The period of 1980s people's power in South Africa is often regarded as having held the promise of a participatory form of democracy, emerging either spontaneously from the grassroots or as a response to calls from the banned ANC. Examination of the ideas and intellectual traditions that shaped people's power, however, suggests greater variation in its interpretati...

The years between 1986 and 1990 encompass an important, yet often overlooked, period in the development of democratic thought in the African National Congress (ANC). Following the end of apartheid in 1990 and the unbanning of the liberation movement, a process commenced to negotiate a political settlement and draft a new constitution for a democratic South Africa. ...