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International audience ; In the current socio-political situation in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa stands out as an exception. The South African miracle continues: democratization, improvement of life conditions for the poor, and a healthy economic situation. Indeed, in comparison to what is happening throughout the continent, the situation of South Africa is drawing to optimism. At the same time, questions are arising when facing a simple "normalization" in South Africa that is far from the ideals of the early 90s. This paradox is the essence of this article. ; Dans le contexte socio-politique actuel de l'Afrique subsaharienne, l'Afrique du Sud fait figure d'exception. C'est que le miracle sud-africain se poursuit : démocratisation, amélioration des conditions de vie des plus pauvres et situation économique saine. Certes, au regard de ce qui se passe dans le reste du continent la situation sud-africaine pousse à l'optimisme. Mais dans le même temps des interrogations se font jour face à ce qui peut sembler une simple « normalisation » de l'Afrique du Sud bien éloignée des idéaux du début des années 1990. C'est le paradoxe de cette double tendance qu'explore l'article.

International audience ; In the current socio-political situation in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa stands out as an exception. The South African miracle continues: democratization, improvement of life conditions for the poor, and a healthy economic situation. Indeed, in comparison to what is happening throughout the continent, the situation of South Africa is drawing to optimism. At the same time, questions are arising when facing a simple "normalization" in South Africa that is far from the ideals of the early 90s. This paradox is the essence of this article. ; Dans le contexte socio-politique actuel de l'Afrique subsaharienne, l'Afrique du Sud fait figure d'exception. C'est que le miracle sud-africain se poursuit : démocratisation, amélioration des conditions de vie des plus pauvres et situation économique saine. Certes, au regard de ce qui se passe dans le reste du continent la situation sud-africaine pousse à l'optimisme. Mais dans le même temps des interrogations se font jour face à ce qui peut sembler une simple « normalisation » de l'Afrique du Sud bien éloignée des idéaux du début des années 1990. C'est le paradoxe de cette double tendance qu'explore l'article.

International audience ; In the current socio-political situation in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa stands out as an exception. The South African miracle continues: democratization, improvement of life conditions for the poor, and a healthy economic situation. Indeed, in comparison to what is happening throughout the continent, the situation of South Africa is drawing to optimism. At the same time, questions are arising when facing a simple "normalization" in South Africa that is far from the ideals of the early 90s. This paradox is the essence of this article. ; Dans le contexte socio-politique actuel de l'Afrique subsaharienne, l'Afrique du Sud fait figure d'exception. C'est que le miracle sud-africain se poursuit : démocratisation, amélioration des conditions de vie des plus pauvres et situation économique saine. Certes, au regard de ce qui se passe dans le reste du continent la situation sud-africaine pousse à l'optimisme. Mais dans le même temps des interrogations se font jour face à ce qui peut sembler une simple « normalisation » de l'Afrique du Sud bien éloignée des idéaux du début des années 1990. C'est le paradoxe de cette double tendance qu'explore l'article.

Résumé Cet article étudie l'impact de la crise financière globale en Afrique du Sud, et en particulier comment un système fédéral très centralisé a intégré la crise et lui a répondu. Les auteurs soutiennent que la crise globale et la récession qui a suivi ont exacerbé des problèmes structurels économiques de longue date, et que la réponse de l'État à la crise a une fois de plus souligné la nature fortement centralisée de l'organisation financière du pays. Une section de l'article explore l'impact de la crise financière sur l'économie et sur les trois niveaux de gouvernement. Une autre section étudie comment chaque niveau a répondu à la crise. Une dernière section évalue l'impact de ces réponses sur l'économie politique du pays et le fonctionnement du système fédéral, en concluant par une hypothèse sur les conséquences à long terme de la crise globale.

This study has been carried out in one irrigation scheme of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The study assessed the economic performance of a smallholder irrigation scheme (Zanyokwe Irrigation Scheme). The study took place in a former homeland area (Ciskei). This region is submitted to a semi-arid and relatively mild climate. The infrastructures were built during the apartheid era, in order to provide employment and food to the local black population. Currently, the farmers crop from 1 to 10 hectares, producing vegetables and maize with low productivity. The government has engaged in a revitalization process, aimed at upgrading infrastructures and establishing new local organisations. Its objectives are to curtail the financial burden of operation and maintenance costs and withdraw from any direct farming activities and management of the schemes. The process includes the rehabilitation of infrastructure and establishment of Water User's Associations, which are to take over ownership and collective management of the scheme. In such context the aims of the research were: (i) To evaluate the diversity of livelihoods and the contribution of farming; (ii) To estimate productivity of land and water; (iii) To identify factors influencing production at farm level; (iv) To examine the role of land tenure onto productivity.

Since the 1980s, participatory processes have proliferated all over the world, without having enabled for a democratization of political systems. While the adoption of such processes is often thought has an imperative, in particular for developing countries and in the environmental field, this thesis seeks to explain the construction of environmental participation in South Africa, using an approach aiming at identifying the actors involved, analyzing their motivations and the way in which they influence it. Our analytical framework offers to study the behavior of groups of actors through four dimensions: the competition between political actors; the weight of administrative structures; the profile of professionalized service providers; the struggles of social actors. Our study relies on semi-structured interviews, meetings' observations, grey literature and the collect of records. At the end of our thesis, we notice little interest from political actors for environmental participatory processes in South Africa. This causes a lack of incentive for administrative structures to take the public voice into account, usually leading to a low-cost organization by consultants, which does only allow for a monitory of the South African population to express itself. Civil servants who do not have the support of administrative structures with which they should collaborate try nonetheless to circumvent them by seeking public support so that they can implement their mandate for environmental preservation. In order to make their way into the South African participation market dominated by environmental consultants, independent consultants also choose to specialize themselves into the public participation field and to favor the organization of participatory processes adapted to the local context. ; Depuis les années 1980, les dispositifs participatifs se sont multipliés de par le monde, sans pour autant qu'ils n'aient permis de démocratiser la vie politique. Alors que l'adoption de tels dispositifs est souvent pensée comme un ...

Since the 1980s, participatory processes have proliferated all over the world, without having enabled for a democratization of political systems. While the adoption of such processes is often thought has an imperative, in particular for developing countries and in the environmental field, this thesis seeks to explain the construction of environmental participation in South Africa, using an approach aiming at identifying the actors involved, analyzing their motivations and the way in which they influence it. Our analytical framework offers to study the behavior of groups of actors through four dimensions: the competition between political actors; the weight of administrative structures; the profile of professionalized service providers; the struggles of social actors. Our study relies on semi-structured interviews, meetings' observations, grey literature and the collect of records. At the end of our thesis, we notice little interest from political actors for environmental participatory processes in South Africa. This causes a lack of incentive for administrative structures to take the public voice into account, usually leading to a low-cost organization by consultants, which does only allow for a monitory of the South African population to express itself. Civil servants who do not have the support of administrative structures with which they should collaborate try nonetheless to circumvent them by seeking public support so that they can implement their mandate for environmental preservation. In order to make their way into the South African participation market dominated by environmental consultants, independent consultants also choose to specialize themselves into the public participation field and to favor the organization of participatory processes adapted to the local context. ; Depuis les années 1980, les dispositifs participatifs se sont multipliés de par le monde, sans pour autant qu'ils n'aient permis de démocratiser la vie politique. Alors que l'adoption de tels dispositifs est souvent pensée comme un ...

Since the 1980s, participatory processes have proliferated all over the world, without having enabled for a democratization of political systems. While the adoption of such processes is often thought has an imperative, in particular for developing countries and in the environmental field, this thesis seeks to explain the construction of environmental participation in South Africa, using an approach aiming at identifying the actors involved, analyzing their motivations and the way in which they influence it. Our analytical framework offers to study the behavior of groups of actors through four dimensions: the competition between political actors; the weight of administrative structures; the profile of professionalized service providers; the struggles of social actors. Our study relies on semi-structured interviews, meetings' observations, grey literature and the collect of records. At the end of our thesis, we notice little interest from political actors for environmental participatory processes in South Africa. This causes a lack of incentive for administrative structures to take the public voice into account, usually leading to a low-cost organization by consultants, which does only allow for a monitory of the South African population to express itself. Civil servants who do not have the support of administrative structures with which they should collaborate try nonetheless to circumvent them by seeking public support so that they can implement their mandate for environmental preservation. In order to make their way into the South African participation market dominated by environmental consultants, independent consultants also choose to specialize themselves into the public participation field and to favor the organization of participatory processes adapted to the local context. ; Depuis les années 1980, les dispositifs participatifs se sont multipliés de par le monde, sans pour autant qu'ils n'aient permis de démocratiser la vie politique. Alors que l'adoption de tels dispositifs est souvent pensée comme un ...

International audience ; How is metropolization in big cities a consequence of globalization? The present article answers this question in general and then through the South African case, in particular. In South Africa, metropolization is ambiguous. The big cities have had an economic development comparable to that of the so-called rich countries' cities, those with a strong economic metropolization. The industrial crisis, under the effect of economic globalization, has provoked in South Africa and elsewhere social spatial changes that can be described as processes of "urban fragmentation." But this pattern is disturbed here by the very heavy legacy of the apartheid period. Authorities have implemented a policy of administrative metropolization of the big cities in order to reduce it. Can this manage to slow down or reverse a process of social-spatial fragmentation whose causes are found at a different level? Or is administrative metropolization just a facade that hides the continuation of market-based economic metropolization that leads to the accentuation of fragmentation of the urban organization? If one accepts the polysemy of the term metropolization, one observes that political, economic and territorial metropolizations rarely go hand in hand. ; En quoi la métropolisation dans les grandes villes est-elle une conséquence de la mondialisation ? Le présent article tente de répondre à cette question en général, puis à travers l'analyse du cas sud-africain. En Afrique du Sud, la métropolisation est ambiguë. Les grandes villes y ont connu une évolution économique comparable à celles de cités de pays dits riches, à savoir une forte métropolisation économique. La crise de l'industrie, sous l'effet de la mondialisation de l'économie, provoque en Afrique du Sud comme ailleurs des changements socio-spatiaux que l'on peut décrire comme étant des processus de « fragmentation urbaine ». Mais ce schéma est ici perturbé par l'héritage très lourd de la période de l'apartheid. C'est pour le réduire que les autorités ont mis ...

International audience ; How is metropolization in big cities a consequence of globalization? The present article answers this question in general and then through the South African case, in particular. In South Africa, metropolization is ambiguous. The big cities have had an economic development comparable to that of the so-called rich countries' cities, those with a strong economic metropolization. The industrial crisis, under the effect of economic globalization, has provoked in South Africa and elsewhere social spatial changes that can be described as processes of "urban fragmentation." But this pattern is disturbed here by the very heavy legacy of the apartheid period. Authorities have implemented a policy of administrative metropolization of the big cities in order to reduce it. Can this manage to slow down or reverse a process of social-spatial fragmentation whose causes are found at a different level? Or is administrative metropolization just a facade that hides the continuation of market-based economic metropolization that leads to the accentuation of fragmentation of the urban organization? If one accepts the polysemy of the term metropolization, one observes that political, economic and territorial metropolizations rarely go hand in hand. ; En quoi la métropolisation dans les grandes villes est-elle une conséquence de la mondialisation ? Le présent article tente de répondre à cette question en général, puis à travers l'analyse du cas sud-africain. En Afrique du Sud, la métropolisation est ambiguë. Les grandes villes y ont connu une évolution économique comparable à celles de cités de pays dits riches, à savoir une forte métropolisation économique. La crise de l'industrie, sous l'effet de la mondialisation de l'économie, provoque en Afrique du Sud comme ailleurs des changements socio-spatiaux que l'on peut décrire comme étant des processus de « fragmentation urbaine ». Mais ce schéma est ici perturbé par l'héritage très lourd de la période de l'apartheid. C'est pour le réduire que les autorités ont mis ...

International audience How is metropolization in big cities a consequence of globalization? The present article answers this question in general and then through the South African case, in particular. In South Africa, metropolization is ambiguous. The big cities have had an economic development comparable to that of the so-called rich countries' cities, those with a strong economic metropolization. The industrial crisis, under the effect of economic globalization, has provoked in South Africa and elsewhere social spatial changes that can be described as processes of "urban fragmentation." But this pattern is disturbed here by the very heavy legacy of the apartheid period. Authorities have implemented a policy of administrative metropolization of the big cities in order to reduce it. Can this manage to slow down or reverse a process of social-spatial fragmentation whose causes are found at a different level? Or is administrative metropolization just a facade that hides the continuation of market-based economic metropolization that leads to the accentuation of fragmentation of the urban organization? If one accepts the polysemy of the term metropolization, one observes that political, economic and territorial metropolizations rarely go hand in hand. ; En quoi la métropolisation dans les grandes villes est-elle une conséquence de la mondialisation ? Le présent article tente de répondre à cette question en général, puis à travers l'analyse du cas sud-africain. En Afrique du Sud, la métropolisation est ambiguë. Les grandes villes y ont connu une évolution économique comparable à celles de cités de pays dits riches, à savoir une forte métropolisation économique. La crise de l'industrie, sous l'effet de la mondialisation de l'économie, provoque en Afrique du Sud comme ailleurs des changements socio-spatiaux que l'on peut décrire comme étant des processus de « fragmentation urbaine ». Mais ce schéma est ici perturbé par l'héritage très lourd de la période de l'apartheid. C'est pour le réduire que les autorités ont mis ...