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PRECARIOUS POWER Compliance and Discontent Under Ramaphosa’s ANC SUSAN BOOYSEN An incisive analysis of South Africa's ANC power—as party, as government, as state
Susan Booysen is a political analyst and media commentator. She is Director of Research at the Mapungubwe Institute of Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) and Visiting Professor at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her two major books on the ANC are The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power (2011) and Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma (2015), both published by Wits University Press.
February 2021 328 pages • 6.14 x 9.21 Paper • 9781776146451 • $30.00S Cloth • 9781776146499 • $89.00X Political Science Wits University Press
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, it also heightened internal tensions between those who would deepen its acquired status as corrupt and captured, and those who would remodel it as redeemable. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened the fragility. ANC internal wars were moderated, but the socio-economic devastation and the state’s inability to make sufficient amends aggravated the prior fault-lines. These are the incontrovertible knowns of South African politics; what will evolve from this is less certain. In Precarious Power, renowned political scientist Susan Booysen uses in-depth research and analysis to distill that which is bound to shape South Africa's political future. Booysen focuses on contradictory party politics and internal ANC dissent that is veiled for the sake of retaining an electoral following. Also exposed is the incongruous, populist policymaking, protest politics and the use of soft law to ensure it does not alienate angry citizens, fueling further discontent and protest. The analysis of the ANC’s gentle stance on captured state institutions lest the Zumaist malcontents rebel, reveals a president who was wavering on a tightrope between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation. He rose to the challenge of being a national leader during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the task was immense. The ANC's power has become exceedingly precarious. Precarious Power is the name of the political game, for the foreseeable future. The comprehensive analysis in Precarious Power will appeal not only to political scientists and postgraduate students, but to all who take a keen interest in current affairs.
