Representation and Misrepresentation: San regional advocacy and the Global imagery

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Arts on 19/07/2010, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02560041003786490The San of southern Africa are one of the most represented peoples of southern Africa. Internationally, they are most often depicted as a hunting-gathering people or as a people recently removed from that way of life. Organisations such as Survival International draw on these images for political advocacy and in campaigns for land rights for indigenous peoples. In southern Africa, San organisations fight for similar rights and, despite their membership being comprised of San people, the images and ideas of San-ness are dominated by the global imagery. The images and ideas of the San draw on racialised caricatures and colonial imagery that freeze San imagery into a mythologised past. We argue that this is a limiting factor in political advocacy that constrains the types of responses possible for aboriginal rights in Africa

Oil Corrupts Elections: The Political Economy of Vote-Buying in Nigeria

The extant perspectives on vote-buying have produced three central arguments around its causes, which are the factors of poverty, the electoral/voting system, and the nature of politics in the state. Going beyond these perspectives, this study presents the argument that vote-buying can also be explained by considering the nature of the political economy of a state, especially when the state is oil-‑dependent. The Nigerian case study demonstrates this argument. We employ the “oil-impedes-democracy” framework, which is a strand of the resource curse theory, to argue that the incidence of vote‑buying in Nigeria’s contemporary elections is prevalent because of the oil wealth associated with politics and elections in the state. This is because abundant oil wealth intensifies elite competition, which explains the use of all strategies to win elections including vote-buying. This is also facilitated by the fact that the political elite, especially the incumbent, have adequate access to oil wealth and spend it to “buy” elections and hold on to power. Voters, on their part, also prefer to sell their votes during elections to have a share of the “national cake” given their perception of the wealth associated with politics in Nigeria and the poor service delivery by politicians after assuming state offices

Teacher beliefs about listening in a foreign language

This study investigated, through a questionnaire, the stated beliefs and stated practices of 115 foreign language teachers in England regarding listening pedagogy: whether such beliefs and practices reflect the literature on listening, whether beliefs and stated practices converged, and what factors might underpin them. Responses indicated a mismatch between teachers’ stated belief in the importance of teaching learners how to listen more effectively, and the lack of evidence in their stated practice of such teaching, with a focus instead on task completion. Findings are discussed against the accountability agenda of the study’s context, and its implications for teacher development highlighted

The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature : political elite formation and change, 1994-2004.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.This is a study, through extensive empirical fieldwork research, of political elite formation in the Provincial Legislature of KwaZulu-Natal over a ten-year period from 1994-2004. The period of this study covers two successive provincial government elections and two terms of office. The first election was the founding election of South Africa's new democracy. Through the frameworks of classical and democratic elite theory, the social and political composition, patterns of recruitment, values, ideology and institutional capacity of the elected members of the legislature are analysed. The findings of this study demonstrate that the new institutional context has provided for greater party fluidity and instability in the legislature of a political elite that came to power through fragmented and contradictory alliances, has become more homogenous, and for some, their contradictory affiliations tie their interests to the legislature. In addition, an emerging political culture of value systems and ideology is beginning to take shape across political parties in a manner that has the potential to undermine the democratic institutions of government. As a product of this, and an underdeveloped institutional capacity, certain issues dominate the provincial agenda as the elite come to redefine their interests. Alongside this the longevity of a few is guaranteed. As such, political elite formation in KwaZulu-Natal has the potential to undermine the basis of democracy in the province

Traces, CSLBS Newsletter Autumn 2023

With contributions from Matthew J. Smith, Hannah Bekkers, Suzanne Francis-Brown, and Jess Hannah

Media waves and moral panicking: The case of the FIFA World Cup 2010

As with previous international sporting events, the threat of human trafficking quickly became part of public consciousness during the lead up to the World Cup. Out of 350 articles covering human trafficking in South African newspapers between 2006 and 2010, 82 (or 24 per cent) directly linked this sporting event with human trafficking. We claim that media hypes based on constructed moral panics might be recycled in similar scenarios to that displayed during the FIFA World Cup, demonstrating the staying power of such media hypes and the utility of moral panics

Counter-trafficking governance in South Africa: an analysis of the role of the KwaZulu-Natal human trafficking, prostitution, pornography and brothels task team.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Contemporary African Studies on 4-4-17, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2017.1309363Determining the efficacy of available counter-trafficking strategies is just as important as understanding the phenomenon of human trafficking itself. This is so if anti-trafficking practitioners wish to make in-roads in preventing and combating human trafficking in South Africa. At the heart of the matter are the ways in which counter-trafficking governance is structured in the South African context. In this article we use the KwaZulu-Natal intersectoral task team, an un-resourced agency of provincial government mandated to prevent and combat human trafficking, as a case study to analyse the ‘4P model’ of counter-trafficking favoured in South Africa. We find that while such an integrated model has great potential, issues of institutional cooperation and coordination, pervasive public official corruption and budgetary constraints hamper its current impact and efficacy. We conclude that these issues must be addressed by South African policy-makers once legislation has been promulgated

Drivers of Nuclear Proliferation: South Africa's Incentives and Constraints

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a published work that appeared in final form in Journal for Contemporary History. To access the final edited and published work see https://journals.co.za/content/contemp/39/1/EJC158344Many factors are identified as causes of nuclear proliferation, but three stands out among them. These comprise the international and domestic political environment, technical capabilities and motivation. This article explores, on the one hand, the conditions that are conducive for the proliferation of nuclear weapons, whilst also suggesting strategies that can effectively address the problem. The authors use the South African episode as a case study. They identify the role of technology and motivations in the development of South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme and claim that the possession of technological capability is not a sufficient cause of nuclear proliferation. Rather, the presence of strong motivations in conjunction with sufficient technical capability leads to nuclear proliferation

Impeachment as an accountability measure in a presidential system. Views from Nigeria's Fourth Republic

Extant provisions of Nigeria’s presidential constitution seek to promote a culture of accountability through a system of checks and balances. Since Nigeria’s return to civil rule in May 1999, promotion of good governance through accountability government continues to be a challenge. All indications point to a worsening governance crisis in the midst of abundant resources. Besides, Nigeria’s socio-economic performance and visible poor service delivery depict a deepening governance crisis occasioned by mismanagement of public resources. The data collected by means of documents and literature indicates that the presidential system has checks and balances as measures to prevent the abuse of power. Impeachment is the major institutionally recognised legislative mechanism to hold the executive accountable. The puzzle since the inception of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic is the failure of the legislature to appropriate this statutory authority to police the execution of public policies in a manner that will conform to the constitutional requirements. While there are requisite constitutional provisions that mandate the legislature to ascertain its power over the executive, indicating Nigeria’s commitment to the promotion of good governance, the legislature has failed to appropriate these instruments to stimulate a responsible government that is open to promoting good governance. Using the theories of structural functionalism and elites, this paper argues that this legislative failure to appropriate the instrument of impeachment to instil the culture of responsible executive in policy process engenders the prevailing governance crisis in Nigeria. The paper concludes that a political system where systemic corruption prevails will reduce impeachment to a mere instrument of political vendetta