Shadow State: The Politics of State Capture

A powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance across civil society

The 2017 publication of Betrayal of the Promise, the report that detailed the systematic nature of state capture, marked a key moment in South Africa's most recent struggle for democracy. In the face of growing evidence of corruption and of the weakening of state and democratic institutions, it provided, for the first time, a powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance within the Tripartite Alliance and across civil society. Working often secretly, the authors consolidated, for the first time, large amounts of evidence from a variety of sources. They showed that the Jacob Zuma administration was not simply a criminal network but part of an audacious political project to break the hold of whites and white business on the economy and to create a new class of black industrialists. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet were central to these plans.

The report introduced a whole new language to discuss state capture, showing how SOEs were 'repurposed', how political power was shifting away from constitutional bodies to 'kitchen cabinets', and how a 'shadow state' at odds with the country's constitutional framework was being built. Shadow State is an updated version of the original, explosive report that changed South Africa's recent history.

Publisher: Wits University Press
Published: 07/01/2018
Pages: 186
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.43d
ISBN: 9781776142125

About the Author
Chipkin, Ivor: - Ivor Chipkin is the founding director of the Public Affairs Research Institute linked to the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town, which has been a pioneer in the field of institutional studies in South Africa, bringing social science methods to the study of government and how it works. He was an associate professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.Swilling, Mark: - Mark Swilling is Distinguished Professor in Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University. He is the Masters and Doctoral Programme Coordinator: Sustainable Development in the School of Public Leadership; Co-Director of the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition; and Co-Founder and Academic Director of the Sustainability Institute.Peter, Camaren: - Camaren Peter is an independent researcher and writer based in Cape Town. He is a physicist by training, but has collaborated across a wide range of disciplinary boundaries over the past two decades.
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