A Critical Examination of the Democratic Transition in South Africa: The Question of Public Participation
Author(s)
Deegan, Heather
Abstract
South Africa has emphasized the notion of participatory democracy and has introduced novel experiments to achieve this objective. However, more recently, its focus has shifted to that of institutional and legislative reform in order to enable disadvantaged communities to become more involved in the political process. This paper considers these changes and concludes that since 1994 general political activity has declined rather than increased, especially among the young. The extent to which the local government initiatives of 2000 will be successful in “taking democracy to the people” is also uncertain
