational governance in South Africa continue to be: (1) the unfinished task of developing a political culture (largely impacted by indigenous values and colonial history) that supports democratic governance and tolerates differences and (2) the development of a professionalized subnational public sector. This study has found contradictory tendencies in South Africa’s political culture between civil society and grassroots pressures for devolved governance and the ANC’s value system of centralized governance, which is a legacy of the armed struggle against apartheid. Fiscally and administratively, there is a gap between theories of governance enshrined in constitutional law and a poorly developed and managed service delivery system, too often plagued by nepotism, corruption, and inefficiency. There is also a disconnect between an electorate that perceives this weakness but fails to take corrective action (sometimes referred to as electoral punishment) in the elections process, in large part because of perceptions that opposition parties are not legitimate players. What remains in this chapter is a brief examination of the role that postapartheid leaders and the international community have played in supporting local governance and civil society since the beginning of nonracial government in 1994 and an update on the status of local governance in South Africa.

International Pressures and the Limits of Decentralization From the beginning of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in 1994, the ANC did not emphasize local governance when making requests to the donor community.4 It gave priority to central government initiatives, and after 1996 some within the ANC saw foreign assistance to both local governments and civil society as threatening to regime legitimacy. Opposition political and economic groups were seen as the primary beneficiaries of international donor assistance. Democracy and governance assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, was considered to infringe on South Africa’s sovereignty. It is not that national political actors have reversed decentralization (i.e., recentralized it), but rather that they have largely ignored it, circumventing the issue when it was raised and told the donors to keep away when the government leadership has felt threatened. Some donors have stepped back. Even within the decentralization ministries, there has not been a sus-

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tained challenge to government policy on centralized governance. Central guidance is genuinely accepted, though there is concern that the system is inefficient. The national leadership tends to direct the donor community toward addressing these inefficiencies, rather than defects of governance. Despite this, the international donor community has provided significant and widespread support for decentralized democracy and subnational capacity in South Africa. Since 1994, the United States, Canada, Britain, the European Union, and many EU member states have all conducted extensive programs to support elections, democracy in general, and subnational government in South Africa. While total foreign aid for South Africa only represented about 2 percent of the national budget, critics suggest that it is huge in comparison to the much more pressing needs of the rest of Africa and that the purpose of the aid was overwhelmingly symbolic, political, and may even have been detrimental to the development of institutions in what was a highly developed, if somewhat flawed, democracy by the end of the Mandela administration. The donor community within South Africa has supported (or at least paid lip service to) both democracy and decentralization. In large part this is because of lingering concerns that the ANC was a mobilizing, collectivist party that would not respect human rights or democratic processes. Some donors focused on federalist options, democratic education, and support for civil society movements that lobbied for limited and open government. Initially, much of the donor support for governance during the transition period focused on the ANC leadership, with donors competing for the opportunity to sponsor leaders for short courses in democracy (starting, if possible, with Nelson Mandela). A second layer of support was for capacity building within the civil service, where Britain and the European Union took the lead. The US and Canadian governments had large programs to support capacity building at the local government level, particularly in urban municipalities; this was partly a follow-on from donor programs that supported civil society during the latter years of the antiapartheid struggle. A third stream of support, also continuing from the apartheid period, focused on providing training for grassroots civil society groups. In 2010, sixteen years after the transformation to a nonracial political system, USAID, for example, still maintained a robust, though modest, program of about $10 million per year for local governance. The program had two major components: (1) technical assistance to municipalities in South Africa on revenue enhancement, municipal advisers, and improved service delivery and (2) assistance in developing anticorruption strategies within municipalities, support for magistrate training, and support for civil society development. USAID, as late as 2012, looked to continue some form of

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support for democracy, possibly in the form of a five-year democratic leadership program. The European Union has provided significant support for democratic and decentralized development with a total annualized budget of £39 million for governance support. The Scandinavian countries, Germany, and the United Kingdom also provide robust support for democracy and deconcentrated subnational government. There is clearly an element of symbolism in this commitment, and the focus on deconcentration may, in fact, hinder the development of sustainable local governance institutions within South Africa. Such support may also indicate a concern for the stability of what is the African continent’s only emerging economy and a lingering fear that the ANC may not be democratic after all. Political decentralization, however, has been neither effectively promoted nor discouraged by key donors or other international actors. Evidence suggests that while the South African government does not openly resist support for democratic governance and civil society development, it does not initiate donor involvement in this area, particularly at local levels, considering it either a dead issue or one that is best left to South African society. If there is a model for South African local government, it remains the prefectoral model imported from Britain in the 1890s (shorn of its racial connotations) and overlaid on the Dutch system that preceded it. Neither contemporary European nor North American models have made significant inroads in South African subnational development. Instead, subnational government in South Africa remains a deconcentrated vehicle for social service delivery and a state presence at the local level. There is little evidence that the ANC either supports or substantively opposes donor support for decentralized governance, though there is occasional rhetoric about foreign interference in the internal affairs of the country. However, the opposition Democratic Alliance, anchored in the Western Cape, does welcome donor intervention as a means to pressure the government to tolerate political pluralism. There are likely similar sentiments among smaller opposition groups in South Africa, as well as many civil society groups. Donors have had little influence on the new, postapartheid institutional arrangements at the subnational government level. However, there has been significant donor support for deconcentrated units in areas of health, education, and water development. Likewise, there is evidence that donor-supported deconcentrated planning has been introduced in other sectors receiving donor support. Despite some rhetoric from South African academics, there is little evidence to indicate that donors have undermined local-level democratic processes in the country. Donors have supported local governments and strengthened local government personnel and institutions. Especially in the

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health area, there has been financial support. Donors have, at worst, done no harm by supporting subnational government in South Africa. In terms of capacity support, the British and the Canadian governments have been particularly supportive of administrative development in South Africa. The politics of local governance from a donor perspective remains, however, an open question.

The State of the Local State Local Government Update The problem with local- (primary-) level governance in South Africa was not the inability to spend money in cities and towns.5 Through what is sometimes referred to as a “tenderocracy” by its critics, the South African government’s process ensured that many houses, roads, schools, water reticulation systems, and the other components of service delivery were built. 6 The problem was that much of the spending was inefficient, skewed toward the cities, and not linked to a revenue stream or block grant transfers. Two decades after the end of apartheid, South Africa could not afford its service delivery program. In 2014, the fundamental issue in South Africa was the inability of local government, especially outside of the major metropolitan regions, to perform basic management functions and deliver social services.7 After two decades of nonracial government in South Africa, there are six identifiable institutional weaknesses in the South African local governance system. These are: 1. Very high levels of corruption and patronage; 2. A lack of capacity in the public sector, particularly at the subnational level; 3. Limited financial resources; 4. Ideological schisms combined with a loss of values and ethics among the political class; 5. An extreme and growing human capacity crisis in the South African public sector; and 6. A threat of violent demonstrations linked to the lack of service delivery at the local level. Our evidence here suggests that the current institutional weaknesses in local-level governance, at least in part, evolved out of the 1980–1996 negotiations process and the violence that accompanied it.

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Among ruling elites in the ANC, there was no clear motive for South African decentralization policies. The original 1998 White Paper was a disaster that led to a “permanent crisis in Local Government in South Africa.” 8 The result was significant nonperformance of constitutional and legislative responsibilities by local-level institutions, which in many cases couldn’t and in some cases wouldn’t perform. The inability to apply rules of governance is a major cause of local government failure. This problem of both lack of capacity and lack of will, more than financial shortages, is linked to the inability of local government to deliver key social services. Political elites and policymakers in South Africa have shown very little, if any, understanding of the concept of decentralization. In 2009 the national government published the Local Government Turn Around Strategy.9 It offered a very frank analysis but failed to develop a real strategy. It was also, like the earlier local government White Paper,10 a complex and turgid document. In 2012, the ANC published a discussion paper, Legislature and Governance,11 which also had a great deal to say about local government. It was overly complex, incoherent, unrealistic, and centralist.12 To critics, both in the academy and in the press, what is needed as a reasonable, and reasoned approach to local governance and a balanced assessment of political devolution. The lack of understanding has gotten markedly worse during the Zuma years.13 Rural local governments continue to be funded differently than urban areas. Debt is an increasing problem for local governments, and even the metropolitan authorities since 2010 have gotten further behind in their repayment. In terms of local government finance and revenue, there is still only limited revenue sharing to local governments that have to collect the bulk of its own revenue—a task outside the capacity of most local authorities.14 However, there has been a small, but increasing, revenue-sharing component after 2012, as contracting has been decentralized, though in large part by the creation of a local-level tenderocracy. The biggest administrative issue is the capacity disjunction between metropolitan municipalities and other local governments and that between the districts and local governments.15 In 2014, local government’s inability to deliver social services triggered violent protests and, according to one senior official, the situation will most likely get worse. In western Gauteng, for example, there are problems with sanitation and job skills. As a result, the region has seen many protests, including a serious outbreak of violence in January of 2014. According to a senior official with responsibility for this area, There is to be a special task force to try to address the service delivery issue. A key issue is sanitation. The installation of sewers is costly and requires

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increased capacity and much money. There has been much bad planning on this side. . . . The rural and smaller areas have fallen behind. It is a Catch 22. You can’t catch up with skills deficits. The development program has gone wrong. The problem is that the planning model is always ahead of the capacity to implement it.16

The Traditional Administration Conundrum Traditional administration, as we have seen, remains important, particularly in rural South Africa. Its structures are similar to those recognized or created during the colonial period or under apartheid. There is continued use of male-dominated traditional local governance structures (e.g., the tinkhundla, pitso, and kgotla) in South Africa today despite concerns raised by women’s rights groups. Many traditional authorities have opposed decentralization and local government, seeing it as interference in their spheres of responsibility. However, traditional authorities (both local and national) continue to play a significant role in local governance, and their influence and responsibilities are increasing.17 After opposing the recognition and use of traditional authorities for thirteen years, in 2007 the ANC decided to recognize them and give them a grassroots development role. In 2010 the ANC created a Department of Traditional Affairs within the national government, believing that traditional leaders represented important social networks, provided access to voters, and could mobilize citizens in rural South Africa. 18 Given that traditional authorities currently stand to gain from South African decentralization policy, they have begun to defend what is called “cooperative governance” in South Africa though without embracing the participatory model of local governance. To advocates of traditionalism, the recognition of the importance of traditional authorities is one of the best discoveries made by the ANC, and it is suggested that the South African model of traditional administration may be applicable to other countries.19 To critics—domestic and international—they represent hierarchical authority, gender discrimination, corrupt institutions, and mismanagement, and are a part of the neoconservatism adopted by the African National Congress after it came to power. Devolution or Deconcentration? There are four issues that should be further explored in order to increase our understanding of decentralization in South Africa. These are: (1) the impact of major donor efforts on decentralized governance since 1994; (2) differences within South Africa; (3) the impact of local government on the

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ground, especially in small trading centers and rural areas; and (4) perceptions of governance patterns. The latter could be accessed through a stakeholder analysis of principal actors and group leaders in the country and socially through focus groups and public opinion polls. Without question, an examination of sectors and arenas for international assistance shows that certain interventions have achieved more than others. By far, the most important donor intervention was support provided to civil society and other NGO groups in the 1980s during the most intense period of the antiapartheid struggle. These groups, many of which challenged the apartheid regime, were central to challenges to segregated local government and the move to majority rule. Much of that conflict revolved around the nature of local government institutions. Donor programs in health care and primary education have been and continue to be important to grassroots governance because they addressed critical issues and incorporated people into civil society. Despite continuing problems with corruption at the local level, donors claim that technical support in budgeting and finance represents a third area of success. Less successful has been the support given to local-level public service professional development, both because it was short term and because there was so little of it. This has kept the local-level public sector weak, directionless, and often corrupt. The British, the Canadians, and the EU have been far more active in this area than the US government, although USAID has continued to support local governments, focusing on medium-sized towns and on financial management. Efforts at political decentralization were most successful at the beginning of the nonracial government (1994–1996), when issues of federalism, provincial structures, and local government topped the negotiations debate. During the negotiations, the ANC, for strategic reasons, supported strong urban local government while the then-ruling National Party supported a federal South Africa comprised of the nine provinces. Donors provided support for the debate process through study trips and short courses for many South African decisionmakers. The debate had tainted support for federalism in South Africa given that federalism has been embraced by the opposition Democratic Alliance, however, and following the ANC’s election, focus turned to a unitary state system. At the same time, many prolocal government development civil society groups moved into the national government under the umbrella of the ANC. In South Africa, all sectors of society and all political parties pay lip service to decentralization. However, it is clear that the ANC remains suspicious of local governance, seeing it as a threat to its overall mission of economic management. The opposition Democratic Alliance, which remains a federalist party, is a strong supporter of decentralization, as are

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most of the other opposition groups whose support is often regional, or even local, in nature. There is more support for decentralization in the white, mixed-race, and Asian communities than in the majority African community. Civil society groups also continue to divide around both racial and ideological lines. After 1996, and particularly under Thabo Mbeki, the ANC tried to assert control over the state through a strategic approach drawn from the democratic centralism of Marxist-Leninist vanguardism—politicization of the bureaucracy, patronage, and central appointment of all regional and local figures. These policies were combined with his signature aggressive affirmative action and black economic empowerment.20 There is lip service given to public and civil society participation in local governance, but a deep schism has developed between many local governments and grassroots organizations. The trade unions and other pro-ANC groups share a suspicion of autonomous local government, looking to local and provincial authorities to deliver social services initiated by the national government but not to challenge its central policy. The business and agricultural sectors tend to support regionalism. Not surprisingly, provincial and local government leaders from all political parties support decentralization to a greater degree than national politicians. There is significant support for decentralization in the Northern Cape, Natal, and, especially, the Western Cape.

Conclusion South Africa, though an emerging economy and a democratic country, offers many lessons that can be seen as cautionary tales for other countries. Parallels can be drawn with Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana—all countries that have economic potential but are challenged by weak government structures. South Africa is not there (in terms of fragility) yet but may be moving that way given the fragileness of its subnational political institutions. This would be a disaster not only for South Africa but also for the rest of the continent. First, the fact that a relatively developed South Africa has problems implementing local governance reforms, fiscal decentralization, and professionalization of personnel should not be lost on other countries (and international donors) as they implement programs. Remedying this situation is not a short-term task, nor is it easy. Second, governance is complex and should not be considered a shortterm need. The fact that donors, journalists, and academics are still working on and debating democratic governance in South Africa over twenty years

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since Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster prison in 1990 is, or should be, sobering information for all who work in the local governance arena. Third, while there are two models of local governance discussed, democratic local government versus deconcentrated stability, within the latter is a third choice. This choice is between a security focus often involving an area prefect, magistrate, and police versus a centralized service delivery system, which uses deconcentrated departments and local governance units as service delivery units. South Africa’s government uses this latter option under the euphemistic label of “cooperative governance.” Fourth, deconcentrated development practices and the recognition of the importance of traditional authorities in terms of network facilitation are two of the “best” practices identified in South Africa that may be applicable to other countries, though both remain controversial. The effective use of consultants is a third. South African policymakers, though they have not been able to fully professionalize the public sector, especially at the subnational level, have been willing to bring in well-trained consultants to tackle policy analysis, monitoring, and assessment assignments. Some of the worst practices in South Africa also pose a warning. Though their levels may be lower than other African countries, patronage, nepotism, and corruption remain unacceptably high in South Africa. The subnational public sector is weak, poorly trained, and very expensive. The public has lost its trust in the public sector, resisted efforts to collect revenue, and created a small, but growing, economy of affection (an economy that operates outside of the cash or commercial sector).21 The private sector and nonprofit organizations often seem to operate despite government structures in South Africa rather than in partnership with them. These “best” and “worst” lessons are transferable because they are not unique to South Africa and are almost universal patterns of government in emerging economies. What is unique in South Africa is the continued bifurcation of governance and service delivery patterns in the so-called developed versus the underdeveloped parts of the country. Race continues to be a factor in South African governance at all levels, but particularly at subnational levels because people of different races (except for a small, uppermiddle-class elite) tend to be segregated geographically from each other. The most salient issues for both democratic governance and decentralized governance continue to be the lack of a political culture that supports democratic governance and tolerates differences and the development of a professionalized subnational public sector. Though there is recognition of the importance of democratic institutions and fiscal autonomy, both donors and national-level planners tend to neglect the importance of a commitment to long-term education and professional training of state employees for efficient, and effective intermediate and local government systems. These,

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along with appropriate and sustained long-term benchmarking of democratic institutional change, remain matters of unfinished business.

Notes 1. Brooks Spector (columnist, Daily Maverick online news journal), discussion with Picard, January 23, 2014. 2. Susan Booysons (University of Witwatersrand), interview with Picard, January 29, 2014. 3. See, for example, Willemien du Plessis, “Legal Mechanisms for Cooperative Governance in South Africa: Successes and Failures” (unpublished paper, 2007). 4. The next few pages are based, in part, on Louis A. Picard and Thomas Mogale, South Africa Decentralization Assessment (Washington, DC: US Agency for International Development, 2010). 5. This section is based on Picard’s research diary, “Observations from Research Visit to South Africa, January 19–27, 2014.” 6. See, for example, Michael Neocosmos, “SA Citizens Swept Along by Politics of Fear,” Cape Times, June 3, 2010. A tenderocracy is a system in which patronage allows a favored group of private-sector elites to have access to government contracts with less than fair competition. 7. Andrew Siddle and Thomas A. Koelble, The Failure of Decentralisation in South African Local Government: Complexity and Unanticipated Consequences (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2012), pp. 2–3; and Picard discussion with Punday Pillay, University of Witwatersrand, Picard’s research diary, January 21, 2014. 8. Siddle and Koelble, The Failure of Decentralisation, p. 81. 9. Local Government Turn Around Strategy (Pretoria: Government Printer, 2009). 10. White Paper on Local Government (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1998). 11. Legislature and Governance (Johannesburg: African National Congress, March 2012). 12. Siddle and Koelble, The Failure of Decentralisation, pp. 79–81. 13. Ibid., p. 217. 14. Susan Booysons, University of Witwatersrand, interview with Picard, January 22, 2014. 15. Picard and Mogale interview with Geraldine Mettler, chief director of policy research and sector development support, Gauteng Provincial Government, January 24, 2014. 16. Both quotes from Geraldine Mettler, ibid. 17. Howard P. Lehman, “Deepening Democracy? Demarcation, Traditional Authorities, and Municipal Elections in South Africa,” Social Science Journal 44, no. 2 (2007): 301–317. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., pp. 302–303. 20. Mark Gevisser, A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream (New York: Macmillan, 2009), pp. 325–334. 21. See Goran Hyden, No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

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Index

Accountability, fiscal and administrative, 196–200 Administrative entrepreneurship, 171 Affirmative action, 12 African National Congress (ANC): debate over traditional authorities, 225, 227–230; devolution and deconcentration, 245–246; government negotiations, 140–148; liberatory model, 2; local level mobilization, 155; local-level elites, 172–173; oligarchy evolving from, 167; political constraints on decentralization, 174–176; rainbow nation sentiment, 10; recognition and use of traditional authorities, 230–235, 251. See also Government of National Unity African National Party (ANP), 116 Afrikaners: expansion of native administration under the National Party, 106–108; group consciousness, 51; origins of, 62(n38); recruitment of English-speaking administrators in the homelands, 112. See also Dutch colonialism Afrocentrism, 8–9 AIDS/HIV, 207 Anglo-Boer Wars (1880–1881, 1899–1902), 55, 80–81

Antiapartheid movement, 140–141 Apartheid: British policy in the Transkei, 73; collapse of, 144; colonial state’s similarities to, 24, 51; distortion of traditional administration, 102–106; expansion of native administration, 106–111; fiscal and financing system, 186–187; Natal’s administrative policy, 76; Native Administration Act, 93–94; native commissioners, 97; origins of, 11–12, 51; post-union remnants, 57–59; reinforcing bureaucratic culture, 102; traditional authority and, 113–115, 227–230; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 48, 62(n32); Urban Areas Act, 128; urban migration, 206–207 Assimilation, 55 Authoritarian rule: ANC inclinations, 155; devolution of authority, 4–5; distorting traditional authority, 105–106; Native Administration Act extending government control, 103–104; postindependence demise of decentralization, 31; precolonial traditional rule, 89. See also Magistrates; Prefectoralism Autonomous federal provinces, 157 Autonomous local governments, 159

265

266

Index

Autonomy, administrative, 170–173, 215 Balfour Declaration (1926), 94 Bantu Administration and Development, Department of (BAD), 58–59, 108–118 Bantu Affairs, Department of, 109(table) Bantu Affairs Administration Boards (BAABs), 58–59, 133–136, 141–142 Bantu Authorities Act (1951), 91, 113, 132 Bantu Authorities System, 59 Bantu Homelands Constitution Act (1971), 110 Basic services. See Service delivery Beer levy, 128–129 Bent, R. A. R., 39(n18) Bernstein, Hilda, 130 Black Administration Act (1984), 106 Black advisory boards, 129–130 Black local authorities (BLAs), 136–144, 153(n100), 213 Blood River, Battle of (1838), 75 Boers, 50–51, 53–54, 62(n50), 67–68, 75 Botha, Thozamile, 201(quote) Botha government: electoral process, 168; local government support systems, 141–144; political and economic consequences of policy, 140–141; regional services councils, 211–212; township administration authorities, 137 Boundaries, territorial: British control of Xhosa territory, 68–69; local government jurisdictions under the GNU, 159–160 Britain: civil service capacity building, 247; development support, 252 British colonialism: annexation and administration of the Transvaal, 80–83; conquest of Zululand, 75–77; core values, 8; differentiation and separation, 77–80; first arrival and expansion of settlements, 65–67; integrating colonial structures into traditional governance, 70–72; prefectoral system, 20(n55); race and governance style, 69–70; racial bias, 55; reinforcing Dutch solidarity, 51; residual administrative authority, 94–95; segregation in the Transkei,

72–74; wars of conflict and conquest, 67–70 British Dominions, 94–95 Browne Committee of Inquiry into Local Government, 144, 153(n101) Budgeting, performance, 198–199 Bureaucratic culture, 102 Bureaucratic systems: native commissioners in the homelands, 112 Cameron, Donald, 27 Canada, 247, 252 Cape Colony: distortion of traditional administration, 103; Dutch control, 49–52; native administration, 92–94; regional political culture, 165; segregation patterns of local government institutions, 128 Censorship, 117, 125(n156) Center-periphery relations, 33–37, 232–233 Centralization of authority: affecting appropriate balance of power, 33; countering local fiscal mismanagement, 191–194; liberatory model of the ANC, 2; the local state and, 3–5; urban policy, 132–135. See also Devolution of authority; Prefectoralism Chamberlain, Joseph, 26 Chiefs, 73–74; magistrates replacing, 71; native administration eroding traditional authority, 104–106; traditional authority under Bantu administration system, 113–115. See also Traditional authority Ciskei, 70–72, 74, 97 Civil service: homeland bureaucracy, 112–113; international donor community support, 247; recruitment of magistrates, 99–101 Civil society: challenging the state at the local level, 136–137; citizen participation, 171; core values, 9; decline in capacity during the GNU, 161; democratic basis for, 12; the developmental state, 13–14; importance of development of, 246; international assistance for, 252; local government reform, 11–13, 157; the local state and, 3–5; prefectoralism as

Index

obstacle to the development of, 60; traditional society and values, 46–49 Class, social: Afrikaner-black commonalities, 10; black middle class, 141–144, 207–208 Collective justice, 178–179 Colonialism: Bantu Authorities System under apartheid, 59; conflictual nature of, 89–90; core values and ideology, 7–8; evolution of local administration, 28–30; indirect rule and, 25–28, 39(n17); origins of, 11–12; parallel rule, 25–26, 38–39(n16); racism as legacy of, 118–119; security problems dating from, 115–116; traditional administration and tribal authority, 25–26; transfer to Union government, 93. See also British colonialism; Dutch colonialism; Prefectoralism Coloured population, 38(n1), 44, 144 Commonwealth, 94–95 Communists, 129–130 Community development councils (CDCs), 136 Conflict and violence: imperial rule resulting from, 67–70; service delivery failures, 250–251; threatening the one-nation concept, 9–10; traditional and modern leaders under Mbeki, 232; Transvaal, 80; urban areas during ANC transition, 147–148; urban security crisis, 177–179 Conflict management, 176–177 Conflict resolution process, 245–246 Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (CONTRALESA), 229, 231 Consensual rule, 89 Constitutional mechanisms, 10 Constitutions: cooperative governance, 172; electoral process, 168; guarantees for traditional authorities, 234; laws governing magistrates, 236; local governance provisions in 1996 constitution, 158–159; local revenues and local spending, 193–194; Public Finance Management Act, 194–196; revenuesharing formula, 187; spheres of government, 185

267

Contemporary state, 6–7 Cooperative governance, 48, 171–173, 237–238 Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Department of (COGTA), 177, 234–235 Core-periphery relations, 33–37, 232–233 Corporate structures, 166–167 Corruption: Bantu Affairs Administration Boards, 135–136; effect on centrallocal government relations, 177; overspending in native administration, 110; subnational governments, 12; traditional authority under apartheid, 115 Counter-roles, 89–91 Creech Jones, Arthur, 28–29 Crime: urban security crisis, 177–179 Culture: common core values, 9–10 Customary law, 46 Debt financing, 199, 250 Decentralization: administrative and fiscal, 188; ANC–National Party negotiations, 144–148, 164–166; defining and characterizing, 14–16; devolution and deconcentration, 251–253; government failure and, 250; increasing subnational capacity, 173–174; intergovernmental fiscal changes after 1994, 185–186; international donor community and, 246–249; local fiscal mismanagement, 190–194; local level involvement, 33–35; political context and constraints, 174–176; postindependence demise of, 31; regional services councils, 211–212; shift from indirect rule to local governance, 29–30; traditional administration, 251. See also Government of National Unity Decolonization: modernizing local governance, 29–30 Deconcentration, 36–37, 245–246, 251–253 Delegation of power, 14–16 Demarcation Board, 142–143 Democracy: as core value, 10–11; international donor community and,

268

Index

247; postwar colonial administration, 29; traditional institutions influencing political action, 47. See also Government of National Unity Democratic Alliance Party, 2 Development, social and economic: British and Dutch disruption of, 68; decentralization debate, 4–5, 175; funding sources, 187–189; integrated rural development, 32–33; international donor community, 246–249; lack of political competition hampering rural development, 32–33; local fiscal mismanagement leaving unfunded projects, 192–193; local government under the GNU, 159–160; population pressures limiting, 207–208; postwar colonial administration, 28–30; racially defined, 7; role of traditional leaders in a democratic system, 173, 233–234; state failure and, 2–3; tying aid to black local authorities, 143 Development Aid, Department of, 108 Development boards, 142 Development management, 34 Developmental state, 13–14 Devolution of authority, 3–5, 14–16, 36–37, 137–138, 141–148, 188, 245–246, 251–253. See also Decentralization Differentiation, 77–80 Direct rule, 71–74 District authorities, 24, 92 District councils, 40–41(n53), 216–218 Division of Revenue Act (DORA) processes, 198–199 Douglas, Arthur, 38–39(n16) Drostdys (magistrate’s office), 53 Dutch colonialism: Anglicization of local administration, 66–67; Cape Colony administration, 49–52; core values, 8; local administrative components, 52–54; Natal, 75; parallel rule, 26; racial bias, 55; Xhosa under, 67–68 Dutch East India Trading Company (DEITC), 49–51, 53 Dyarchy, 4, 18(n4), 57, 90–91 Economic status: defining the contemporary state, 6–7; inequality in

traditional society, 47; pressure on local governments under GNU, 158; transition of local government, 30; Transvaal, 80 Education: Department of Bantu Education, 95–96; donor programs, 252; expansion of local governance, 31; mission schooling, 67; perception of colonial authority in Natal, 79 Elections: colonial development of local governance, 29–30; legitimating BLAs, 143–144; local governance and municipal elections, 167–170; local government under GNU, 158; postwar development of local governance, 30; race and ethnicity defining voting patterns, 10–11 Electoral system, 169–170 English Municipal Corporations Act (1835), 127–128 Entrepreneurship, administrative, 171 Étatiste (state-centered) system, 57–58 European Union: development support, 247–248, 252 Federalism. See Decentralization; Devolution of authority Field administration, 15 Financial processes and support, 128–129; black local authorities, 139–140; central government control over the periphery, 35; indirect rule, 27–28; justifying centralized control, 37; service delivery system and, 246 Fiscal issues: fiscal and administrative accountability, 196–198; inefficient spending on service delivery, 249; intergovernmental changes after 1994, 185–186; legislative framework, 186–187; local mismanagement, 190–194; Masakhane campaign, 189–190; participatory budgeting, revenue allocation, and planning, 198–199; RSCs’ financial control and responsibilities, 212; township urban renewal programs, 214; urban-rural spending disparity, 250 Force, native commissioners’ political control leading to use of, 116 Forum model, 147–148

Index

France: Cape immigrants, 49; prefectoral system, 16–17, 20(n55) Gadla, Henry, 104 Germany: Cape immigrants, 49 Glen Grey Act (1894), 71, 130–132 Gordimer, Nadine, 9 Government of National Unity (GNU): core values, 8; crime prevention, 178; district councils, 216–218; donor community involvement, 246–249; local government reforms, 141, 156–161; magistrates’ power, 91–92; Masakhane campaign for funding services, 189–190; prefectoralism under, 235–238; revival of traditionalism, 230–235; rural governance, 225–226; rural poverty, 208–209; traditional authorities and democracy, 227–230; urban migration, 206–207; White Paper on Local Government, 161–163 Governor-general, 94, 103–104, 120(n31), 150(n27) Grassroots level: centralized control and, 36–37; core values, 3, 5; political competition and political control, 32; political tension during the GNU, 160; traditional institutions influencing political action, 47 Grey, George, 76, 130 Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, 186 Hard-capital investment services, 212–213 Headman, 73–74; distortion of traditional administration, 103–104; traditional authority under Bantu administration system, 113–115 Health care: donor programs, 252 Health-care delivery, 193 Heemraden (judicial council), 52–54, 65–67 Hegemony: Dutch administration in the Cape Colony, 50; strategies of colonial prefectoralism, 24 Hierarchy, political, 2 Historical schools, 8–9 Homeland structures: Bantu Administration and Development,

269

109–110; black local advisory councils, 132; native commissioners and tribal authorities exerting political control, 116; origins of apartheid, 119; recruitment of native commissioners, 111–113; traditional leadership and prefectoralism, 91–92. See also Magistrates; Native commissioners; Prefectoralism; Rural areas Homesteading, 50 House of Traditional Leaders, 231–233 Housing construction, 193 Housing rights: urban policy, 132–133 Human rights, traditional law conflicting with, 229 Humanism, 45–46, 48 Identity: one-nation concept, 9–10; traditional society, 47–48, 74 Imperialism: defining colonialism, 23; representative role of district officers, 28; as structure and mindset, 16–17 Income gap, 207–208 Independence, expansion of local governance following, 30–31 Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), 168 India, 13, 18(n4) Indian townships, 144 Indigenous institutional structures, 43–46 Indirect rule, 57; Bantu Administration, 59; development of, 25–28; Natal under Shepstone, 76; settlers’ perception of, 39(n17); shift to local governance, 29–30; traditional rule within the reserves, 105; traditionalism replacing, 78–80; in the Transkei, 74; Transvaal, 80 Industrialization, 7 Inequality in traditional society, 47 Influx control, 128, 140, 160 Institution building, 12 Integrated systems, 15 Intergovernmental Relations Act (1997), 194–195 Intergovernmental Relations Act (2005), 172 Intermediate government, 2, 4 Internal colonialism, 101

270

Index

International donor community, 2–5, 186, 246–249, 252 Jansen, E. G., 106–107 Judiciary: Anglicization of, 66; changing role of the magistrates under GNU, 235–238; collective justice, 178–179; government control of homelands, 116–117; Native Appeal Courts, 94; traditionalism replacing indirect rule in Natal, 78–80; in the Transkei, 73. See also Magistrates Kaffir War (1847), 69 Kenya: justifying central government control over local authorities, 36; power and functions of local governance, 40(n53) Khoi people, 43–44, 51, 52(table), 61(n5), 66 Koornhof, Piet, 111 Kruger, Paul, 80 KwaZulu-Natal, 58, 158, 210, 230–231 Labor: BAAB control of urban jobs, 134–135; tax levies in townships, 128–129; urban migration, 206–207 Labor bureaus, 118 Land policy, 46 Landdrost (magistrate), 52–54, 65–67 Language: San and Khoi communities, 43–44 Legislature and Governance paper, 250 Liberalism, 8–9 Liberatory model of government, 2 Linguistic divisions, 7 Local government: future of traditional authorities in a democratic government, 230–235; the local state and, 3–5; political decentralization, 15; power and functions, 40(n53); self-governance as alternative to centralized nondevelopment, 5 Local government (colonial): British annexation and administration of the Transvaal, 80–82; British assuming control of, 65–67; centralized state and society, 11–13; conflictual roles evolving in, 90–91; Glen Grey Act and local advisory councils, 130–132; the local state and, 249–251; postwar

evolution of colonial rule, 28–30; prefectoralism, 16–17; prefectoralism impeding growth of, 24–25; prefectoralism under the GNU, 235–238; white rule in segregated towns, 127–128. See also Prefectoralism; Urban areas Local government (postindependence): ANC negotiations, 144–148; black political representation, 135–136; central-local relations and conflict management under ANC, 176–177; civil society challenges to the state, 136–137; community development councils, 136; cooperative governance, 171–173; the developmental state, 13–14; evolution under Mandela and Mbeki, 163–167; expansion during transitional years, 30–37; fiscal and administrative systems, 186–187, 196–198; fiscal mismanagement, 190–194; funding development, 187–189; GNU constitution, 158–159; GNU plan for dismantling race-based structures, 156–161; Masakhane campaign, 189–190; modernization of apartheid under Botha, 141–144; monitoring processes, 199–200; municipal elections and, 167–170; participatory budgeting, revenue allocation, and planning, 198–199; postcolonial failure, 31–34; revenue sharing, 194–196; rural poverty, 208–209; security crisis, 177–179; spheres of government under the constitution, 185; subnational capacity, 173–174; transition negotiations, 155; transitional local authorities, 209–216, 225–226; transparency, autonomy, and local control, 170–173; urban policy, 132–135; White Paper on Local Government, 161–163 Local Government, Departments of, 226 Local Government Negotiating Forum, 148 Local Government Training Board, 142–143

Index

Local Government Transition Act, 209–210, 226 Local Government Turn Around Strategy, 250 Local government [under apartheid]: magisterial districts, 54–57 Local state: colonial prefectoralism, 24; conflict between traditional and colonial administrators, 90; core values, 7–11; current local level governance, 249–251; devolution of power to local authority, 137–138; the security imperative, 115–118 Macmillan school, 8–9 Magistrates: apartheid period expansion of numbers and power, 110; authoritarian development in the Eastern Cape, 70–72; chief magistrates, 98; continuation under GNU, 235; distortion of traditional administration, 104; purpose and function of, 54–57, 121(n39); recruitment to the DNA, 99–101; in the Transkei, 73; Union period, 97. See also Native commissioners Majority rule: National Party’s gradualism, 145 Mandela, Nelson: Council of Traditional Leaders, 232–233. See also Government of National Unity Manpower Act (1983), 143 Marxism, 8–9 Masakhane campaign, 188–190 Mass Democratic Movement, 155 Materialism, 9 Mbeki, Thabo: ANC negotiations, 145; crime policy, 179 Mbeki government: affirmative action efforts, 12; black magistrates, 236; Botha’s local government control system, 141; conflict between traditional and modern leaders, 232; decentralization, 253. See also Government of National Unity Medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), 198–199 Metro Gas, 211 Metropolitan Chamber (Met Chamber), 146–147 Mfecane, 25, 76, 85(n62)

271

Middle class, black, 141–144, 207–208 Migration: government control over, 116–118; influx control in apartheid cities, 128; relocation to urban areas, 206 Mineral resources, 7 Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (MCGTA), 159 Ministry of Local Government, 35 Missionaries, 67, 69, 75 Mixed system, elements of, 1–2, 16 Moosa, Mohammed Valli, 159 Moot, 104 Moral standards, indirect rule targeting, 27 Motlana, Nthato, 233 Mufamadi, Sydney, 194 Muller, E. W. J., 95 Municipal Demarcation Act, 167–168 Municipal Demarcation Board, 194 Municipal Development Board, 142–143 Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA, 2003), 196, 200 Municipal government, 162, 167–170, 229. See also Local government Municipal Systems Act (MSA), 199–200 Namibia: independence, 29 Natal, 75–77; differentiation and separation, 77–80; indirect rule, 57; native administration, 92–94; native commissioners, 97; regional political culture, 165; traditional leaders, 214 Nation building, 12 National government: deconcentration of authority under ANC, 166, 245–246; levels of government, 2; local fiscal mismanagement, 190–194; local state concept, 4; regional services councils and district councils, 216–218; spheres of government under the constitution, 185; township administration reforms, 137 National Party: ANC negotiations over local government, 144–148, 164–166; black allies, 155; black political representation, 135–136; Department of Native Administration, 101; devolution of power to local authority, 137–138, 175; expansion of native administration, 106–111;

272

Index

opposition to African local councils, 131–132; origins of, 50; resignation from the GNU, 159–160; rural local government, 210; Sauer Report on apartheid cities, 128; security problems and racial discrimination, 115–116; traditional authority and, 113–115; Urban Bantu Councils, 129. See also Government of National Unity Nationalism, 30–31 Native Administration, Department of: administration hierarchy in 1948, 100(fig.); bureaucratic culture, 102; chief native commissioners, 98–99; expansion of power under the National Party, 106–108; functions and personnel, 94–95; Native Affairs Department employees, 96(table); native commissioners, 97–98; recruitment of magistrates, 99–101; white staff statistics, 96(table) Native Administration Act (1927), 93–94, 98, 103–104 Native Advisory Council, 96 Native Affairs, Department of, 80 Native Affairs Act (1920), 131 Native Affairs Commission, 83 Native Appeal Courts, 94 Native commissioners: Bantu administrative system, 109, 134; chief native commissioners, 98–99; functions of, 97–98, 121(n39); perceived authority of, 104–105; political control functions, 115–116; recruitment, 111–113; statistical information, 107–108; traditional authority under Bantu administration system, 114–115. See also Magistrates Nigeria: local government structures, 41(n53) Nonkonyana, Mwelo, 229 Nonracial government, 4. See also Government of National Unity One-party supremacy, 35 Orange Free State, 80–82, 92–94 Parallel rule, 25–26

Participation, political: black local advisory councils, 132; context and constraints on decentralization, 174–176; lack of political competition at the local level, 32–33; legitimating BLAs, 143–144; local governance and municipal elections, 167–170; local governments’ lack of democratic participation, 155; local level involvement in decentralization, 33–34; sustainable development, 5; symbolic nature of, 171; township administration reforms, 137; traditional systems of, 44; transition of local government, 30 Participatory values, 3 Parties, political: control of local governments, 35 Paternalism, 55, 129–130 Patronage systems, 78, 175–176, 228–229 Pedi group, 80–81 Performance budgeting, 198–199 Plural Relations and Development, Department of, 111 Police forces: township violence during the 1990s, 148; urban security crisis, 178–179 Political culture, 246; citizen participation, 171; core values, 10 Population statistics, 7; British settlement in the Eastern Cape, 66; Cape colony in the 1700s, 50(tables); Cape population, 1692, 49(table); Cape population, 1800–1934, 52(table); former homelands, 227; homelands population under apartheid, 111; Johannesburg, 1966, 129(table); Natal, 75; urban growth, 206–207 Pottinger, Henry, 69 Poverty: constitutional provision for revenue sharing, 187; local government in the GNU, 226; poverty-crime connection, 178; rural areas, 205–206, 208–209; strengthening collective corporate society, 46 Precolonial ubuntu, 48

Index

Prefectoralism: defining, 15, 20(n55); future role under GNU, 235–238; origins and development of, 23–24; strengthening during the Union period, 58–59; as structure and mindset, 16–17; traditional leadership and, 91–92. See also Magistrates; Native Administration, Department of Privatization: basic services in urban townships, 134; decentralization and, 14–16; the developmental state, 13; Johannesburg, 161 Progressive Party, 130 Property taxes, 188 Proportional representation (PR), 169–170 Provincial administrator, 214–215 Provincial Borrowing Powers Act (1996), 199 Provincial executive committee (MEC), 191, 200 Provincial governance: power over traditional leaders, 228; revival of traditional authority in GNU, 231, 233; rural poverty, 208–209; spheres of government under the constitution, 185 Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA), 173 Public Finance Management Act (PFMA, 1999), 194–196 Race and ethnicity: black local authorities and other racial councils, 139–140; Cape Colony economy as the basis for slavery, 51; Cape Colony population, 51, 52(table); common core values, 9–10; contextual importance of, 12–13; defining the contemporary state, 6–7; Department of Native Administration, 95; distribution on the reserve area, 98–99; Johannesburg population statistics, 1966, 129(table); native commissioners, 107–108; postwar development of local governance, 30; regional political culture defining subnational politics, 165; traditional society and values, 48–49

273

Rainbow nation, 9–10 Ramathlodi, Ngoako, 232 Reconstruction and Development program (RDP), 157 Redistribution of wealth, 212–213 Regional governance, 24, 81. See also Prefectoralism Regional service councils (RSCs), 142, 199, 211–218 Remuneration Commission, 232 Representation, political: beginning of black representation, 135–136; urban Africans’ lack of, 132–133; women, 229 Resource extraction, 24 Revenue. See Tax revenues Role theory, 89–90, 119–120(n6) Roman Dutch law, 66 Rural areas: basic services delivery, 193; bias of the Department of Native Administration, 95; district councils, 216–218; exclusion from the transitional local authorities system, 225–226; future of traditional authorities during the transition, 227–230; native commissioners and tribal authorities exerting political control, 116; population statistics, 7; poverty, 205–206; traditional administration role in rural development, 173; traditional leadership and prefectoralism, 91–92; transitional local authorities, 209–216; urban-rural linkages, 206–209. See also Traditional authority Rural councils, 32, 40–41(n53) Salaries of traditional leaders, 233 San people, 43–44, 51, 52(table), 61(n4) Sauer Report (1948), 128 Secondment system, 112 Security: traditional authorities under apartheid, 115–118 Security crisis, 177–179 Segregation: Bantu Administrative Boards controlling urban policy, 133–135; controlled political participation, 136–137; differentiation and separation, 77–80; Eastern Cape,

274

Index

70–72; justification by whites, 118; Natal, 75; origins of, 11–12; Shepstone masterminding Natal policy, 77; traditional leaders fighting against, 104–105; in the Transkei, 72–74; white rule in segregated towns, 127–135. See also Apartheid Self-governance, 5, 24–25, 74 Separate development. See Apartheid Separation, 77–80, 84(n10) Service delivery: fiscal and financing system, 186–187; inefficient spending, 249; local fiscal mismanagement, 191–194; local government crisis, 166; Masakhane campaign for funding, 189–190; privatization of, 211; public expectation, 187; subnational government, 246; traditional leaders supervising, 233–234; violence resulting from lack of, 250–251 Services Levy Act (1952), 128–129 Shepstone, Theophilus, 75–76, 80 Shiceka, Sicelo, 157 Slavery, 51, 52(table) Social control: homeland authority system, 116–118 Social organizations, 58 Social stratification: homeland authority system, 117–118 South African Act (1910), 93 South African Fiscal and Financial Commission, 197 South African Local Government Association (SALGA), 161, 195 South African National Civic Organization (SANCO), 147–148, 157, 231 South African Revenue Service, 197–198 Soweto Civic Association, 138–139 Stanyer, Jeffrey, 41(n60) State failure, 33 State-centric governance, 32, 58–60 State-within-the-state, 92–93, 110 Statute of Westminster (1931), 94 Stockenstrom Treaties (1835), 69 Subnational authorities: international donor community involvement in decentralization, 246–249; revenue for funding local government, 188;

rural poverty, 208. See also Provincial administrator; Traditional authority Subnational capacity, 173–174 Subsistence conditions, 226 Suffrage: apartheid cities and townships, 129–130 Symbolism, policy of, 141–142 Tanzania: central government’s financial control over the periphery, 35; politicization of the bureaucracy, 33; power and functions of local governance, 40(n53) Tax revenues: black local authorities, 143; debts of local governments, 189–190; expansion of local governance, 31; fiscal accountability, 197–198; fiscal mismanagement, 193; Glen Grey Act poll tax, 130; intergovernmental revenue sharing, 194–196; landdrost in the Northern Territories, 81; political control of black local government, 132; power and function of local government, 40–41(n53); property tax, 187–188; security levy, 179; Shepstone controlling black labor in Natal, 76–77 Tenderocracy, 249–250 Theal, George McCall, 8 Tomlinson Commission, 92 Top-down policymaking, 4 Total Strategy, Botha’s, 4 Trade: Dutch East India Trading Company, 49 Traditional Affairs, Department of, 251 Traditional authority: apartheid legacy and the transition, 227–230; BAD under apartheid, 113–115; British disruption of traditional political boundaries, 72–73; bureaucratic culture in the Department of Native Administration, 102; colonial rule introducing new actors and conflicts, 90–91; core values, 8; decentralization and, 251; distortion under native administration, 102–106; Glen Grey system, 130; indigenous institutional structures, 43–46; indirect rule, 27; local

Index

275

administrations replacing, 29; local level bureaucratic control, 57; local state concept and, 4; magistrates replacing chiefs, 71; origins and development of, 23–24; parallel rule, 26; postwar development of local governance, 29–30; prefectoralism and, 91–92; regional service councils, 213–214; revival after 1994, 230–235; strategic governance role in rural development, 173; traditional society and values, 46–49; in the Transkei, 74; treatment of women, 229 Traditional Leadership, Department of, 234–235 Transfer income, 187–188 Transitional local authorities (TLAs), 209–216, 225–226 Transparency, administrative, 170–173 Transvaal, 80–83, 92–94 Travers, Graham, 236 Trekboers (Dutch settlers), 50–51, 53–54, 62(n50) Tribal authorities: Bantu Authorities Act reinforcing, 91; colonial invention of, 43; NP opposition to African local councils, 131–132; traditional administration, 25; transformation into local governments, 32; undermining traditional chiefs, 78–80 Trusteeship, 76 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 48, 62(n32) Tutelle, 16–17 Tutu, Desmond, 48

United Democratic Movement, 225, 234 United Party, 101, 136 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 246–248, 252 Urban areas: Bantu Administrative Boards controlling urban policy, 133–135; beginning of black political representation, 135–136; black local authorities, 138–140; Botha era authoritarianism, 140–141; devolution and Botha’s administration reforms, 137–138; Glen Grey and local advisory councils, 130–132; GNU plan for dismantling race-based local governance structures, 156–161; local fiscal mismanagement, 191–194; symbols of apartheid systems, 205; twenty-first century security crisis, 177–179; urban-rural linkages, 206–209; white rule in segregated towns, 127–135 Urban Areas Act (1923), 128 Urban Bantu Councils (UBC), 129, 132–135 Urban councils, 32, 40–41(n53)

Ubuntu (collectiveness), 47–48 Unemployment and underemployment, 207 Unfunded mandates, 12, 149, 186–188, 191, 223(n101) Union period: apartheid remnants, 57–59; native administration eroding traditional authority, 104; native commissioners, 97–98; Urban Areas Act, 128 Unions, 211 Unitary government, 175 United Democratic Front (UDF), 140

Welfare funds, 28–30 West, M. T., 76 West Rand Administration Board, 134 White Paper on Local Government, 161–163, 187, 250 Women: traditional rulers’ view, 229; traditional society and values, 46–47

Values: Bantu origins of, 44; Core values of the local state, 7–11; traditional society and values, 46–49 Verwoerd, Henrik, 108, 115 Viljoen, Gerrit, 143 Violence. See Conflict and violence Voortrekkers, 75, 80 Vorster government, 133, 135

Xhosa, 26, 48, 67–70, 72, 74, 230 Zulu people and Zulu kingdom, 25–26, 75–77, 92, 97 Zuma, Jacob, 4, 12, 141, 234–235, 250

About the Book

H

ow did the transition from apartheid rule to democratic governance in South Africa affect South Africans—the people in the country’s cities, towns, villages, and farms? Louis A. Picard and Thomas Mogale offer answers to this fundamental question, tracing historical trends and measuring change (or the lack of it) in the dynamic between the promise of local participatory governance and the realities of a hierarchical state and limited local funds.

Louis A. Picard is professor of public and international affairs and African studies, as well as director of the Ford Institute for Human Security at the University of Pittsburgh. His numerous publications include The State of the State: Institutional Transformation and Political Change in South Africa. Thomas Mogale is director of the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is coeditor of Restructuring the State and Intergovernmental Relations in South Africa.

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