Doctoral Degrees (Political Science)

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    Fighting against erasure: the one in nine campaign and feminist movement building against sexual violence
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03 ) Dlakavu, Simamkele; Gouws, Amanda; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The rape trial against Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s former deputy president and deputy president of the governing party – the African National Congress, in 2006 drew wide social, media and political attention. The story of a powerful politician accused of sexual violence is not an unusual occurrence globally nor was it exceptional in South Africa. Unfortunately, South Africa has one of the world’s leading cases of sexual violence. However, what was truly profound about this political moment in history, which has not been sufficiently explored and studied in the field of social movement scholarship in South Africa, is the story of the feminist political response that was ignited by the rape trial. This response came from the One in Nine Campaign – a boldly feminist social movement organisation that was formed to demonstrate tangible, active, and intersectional solidarity with the rape survivor, Fezekile “Khwezi” Kuzwayo, as well as other women sexual violence survivors in South Africa. Guided by the New Social Movement and African Feminist theories, this study is a feminist social movement political biographical history of the One in Nine Campaign, and its political framings, strategies, and repertoires of action. Through qualitative feminist methodologies and a historical analysis, using primary archival research from the archives of the One in Nine Campaign and thirteen in-depth interviews with its members (past and present), this study documents the Campaign’s feminist political mobilisation that has lasted almost two decades. The study’s results indicate that the One in Nine Campaign sought to insert an intersectional feminist agenda in the struggle against the sexual violence crisis in South Africa by strategically focusing on sexual survivor programmes, feminist political education and arts activism for consciousness-raising, as well as direct action as part of movement building. The findings reveal that these strategic and political efforts led to and inspired a new wave of feminist movement building in South Africa, engaging in political direct action in sites such as universities and in relation to the #TotalShutdown movement. This is a movement that forced the state, through direct action and protest, to acknowledge that sexual violence is indeed a “pandemic” which demanded political intervention from the state. The findings also reveal contemporary challenges that impact feminist social movements against sexual violence in South Africa such as erasure, movement decline and economic precarity, caused by factors such as a lack of long-term and unrestricted funding and activist burnout which challenge movement sustainability. The focus on the political history of the One in Nine Campaign broadens the views of the ways in which feminists organise and mobilise in democratic South Africa. This dissertation therefore contributes to existing scholarship and a better understanding of social movements and gender in an African context.
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    A policy analysis: from population control to the construction of sexual and reproductive health post-apartheid, 1994-2021
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03 ) Stevens, Marion; Gouws, Amanda; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa has a rich political history of health policy, that has been reformed since apartheid. There has been legal reform with progressive law and provision of new guidelines for sexual and reproductive health. Yet the landscape is informed by interconnected structural drivers and social determinants that have embedded power inequities. Sexual and reproductive health is nuanced and has evolved over decades. This research study is a policy analysis of how policy on sexual and reproductive health has been constructed and constituted as problematic post-apartheid, and how this has led to reproductive justice or lack thereof. The research is informed by qualitative, constructionist/interpretivist orientations with document reviews of policy and legislation, and interviews with key informants, asking how the construction of sexual and reproductive health policy reform post-apartheid has been constituted and represented, and by whom. Carol Bacchi’s What is the Problem Represented to Be? and Sandra Harding’s Feminist Standpoint theory have been used as complementary research methods. The legacy of apartheid and colonialism directly informs the social and political construction of sexual and reproductive health and rights. The South African context is informed by a shadow of the legacy of inequalities and this contributes to challenges in transformative implementation to realise sexual and reproductive justice. The current context, despite some 25 years post democracy, is embedded in interlinked structural and social determinants laden and burdened with power imbalances. A paper tiger of legal reform provided for a strong footing of sexual and reproductive health and rights, with textual flow threaded through the population policy, adolescent sexual and reproductive health framework strategy and the fertility control policies. A fraught socio-political landscape facilitates the reality of uneven services and care in sexual and reproductive health. What remains is a context of poor service delivery that is informed by entangled and contested power relations and a fraught socially constructed ideological environment. Ideologies of population control persist in an untransformed and stagnant context with inadequate implementation of equitable services. The sexual and reproductive health and rights environment in South Africa is contested with a range of competing and invested stakeholders who are not always ideologically aligned. The presence of international donors informs an industry of implementation programming and research. What remains are stakeholders who are interested and invested in defending their constructed positions, and who perpetuate the status quo of sexual and reproductive health and rights in South Africa. This informs the landscape of socially constructed policies that represent ideas, assumptions and understandings. Alongside these represented notions are interwoven connected and juxtaposing dominant and marginalised framings along with silences on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
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    Menstrual politics in the Dwarsrivier Valley, South Africa: a mixed-methods exploration
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) Kotze, Landi; Fourie, P. P.; Steenekamp, C. L.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Experiencing the biological phenomenon of menstruation is personal, but the menstrual experience is political. Social determinants of health may hinder the capability of women to navigate the menstrual experience in a way that does not compromise their wellbeing. Relevant to the South African context, this is conceptualized as the capability to achieve sanitary dignity. The realm of menstrual politics presents opportunities through which to facilitate this capability. However, to promote the wellbeing of menstruating women through political incentives, it is necessary to gather empirical evidence on the menstrual experience. Consequently, the capability of women to achieve sanitary dignity is explored in the South African context of the Dwarsrivier Valley. The Dwarsrivier Valley is located in the Western Cape province, where no previous empirical research on the menstrual experience has been conducted, nor has any policy or legislation relevant to menstruation been implemented. The Sanitary Dignity Framework was published by the South African Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, as a framework for implementation of the sanitary dignity campaign and related development programmes. The framework presents a conceptualization of sanitary dignity in South Africa, requirements for the achievement of sanitary dignity, and suggested guidelines for the implementation of initiatives to improve the sanitary dignity of specifically indigent women. Through exploring the concepts that underpin the Sanitary Dignity Framework, this study presents empirical evidence to inform policy and the development of implementation plans for the promotion of sanitary dignity, as well as the application of the Sanitary Dignity Framework, in the Western Cape. The findings convey an objective insight into the menstrual experience in the light of a radical feminist perspective. In addition to the Sanitary Dignity Framework and a radical feminist lens, the study employs Social Determinants of Health and the Capabilities Approach as theoretical perspectives. The novel theoretical concept of “the capability to achieve sanitary dignity” is constructed through integrating the requirements for the achievement of sanitary dignity, and the Capabilities Approach. This conceptualisation provides an analytical tool through which to investigate the wellbeing of menstruating women. A mixed-methods approach to this study facilitates a comprehensive exploration of the factors that hinder and/or facilitate the capability of women in the Dwarsrivier Valley to achieve sanitary dignity. During the first, quantitative research phase, 100 surveys were completed at a research station in the Dwarsrivier Valley. Factors that hinder and/or facilitate the capability of these women to achieve sanitary dignity were then explored by means of statistical analysis. This was followed by the qualitative research phase, during which 10 in-depth interviews were conducted at the same research station with women who also had participated in the quantitative research phase. A thematic analysis of the qualitative findings ascertained the relevant factors that hinder and/or facilitate the capability of women in the Dwarsrivier Valley to achieve sanitary dignity. Age, gender and a lack of knowledge about menstruation, hinder their capability to achieve sanitary dignity. These factors should be focal concerns of initiatives to improve the menstrual experience. The capability of women to achieve sanitary dignity in the Dwarsrivier Valley is facilitated through: education, values, and policy. An examination of these factors illuminates the pathways through which the menstrual experience can be improved efficiently and effectively.
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    Beyond #NotTooYoungToRun: party candidacy, political representation and legislative effectiveness of young politicians in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) Abati, Omomayowa Olawale; Schulz-Herzenberg, Collette; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines the implication of the #NotTooYoungToRun Act (also called the Age Reduction Law) for young politicians' candidacy in parties, political representation and lawmaking effectiveness across national and subnational legislatures in Nigeria. The study asks three research questions to understand how the age reduction law may open the political space for youth political representation and how young-adult politicians would assert their agency within the parties and legislatures. First, it examines the proportion of young-adult political aspirants that enter the candidacy pool as party candidates and of young-adult candidates elected to national and subnational legislatures. Second, it explores how the internal dynamics of political parties influence the political candidature of young-adult legislative aspirants. Third, it analyses the legislative effectiveness of young and other age group members of parliament (MPs) in the light of institutional dynamics of parliamentary lawmaking processes and norms. The study adopts a mixed-method case study design based on a pragmatic research philosophy. The design makes it possible to triangulate qualitative and quantitative data from the House of Representatives (HoR), Kwara and Oyo Houses of Assembly (HoAs), and the two major political parties, using qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. The quantitative data includes candidacy and membership records, and qualitative data consists of seventy interviews with multiple actors ranging from MPs, party leaders, representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs), one focus group discussion with ten unsuccessful candidates from minor parties and several official party and parliamentary documents. The quantitative data was analysed using appropriate methods of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, and the qualitative data was thematically analysed. The study finds that while the reform resulted in a significantly increased number of young-adult candidates, the corresponding unwillingness of parties (especially the major ones) to nominate an appreciable number of young-adult candidates reduced the reform's effect on youth descriptive representation in national and subnational parliaments. As such, the reform's impact is limited to a mobilising effect that sees young adults contesting for elective positions at younger ages than was previously possible. However, while most young adult candidates could not overcome the hurdle of party politics for several reasons, the few who did leverage several combinations of personalistic, social and clientelist appeals to emerge as party candidates and win legislative seats. However, on getting into parliament, the young-adult MPs faced different dynamics that limited their legislative effectiveness in the first term in office. The study's findings have three main implications. First, contrary to previous narratives, young adults are not politically disinterested nor inexperienced in political leadership. Second, electorally competitive young-adult aspirants are not hindered by the age-related selection biases inherent in internal party processes. Finally, the study's findings show that MPs' personal characteristics and institutional positionings and norms are age-sensitive, thereby shaping the legislative effectiveness of young-adult MPs in parliament. The study concludes that as the national and subnational parliaments become increasingly composed of young-adult MPs over the coming years, new questions need to be asked about how these young-adult MPs represent specific youth interests.
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    Challenges facing anti-corruption mechanisms in dominant party systems: a case study of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, 2004-2019
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Mchunu, Ngqapheli; De Jager, Nicola; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The African National Congress (ANC) has achieved remarkable success in South Africa's multi-party democratic elections since 1994, obtaining the majority of the votes in each election and achieving convincing electoral successes. In every election cycle the incumbent has maintained its majority resulting in a dominant party system and a steady grip on state resources. The democratic well-being of South Africa is thus contingent on the performance of the dominant party that is in power. This extends to the health of a democracy, which can only be achieved with independent and effective horizontal accountability mechanisms. However, in the case of South Africa, high levels of fraud, corruption and the mismanagement of state resources have characterised the ANC’s dominance across all spheres of government underlines the importance of anti-corruption mechanisms in the public sector. Therefore, this research study sought to understand the challenges facing public sector anticorruption mechanisms in a dominant party system where pervasive public sector corruption is encouraged and maintained by the incumbent at the provincial level of government. Despite the initially competitive electoral contestation between the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the ANC during the first decade of democracy, the province of KwaZulu-Natal has since become an ANC stronghold, and during the ANC’s period of governing there have been continuous allegations of corruption, often involving senior members of the ruling party across the province. Poor fiscal practices, the absence of political stability, and the prevalence of patronage networks have all had an influence on the provincial departments and local government municipalities of KwaZulu-Natal, with reports of widespread corruption implicating ANC officials. Utilising a qualitative methodology and a case study design, primary data were collected from key informants through semi-structured interviews. Key informants from anti-corruption entities, namely the Public Service Commission, the Auditor-General, the Public Protector and the Standing Committee on Oversight, were interviewed, together with knowledgeable members of civil society and academia. Findings from this research study suggest that the blurring of party and state lines, political interference, limited capacity, and non-compliance are key impediments to the effectiveness of anti-corruption mechanisms. A lack of political will proved to be an additional impediment to the effectiveness of the accountability mechanisms, particularly in the provincial legislative oversight committee. The dominant party system has compromised the independence of anti-corruption mechanisms in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and hindered their role of seeking accountability. The current existing anti-corruption mechanisms rely heavily on political will from the ruling party, which has been absent, yet in order for them to be successful, they need to be free from political interference. To counteract the accountability challenges brought on by the shortcomings of the dominant-party system, it is recommended that existing institutions be empowered with greater autonomy, especially the Public Service Commission, which ideally needs to become a Chapter 9 institution. And in order to avoid placing further strain on the national budget, it would be wiser to focus on increasing the independence and efficiency of the already existing anti-corruption institutions rather than creating new ones. The decline of the ANC’s electoral support and the seemingly evident end of the dominant-party system, and its replacement with a more competitive, multi-party system, might in turn enable the effectiveness of anti-corruption initiatives and hence provide hope of greater accountability in South Africa’s political future.