Political Science in South Africa

The Last Forty Years

Peter Vale, Pieter Fourie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317665762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In 2013 and in 2014 respectively, the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS) and Politikon (the South African Journal of Political Studies) celebrate their 40th anniversary. Also, in April 2014 South Africa celebrates twenty years since the advent of the post-Apartheid democracy, and the birth of the 'rainbow nation'. This book provides a timely account of the birth and evolution of South African politics over the past four decades, but also of the study of Political Science and International Relations in this country. Fourteen political scientists contribute chapters to this volume, situating the study of politics within its global context and recounting the development of politics as a field of study at South African universities. The fourteen contributions evaluate the state of the discipline(s) and suggest conclusions that are surprising and in many instances unsettling, not only with regards to what and how politics is taught, but also how its study has variously gained and lost pertinence for South Africans' understanding of their own polity as well as its place in the world. The implications are uncomfortable, and pose interesting challenges for South African scholarship, pedagogy and national self-reflection.

This book was published as a special issue of Politikon.

A Word from a Founder, to Those Who Follow

GERRIT OLIVIER*

It is indeed gratifying to witness the fruits of an initiative of a small group of political scientists assembling at the University of Pretoria 40 years ago to establish the South African Political Science Association (SAPSA), with Politikon as its flagship journal. From this inauspicious beginning, both SAPSA and Politikon have become success stories, recognised nationally and internationally as the main and representative fora of South African political scientists.

As founder member of SAPSA and first editor of Politikon, it gives me great pleasure to thank and congratulate everyone who has participated in and contributed to this long building process in achieving the successes of the past 40 years. At the same time, let me also express my appreciation to the editors of this anniversary edition, Peter Vale and Pieter Fourie, the Editorial Board, as well as to all the contributing authors for producing this very special issue of Politikon. This is a splendid testimony to the growth, development, and the vibrant health of our discipline after four decades.

With the benefit of 40 years’ hindsight, some personal reminiscences and a few observations about the launch of Politikon and the teaching and societal impact of Political Science and International Relations in South Africa are perhaps appropriate. I never expected, not even in my wildest imagination, when it all started from scratch four decades ago, that I would one day have the pleasure of witnessing so many positive consequences of our labour.

Our genesis was inconspicuous and unsure of success. At the time of the establishment of SAPSA (now the South African Association of Political Studies, or SAAPS) and Politikon, universities in South Africa existed almost like isolated islands, rarely interacting or co-operating. No doubt, the deeply divided nature of the apartheid state and society had a profound impact on academic scholarship in the country, with the result that co-operation among political scientists until the early 1990s was at best sporadic, if not utterly constrained. However, what the founding members realised right from the outset was that any effort which was not per definition national and inclusive of all political scientists would be a wasted effort.

Inclusiveness, serving the discipline across all boundaries, was therefore our lodestar right from the beginning. Following this objective, the editorial policy of Politikon was similarly to provide a legitimate and representative forum for the entire spectrum of Political Science practitioners, to be politically and ideologically neutral, and to publish articles on the basis of scientific merit alone. Initially, for me as editor, it was very difficult to involve colleagues at South African English-language universities. However, and fortunately so, this changed over time as SAPSA grew to become more representative. Today, some 40 years later, this objective has been fully achieved. This is something to be proud of.

During Politikon’s 40 years, major events and profound changes have taken place on the political scene, both at home and abroad. For South Africans, the most important among these was without a doubt the end of apartheid. This was a truly liberating experience, leading to a profound renewal in the way that Political Science and International Relations were taught and practised as academic disciplines in this country. This allowed the local academic community to break away at last from that restrictive parochial environment, unfettered at last and free to reach out and become part of a wider and more universal environment.

However, it is important to note that the limits on international academic contact and the isolation during the apartheid years were never absolute, as the ‘South African question’ interested and involved various international scholars of high standing and provoked intense debate. All these people opposed the apartheid system in no uncertain terms, but at the same time, they cared deeply about South Africa being blighted by this policy of isolation and academic boycot, and there is no doubt that their intellectual contributions helped immeasurably to clarify some of the crucial issues which faced the country. Names that come to mind in this regard include Arend Lijphart, Samuel Huntington, Roger Fisher, David Easton, Vernon van Dyke, Charles Manning, Ned Munger, Theodor Hanf, James Barber, Jack Spence, Tom Karis, Gwendolene Carter, Russell Kirk, Ned Munger, Calvin Woodward and Merle Lipton. These scholars participated in and enriched the Great Debate about where the country was headed while also stimulating thinking and research by interacting with South African political scientists and decision makers. Some of them also addressed SAPSA conferences as keynote speakers and published valuable contributions in Politikon.

In his contribution to this edition, Peter Vale reviews the role played by notable South African political scientists over the years, richly reflecting on the evolution of the discipline. This presents a latticework predicated mostly on normative assumptions and/or preferences, including advocacy, and relating to politics and political thinking in South Africa over nearly the whole of the previous century. From my own experience, there was a category of prominent Political Science practitioners who cannot be pidgeonholed as belonging to a particular school or ideological camp. These were people who excelled in independent thinking, quality scholarship, and when theory and practice did intersect, they tried to clarify issues, shunning advocacy, or partisanship.

I must admit that my interaction with local English-speaking academic colleagues was limited and I mainly think of Afrikaans academics such like Ben Roux, Mike Louw, Willem Kleynhans, Ben Vosloo and Jan Lombard, who stood out in this regard. They were of the second generation of political scientists, coming after the older generation represented by, inter alia, Alfred Hoernle, E. F. W. Gey van Pittius, J. J. N. (Koos) Cloete, Herman Strauss, H. G. Stoker and A. H. Murray. During their time, political/philosophical thinking at Afrikaans universities was greatly influenced by German and Dutch political and theological philosophers, while the key thinkers from classical Greece and Rome as well as the Renaissance and Reformation periods constituted a major portion of undergraduate carricula. In addition, the impact of particularly Max Weber, Dooyeweerd, Kuyper, Harold Laski, Brecht, Dahl and Hans Mogenthau was prominent. As far as the study of government/governance was concerned, British Political Science was the most dominant, as remains the case today.

A shift away from the continental European influence took place during the 1960s and 1970s, when American Political Science started to dominate, particularly by way of ‘new’ theoretical thinking finding its way into prescribed text books and curricula both in Political Science and International Relations. At the time, the attraction of a ‘value free’ Political Science became a preferable pursuit among the younger generation of political scientists (mainly at the Universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria and at the Rand Afrikaans University). This was expressed with particular reference to behaviouralism, quantative analysis and empiricism, and with developmental/stability theories as an essential part of the bill of fare. A ‘South African’ Political Science simply did not exist. Also, apart from the notable work of the Africa Institute under the leadership of Erich Leistner and Denis Venter, African Studies hardly figured. What was important though from the point of view of the teaching and research of Political Science and International Relations was that the new insights from the 1960s onward facilitated the emergence of what might be called Weberian ‘pure scientists’ or third-generation academics, particularly Deon Geldenhuys, Murray Faure, André Louw, André du Pisani, Marié Muller, Maxi Schoeman, Koos van Wyk, Eric Wainwright and Gerhard Totemeier. Some of these names featured regularly in Politikon.

The picture would, however, never be complete without stressing the important role played by political scientists qua public intellectuals, particularly David Welsh, Ben Vosloo, Denis Worrall, Ben Roux, H. W. van der Merwe, Johan Degenaar, Jan Lombard and Dan Kriek, and also of very exceptional individuals like Van Wyk Louw (poet and playwright), Willem de Klerk (theologian) and Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert (sociologist). It was a debate about politics, but with an interdisciplinary character, by concerned South African intellectuals who were brave enough to test the minefield of local politics. Indeed, they were in every sense visionary pioneers, creating an intense intellectual fermentation process, questioning the apartheid order and initiating the pathbreaking verligte [enligthened] phenomenon in South Africa’s political life, particularly during the turbulent 1980s. What they did was to start a veritable paradigmatic revolution, challenging the Verwoerdian iron law of apartheid. As such, they were the harbingers, preparing much of the way for political volte face by the Nationalist government and the national renewal and transformation of the 1990s. Being politically neutral and unattached, SAPSA and Politikon were never really part of this important process.

Talking to the African National Congress (ANC) was strictly verboten by the nationalist government until F. W. de Klerk became State President and saw the light. Shunning the consequences, these intellectuals took the risk upon themselves to start the debate with the ANC secretly and in far-flung places—a debate which changed the future of South Africa. Coupled with their concern about how to normalise the political process in the country was the question of how to craft a legitimate democracy in a plural, deeply divided society such as South Africa, and thereby replacing the old order. In the end, at the Codesa negotiations, lawyers and party politicians dominated, and not much came of political scientists’ ideas or proposals based on Consociational Democracy and Federalism; instead a winner-takes-all parliamentary democratic dispensation was established. Even so, given the complexity of the South African situation, the peaceful transformation and the new constitution that finally came about were indeed something of a miracle.

All this confirms what John Maynard Keynes famously stated: ‘The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.’

However, lamentably there seems to be something of an intellectual lacuna in South Africa these days. The voice of contemporary political scientists in South Africa seldom, if ever, penetrates or has any impact on either national decision-making or any influence on the public mood. Intellectual and political leadership in the country is at an all-time low, and perhaps the time has come for more of our political scientists to leave their ivory towers and do some stock-taking and consider their relevance in our state and society. While the formal teaching of Political Science has developed with leaps and bounds in this country, there is a glaring paucity as far as the critical participation of political scientists in the public debate is concerned (there are a few exceptions, including Amanda Gouws, Chris Landsberg and Steven Friedman).

It is hard to think that esoteric detachment should prevail among political scientists in a volatile country beset with so many pressing and critical issues. In some cases, we seem to have reached the point in the evolution of theoretical and empirical scholarship

when work about the work in the field eclipses work about the field. In the development of Marxism, for instance, writing about industrial conditions, class conflict, wages, and profits over time became secondary to writing about the history, varieties, contradictions and interpretations of Marxist thought on these subjects. (Weiner and Huntington 1987)

The challenge to local policy makers and practitioners, it seems to me, is taken up mainly by economists, lawyers, the fourth estate and a handful of local generalist think tanks.

The collection of essays for this anniversary edition of Politikon, for practical reasons, does not reflect the total ambit of Political Science and International Relations in South Africa. It confirms, however, that as far as theorising and teaching are concerned the discipline has indeed flourished and is in good health, albeit, perhaps, not completely mature or as ‘originally African’ as it should be. Complacency is not a word that exists in the scientist’s lexicon. To reach the higher plateau, there are still further and new challenges facing us as practising political scientists in South Africa if the goals of relevance, traction and impact in shaping our particular environment are to be met.

Note

*Gerrit Olivier is an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. He was the founding editor of Politikon, serving in that capacity from 1974 to 1981

Reference

Weiner, Myron, and Samuel Huntington, eds. 1987. Understanding Political Development. Boston: Little Brown, 3.

The Study of Politics in South Africa: A Prolegomenon

PETER VALE*

ABSTRACT This article anticipates the 50th Anniversary of Politikon, by suggesting themes that will need to be included in a comprehensive history of the development of the field in South Africa. It draws on Intellectual History, the Sociology of Knowledge and Institutional History to locate the development of the academic study of politics in South Africa and points to several prototypes of the discipline. Two major ‘conventions’ of Political Science are identified – one British and the other American. These traditions as well as the contributions of several political scientists are briefly discussed. The conclusion points to lacunae in the field, especially understandings of Africa and on the issue of voice.

In general, overviews of the study of Politics invariably make much of the discipline’s diversity (Goodin and Klingemann 1998, 50–96; Marsh and Stoker 2010, 15–22). This, the Ruby Anniversary edition of Politikon, the South African Journal of Political Studies, is not an exception. Even a quick glance reveals that the study of Politics in South Africa has been—and remains—a broad field of intellectual enquiry.

Indeed, the discipline’s chief divides—Political Theory, Comparative Politics, International Relations and Public Administration—have all received their due attention often at different times, which is remarkable, given that there were two countries in one—the exiled world and the apartheid world. Moreover, the country’s complex social rifts and its pernicious and seemingly permanent wealth gap—let alone the endless debates around the normative dimensions of political organisation—made it the ready target of political theorists (for an early example, see Hoernle 1939; for a contemporary example, see Hamilton 2011). In these pages, Lawrence Hamilton reinforces the significance—indeed, centrality—of Political Theory for the study of Politics not only in this country but everywhere. In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the disparate domestic-driven search for a constitutional solution, which was short of majority rule, drew it to the attention of comparativists (see Lijphart 1980, for early work of this kind) who were also interested in the comparative dimensions of the intersection of race and class in South Africa (on the latter see Greenberg 1980).

In this edition of Politikon, our colleague, Yolanda Sadie, has alerted us to how far the profession has come on this front and how much remains to be done in Comparative Politics. Understandably, the conversation on International Relations was initially beholden to the country’s colonial legacy (on this see Bleby 1917); however, the field was slowly subjected to the emergence of Foreign Policy Studies as a separate specialisation, especially after the country left the Commonwealth in 1961 (for an early account of the latter, see Cockram 1970; for a later (and critical) account see Nolutshungu 1975). In her piece on the search for an authentic local voice in this sub-field, Karen Smith hopes its theory can draw closer to Africa, while another promising talent, Candice Moore, takes us into the search for morality in both the making and the practice of South African foreign policy. The sub-field of Public Administration has twice in the country’s history been at the centre of a national debate—the first time with the formation of the Union in 1910 and second after the coming of democracy in 1994 (on these issues see Cameron and Milne 2009). In these pages, Robert Cameron represents (and presents) the uneasy sibling rivalry between Political Science and Public Administration.

A closer focus will show that the newer, more applied sub-fields of the field—areas like Democracy Studies and Security Studies—have made their appearance in South Africa. These have flourished since the ending of apartheid—many anchored by interest-driven think-tanks which are places in which, to quote the late Judt, ‘unconventional opinion rarely finds a place and the public is largely excluded’ (2010, 159). While opening new directions, they have spread an interest in policy-making and tipped, in some places, the culture of a speculative field towards the applied. In turn, this has drawn closer an interest in statistics as a means to control the political. These and other demands that think-tanks have laid at the discipline’s pedagogical door may eventually reassert that old squabble about what to call the field: either ‘Political Studies’ or ‘Political Science’. This name-game is rooted in the philosophy of science—a discipline that opens towards a critical examination of the sciences, of their methods and of the results they can offer to society.

Generally speaking, the term ‘Politics’ is the preferred South African name for the field, but the deepening hold of the Social Sciences in everyday life, demonstrated by the increasing social power of economics and a deepening interest in quantitative methodology, may well give pause to rec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Dedication
• 1. A Word from a Founder, to Those Who Follow
• 2. The Study of Politics in South Africa: A Prolegomenon
• 3. The Subject as Object: 40 Years of Scholarship
• 4. Celebrating 40 Years: The State of Political Science in South Africa in 2014
• 5. Working in a South African Politics Department During the 1980s: Recollections
• 6. Teaching Politics in Exile: A Memoir from Swaziland 1973–1985
• 7. The Idea of Africa in South African Political Science
• 8. Systematic, Quantitative Political Science in South Africa: the Road Less Travelled
• 9. The State of Comparative Politics in South Africa
• 10. The Promise of Political Theory in South Africa
• 11. International Relations in South Africa: A Case of ‘Add Africa and Stir’?
• 12. Twenty Years on, It’s All Academic: Progressive South African Scholars and Moral Foreign Policy After Apartheid
• 13. The State of Public Administration as an Academic Field in South Africa
• 14. The Personal Is the International: For Black Girls Who’ve Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn’t Enough
• Index