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"As Jacob Zuma moves into the twilight years of his presidencies of the African National Congress (ANC) and of South Africa ... [this book] takes stock of his administration ... Susan Booysen shows how the ANC has become centred on Zuma the person, and how its defence of his flawed leadership undermines the party's capacity to govern competently and to protect its long-term futrure."--Front cover flap

An incisive analysis of ANC power - as party, government and state - this book distils trends bound to shape South Africa's political future. It examines 'compliance and discontent' under Ramaphosa and reveals a president wavering between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation; an ANC whose power is indeed precarious.

What happens when a former liberation movement turned political party loses its dominance but survives because no opposition party is able to succeed it? The trends are established: South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) is in decline. Its hegemony has been weakened, its legitimacy diluted. President Cyril Ramaphosa's appointment suspended the ANC's electoral decline, but it also heightened internal organisational tensions between those who would deepen its corrupt and captured status, and those who would redeem it. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened its fragility, and the state's inability to manage the socio-economic devastation has aggravated prior faultlines. These are the undeniable knowns of South African politics; what will evolve from this is less certain. In this book, Susan Booyen delves deep into this political terrain and its trajectory for South Africa's future. She covers an expansive range of topics, from contradictory party politics and dissent that is veiled in order to retain electoral following, to populist policy-making and the use of soft law enforcement to ensure that angry citizens do not become further alienated. Booysen's analysis reveals Ramaphosa to be a president who is weak and walking a tightrope between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation.This incisive analysis of ANC power 'as party, as government, as state' will appeal not only to political scientists but to all who take a keen interest in current affairs.

An incisive analysis of ANC power - as party, government and state - this book distils trends bound to shape South Africa's political future. It examines 'compliance and discontent' under Ramaphosa and reveals a president wavering between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation; an ANC whose power is indeed precarious

FeesMustFall, the student revolt that began in October 2015, was an uprising against lack of access to, and financial exclusion from, higher education in South Africa. More broadly, it radically questioned the socio-political dispensation resulting from the 1994 social pact between big business, the ruling elite and the liberation movement. The 2015 revolt links to national and international youth struggles of the recent past and is informed by black consciousness politics and social movements of the international left. Yet, its objectives are more complex than those of earlier struggles. The student movement has challenged the hierarchical, top-down leadership system of university management and it's 'double speak' of professing to act in workers' and students' interests yet entrenching a regressive system for control and governance. University managements, while on one level amenable to change, have also co-opted students into their ranks to create co-responsibility for the highly bureaucratised university financial aid that stands in the way of their social revolution. This book maps the contours of student discontent a year after the start of the #FeesMustFall revolt. Student voices dissect colonialism, improper compromises by the founders of democratic South Africa, feminism, worker rights and meaningful education. In-depth assessments by prominent scholars reflect on the complexities of student activism, its impact on national and university governance, and offer provocative analyses of the power of the revolt.

Introduction . - CHAPTER 1: The ANC's fused party-state . - CHAPTER 2: Configuring Zuma's presidency . - CHAPTER 3: Constructing the ANC's compliant stale . - CHAPTER 4: Desperately seeking'radical'policy . - CHAPTER 5: The wake-up calls of Election2014 . - CHAPTER 6: "The DA's encroaching march . - CHAPTER 7: EFF and the left claimingANC turf . - CHAPTER 8: ANC in the cauldron of protest . - CHAPTER 9: Conclusion - "The ANC is in trouble'

As Jacob Zuma moves into the twilight years of his presidencies of both the African National Congress (ANC) and of South Africa, this book takes stock of the Zuma-led administration and its impact on the ANC. Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma combines hard-hitting arguments with astute analysis. Susan Booysen shows how the ANC has become centred on the personage of Zuma, and that its defence of his extremely flawed leadership undermines the party's capacity to govern competently, and to protect its long term future. Following on from her first book, The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Power (2011), Booysen delves deeper into the four faces of power that characterise the ANC. Her principal argument is that the state is failing as the president's interests increasingly supersede those of party and state. Organisationally, the ANC has become a hegemon riven by factions, as the internal blocs battle for core positions of power and control. Meanwhile, the Zuma-controlled ANC has witnessed the implosion of the tripartite alliance and decimation of its youth, women's and veterans' leagues. Electorally, the leading party has been ceding ground to increasingly assertive opposition parties. And on the policy front, it is faltering through poor implementation and a regurgitation of old ideas. As Zuma's replacements start competing and succession politics take shape, Booysen considers whether the ANC will recover from the damage wrought under Zuma's reign and attain its former glory. Ultimately, she believes that while the damage is irrevocable, the electorate may still reward the ANC for transcending the Zuma years. This is a must-have reference book on the development of the modern ANC. With rigour and incisiveness, Booysen offers scholars and researchers a coherent framework for considering future patterns in the ANC and its hold on political power.

The ANC is a party-movement that draws on its liberation credentials yet is conflicted by a multitude of weaknesses, factions and internal succession battles. Booysen constructs her analysis around the ANC's four faces of political power – organisation, people, political parties and elections, and policy and government – and explores how, since 1994, it has acted to continuously regenerate its power.

The African National Congress is light years beyond the liberation movement of old. It remains a juggernaut, but its control and dominance are no longer watertight. The ANC lives the contradictions of weaknesses, cracks and factions while retaining its colossal status. As a party-movement it draws on its liberation credentials, and extracts immense power from its deep anchorage in South Africa's people. It is immersed in electoral politics that marks the state of its overwhelming power cyclically. As government the ANC is the object of protest, but not protest designed to bring the ruling party to its knees. The ANC is in command of the state, yet fails to definitively counter the deficits that make South Africa's democracy seem so diluted. Its incredulous and thus far trusting supporters condemn but only rarely punish deployees who do not 'pass through the eye of the needle'. The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power unpacks these contradictions. It focuses on four faces of the ANC's political power - the organisation, the people, political parties and elections, and policy and government - and explores how the ANC has acted since 1994 to continuously regenerate its power. By 2011-12 the power configurations around the ANC were converging to a conjuncture holding vexing uncertainties. This book presents insights into how South African politics - in many ways synonymous with the politics of the ANC - is likely to unfold in years and possibly decades to come.

A certain type of presidentialism in the heart of South Africa's parliamentarist system characterised the period of President Jacob Zuma's rule, 2009 ongoing at the time of writing, 2017. The analysis concerns the South African case of how presidentialism and parliamentarism fuse to deliver a parliamentarist-presidentialist hybrid within a constitutional state. This hybrid is termed semi-presidentialism in this analysis. It differs from the presidentialisation within parliamentary systems where the president remains accountable to the legislature yet is elected directly. South Africa's hybrid is constituted, firstly, through the African National Congress (ANC) positioning itself as majoritarian power, obligated to uphold the will of the party's electoral majority. The fusion of state and party amplifies party rule over parliament. Secondly, the ANC follows the dictum that the leader (president) of the ANC is an embodiment of the movement and hence entitled to loyalty. It pursues this line even if factional ANC rule prevails. Personalisation of presidential power and the reinforcement of presidentialism follow, undermining party rule in favour of the president's individual elevation. The article assesses the establishment and the subsequent tentative decline of this powerful hybrid of parliamentarism-presidentialism.