The Development Decade?
Economic and Social Change in South Africa, 1994-2004

Vishnu Padayachee (ed)

240mm x 168mm
484pp
R 260.00
ISBN: 0-7969-2123-7
April 2006

Description

Covering an impressive breadth of issues, the international development specialists who have contributed to this volume significantly deepen our understanding of the key socio-economic issues in the first decade of South Africa’s democratic governance.

Locating the South African challenges within a broader international perspective, the issues covered include all the major economic growth challenges confronting South Africa – employment, industrial policy, urban governance, the informal economy – and the social challenges of poverty, inequality, HIV/AIDS and health policy. The key development debates of the post-apartheid era are outlined and the success or otherwise of a decade of reform and experimentation is considered.

Contributors include leading American development economists Gill Hart and Michael Carter; respected African development scholar Dani Nabudere; noted British economist Jonathan Michie; and prominent South African scholars including Alan Whiteside, Julian May, Mike Morris, Francie Lund, Haroon Bhorat, Adam Habib, Eleanor Preston-Whyte, Bill Freund, Dale McKinley and Lungisile Ntsebeza.

Contents

Making democracy work for development

Development debates in a global context:

  • Beyond neo-liberalism? Development debates in historical and comparative perspective
  • Development theories, knowledge production and emancipatory practice

Macroeconomic balance and microeconomic reform:

  • Reflections on South Africa’s first wave of economic reforms
  • Macroeconomic reforms and employment: What possibilities for South Africa?
  • Operationalising South Africa’s move from macro-economic stability to micro-economic reform
  • Sequencing micro and macro reforms for pro-poor growth: Forward looking reflections on the South African experience

Distributive issues in post-apartheid South Africa:

  • Constructing the social policy agenda: conceptual debates around poverty and inequality
  • Policy dilemmas around direct state transfers to the poor

Industrial upgrading and innovation:

  • The Noledge of Numbers: SandT, RandD, and innovation indicators in South Africa
  • The role of government in facilitating clusters

Municipal governance and development:

  • Pro-poor local economic development in post-apartheid South Africa: The Johannesburg fashion district
  • Local economic development: utopia and reality in South Africa; the example of Durban KZN

Labour, work and the informal economy:

  • Labour supply and demand constraints on employment creation: a microeconomic analysis
  • Definitions, data and the informal economy in South Africa: a critical analysis

Population, health and development:

  • People’s views on how families cope with illnesses and deaths in South Africa
  • Condom use within marriage and cohabiting partnerships: perspectives of couples
  • Framing the HIV epidemic in South Africa – A sociological perspective
  • Economic and development issues around HIV/AIDS

Social movements and democratic transition:

  • Social movements in South Africa: promoting crisis or creating stability?
  • Democracy and social movements in South Africa
  • Political work: Mobilisation and negotiation in the shadows of Durban’s refineries

Traditional authority and development challenges:

  • Rural development, traditional authorities and democracy in South Africa


About the Author/s

Volume editor and contributor to the collection, Vishnu Padayachee, is Senior Professor of Economics in the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a member of the Board of Directors of the South African Reserve Bank. Professor Padayachee is an internationally acclaimed academic, having authored or edited four books and published in a variety of national and international journals in the fields of economics, development, political economy, labour economics and history, and economic history.