Politeia

Unravelling the US-ROK Alliance: Decoding North Korea’s Strategy within the Six-Party Talks

2023-10-17T06:53:52+00:00

Alliance formation is a calculated decision by parties to determine and affect the outcome of negotiations. Its success depends on several factors, most notably alliance members’ cohesion and convergence of common interests, objectives, and tactics. The focus here is on the United States and South Korea’s alliance during the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme. Despite early progress in the alliance’s favour, the internal cohesion of the US-South Korea alliance was disrupted due to divergent interests, approaches, and positions regarding North Korea. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the US-ROK alliance’s impact on the Six-Party Talks. While previous studies have explored the negotiations, little attention has been given to the alliance’s role and how it evolved over time, especially in the context of North Korea’s manipulation and its consequences on negotiation outcomes. We assess the success of the alliance and its impact on the negotiation process, considering factors such as cohesion, common interests, objectives, and tactics. Our study adopts a qualitative research approach, utilising an extensive review of relevant literature, official documents, historical records, and primary sources from the Six-Party Talks. The findings underscore the importance of robust and well-coordinated alliances in addressing critical global security challenges. To achieve lasting success in future negotiations, it is imperative for allied parties to forge a shared understanding and strategic convergence in dealing with adversaries like North Korea. Moreover, this research calls for a re-evaluation of alliance dynamics and tactics to strengthen the collective resolve in pursuing international peace and security.

Class Dynamics, a Declining ANC and the Failure of Policy Implementation

2023-11-21T07:51:36+00:00

While conditions for the majority in South Africa have worsened and delivery has become more important politically, the ANC is increasingly unable to deliver and address national issues. At the same time, the state is failing to resource, manage, coordinate and skill its departments, institutions and programmes. While the imperative of improving the state is recognised, and issues of skill and leadership are flagged, this article focuses on two interrelated causes of implementation failure: an ANC that is the site of dire struggles for state power while manifesting endemic corruption and a dangerously anti-public vision; and racialised elite and subaltern class dynamics that often escape state mediation. The limits of government in its overarching economic policy are considered as a brief case. The article concludes that given the problems in these areas, particularly in the management of the capitalist economy and class contradictions, a restructuring of the political field and a renewal of popular public involvement are necessary for improved welfare and development in the future. There are also imperatives of civil service reform. However, these changes will have no chance of taking root unless firm steps towards a dynamic and inclusive economy are taken.

Battle for the Bay Revisited: The 2021 South African Local Elections in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality

2024-03-12T07:54:34+00:00

The 2021 local election in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) saw a change in the fortunes of the two leading political parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), in the context of a low-turnout election. The DA lost its advantage from the 2016 election and fell back into a tie with the ANC in the number of councillor seats. The equal position of the two leading parties led to an outsized role for smaller parties, including a minor party, the Northern Alliance, currently holding the mayor’s office in an ANC-led coalition. The authors use the lens of Gavin Davis’s theory on race-based campaigning to analyse the election results and the “violent democracy” framework of Von Holdt to analyse the political situation in the townships, where violence coexists with relatively high levels of political pluralism and participation. Also analysed is the challenge of coalition governments at the local level, and suggestions for electoral reform are offered.

Interventions at the Local Spheres of Government in South Africa: An Assessment of Monitoring and Evaluation

2024-05-08T06:53:55+00:00

The post-1994 landscape in South Africa presented millions of individuals—especially the majority Black population who had been subjected to many apartheid policies—with renewed hope for better and improved development opportunities. This stemmed from the fact that the first democratically elected administration of the African National Congress (ANC) promised immense socioeconomic change when they assumed office. These promises became evident from the many socioeconomic policies and Chapter 9 institutions that came to the fore over the last two decades, as well as the mapping of new legislation and policies for local government as enshrined in the Constitution of 1996. These actions were viewed to further the envisioned development trajectories of government, especially as the local government is the government closest to the people. However, post-1994, some municipalities in South Africa have endured massive challenges that have needed numerous involvements from the government through various interventions. This has been a continuous phenomenon, irrespective of the many policies at play to oversee the smooth operation of municipalities. This article delves into the failure of some municipalities in South Africa and interventions of local government in post-apartheid South Africa by scrutinising what drives this phenomenon. Furthermore, it dwells on the impact and challenges of effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) policies at the local government level.

Performance of Women-led Political Parties in Lesotho’s 2022 National Elections

2024-03-12T07:54:31+00:00

Since the dawn of multi-party democracy in Lesotho in 1993, few political parties have been formed and led by women, and they are not doing well. The main political parties lack the political will and commitment to nominate women as leaders. In the elections of 7 October 2022, none of the main political parties were led by women and none of them won a single constituency. While many women-led parties could not make it into parliament, a few women leaders got into parliament through Proportional Representation (PR). Four women-led political parties contested the election, all of them performing dismally. It is important to explore why women-led political parties did not perform well, as Lesotho has signed and ratified international protocols on women’s empowerment and equality in politics, among others, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1325, the African Union (AU) Maputo Protocol, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol on gender and development. All these urge member states to ensure meaningful participation of women in politics and elections, specifically as leaders. We assess the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5) on gender equality and women empowerment to measure the progress Lesotho has made and the challenges yet to be addressed. This article explores factors that contributed to this poor performance and analyses the reasons for the poor performance by reviewing relevant documents regarding the performance of women-led political parties in Lesotho’s 2022 national elections.

Gerrymandering in Municipal Demarcation Processes in South Africa: Selected Cases of the Collins Chabane and JB Marks Local Municipalities

2023-10-17T06:53:55+00:00

This article focuses on political processes, specifically redistricting, which is the political process of redrawing electoral boundaries within which people contest local government elections. It has, however, become common practice for the political party in power to review electoral boundaries in its favour, a practice known as gerrymandering. In South Africa, municipal boundary review, which takes place every five years to either determine new boundaries or re-determine existing boundaries for the purposes of municipal elections, has always given rise to objections. The reasons for such objections range from the lack of public participation in the demarcation process to public perceptions of the value of belonging to one municipality as opposed to another, tribalism, and service delivery concerns. The main findings emanating from the scrutiny of literature on municipal boundary determination protests and the two municipal case studies in South Africa revealed elements of gerrymandering motivated by the political aspirations of those in power.

Main Predictor(s) of Good Corporate Governance in National Government Departments: A Decision-tree Classification and Prediction Analyses

2024-02-20T06:36:14+00:00

Purpose: Good public sector corporate governance leads to good management, stewardship of public wealth, public engagement, and ultimately, better outcomes for citizens. As South Africa has one of the worst Gini coefficients in the world, its public sector should effectively address the challenges of inequality, poverty, and unemployment. Yet, almost 30% of national and provincial government departments obtain unfavourable audit outcomes.

Methodology: Supporting the drive for clean audit outcomes that equate to good corporate governance, the research objective was to determine the predictors of national government departments’ corporate governance success. The study used CHAID (chi-squared automatic interaction detection) analyses, a decision-tree technique based on information reported over a 13-year period.

Findings: The CHAID analyses indicated that national government departments’ corporate governance success is primarily explained by three factors, namely: a quality internal audit function (main predictor), the number of fraud incidents, and the number of internal control weaknesses.

Implication: Even though all the variables in this study receive attention in literature and regulation, the problem of unfavourable audit outcomes persists. The question is where to focus on resolving the problem. Regulators may take note of where to focus their efforts in strengthening elements of good corporate governance.

Autocratic Democracy and the Deficit of Human Rights in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic

2024-03-12T07:54:36+00:00

This article reviews secondary data on Nigeria’s Fourth Republic and finds that successive administrations in the Republic have not fared better in safeguarding human rights than the military regimes that ruled the country in the pre-1999 period. It ascribes the reason for the human rights situation in the country to the autocratic nature of democracy in the Republic. It further locates autocracy in the Republic to flaws in the 1999 Constitution, flawed electoral processes, and elitism. The article recommends constitutional amendment and strict adherence to the principle of the rule of law to promote human rights in the Republic.