South Africa, settler colonialism and the failures of liberal democracy

Abstract

In South Africa, two unmistakable features describe post-Apartheid politics. The first is the formal framework of liberal democracy, including regular elections, multiple political parties and a range of progressive social rights. The second is the politics of the ‘extraordinary’, which includes a political discourse that relies on threats and the use of violence, the crude re-racialization of numerous conflicts, and protests over variouspopular grievances. In this highly original work, Thiven Reddy shows how conventional approaches to understanding democratization have failed to capture the complexities of South Africa’s post-Apartheid transition. Rather, as a product of imperial expansion, the South African state, capitalism and citizen identities have been uniquely shaped by a particular mode of domination, namely settler colonialism. South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy is an important work that sheds light on the nature of modernity, democracy and the complex politics of contemporary South Africa.

<p>CONTENTS: Introduction, p. 1. -- 1 Modernity: civil society, political society and the vulnerable, p. 11. -- 2 The limits of the conventional paradigm, modernity and South African democracy, p. 41. -- 3 The Fanonian paradigm, settler colonialism and South African democracy, p. 63. -- 4 The colonial state and settler-colonial modernism, p. 83. -- 5 Nationalism, ANC and domination without hegemony, p. 107. -- 6 Elites, masses and democratic change, p. 133. -- 7 Crisis of the national modern: democracy, the state and ANC dominance, p. 151. -- Conclusion, p. 187.</p>