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The advent of multi-party democracy in April 1994 marked the end of three centuries of colonial conquest and white minority rule in South Africa. As part of the process of transformation which ensued from this event, the ANC-led government has set the reform of the public sector as one of its primary goals. The reforms pursued have aimed to restructure the new state in such a way to make it more legitimate and accountable to the majority of South Africans. Where the previous state had been authoritarian, repressive and oligarchic in nature, the new state is intended to be democratic, developmental and committed to a culture of human rights.

Responding to political developments in Europe during the 1990s, the Copenhagen School drew on speech act theory to argue that state leaders represent certain issues, including immigration, as existential threats to society. Two decades of friendly amendments and vociferous critiques have raised questions about how well the Copenhagen School's core concept of 'societal security' travels outside Europe. To assess the scope of this 'securitization' framework more systematically, we examine South Africa, a democracy that recently liberalized its immigration policies despite ethno-nationalist and racist traditions. Specifically, we test four claims: (1) that official discourses will target certain foreigners as an existential threat to collective identity; (2) that bureaucracies will consistently institutionalize these discourses; (3) that identity-oriented groups will be crucial to any societal contestation over these discourses; and (4) that successful securitization produces regionalization. These securitization claims hold up well, even though the nature of threats to societal security shift over time. Keeping in mind that no theory is without weaknesses, we recommend wider integration of the societal security concept into comparative studies of immigration policy, especially in democracies outside Europe.

Metadata only record ; This article considers how environmental problems are produced and interpreted, using case material from West Africa's humid forest zone. Examining the experiences of several countries over the long term, it is possible to identify a deforestation discourse produced through national and international institutions. This represents forest and social history in particular ways that structure forest conservation but which obscure the experience and knowledge of resource users. Using fine-grained ethnography to explore how such discourse is experienced and interpreted in a particular locale, the article uncovers problems with 'discourse' perspectives which produce analytical dichotomies which confront state and villager, and scientific and 'local' knowledges. The authors explore the day-to-day encounters between villagers and administrators, and the social and historical experiences which condition these. Instances where the deforestation discourse becomes juxtaposed with villagers' alternative ideas about landscape history prove relatively few and insignificant, while the powerful material effects of the discourse tend to be interpreted locally within other frames. These findings present departures from the ways relations between citizen sciences and expert institutions have been conceived in recent work on the sociology of science and public policy.

This article considers how environmental problematics are produced and interpreted, using case material from West Africa's humid forest zone. Examing the experiences of several countries over the long term, it is possible to identify a deforestation discourse produced through national and international institutions. This represents forest and social history in particular ways that structure forest conservation but which obscure the experience and knowledge of resource users. Using fine‐grained ethnography to explore how such discourse is experienced and interpreted in a particular locale, the article uncovers problems with 'discourse' perspectives which produce analytical dichotomies which confront state and villager, and scientific and 'local' knowledges. The authors explore the day‐to‐day encounters between villagers and administrators, and the social and historical experiences which condition these. Instances where the deforestation discourse becomes juxtaposed with villagers' alternative ideas about landscape history prove relatively few and insignificant, while the powerful material effects of the discourse tend to be interpreted locally within other frames. These findings present departures from the ways relations between citizen sciences and expert institutions have been conceived in recent work on the sociology of science and public policy.

AbstractWhat lessons can we draw from the past fifty years of political independence in African countries? Which mistakes can we avoid in the future? Can there be peace without social justice? Four mistakes must be avoided if democracy, peace and social justice are to be achieved in African countries. Drawing on lessons from Central, East, North, West and Southern Africa, I use Fundi wa Africa – a multidisciplinary approach based on a long term historical perspective to argue that individual nationhood (the first mistake) has not resulted in democracy and peace. Only Pan-Africanism (based on the needs and interests of Africans as they define them) will lead to democracy and peace. The second mistake is that leading international financial institutions (IFI) and some Africans assume that democracy has to be introduced to Africa. This assumption is based on the belief that Africans and their culture have nothing to contribute to their own development. As a result liberal democracy is promoted by these agencies as the only option available for African countries. The third mistake is the belief that a colonial state which was developed to fulfill the market and labor needs of colonial powers can lead to democracy and peace for Africans. The fourth mistake is African leaders' and their supporters' conviction that neither African intellectuals nor women have any place in African development and may only be given symbolic positions. Without economic independence, the political gains of the past fifty years will be lost. The founding fathers and mothers of Africa's freedom fought and achieved political independence, but it is up to the next generation to strive for economic empowerment. Only then will African countries cease to be homes for bankrupt ideas as they are freed from conflict and hunger.

Local government is closer to the citizens and serves as a vehicle for democracy and service
delivery in South Africa. Municipalities in South Africa face a significant challenge when it comes to
managing public finances to provide effective and efficient services. Corruption, financial mismanagement,
wasteful and fruitless expenditure, irregular expenditures, governance failure, lack of consequence,
management, insufficient skills, and capacity are among the challenges. These factors have delivered an
enormous setback to service delivery, and citizens are bearing the brunt of the burden. The most difficult
situation in local government is that municipalities' finances are deteriorating year after year. According to
the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA), "the audit outcomes were in a poor state at the end of the
previous administration's term, and this state did not improve in 2021-22." It is critical for the local
government sphere to promote financial sustainability because most South African citizens rely on
government services because the economy no longer provides favourable economic benefits such as
employment that citizens can leverage. The goal of this paper is to investigate how professionalising South
African municipal public finances can help to stabilise public funds. The qualitative method was used, which
included a review of secondary sources on the topic at hand.

With the intensification of the Southern African crisis, its ramifications have spread ever more widely until now they pervade and corrode virtually every sector throughout the black states neighbouring South Africa. The prospects for peace and prosperity in the region, once heralded with such high hopes, have long since faded as energies have increasingly been absorbed in the daily challenge of sustaining a precarious human existence.

This is a study that uses data from a national survey of multicultural and multilingual Christian congregations in South Africa to examine the institutional factors that support the dominance of English in formerly segregated churches without a formal language policy. Data were collected by qualitative methods on the levels and types of linguistic integration (as well as racial and cultural incorporation) in each of 60 congregations from nine Christian denominations across South Africa. The patterns found are best explained in terms of the articulation of formal and popular ideologies that contribute to institutional isomorphism across state and civil institutions.

OBJECTIVES: Blood pressures in persons of African descent exceed those of other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Whether this trait is attributable to the genetic factors in African-origin populations, or a result of inadequately measured environmental exposures, such as racial discrimination, is not known. To study this question, we conducted a multisite comparative study of communities in the African diaspora, drawn from metropolitan Chicago, Kingston, Jamaica, rural Ghana, Cape Town, South Africa, and the Seychelles. METHODS: At each site, 500 participants between the age of 25 and 49 years, with approximately equal sex balance, were enrolled for a longitudinal study of energy expenditure and weight gain. In this study, we describe the patterns of blood pressure and hypertension observed at baseline among the sites. RESULTS: Mean SBP and DBP were very similar in the United States and South Africa in both men and women, although among women, the prevalence of hypertension was higher in the United States (24 vs. 17%, respectively). After adjustment for multiple covariates, relative to participants in the United States, SBP was significantly higher among the South Africans by 9.7 mmHg (P < 0.05) and significantly lower for each of the other sites: for example, Jamaica: -7.9 mmHg (P = 0.06), Ghana: -12.8 mmHg (P < 0.01) and Seychelles: -11.1 mmHg (P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: These data are consistent with prior findings of a blood pressure gradient in societies of the African diaspora and confirm that African-origin populations with lower social status in multiracial societies, such as the United States and South Africa, experience more hypertension than anticipated based on anthropometric and measurable socioeconomic risk factors.

The M. H. Ross Papers contain information pertaining to labor, politics, social issues of the twentieth century, coal mining and its resulting lifestyle, as well as photographs and audio materials. The collection is made up of five different accessions; L2001-05, which is contained in boxes one through 104, L2002-09 in boxes 106 through 120, L2006-16 in boxes 105 and 120, L2001-01 in boxes 120-121, and L2012-20 in boxes 122-125. The campaign materials consist of items from the 1940 and 1948 political campaigns in which Ross participated. These items include campaign cards, posters, speech transcripts, news clippings, rally materials, letters to voters, and fliers. Organizing and arbitration materials covers labor organizing events from "Operation Dixie" in Georgia, the furniture workers in North Carolina, and the Mine-Mill workers in the Western United States. Organizing materials include fliers, correspondence, news articles, radio transcripts, and some related photos. Arbitration files consist of agreements, decisions, and agreement booklets. The social and political research files cover a wide time period (1930's to the late 1970's/early 1980's). The topics include mainly the Ku Klux Klan, racism, Communism, Red Scare, red baiting, United States history, and literature. These files consist mostly of news and journal articles. Ross interacted with coal miners while doing work for the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) and while working at the Fairmont Clinic in West Virginia. Included in these related files are books, news articles, journals, UMWA reports, and coal miner oral histories conducted by Ross. Tying in to all of the activities Ross participated in during his life were his research and manuscript files. He wrote numerous newspaper and journal articles on history and labor. Later, as he worked for the UMWA and at the Fairmont Clinic, he wrote more in-depth articles about coal miners, their lifestyle, and medical problems they faced (while the Southern Labor Archives has many of Ross's coal mining and lifestyle articles, it does not have any of his medical articles). Along with these articles are the research files Ross collected to write them, which consist of notes, books, and newspaper and journal articles. In additional to his professional career, Ross was adamant about documenting his and his wife's family history in the oral history format. Of particular interest are the recordings of his interviews with his wife's family - they were workers, musicians, and singers of labor and folk songs. Finally, in this collection are a number of photographs and slides, which include images of organizing, coal mining (from the late 19th through 20th centuries), and Appalachia. Of note is a small photo album from the 1930s which contains images from the Summer School for Workers, and more labor organizing. A few audio items are available as well, such as Ross political speeches and an oral history in which Ross was interviewed by his daughter, Jane Ross Davis in 1986. All photographic and audio-visual materials are at the end of their respective series. ; Myron Howard "Mike" Ross was born November 9, 1919 in New York City. He dropped out of school when he was seventeen and moved to Texas, where he worked on a farm. From 1936 until 1939, Ross worked in a bakery in North Carolina. In the summer of 1938, he attended the Southern School for Workers in Asheville, North Carolina. During the fall of 1938, Ross would attend the first Southern Conference on Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. He would attend this conference again in 1940 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From 1939 to 1940, Ross worked for the United Mine Workers Non-Partisan League in North Carolina, working under John L. Lewis. He was hired as a union organizer by the United Mine Workers of America, and sent to Saltville, Virginia and Rockwood, Tennessee. In 1940, Ross ran for a seat on city council on the People's Platform in Charlotte, North Carolina. During this time, he also married Anne "Buddie" West of Kennesaw, Georgia. From 1941 until 1945, Ross served as an infantryman for the United States Army. He sustained injuries near the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944. From 1945 until 1949, Ross worked for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, then part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), as a union organizer. He was sent to Macon, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia and to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he worked with the United Furniture Workers Union. He began handling arbitration for the unions. In 1948, Ross ran for United States Congress on the Progressive Party ticket in North Carolina. He also served as the secretary for the North Carolina Progressive Party. Ross attended the University of North Carolina law school from 1949 to 1952. He graduated with honors but was denied the bar on the grounds of "character." From 1952 until 1955, he worked for the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers as a union organizer, first in New Mexico (potash mines) and then in Arizona (copper mines). From 1955 to 1957, Ross attended the Columbia University School of Public Health. He worked for the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund from 1957 to 1958, where he represented the union in expenditure of health care for mining workers. By 1958, Ross began plans for what would become the Fairmont Clinic, a prepaid group practice in Fairmont, West Virginia, which had the mission of providing high quality medical care for miners and their families. From 1958 until 1978, Ross served as administrator of the Fairmont Clinic. As a result of this work, Ross began researching coal mining, especially coal mining lifestyle, heritage and history of coal mining and disasters. He would interview over one hundred miners (coal miners). Eventually, Ross began writing a manuscript about the history of coal mining. Working for the Rural Practice Program of the University of North Carolina from 1980 until 1987, Ross taught in the medical school. M. H. Ross died on January 31, 1987 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. ; Digitization of the M. H. Ross Papers was funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.