Suchergebnisse

This critical introduction to the main debates, historical context and issues surrounding contemporary South Africa includes topics such as the role of colonialism, capitalism and modernity in the formation of the racial order and democracy.

Abstract
Hamilton's focus on representation rather than "participatory democracy" is welcome. He has (usefully) highlighted the representational nature of so-called participatory democracy rather than offered putative alternatives to representation. However, his critique of representation deficits in South Africa shows insufficient appreciation of the importance of proportional representation to equal freedom. An examination of the history of council theory and practice on the left provides a basis for some skeptical thoughts about Hamilton's council-tribune model. Although Hamilton's particular institutional prescription is not required by his theory of representation, flaws in the former may be influenced his theorization of group representation.

Adapted from the source document.

Adapted from the source document.

Adapted from the source document.

Race and sex/gender are commonly argued to deserve equal priority with class oppression in egalitarian politics. However, placing race and sex in the same list as what is here termed "standard-of-living class" constitutes a category error. Standard of living, alongside power and status, belongs to a distinctive list of "metrics of hierarchy" that should be accorded priority in an important respect: in the specification of the hierarchies (or "distribution strata") that egalitarians seek ultimately to eliminate or reduce. Race and sex, along with other "differentiators," matter primarily for the way they are "used" by social arrangements (e.g., apartheid, patriarchy, capitalism) to assign persons to places in hierarchies of living standard, power, and status. Examining policies to promote black capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa, the author shows how the conflation of differentiators (race, in this case) and distribution strata (like standard-of-living class) is complicit in justifying multiracialized inequality.