Trust and power in land politics in South Africa
By: GRAN, Thorvald
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Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: London : Sage Publication, 2002International Review of Administrative Sciences 8, 3, p. 419-440Abstract: Land politics is of high pratical and symbolic importance in much of Africa. South Africa is no exception. Here it is investigated from two angles. First from a discussion of trust and a culture of trustworthiness as conditions for the functining of modern institutions. Second from an interest in how the administrative level of communities and/or political cultures gives form to the relation between state and society. Western South Africa was chosen for the investigation as there are no homelands. `Land-reformed' communities in two provinces, Northern and Western Cape, are compared. The study showed (1) that the ANC's land policy is increasingly an expression of a unified government-bureaucracy-modern economy elite; (2) that there are specific barriers to the formation of cultures of trustworthiness in institutions of authority (commercial farmers, lack of horizontal communication and the power of ethnicity), barriers blocking `embedded authorities'; and (3) that trust in government with respect to land policies is waning, despite progress in the redistribution of land
| Item type | Current location | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Periódico | Biblioteca Graciliano Ramos | Periódico | Not for loan |
Land politics is of high pratical and symbolic importance in much of Africa. South Africa is no exception. Here it is investigated from two angles. First from a discussion of trust and a culture of trustworthiness as conditions for the functining of modern institutions. Second from an interest in how the administrative level of communities and/or political cultures gives form to the relation between state and society. Western South Africa was chosen for the investigation as there are no homelands. `Land-reformed' communities in two provinces, Northern and Western Cape, are compared. The study showed (1) that the ANC's land policy is increasingly an expression of a unified government-bureaucracy-modern economy elite; (2) that there are specific barriers to the formation of cultures of trustworthiness in institutions of authority (commercial farmers, lack of horizontal communication and the power of ethnicity), barriers blocking `embedded authorities'; and (3) that trust in government with respect to land policies is waning, despite progress in the redistribution of land
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