South Africa's Resurgent Urban Social Movements: The Case of Johannesburg, 1984, 1994, 2004¶
Patrick Bond (2004). South Africa's Resurgent Urban Social Movements: The Case of Johannesburg, 1984, 1994, 2004. Centre for Civil Society Research Report No. 22. Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.
| Type | working paper |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | mixed |
| Period studied | 1984–2004 |
| Regions | Johannesburg, Soweto, Alexandra, Gauteng/Southern Transvaal |
| Themes | resistance social movements, transition post apartheid, politics ideology elections, demography urbanisation, business and state, origins segregation, mining migrant labour, comparative theory |
| Citation key | bond2004 |
Argument¶
Bond argues that Johannesburg's urban social movements have continuity from the mid-1980s and early-1990s civics, which fought apartheid, to the post-1998 movements. The latter include the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee and the Social Movements Indaba, and they resist the ANC government's neoliberal commodification of water and electricity. Civics were demobilised after 1994 as the ANC allied with capital and the Urban Foundation, and resistance re-emerged in the late 1990s as cost-recovery, privatisation (Igoli 2002) and the 'world-class city' agenda hit poor residents. He builds the case from a literature review, case narrative (the 2002 WSSD march) and press and official sources, and ends with a normative claim for decommodification and the 'deglobalisation of capital' alongside the 'globalisation of people'. The paper is an engaged, activist-scholarly synthesis of his earlier books, and it frames apartheid as race, gender and class super-exploitation through migrant labour.
Evidence and method¶
Secondary literature on civics and civil society; the World Bank and Johannesburg council documents; a 2000 city attitude survey; census 2001 figures; press reports (Washington Post, New York Times, Business Day, Mail and Guardian); ANC discussion documents and speeches; a Swilling manuscript; Ngwane interviews and articles; and the author's own earlier books.
Place in the debates¶
- Cheap labour thesis / articulation of modes of production (Wolpe, Legassick) (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Accepts it and extends it with gender: migrant labour was subsidised by rural African women, and capitalism 'looted' the bantustans.
- Nature and fate of civil society and civics after 1994 (demobilisation, co-option by the ANC vs revival) (see Post-apartheid economic policy, governance and corruption). Argues that civics were demobilised and corporatised after 1994 and that resistance was reborn in autonomous 'new social movements' against the ANC's neoliberalism.
- Neoliberalism vs social-justice pricing of municipal services (cost recovery vs decommodification) (see Post-apartheid economic policy, governance and corruption). Opposes cost recovery, the World Bank advice and privatisation; supports free lifeline water and electricity with rising block tariffs.
- Autonomist vs socialist orientation of the new movements (see Post-apartheid economic policy, governance and corruption). Acknowledges the contest and reports Ngwane's critique of autonomism, favouring a socialist, transitional-demand orientation; he rejects the ANC and SACP charge of 'ultra-left'.
- Role of sanctions and financial pressure in ending apartheid (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). States that financial sanctions and economic constraints forced white business to negotiate and brought Pretoria 'to its senses'; treats disinvestment as a central pillar of the anti-apartheid movement.
Findings¶
- The migrant labour system subsidised mining capital through rural reproduction, which fell on women. (p. 10)
-
A mine official told a 1944 commission that the mines' economy depended on paying migrant 'tribal natives' wages that were inadequate for urban workers. (p. 10)
The ability of the mines to maintain their native labour force by means of tribal natives from the reserves at rates of pay which are adequate for this migratory class of native
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Sanctions and economic constraints are credited with pushing business to negotiate with the ANC and Pretoria to reform. (p. 17)
But financial sanctions and other economic constraints forced white business to negotiate with the ANC in exile, and in turn brought Pretoria to its senses.
-
Soweto's rent boycott was widespread and sustained, and was part of the civics' leverage in negotiations. (p. 18)
White officials wanted the civics to call off widespread rent boycotts, which in Soweto were joined by 80% of formal rent-paying households for four years.
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The 1989-93 recession and rising interest rates undermined black housing finance and prompted bond boycotts. (p. 19)
the onset of the long 1989-93 recession (which left 500,000 freshly unemployed workers and their families less able to pay for housing)
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Interest rate rises doubled bond repayments and triggered the bond boycott tactic. (p. 20)
the rise in interest rates from 12.5% in 1988 to 21% in late 1989, which in most cases doubled monthly bond repayments
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The World Bank advised against cross-subsidies because they would deter private water concessions. (p. 7)
may limit options with respect to tertiary providers... in particular private concessions [would be] much harder to establish
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Infrastructure cross-subsidy was rejected on competitiveness grounds by a senior official. (p. 9)
If we increase the price of electricity to users like Alusaf, their products will become uncompetitive and that will affect our balance of payments...
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Post-2000 Johannesburg service cut-offs were very large, reaching about 20,000 households a month. (p. 5)
Johannesburg engaged in services disconnections that regularly reached 20,000 households per month.
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The 'free water' tariff regime burdened poor households by raising the second block price. (p. 25)
Two years later, the price of that second block was raised 32% (in the context of less than a 10% overall increase)
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The independent left outdrew ANC-aligned forces at the 2002 WSSD marches. (p. 27)
the independent left surprised itself by outdrawing the mass-based organisations allied to the ANC.
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Bond identifies four continuing factors that will shape state-civil society relations. (p. 32)
the failure of neoliberal macroeconomic policies to deliver jobs and rising incomes; national and municipal political dynamics that fail to incorporate—and instead exclude—the urban masses
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Census 2001 (October 2001), Johannesburg metro population and racial composition, via Thale (2003) city website article | population census | October 2001 | Establishes Johannesburg's population of 3.2 million and its racial composition as context. |
| Johannesburg (2001), Budget 2001-2002: City Development Plan 2001/2002 | commission or official report | 2001-2002 | Source for the racial breakdown of the city's population. |
| Johannesburg (2002), Joburg 2030 | commission or official report | 2002 | Municipality's own claim that only 16% of households have sub-standard services and that services are not its greatest challenge. |
| Minutes of the Southern Metropolitan Local Council Executive Committee, 21 June 1999 | state archives | 1999 (policy set 1995) | Shows officials conceded that low service levels in informal settlements were deliberate policy dating from the 1995 Strategic Initiative. |
| Johannesburg Metropolitan Council Attitude Survey (2000/2001) | household or labour survey microdata | 2000 | Documents resident dissatisfaction with electricity, water and toilets, broken down by race. |
| City of Johannesburg 2004-05 Integrated Development Plan (2003 satisfaction survey, section 1.21) and Rees (2004) Samwu review | official statistical series | 2003-2004 | Cited to dismiss the city's later survey showing 86% and 73% satisfaction as dubious. |
| Johannesburg Water (2001), Business Plan | company records or reports | 2001 | Gives dwelling counts for formal (192,000) and informal (189,000) settlements, and the source for the water tariff data in Figure 2. |
| Sunday Times Gauteng Metro, 19 May 2002 | newspapers periodicals | 2002 | Evidence for service disconnections regularly reaching 20,000 households per month. |
| Roome, J. (1995), World Bank presentation to the SA Water Conservation Conference; World Bank (1999) Country Assistance Strategy | international trade or finance data | 1995, 1999 | Shows World Bank lobbying against cross-subsidised lifeline tariffs and the Bank's claim that its advice was 'instrumental' in the restructuring of water pricing. |
| World Bank (2002), South Africa: Monitoring Service Delivery in Johannesburg | commission or official report | 2002 | Documents the Bank's role in Johannesburg's 2030 strategy and local economic development methodology. |
| Ministry of Reconstruction and Development (1995), Urban Infrastructure Investment Framework, Pretoria, 23 March | commission or official report | 1995 | Source for the 'basic' services policy of communal standpipes, pit latrines and no electricity. |
| Darrow (2003) and Horter/Potts/World Bank (1998) Project Appraisal Document on Bank lending to Eskom and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project | secondary literature compilation | 1951-1998 | Establishes World Bank lending history ($100m to Eskom 1951-68; $110m to Lesotho in 1986). |
| Mail and Guardian, 16 November 1996 (Chippy Olver interview) | newspapers periodicals | 1996 | Quotes the government infrastructure official rejecting redistributive tariffs because of international competitiveness. |
| Chamber of Mines testimony to a 1944 Pretoria commission | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1944 | Used to show mining capital's dependence on migrant labour paid below urban subsistence. |
| African National Congress (1994), Reconstruction and Development Programme; ANC (1998) discussion document 'The State, Property Relations and Social Transformation'; ANC Political Education Unit (2002) | commission or official report | 1994-2002 | Contrasts the official stance on civil society with the party's instrumental treatment of it and its attacks on the 'ultraleft'. |
| Swilling, M. (1992), Roots of Transition (unpublished manuscript); Swilling and Boya (1997) | secondary literature compilation | 1980s-1990s | Characterises the UDF/civic relationship and supplies the claim that 80% of Soweto's formal rent-paying households joined rent boycotts. |
| Washington Post, 6 November 2001 (Jeter); New York Times, 29 May 2003 (Thomson); Sunday Independent 18 Feb 2001; Business Day 12 April 2002 | newspapers periodicals | 2001-2003 | Provides case accounts of electricity and water disconnections, prepaid meters and resistance, and of payment levels returning to pre-deal levels. |
| Department of Public Enterprises (2001), Speech by Minister Radebe at Workshop on the Service Delivery Framework, 30 November 2001 | commission or official report | 2001 | Source for the arrears amnesty terms offered to Soweto residents. |
| Johannesburg Water tariff schedule (2001) and author's own projection (Figure 2) | official statistical series | 2001-2003 | Compares actual block tariffs with an ideal rising block tariff for a household of 10, to show the second block price hike. |
| ANC Today (Mbeki column, 30 August 2002); Sooka (2003) and Ngcobo (2003) in Kimani (Ed); Ngwane (2003, 2004) interview and article | interviews oral history | 2002-2004 | Supplies statements from officials and movement leaders on the 31 August 2002 WSSD march, policing and the debate on autonomism. |
| Everatt et al. (1997) UNRISD study; University of the Witwatersrand (2002) Size and Scope of the Non-Profit Sector; Heller and Ntlokonkulu (2001) | secondary literature compilation | 1997-2002 | Cited as prior research on civil society governance, the non-profit sector and SANCO branches, without reuse of their data. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Narrative synthesis and interpretive case study of Johannesburg across three periods (1984, 1994, 2004). It draws on newspaper accounts, official documents, World Bank texts, activist testimony and the author's earlier books, combined with Marxist and Gramscian theory and cross-national comparison of urban protest. The only quantitative element is a tariff graph with the author's projection.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg's municipal services for poor residents are deficient, and this deficiency was a deliberate policy choice made in 1995. (p. 4) | City council minutes, the 2000 Attitude Survey and Johannesburg Water business plan figures on dwellings; contested by an unreliable later survey. | Partial data |
| The World Bank shaped Johannesburg's and South Africa's commodified, cost-recovery approach to water and services and advised against cross-subsidies. (p. 6) | Roome 1995 presentation, World Bank 1999 Country Assistance Strategy, 2002 Bank report quoted at length, Bank staff statements. | Partial data |
| Johannesburg's tariff structure after the 'free water' pledge penalised poor households, with a steep rise in the second consumption block and small increases for the rich. (p. 24) | Johannesburg Water tariff data plotted against the author's own ideal-tariff projection (Figure 2). | Partial data |
| Migrant labour apartheid subsidised mining capital through unpaid reproduction by rural African women. (p. 9) | A single 1944 Chamber of Mines testimony quote plus appeal to the Wolpe/Legassick articulation-of-modes literature. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Civics in the early 1990s were anti-capitalist and autonomous, then demobilised after 1994 as the ANC and capital courted them. (p. 19) | Secondary civics literature, Swilling quotes, the ACO housing document, RDP text and ANC discussion paper; no systematic membership data. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| From the late 1990s, service cut-offs and cost recovery triggered a resurgence of protest (SECC, Anti-Privatisation Forum, Orange Farm) that ANC attempts at amnesty and persuasion failed to quell. (p. 22) | Press reports (Washington Post, New York Times, Business Day), government speeches and the author's earlier books; payment-rate claim is not documented with figures. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The independent left's 31 August 2002 march drew far larger numbers (about 20,000) than the ANC-aligned Civil Society Forum event (about 5,000), and the state responded repressively. (p. 26) | Movement and press accounts, statements by Ngwane, Sooka and Ngcobo; crowd sizes are given as rough estimates without a cited count. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
The author's caveats¶
The author notes that the 2003 city satisfaction survey is 'so dubious as to be easily dismissed'. He also says the paper synthesises and updates previously published work, and that evidence for the broader claims is provided in his earlier books. There is no systematic discussion of the limits of the sources.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument about resurgence and continuity between 1980s civics and 2000s movements would need systematic data on protest event counts, membership, affiliation and mobilisation over time, for example police or SAIRR protest records, SANCO and APF membership registers, and Johannesburg Water and Eskom disconnection and payment data. Service-delivery claims would be better tested with Census 2001 and Johannesburg Water household-level records, plus independent surveys instead of contested municipal ones. Archival and interview evidence on civic and APF decision-making, much of which exists today, would test the claims about ANC demobilisation and continuity in leadership.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.