Suchergebnisse

"Capital cities today remain central to both nations and states. They host centres of political power, not only national, but in some cases regional and global as well, thus offering major avenues to success, wealth and privilege. For these reasons capitals simultaneously become centres of "counter-power", locations of high-stakes struggles between the government and the opposition. This volume focuses on capital cities in nine sub-Saharan African countries, and traces how the power vested in them has evolved through different colonial backgrounds, radically different kinds of regimes after independence, waves of popular protest, explosive population growth and in most cases stunted economic development. Starting at the point of national political emancipation, each case study explores the complicated processes of nation-state building through its manifestation in the "urban geology" of the city - its architecture, iconography, layout and political use of urban space. Although the evolution of each of these cities is different, they share a critical demographic feature: an extraordinarily rapid process of urbanisation that is more politically than economically driven. Overwhelmed by the inevitable challenges resulting from this urban sprawl, the governments seated in most of these capital cities are in effect both powerful - wielding power over their populace -and powerless, lacking power to implement their plans and to provide for their inhabitants"--Publisher description

Over the past decade, local government policy in South Africa has proposed a greater degree of local democracy and a greater degree of local public participation. The latter, captured under the phrase "developmental local government", promises local residents engagement as voters, as citizens affected by local government policy and as partners in resource mobilisation for the development of the municipal area. Qualitative fieldwork in a number of small towns in the Western Cape conducted in 2000 revealed no common sense of loyalty toward the town or its local government. Socio-economic (more that ethnic) identity marked differences in orientation. The middle income minority engaged both the local council and its municipality in a relationship of loyalty and criticism whilst both the affluent as well as the poor had withdrawn from local civil society. (Politeia/DÜI)

This study investigates the issue of transparency in relation to development funding in South Africa. It attempts to determine the extent to which community members have access to information about the spending of the money used in development projects happening in their communities. Four existing models for funding community development projects and two case studies of development projects in KwaZulu/Natal are presented. The authors define the major role players in community development projects, and suggest that the development process needs to be understood in terms of the conflicting motivations of different categories of participants. Specific obstacles to transparency, created by contests for control over development, are discussed. (DÜI-Hff)

The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to identify and analyse the policies and strategies of the Conservative Party (CP) in the run-up to the second national white election it will contest; (2) to show how and why the CP forms part of a wider social movement the authors call Afrikaner nationalism, a movement within which the CP is but one - albeit important - element; (3) to show how white conservatism in South Africa receives moral support and justification from Afrikaner nationalism which, in turn, directs and adapts itself to different conservative groups in the country

Studien zu Fragen und Problemen der Armut und Unterentwicklung in den Homelands und bei der schwarzafrikanischen Bevölkerung