Socio Economic Equity And Democratic Freedom In South Africa

Within the past 18 years of democratic rule in South Africa, the disparities have hardly been reduced, as is manifest in the realms of education, health, security, and employment. As a former liberation movement, the African National Congress underestimated the tasks ahead when transforming South African society, and the degree to which the apartheid legacy impacted the people's ability to make use of their democratic rights and to call politicians to account for their performance. This book calls for citizen responsibility to shape the nation's future and defend the rights of liberty enshrined in its constitution. (Series: Carl Schlettwein Lectures - Vol. 8)

The end of apartheid in South Africa broke down political barriers, extending to all races the formal rights of citizenship, including the right to participate in free elections and parliamentary democracy. But South Africa remains one of the most economically polarized nations in the world. In "The Politics of Necessity" Elke Zuern forcefully argues that working toward greater socio-economic equality--access to food, housing, land, jobs--is crucial to achieving a successful and sustainable democracy. Drawing on interviews with local residents and activists in South Africa's impoverished townships during more than a decade of dramatic political change, Zuern tracks the development of community organizing and reveals the shifting challenges faced by poor citizens. Under apartheid, township residents began organizing to press the government to address the basic material necessities of the poor and expanded their demands to include full civil and political rights. While the movement succeeded in gaining formal political rights, democratization led to a new government that instituted neo-liberal economic reforms and sought to minimize protest. In discouraging dissent and failing to reduce economic inequality, South Africa's new democracy has continued to disempower the poor. By comparing movements in South Africa to those in other African and Latin American states, this book identifies profound challenges to democratization. Zuern asserts the fundamental indivisibility of all human rights, showing how protest movements that call attention to socio-economic demands, though often labeled a threat to democracy, offer significant opportunities for modern democracies to evolve into systems of rule that empower all citizens.

What are the prospects and means of achieving development through a democratic politics of socio-economic rights? Starting from the position that socio-economic rights are as legally and normatively valid as civil and political rights, this anthology explores the politics of acquiring and transforming socio-economic rights in South Africa. The post-apartheid South African experience shows that democracy is not a guarantee for elimination of poverty and inequality, but also that democratic institutions and politics may provide means for addressing past and present injustices. Thus it is argued that democratic politics of socio-economic rights democratises development while also developing democracy.

This book brings together a series of papers and responses to papers presented at a conference on the minimum core content of socio-economic rights in Pretoria, South Africa, during August 2000. The papers aim to describe the minimum core content of different socio-economic rights, first from an international law perspective and then, by way of response from a South African perspective. In the process the normative content of the rights concerned is given flesh: the authors attempt to identify particular obligations that can be said to form the core of rights such as the right to housing, the right to food, the right to education and the rights to social security and assistance. At the same time the concept of a minimum core content, or minimum core obligations of economic and social rights is problematised and the difficulties of using concepts developed within the general and abstract realm of international law in the more particular and concrete context of domestic rights adjudication are explored. This book as a result contains a great deal of practically useful information for use by human rights practitioners, both legal and non-legal. At the same time it provides some critical reflection on that information and the conceptual framework from which it is derived.

Human rights are traditionally understood as protecting individual freedom against intrusion by the State. This title argues instead that human rights are based on a richer view of freedom, going beyond absence of coercion and focussing on the ability to exercise freedom.

The International Forum for Social Development was a 3 year project undertaken by the United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs between 2001 and 2004 to promote international cooperation for social development and supporting developing countries and social groups not benefiting from the globalization process. This publication provides an overview and interpretation of the discussions and debates that occurred at the four meetings of the Forum for Social Development held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, within the framework of the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development.

Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary resources, this scholarly work provides an in-depth and thorough analysis of the socio-economic rights jurisprudence of the newly democratic South Africa. The book explores how the judicial interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights can be more responsive to the conditions of systemic poverty and inequality characterising South African society. Based on meticulous research, the work marries legal analysis with perspectives from political philosophy and democratic theory.

Offers an insight into the circumstances under which the policies were developed, implemented and reviewed, as well as a study of the outcomes. This book addresses questions such as: How could an organisation with no previous experience of governing accomplish a peaceful transition to democracy? How did they do it and where are they going?