Marius Pieterse

This academic article has just appeared online for the forthcoming print issue (2020 issue 2) of the South African Journal on Human Rights. Based on a desk study, which confirmed a hunch from earlier qualitative research done in a South African secondary city (see here), it aims to show the need for a clearer wall between political parties and state institutions in South Africa. The focus is on urban local government level where, it is argued, the absence of a dividing line between legislative and executive functions exacerbates the anti-democratic effects of a party/state conflation. The usurpation of local governance functions by unaccountable party-political structures is argued to frustrate urban autonomy and thereby to undermine the federal elements of the constitutional system of cooperative governance, not least through re-centralising local authority in national or regional structures.

You can read the article here or email me for a copy.