"Patronage Politics Divides Us" is the culmination of a research project that forms part of MISTRA's first suite of eight priority research projects. The research explores the relationship between patronage, poverty, and inequality with a particular focus on its impact on the conduct of local politics. The overall aim of the study was to explore the possibility of constituting public institutions in a manner that enables them to become legitimate arbiters between the various interests, rather than as instruments that are captured by contending interest groups for their own accumulation. Most...

This book critically examines the challenges, successes, and failures of the post-1994 South African state against the humane values enshrined in its constitution: nonracial democracy and respect for all generations of human rights civil, political, social, economic, resources and the environment and gender and communication. The book sheds light on the difficulties faced by the State when trying to bring together a diverse society comprised of traditional South African, Western-based and other African (immigrant) cultures into a cohesive nation with a common South African identity. The views...