Taking the two options into account, Mazrui concluded the following regarding modernisation in Africa: Egypt’s destiny was not a Japanese fate of technical modernisation without cultural Westernisation, nor was it an Ataturk fate of technical modernisation through cultural Westernisation. It was Africa’s painful process of cultural Westernisation without technical modernisation.²

Culture in the context of civilisation in the post-Cold War era, was placed on the forefront by Samuel P Huntington.³ While he saw political culture as a determinant of political and economic modernisation in his earlier works, he later attributed a rise in cultural consciousness to the effects of economic modernisation. According to him, economic modernisation has undermined traditional local identities and religion has therefore moved in to fill this vacuum and to provide "a basis for identity and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations."⁴ However, Huntington is of the opinion that economic regional integration such as the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) can only succeed among members of the same civilisation. Japan’s unique civilisation is accordingly an impediment to its integration into the East Asian regional economy.⁵ Huntington’s two views appear to be contradictory: firstly, economic modernisation enhances religious (cultural) consciousness, but secondly, cultural conditions serve as a prerequisite for economic modernisation (integration).

Mazrui and Huntington are merely two illustrations of contrasting views about the correlation between culture (or values) and development. Over the past decade, arguably the most significant empirical study in this regard was based on the World Value Survey. Ronald Inglehart and others used the general belief that modernisation theory has been divided into two main schools as an hypothesis:

a Marxist version of economic reductionism that claims that economics, politics and culture are closely linked, because economic development determines the political and cultural characteristics of a society; and



a Weberian version, which claims that culture shapes economic and political life.⁶

Religion as a determinant of work ethics, is a well-known component of Max Weber’s thoughts.

The Inglehart project is very much associated with identifying postmodern or post-materialist values in societies and to plot societies/states accordingly on a matrix consisting of the following four value determinants: scarcity values, postmodern values, values associated with traditional authority, and with rational-legal authority.⁷ Is it coincidental that postmodernism is associated with cultural relativism, which implies that modernity is associated with cultural dominance (i.e. Western or Northern cultural dominance)? Post-industrialism or post-Fordism, according to this logic, is not dependent upon a particular culture or value system while, by implication, the objective of modernisation (or development), namely modernity, is dependent. Inglehart distinguishes between processes of modernisation and postmodernisation.⁸ Modernisation entails a shift from traditional authority values to rational-legal authority values, and postmodernisation a gradual withering away of value systems associated with conditions of scarcity, towards security values.⁹ The most advanced societies are therefore placed in the quadrant determined by postmodern (security) and rational-legal authority values. South Africa is placed in the directly opposite quadrant of scarcity and traditional authority values.¹⁰

Given these views, is there any correlation between successful political and economic development and the culture or political culture of a developing society? In other words, is the fact that some societies develop and others do not, determined by their culture? Depending on predetermined (cultural) factors, does development stand a chance of being successful in some instances while in other it is a lost cause? Or, does successful development depend on cultural syncretism? And finally, how does it affect South Africa’s development potential?

POLITICAL CULTURE AND VALUES

Political culture as a concept "refers to the specifically political orientations — attitudes toward the political system and its various parts, and attitudes toward the role of the self in the system."¹¹ Central in this definition are attitudes. According to Bluhm, the principal components of political culture – that provide a better understanding of attitudes – are values, beliefs and emotional attitudes.¹² Beliefs, according to him, are sets of concepts by which people interpret the world, in other words, what is. Values, on the other hand, are the normative aspect of political culture, in other words, what ought to be.

More importantly, political culture is not a homogeneous whole, but quite often consists of subcultures or discontinuous parts. Almond and Verba identified three types of political cultures, all of which are relevant for South Africa: parochial, subject and participant cultures. A parochial political culture is typical of a traditional environment in which individuals have a dim awareness of a larger political system beyond the immediate local environment. In a subject culture, on the other hand, individuals are aware of a differentiated political system beyond the traditional environment and display orientations toward the administrative structures of the political system, but do not act as political participants. A participant culture includes a participatory orientation of individuals.¹³

One of the best-known manifestations of a political culture is Almond and Verba’s notion of a civic culture. The two scholars used the British democratisation process as an illustration of their notion. English parliamentarianism combined traditional and modern practices and created a culture of consensus and diversity, rationalism and traditionalism, which is neither traditional nor modern, but both. The United States, on the other hand, is not typical of a civic culture, because it is relatively unimpeded by traditional institutions.¹⁴ South Africa’s emerging political culture is arguably also a civic culture, due to its strong traditional and modern elements.

How does political culture change or how does it respond to change? This question is important with regard to development (essentially as a change process). For example, does a change caused by development result in changes in the value systems of political cultures, or does a change in value systems determine developmental changes? In other words, are values and culture the independent or dependent variables? Related to these points is the question whether the values associated with European modernity are the only prototype values that can be guiding modernisation (or development). The references of Mazrui to Japan and Turkey come to mind again as illustrations of this point.

Huntington and Domínguez used the concept of cultural syncretism to provide their answer.¹⁵ They referred to syncretism as an acculturation process of reinterpretation with the retention of the original function of the contributing culture. It occurs when an overt form of one (presumably Western) culture is not perceived in the same fashion by members of another, receiving culture, but is perceived in such a way that it can be reinterpreted to conform to the borrowing culture’s own patterns of meaning, while still retaining its original function. Underlining this notion of acculturation is the idea that the Western culture or the culture of modernity can be indigenised in developing societies, while its original and essential functions remain in tact.

The line of argument taken by Huntington and Dominguez is extended by distinguishing between consummatory and instrumental cultures. Consummatory cultures link most social relationships with the religious sphere, and ascribe religious values to most behaviour patterns. Such cultures will resist all changes (acculturation through syncretism), or change itself totally and rapidly when confronted with the European culture. Instrumental cultures, on the other hand, evaluate social conduct in terms of narrower, particular and probably secular meanings. Acculturation through syncretism is then more likely. By implication, Huntington and Domínguez suggested that an instrumental culture will be more likely to support development, and that syncretism is a critical prerequisite for modernisation. Syncretism is also essentially the process of adapting Western value systems to developing circumstances without losing their meaning and function.

Applying his institutional approach, Huntington concluded that political change is not likely under conditions of congruence between the political culture and political structures, but is more likely in the event of an incongruence.¹⁶ For economic development (change) to be possible, it follows from this conclusion that a congruence between the political culture and economic structures should also exist. These conclusions can at best be used as hypotheses for further research and for investigation in this article.

It is generally accepted that established value systems in a society do not change easily. Political socialisation, as a process of changing values, is more associated with generational changes than with short-term variations. Value systems are also associated with ideological frameworks, and political cultures and ideologies are therefore related. Due to this linkage, value systems are also important determinants of value judgements determining public opinion, though it is sometimes argued that public opinion can also condition value orientations (in the form of inductive, experientially based reasoning).

The Inglehart project and the cultural reductionism it espouses, arguably has its roots in the modernisation notion of development, established in the 1960s and revitalised in the 1980s and 1990s in the forms of neo-liberalism and structural adjustment programmes. Even the ‘third way’ social democracy of the 1990s¹⁷ cannot entirely escape from these philosophical assumptions. Taking into consideration the globalisation of domestic economies, does South African stand a chance to avoid participating in the internationalisation of the (Western) political culture, and accepting the cultural reductionism of development? Francis Fukuyama and Huntington are two of the foremost protagonists of these views.

POLITICAL CULTURE AND VALUE SYSTEMS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Without trying to verify a causal linkage at this stage, but merely investigating a possible correlation between the two, the notions of political culture (or value systems) and development in South Africa are important to discuss here.

The Inglehart project combines two ideas in the concept of post-materialist or postmodern values. It assumes a direct correlation between values and modernisation or postmodernisation. For the purpose of this discussion, the symbiosis is not accepted as a point of departure but the values aspect of Inglehart’s ideas is the focus. According to him, the shift toward post-materialist values is influenced by two factors, namely intergenerational value change and a short-term component that reflects the current conditions.

In the case of South Africa, Inglehart concluded, it is unlikely to be moving toward postmodern values. There are few postmodernists in South Africa and relatively little difference between the values of the different generations. Intergenerational replacement would therefore, according to him, not bring much change. Inglehart further concluded that societies like those of South Africa, Argentina and Hungary are moving further away from post-materialist values, as opposed to the predicted direction towards them. The explanation for this trend is that post-materialist values are associated with a person’s feeling of security in terms of his or her survival. Perceptions of insecurity enhance the need for predictability and absolute norms. The mentioned societies experienced economic decline and a collapsing political order in the late 1980s and a transition from an authoritarian regime to democracy. A transition is always filled with insecurity. As a result, these societies became less permissive of abortion, placed a stronger emphasis on religion than before, and demonstrated more faith in hierarchical institutions (like the armed forces, the police and the church).¹⁸

Unfortunately, the Inglehart study did not report on distinguishable value orientations within a society, such as in South Africa’s. A central hypothesis of this article is that part of the dilemma of a developing state is the tension between traditional and modern values in addition to the fact that the set of values driving the development process can be distinguished as a third category continuously undergoing change. An appropriate example of such a tension is corruption. Huntington remarked on this as follows: "Corruption in a modernizing society is thus in part not so much the result of the deviance of behavior from accepted norms as it is the deviance of norms from the established patterns of behavior."¹⁹ In view of the society’s developmental status, the political culture and associated value systems in South Africa should therefore rather be treated as a composite and diverse phenomenon.

At least four political cultural constructs can be pinpointed in South Africa:

those associated with national liberation;

ethno-nationalist values;

those associated with liberalism; and

a hybrid of values associated with transformation.

Within some of these other value orientations are integrated, such as feminist or environmentalist values. Already at this stage in the discussion, Inglehart’s traditional/modernisation/ postmodernisation value categories are not anymore necessarily the most appropriate categorisation.

National liberation is also not informed by one cohesive set of values, but shares a common anti-apartheid orientation. Charterism or non-racialism, Africanism, African nationalism, Black Consciousness and socialism are but some of the most prominent variations.

Charterism is the philosophical basis of the African National Congress (ANC), combining social democratic values, cultural pluralism, the international value of non-alignment and, at individual level, trying to balance the values of freedom and equality.²⁰

Africanism, mainly associated with the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), but also with tendencies in the ANC, espouses values associated with the African socialism of the early 1960s (see Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa, Kwame Nkrumah and, to some degree, Jomo Kenyatta), a rehabilitation of the accommodation of diversity rather than charterism, and individually emphasising equality more than freedom and individuality.

African nationalism is an older version of Africanism and was articulated by the ANC Youth League’s leaders in the 1940s, like Anton Lembede, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. It emphasised a liberal notion of nationalism (the ‘Africans’ claims’ as a response to the Atlantic Charter are examples), albeit more radical than preceding nationalisms, but at the same time being anti-communist. The older generation and Africanists still uphold some aspects of African nationalism, emphasising the values of freedom and pluralism, and being the closest to an ‘African liberalism’.

Black Consciousness emerged in the 1970s as a major political force under the leadership of Steve Biko. It borrowed intellectually from the Black Power movement in the US and the Caribbean. Initially, its values were black solidarity, psychological liberation, ‘black man, you are on your own’, anti-(‘white’) liberalism, and self-realisation. Since 1978, the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) added a Marxist-socialist dimension to the movement.

The socialist value orientation is extremely diverse, encapsulating Leninist, Trotskyite, neo-Marxist and Euro-communist orientations. The Leninist tradition is arguably the strongest, represented by the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Their construct of ‘colonialism of a special type’ combined a colonial dimension with a racial (or national) and class analysis. Due to the implications of ‘colonialism of a special type’, a two-phase (or stage) revolution is propagated, consisting, firstly, of a national (bourgeois) democracy and, secondly, of a socialist society. The best-known Trotskyite construct of racial capitalism typified apartheid as essentially a capitalist phenomenon, using race as a means of capitalist exploitation. Hence, it excludes a national democracy as a first phase.

All the variations of national liberation share a number of common values — most importantly, the value of redress of historically evolved imbalances in employment, economic power and the public service. Secondly, the need for reconstructing society is espoused. In most instances, it is coupled with development, but the purpose of this article is to demonstrate how diverse the values are that underlie development.

The second category of value systems are those associated with ethno-nationalism — more specifically white and Afrikaner nationalism, and African and tribal nationalisms. Afrikaner nationalism is best known in this category as the ideology underscoring apartheid, but it has assumed other manifestations in recent times. All of them, however, share the values of conservatism, such as:

a hierarchical notion of authority;



authority being ordained on persons by a spiritual force that is at the epitome of such a hierarchy;



individuality subject to the interests of the group or society;



merit and experience as more relevant than potential for employment purposes;



culture as a determinant of identity; and



identity that is exclusive and ascriptive.

The principle of self-determination, and/or cultural autonomy, is always high on their agenda. This second category can be aligned with a combination of a parochial and a subject political culture.

The liberal value system(s) is the most difficult to capture conceptually, because it permeates so many dimensions of the present South African society. It has been mentioned already that Biko was scathing about ‘white’ liberalism in the 1970s, while the Liberal Party of Alan Paton and the Black Sash played significant roles in opposing apartheid, at the same time. The main hindrance for liberalism is that it was (and still is) perceived to be closely associated with big business and therefore with white privilege, which is encoded into entrenching the status quo and being anti-transformational (meaning also: not promoting the ‘black cause’). Negative stereotypes are arguably the most daunting obstacle for liberalism to overcome. In the present situation, the common liberal values emphasise a minimum state (a small public sector) and therefore privatisation, a free market private sector, more individual freedom than equality (and therefore critical of affirmative action), individualistic and growth (not developmentally) driven. Opponents of the liberal tradition call it neo-liberal or Thatcherite, which gives it a conservative slant. The former Democratic Party (DP) has been closely associated with these values, which approximate the post-materialist value category of Inglehart, except for the fact that insecurity is not completely absent. It is also characteristic of a predominantly participant political culture.

The final category is transformational values. The changes since 1990 have created a new class in the society that is neither national liberational nor liberal. Many of them were in exile and were partly acculturated and educated in Western, Central European or other African cultural values. They are very articulate on the values of redress and empowerment, leading to notions of black economic empowerment, employment equity, Africanisation and the transformation of the public sector. The result is an emerging black or African middle class, imbued by middle-class or postmodernist values, and ideologically moving increasingly closer to liberalism and away from socialism or a social democracy. Striking examples of this phenomenon are trade unionists with impeccable socialist credentials, first being elected as members of parliament and ultimately recruited by corporate business, committing them to the Keynesian economic logic.

For the ANC government, the enormous challenge is to create a balancing act by either trying to accommodate the various (mostly contradictory) value systems and interests, or to opt for only one or some of them. The ANC as liberation movement is often described as a ‘church’, accepting everyone willing to join it and therefore encapsulating a wide range of interests. Its main argument in refusing to convert into a conventional political party after its unbanning in 1990 is exactly to avoid a more concise definition and focus of its interests.²¹ Its natural inclination is therefore to create a balancing act, but the demands of government mostly do not allow this. This article will therefore further investigate how the government responded to these pressures.

DEVELOPMENT AND A SOCIAL CONTRACT

In 1997, the World Bank classified South Africa in the upper middle-income group together with Mauritius, the Seychelles, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico, Malta and Gabon. In terms of the distribution of income or consumption, the lowest 20% of the South African population received 3.3% in 1993 and the highest 20% received 63.3%. The highest 10% received 47.3% of the income.²²

Though the overall situation in South Africa is better than the average in most developing states, the distribution of income and consumption is an important indicator of the economic structural imbalance and disparate socio-economic conditions. In 1993, the highest 20% consisted almost entirely of white persons. However, a large portion of this percentage today are black. Given these indicators, South Africans consider their country as a developing society. Many others do not treat South Africa as a developing state. After 1994, for example, South Africa applied for membership of the Lomé Convention between the EU and the group known as the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. However, its economic size precluded it from World Trade Organisation (WTO) conditions for inclusion into these beneficial trade tariff arrangements. Instead, it had to reach a separate free trade agreement with the EU, excluding most of its agricultural products.

Due to these considerations, the democratic election of 1994 was a watershed in the conceptualisation of development in South Africa. The election established a new social contract founded on the principles of social reconstruction, development, democratisation and transformation, reconciliation and nationbuilding. Consensus on these principles vested in the centre of society and was strong enough to counter the centrifugal forces and lay the foundation of a new form of state. This consensus proved to be more about form than content, because the content or interpretation of two related principles (development and democracy) emerged as a new national debate, since the constitutional debate has been settled.

More importantly, the changes in Central and Eastern Europe, the growth explosion of the Pacific Rim, the economic structural adjustment approach of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the neo-conservatism in the US and Britain, and the globalisation and regionalisation of economies did exert influence in South Africa. In South Africa, these influences crystallised into two distinctly defined notions of development and related notions of democracy: on the one hand, growth, and on the other hand, development and redistribution — or profit maximisation versus social equity and redistribution.

Growth or profit maximisation maintains almost similar assumptions as the modernisation theories of the 1960s, using the trickle-down argument, viewing development as primarily economic (with subsequent political by-products), as mainly the responsibility of the private sector, and as an outward-oriented export-driven and supply side economic policy. This view coincided with the liberal political subculture and, ironically, also the ethno-nationalist subculture, combined with the participant political culture of Almond and Verba. Most post-materialists, in terms of Inglehart’s denotation, will also support this view.

The opposing view does not have faith in the trickle-down premise. It replaces it with development and redistribution; development is perceived as an interaction between economic and political processes (and not only economic), as a joint responsibility of the private and public sectors, as a demand-driven economic policy, and including democratisation, statebuilding and institutionalisation. Lentner would call it a neo-structuralist approach.²³ These views are informed by most of the national liberation political subcultures and initially also by the transformational subculture. All three types of political cultures distinguished by Almond and Verba can be linked to these views.

Quite significant from a values perspective, is the concomitant different notions of democracy. Though slightly an oversimplification, the ‘growth’ perspective is closest associated with a liberal perspective and one that limits itself to the procedural or structural aspects of democracy. They are interpreted to be the constitutional or statutory requirements of a multiparty system, regular and free elections, guaranteed freedom of association and franchise rights, judicial review and the protection of the constitution and human rights. This notion of democracy is distinctly American and explicitly devoid of a moral or normative dimension.²⁴ It also stands in a symbiotic relation with a free market economy.

The related ‘redistribution and equity’ perspective on democracy includes the structural aspects in addition to a moral dimension. This dimension emphasises a culture of human rights tolerance and respect, pluralism in various respects, political tolerance (and not only a multiparty system), and socio-economic justice and equity. In an economic sense, it is closely associated with a social democracy or Thabo Mbeki’s notion of a ‘caring state’. The values it espouses are also mostly associated with the national liberation political subcultures, but not necessarily in all respects with the culture of transformation.

The importance of the moral dimension for developing states, like South Africa, is that it integrates the political and the economic, or integrates the ideals of democracy into development. The risks that it creates, however, are that the success of democratisation also depends directly on the success of economic progress. This point is illustrated by the fact that, in the early 1990s, the IMF and the World Bank presented economic structural adjustment and democratisation as one package to the developing world. In the minds of the populations of affected states, these concepts assumed a symbiotic relationship. Therefore, when the negative socio-economic side-effects of structural adjustment were first felt, like higher unemployment, or less social welfare services and resources, they had a direct negative impact on the legitimacy of democratisation.²⁵ For the South African development project, the problem is not yet as acute, because a certain distinction between the political and economic milieu is still maintained. Moreover, not all the democratic agents in society are associated with the same notion of development. In other words, government is not seen as the sole champion of democracy in society, but a much wider array of social actors participate in such a role.

The idea that the success of democratisation also depends directly on the success of economic development introduces another dimension to the South African debate about development, namely that of causality.

The debate started in the 1960s and continued in the 1970s, specifically about the relationship between big business and the apartheid regime. Representatives of big business, like Michael O’Dowd,²⁶ argued that economic growth will ultimately render the apartheid blueprint unworkable. During the international sanctions debate in the 1980s, the arguments continued whether international investors should actively be engaged in South Africa, or should disinvest. The liberal argument was to engage and the radical one to disengage and isolate. The different value judgements were again the main distinguishing factor.

Another dimension of the debate came to the fore in the early 1990s in the form of the example of the Asian Tigers or the ‘high performing Asian economies’. Initially, the ANC and other elements in the liberation movement were very enthusiastic about the development approach of Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and others, until the inverse correlation between political democracy and economic growth dawned upon them. Most of these economies reached and sustained their high growth rates under relatively authoritarian conditions. As a result, the hypothesis became first growth and then democratisation, but not concurrently or vice versa. A widespread consensus among scholars of development supports the same view. As a consequence, the East Asian model is no longer popular in South Africa.

The general conclusion of the debate about causality appears to be that democratisation and development should be concurrently on the agenda, and that they are mutually dependent upon each other. It is, however, a compromise between the national liberation, especially socialist (SACP) values of democratisation as a prerequisite for socio-economic equity and development, and the liberal values of growth as the catalyst of all other social development (the Pacific Rim example). When the new government was confronted with the conversion of those views into a practical macro-economic strategy, the two value systems played their role again.

REDISTRIBUTION VERSUS GROWTH

The ANC’s point of departure for the past four decades was a ‘mixed economy’ combining elements of growth with elements of redistribution. It was similar to the ‘growth with equity’ strategy propagated in Zimbabwe soon after its independence. After its unbanning in 1990 and in preparing a new economic policy as the government-in-waiting, the ANC summarised its approach as follows:

"The ANC is convinced that it is essential that we promote a new path of growth and development in the economy. The engine of growth in the economy ... should be the growing satisfaction of the basic needs of the impoverished and deprived majority of our people. Programmes and policies that increase output — particularly of social infra-structure and basic consumer products — will increase employment and produce new incentives to growth which will benefit all sectors of our economy."²⁷

A few months later, the ANC reiterated its support for a mixed economy based on the principles of democracy, participation and development:

"We are convinced that neither a commandist central planning system nor an unfettered free market system can provide adequate solutions to the problems confronting us."²⁸

The ANC’s think-tank on macro-economic policy, the Macro-economic Research Group (MERG), reported in 1993 on its preferred fundamentals for development. These included effective state intervention, a vigorous private sector, popular involvement in all spheres of society and a carefully designed macro-economic strategy for transition. The strategy should address the imbalances through more direct intervention. Government consumption expenditure should not be seen as an obstacle to growth, but as an investment in human resources.

MERG positioned itself in opposition to the Normative Economic Model (NEM) developed by the Central Economic Advisory Services for the National Party (NP) government in 1993. According to MERG, the NEM favoured the trickle-down approach and therefore the advantaged sectors of society. Moreover, the NEM suggested that growth could be improved through the supply side. It implies generating adequate savings through lower tax rates, encouraging privatisation, deregulation, higher growth and employment. MERG, on the other hand, did not want to rely on the implied market mechanism of the supply side, but favoured more direct state intervention.²⁹

The different value judgements about the imperatives of development before the 1994 election are distinctly evident from these views.

The ANC’s views converged in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) which served as the main message in their 1994 election campaign. The programme was the product of wide consultations with COSATU, the SACP, the civic movement and other ANC allies. It went through six drafts before it was tabled at the ANC’s Conference on Reconstruction and Strategy. Most significant for this discussion is the linkage established between reconstruction and development. It rejected the view that growth and redistribution are contradictory approaches:

"The RDP integrates growth, development, reconstruction and redistribution into a unified programme. The key to this link is an infrastructural programme ... This programme will both meet basic needs and open up previously suppressed economic and human potential in urban and rural areas. In turn this will lead to an increased output (i.e. growth)."³⁰

By 1995, however, the situation had changed. Organised business presented a united position to the Constitutional Committee of the constitution-making assembly. Two of their twelve stated principles attempted to balance their preference for a free market economy with the needs of development. In their Principle for Social and Economic Justice, they "believe economic and social justice, freedom from poverty and related social ills should be key objectives of the constitution." The Principle of an Enabling State provided the other side of the coin: "In the pursuit of shared growth, economic restructuring and development, the role of the state should be to set a framework and create an environment conducive to private activity."³¹

During the same period, according to Munslow and FitzGerald, three factors turned the tide against the RDP:

a growing awareness of the exigencies of South Africa’s position in the global economy;

the administrative deficiencies of its implementation; and

the overall failure of its policy delivery.³²

The ANC vastly underestimated the impact of global tendencies on policymaking in South Africa. The country’s democratisation and international integration introduced it to an array of international processes. Especially, the exposure of decisionmakers to international financial institutions, coupled with the absence of direct international investments despite South Africa’s political popularity internationally, resulted in a serious reconsideration of its macro-economic principles.³³

Two examples of the tacit influence of the external environment were the following: in January 1995, the IMF released a report on selected economic issues in South Africa. The unemployment problem was its key focus. A significant conclusion of the report was that the bulk of unemployment was neither voluntary nor frictional, and not cyclical, but structural. In the light of this conclusion, three impediments to real wage adjustments were identified:

the notion that wages for unskilled labour in the formal sector were so low that they could not fall any further;



the growing strength of trade unions; and



the mechanics of the wage determination system.³⁴

Focusing on the structural dimension of employment could not hide the IMF’s inclination toward structural adjustment and the values underlining a free and flexible labour market, while at the same time not being sensitive to the social side-effects in a situation lacking elaborate social security mechanisms.

Already in 1993, the Southern African department of the World Bank released a report entitled Paths to economic growth, with three growth scenarios for South Africa. It argued that the key to high growth is increased private investments comparable to the 1970 levels and ‘sound economic policies’. Other measures proposed were that the government would have to:

encourage rapid growth in skilled labour;



change the import-substitution bias of manufacturing and reorient it toward exports;



boost job creation in small businesses;



restructure government spending by raising investment in infrastructure and public spending, like public works; and



maintain prudent fiscal and monetary policies, including cutting the public service.³⁵

By the beginning of 1996, the South African government had not yet used any of its credit facilities at the World Bank. Instead, the Bank had been active in doing research and offering expert advice on a wide range of issues. Usually, these services are a precursor to a bank loan.³⁶ Most probably, another form of counterperformance was expected from the South African government.

By 1996, the national public consensus about the RDP had dissipated, not so much because of a change in the dominant political culture, but because of its lack of delivery or tangible results. Outside the domain of public opinion, however, a battle ensued for the status of dominant value system that would guide the development strategy, with neo-liberal values being presented internally by business interests and two political parties (DP and NP), and externally by international financial markets and decisionmakers. During this period, negotiations for a free trade agreement between South Africa and the EU also started and might have had an additional influence on the tendency of the ANC to be ambiguous about the RDP. Only the SACP and COSATU still stood by the RDP.

In the middle of 1996, a new macro-economic strategy was announced, the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy. In contrast to the RDP, it was not the product of wide consultation, but was drafted by a small technical team comprising officials from the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the South African Reserve Bank, three state departments, academics and two representatives of the World Bank. The core elements of GEAR were a renewed focus on budget reform, a faster fiscal deficit reduction from 5.1% in 1996 to 3% in 2000, a stable exchange rate, consistent monetary policies to prevent a resurgence of inflation, gradual relaxation of exchange controls, a reduction in tariffs, tax incentives to stimulate new investment, speeding up of the restructuring of state assets (in other words, privatisation and commercialisation), flexibility within the collective bargaining system, and a few other related matters.³⁷ A key element of the programme is its point of departure: sustained growth on a higher plane requires a transformation towards a competitive outward-oriented economy.

The best indication that the ANC realised that GEAR was a radical departure from the RDP, was the fact that President Mandela repeatedly referred to it at the time as non-negotiable, and was even willing to jeopardise the tripartite alliance for its sake. Given the contentious nature of the new policy, Thabo Mbeki, in November 1996, experienced difficulty in keeping his argument comprehensive:

"The path of growth that marginalises more of our people, exacerbates inequalities and dampens employment is a path we decidedly reject ... Growth that confers its benefits on a minority and impoverishes the majority is neither morally, nor politically, nor, indeed, economically acceptable. We therefore seek the twin goals of growth and equity and will not choose one over the other. But we are the first to recognise that growth, while insufficient to bring about poverty reduction and equity, is indispensable to the realisation of both objectives."³⁸

 CONCLUSION

The policy shift represents a political culture substantially different from the one imbedded in the RDP. Everything MERG rejected and the NEM proposed, and that the World Bank and the IMF propagated, are incorporated into GEAR. In addition to the secretive drafting process and the lack of consultation with the tripartite alliance, the SACP identified the emphasis on stability (especially the monetary policy) and departures from existing agreements (like the National Framework Agreement about state asset restructuring) as major objections. Moreover, though it is a growth-driven model, it does not meet the growth targets.³⁹

Was this policy or paradigm shift a result of a general, public change in the political culture and dominant value system, or did the shift result in a change in the dominant values, or were other factors more important?

No indications exist that a dramatic value change has occurred over the past number of years. On the contrary, the original social contract of 1994 appears to be reaffirmed and strengthened. An indication of this trend is the fact that, while the ANC has increased its national electoral support in 1999 with about four percentage points, it lost support in the three poorest provinces. It can be interpreted as an indication of the public perception that the ANC had not responded to development needs in areas most in need. Moreover, the consistent criticism by COSATU and the SACP reaffirms the vibrancy of the national liberation subculture. A new minority party in parliament, the United Democratic Movement, capitalised on the perception that the ANC has negated the RDP and that GEAR is also not delivering the desired results. Therefore, it is presently planning an alternative National Development Strategy.

GEAR is therefore arguably the result of other factors. No conclusive evidence can be quoted to this effect, but external factors — and especially the World Bank — were probably the most decisive in the paradigm shift. Ironically, it leaves the country with a policy informed mainly by post-materialist values directed at a populace harbouring values of traditionalism (a subject or parochial political culture), or modernity/ materialism. This disjuncture appears to be the dilemma of development globally. Should Mazrui take us back to Turkey or Japan?

NOTES

A A Mazrui, Cultural forces in world politics, James Currey, London, 1990, p 4.



Ibid, p 5.



S P Huntington, The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72(3), Summer 1993.



Ibid, p 26.



Ibid, pp 27-28.



R Inglehart, Changing values, economic development and political change, International Social Science Journal 145, September 1995, p 379.



Ibid, p 389.



R Inglehart, Modernization and post-modernization: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997.



Inglehart, 1995, op cit, p 385.



Ibid, p 394.



G A Almond & S Verba, The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations, Little, Brown and Co, Boston, 1965, p 12.



W T Bluhm, Ideologies and attitudes: Modern political culture, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1974, p 6



Almond & Verba, op cit, pp 16-19; F I Greenstein & N W Polsby (eds), Macropolitical theory: Handbook of Political Science, volume 3, Addison Wesley, Reading, Mass, 1975, p 16.



Almond & Verba, ibid, p 6.



Huntington & Domínguez, in Greenstein & Polsby, op cit, pp 18-19.



Greenstein & Polsby, ibid, p 17.



A Giddens, The third way: The renewal of social democracy, Polity, Cambridge, 1998.



Inglehart, 1997, op cit, pp 268, 276, 284, 299, 322.



S P Huntington, Political order in changing societies, Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1968, p 60.



D Kotzé, Debates about the Freedom Charter, in R Hill et al (eds), African studies forum, volume 2, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, 1993.



ANC, ANC: National Liberation movement or political party?, discussion paper, Department of Political Education, 1991a, pp 2-5.



World Bank, The state in a changing world: World development report, Oxford University Press, Washington DC, 1997, pp 215, 221, 223, 235, 265.



H H Lentner, Historical unfoldings and conceptual debates: Central American development strategies, unpublished paper read at the International Political Science Association World Congress, Berlin, 1994.



S P Huntington, The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century, Oklahoma University Press, Norman/London, 1991, pp 5-13.



L C W Kaela, Structural adjustment and the democratization process in Zambia: The rise of the third republic, unpublished paper read at the 20th Congress of the African Association of Political Science, Dar es Salaam, 1993, p 20.



M O’Dowd, in L Schlemmer & E Webster (eds), Change, reform and economic growth in South Africa, Ravan, Johannesburg, 1978.



ANC, Department of Economic Policy discussion document: Economic policy, Centre for Development Studies, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 1991b, p 4.



ANC, Draft resolution on the economic policy for the National Conference, Centre for Development Studies, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 1991c, p 3.



MERG, Making democracy work: A framework for macroeconomic policy in South Africa — A report from the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG) to the members of the Democratic Movement of South Africa, Centre for Development Studies, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 1993, pp 1, 4, 5-7.



RDP, The reconstruction and development programme: A policy framework, Umanyano, Johannesburg, 1994, p 6.



Business Report, 9 May 1995, p 3.



P FitzGerald et al (eds), Managing sustainable development in South Africa, Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1997, pp 47-48.



Ibid, p 47.



IMF, South Africa: Selected economic issues, 17 January 1995, pp 1, 60-61.



Pretoria News, 6 December 1993, p 8; Sunday Times Business Times, 5 December 1993, p 3.



The Star, 26 February 1996, p 15; Sunday Times Business Times, 25 February 1996, p 34.



GEAR, Growth, employment and redistribution: A macro-economic strategy, Department of Finance, Pretoria, 1996, pp 2-7.



P Bulger, Growth vs redistribution: The debate on economic strategy hots up, The Star, 28 October 1996, p 15.



J Cronin, Why the SACP rejects GEAR, Mail & Guardian, 10-16 July 1998, p 34.