Civil Society Theory and the Politics of Transition in South Africa¶
Robert Fine (1992). Civil Society Theory and the Politics of Transition in South Africa. Review of African Political Economy, No. 55. ROAPE Publications Ltd. / Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | theoretical or conceptual |
| Period studied | 1960–1992 |
| Regions | South Africa, Eastern Europe (comparative) |
| Themes | politics ideology elections, unions strikes, resistance social movements, transition post apartheid, business and state, comparative theory |
| Citation key | fine1992 |
Argument¶
Fine argues that 'civil society theory' offers South African opposition politics a 'third road' between neo-classicism (liberal reform from above) and neo-marxism (revolution from without). He traces its practical origins to the new independent unions of the 1970s and the civic upsurge of the 1980s. He argues that the theory emerged after the fact, once the initiative had passed to the De Klerk government's corporatist reform, the ANC-SACP's return to a neo-classical negotiating strategy, and the decline of the community and union left. Its central defect is that it neglects political mediation. Local and associational struggles cannot settle the 'big' questions of administering society, so democratised political parties are needed to link civil society to the state. The argument is conceptual and polemical, drawing on Hegel, Marx and Eastern European analogies.
Evidence and method¶
No new empirical data. Conceptual and historical commentary drawing on the writings of Sachs, Glaser, Swilling, Cronin, Marx and Michnik, plus the author's own earlier work and a bibliographic note on the labour and left literature.
Place in the debates¶
- Liberal (neo-classical) vs radical/revisionist (neo-marxist) accounts of apartheid and capital (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Fine treats both as functionalist and top-down, explaining apartheid by the needs of capital while ignoring popular struggle. He says the new unions showed their premises to be wrong.
- Role of the new unions and the 'economism' / 'political unionism' dispute (workerism vs populism) (see Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy). He credits the unions with a 'proletarian reformation' and the rebirth of civil society. He criticises the trade union left for its two-stage theory and for absorbing its politics into the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance.
- Civil society theory vs etatist and elite-pacting strategies in the transition (see Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining). He welcomes civil society theory as a counterweight to etatism and warns against elite-pacting. He argues it is deficient without democratised political parties, and he opposes a government of 'national unity'.
- Whether the 1980s reforms and sanctions amounted to a victory for democratic forces (see Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining). He calls it a myth that reform was a clear-cut victory. The state survived and quelled the uprising, and De Klerk revived a corporatist reform strategy.
Findings¶
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Civil society theory is positioned as a 'third road' between two opposition paradigms, neo-classicism and neo-marxism. (p. 4)
It should be read as an attempt to build a 'third road' distinct from the two paradigms which have dominated South African opposition politics in the post-war era.
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Neo-classicism holds that capital and labour share an interest in reforming apartheid. (p. 4)
Capital and labour are seen as having a common interest in the reform of apartheid, whatever other conflicts divide them.
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Neo-marxism explains apartheid through the functional requirements of capital, based on super-exploitation of black labour. (p. 5)
neo-marxism explains apartheid as a specific form of capitalist state based on the super- exploitation of black labour and incorporation of white labour.
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The new unions of the 1970s contradicted the neo-marxist premises just as exiled intellectuals were formalising them. (p. 6)
the new unions inside South Africa began to reveal in practice that black society was not deprived of all means of social self-defence, that real reform was possible
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The new unions' significance went beyond trade unionism to the practical rebirth of civil society. (p. 7)
In this sense they represented the practical re- birth of civil society prior to its explicit conceptualisation.
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The trade union left absorbed itself into the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance and lost its distinct political identity. (p. 8)
The decline of the trade union left as a distinctive political entity and the in- corporation of its core into the 'na- tional democratic revolution'
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Civil society's disintegrative violence let the state relegitimise itself as the force of order. (p. 9)
The unleashing of civil society thus became the ground, paradoxically, for relegitimising the state.
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The apartheid state survived the 1980s uprising, and De Klerk revived reform on a corporatist basis. (p. 10)
the reform programme which triggered the urban revolt, not least because of its adverse economic consequences but also because it revealed the vulner- ability of apartheid, was revived
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The ANC-SACP's shift into negotiations reversed its earlier strategies, including sanctions and political unionism. (p. 10)
political unionism into restraint of industrial militancy, the sanctions cam- paign into appeals for investment.
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Civil society theory arrived late, after the decline of its social base and amid rising violence. (p. 11)
internecine violence was rife (over 4,000 dead in the last eighteen months) and ethnic conflict had entered the urban areas of the Rand?
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The central defect of the theory is its neglect of political mediation, so political parties are essential. (p. 13)
If political parties are not democratised and socialised from below, they will still perform their mediative functions - but determined 'from above'.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quoted statements by Albie Sachs, Daryl Glaser and Mark Swilling on civil society (published texts) | secondary literature compilation | c. 1988-1991 | Block quotations illustrate how civil society theory is articulated by ANC, left and activist writers. |
| Jeremy Cronin quotation on 'normalised' bourgeois democracy and party pluralism (SACP theoretician) | secondary literature compilation | c. 1990-1991 | Quoted as the foil for Fine's argument about the need for political parties as mediation. |
| Karl Marx (1871) passage on workers' movements as political movements | other | 1871 | Theoretical quotation supporting the claim that the trade union left failed to extend labour initiatives into politics. |
| Bibliographic Note: Civil society, trade union and nationalist literature (e.g. South African Labour Bulletin, Work in Progress, South African Review, Transformation) | newspapers periodicals | 1979-1991 | Listed as background reading for the paradigms of neo-classicism, neo-marxism, trade union left and civil society; no data drawn from them. |
| Press reporting figure on political violence ('over 4,000 dead in the last eighteen months') | other | c. 1990-1992 | Cited in passing to indicate the scale of internecine violence at the time civil society theory emerged. |
Inference¶
Quantification: None.
Conceptual and theoretical argument. It sets up a typology of neo-classical, neo-marxist and civil society paradigms, reads them against a stylised narrative of the new unions, the 1980s uprising and the De Klerk reforms, and draws on Hegel and Marx and on East European comparison. It cites no systematic empirical evidence.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Civil society theory is a 'third road' alternative to the neo-classical (liberal) and neo-marxist (radical) paradigms that dominated post-war opposition politics. (p. 73) | Typological argument and quotations from Sachs, Glaser and Swilling; no primary data. | Asserted |
| The new unions of the 1970s showed in practice that black society was not deprived of all means of self-defence and that real reform was possible, so neo-marxist intellectuals lagged behind the labour movement. (p. 75) | Asserted historical narrative of the independent union movement; no cited archive, survey or union records. | Asserted |
| The trade union left's 'workers control' and 'independence' concealed an organised leadership and slid into independence from politics, leading to the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance in the late 1980s. (p. 76-77) | Interpretive narrative of union politics from secondary and participant literature. | Asserted |
| The apartheid state survived and quelled the 1980s uprising; the De Klerk reforms revived Botha's reform on a corporatist basis, and the ANC-SACP shifted back to neo-classicism. (p. 79) | General political narrative with no sources cited. | Asserted |
| The state exploited violence between competing civil society groups to relegitimise itself as the only force able to contain it. (p. 78) | Assertion supported by the passing figure on political deaths; no systematic violence data or inquiry reports. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The central defect of civil society theory is neglect of political mediation; political parties are the necessary means of lifting the particular interests of civil society to the general interest of the state. (p. 82) | Theoretical argument drawing on Hegel, East European comparison and a critique of Cronin. | Asserted |
Gaps in the evidence¶
The article makes empirical claims about union behaviour, ANC leadership strategy, state-sponsored violence and the decline of community organisations without citing union records, archival material, interviews, surveys or violence statistics. Testing them would need COSATU/FOSATU and civic organisation archives, UDF/MDM documents, press files, and violence monitoring data (e.g. from human rights monitors and later the Goldstone and TRC records). Much of this existed in 1992 and more is now accessible, so the claims could be tested more rigorously.
Replicability: Not applicable.