Welcome to module four of the course of federalism and decentralization. Evaluating Africa's track record. We have now finished the first three thematic modules. In this module, that is, module four, we look at three federal case studies from Africa. In doing so, we apply the analytical perspectives we have discussed in the previous module. That is module three, on the building blocks of federalism and decentralization. The three perspectives laid out in module three were from the scholarly disciplines of law, politics and society. In this module, we look at three case studies from Africa through this interdisciplinary perspective highlighting the legal, the political and social foundations. But please note that in one module of an introductory course, we could only provide a general overview of our three African cases. For further specialization, please make sure to combine the video lectures with additional readings that we make available on the cases. Now, for South Africa we have three such articles available from the journal, Regional and Federal Studies. So let's now turn our attention to this gorgeous land with a troubled history, and in particular, to the legal, political and social foundations of its post-conflict federal compromise. The shifting global power politics of the early 1990s brought large scale change to the African continent as well. The end of the Cold War meant that former Soviets in the West were no longer willing or able to write carte blanche to their African allies and proxies. While the days of white minority rule were clearly numbered in South Africa, it was not yet clear what was going to replace the apartheid regime. Amidst fears of anarchy and civil war, the country was blessed to have a leader seeking to build a new democratic country from the trauma of apartheid and political violence. Now in the social sciences, we generally tend to underplay the pivotal role extraordinary leaders can have on politics. We seek to find broad patterns across time and place. And in due course, we tend to play down the unique and the exceptional. But the personality of Nelson Mandela defies our automatic inclinations to seek the generalizable. His leadership has averted a potential civil war. Regardless of the prevailing methodological preferences in the social sciences, this is a point that we have to highlight here. During the times of large scale change and uncertainty, South Africa was blessed to have a leader both willing to forgive the perpetrators of apartheid as well as willing and able to restrain the more combative elements of black nationalism in order to rebuild the nation. The rainbow nation that is at peace with its own diversity. The process of transition from apartheid to democracy as well as Mandela's leadership has received considerable interest from scholars around the world. So we don't really have all the time to review the scholarly work on the matter, so our focus now is gonna remain on the role of federalism in all this. South Africa's new democratic constitution formally came into being in 1997, but the democratic transition process had started in the early 1990s. The first one-citizen-one-vote elections were held in 1994. And the following years witnessed the emergence of a democratic republic with 9 provinces, 11 official languages, a directly elected National Assembly, and an indirectly elected upper house, the National Council of Provinces. But this was not an easy and linear process. The political architecture of post-apartheid South Africa had been at the center of the reform discussions aiming to end apartheid since the early 1990s. But the various political groups had seemingly irreconcilable positions and this was creating fears of uncertainty. The African National Congress, better known through it's acronym ANC, wanted a unitary state based on majority rule. Smaller political groups, including elements within the existing apartheid regime, were fearful of majority rule without a constitutionally entrenched guaranties for minorities. In particular, there were two political groups who saw strong federalism. Even a confederal union without a strong center as the only safeguard as the potential of the tyranny of majority. The white Afrikaner nationalists sought territorial autonomy in areas where they could be demographic and historic majority. And on the other end of South African politics, the Zulu nationalists within the Inkatha Freedom Party, sought Zulu homelands, where they had territorial autonomy. Yeah, apartheid regime's cynical use of the concept of territorial autonomy had discredited federalism in the eyes of many South Africans, especially black Africans within the ANC. And you'll remember from the discussion we had on module one that Federalism can sometimes carry with it negative connotations. The apartheid regime had used the formal facade of territorial autonomy for black Africans by creating what we've derisively known as the Bantustans. Bantustans were ethno-linguistically homogenous territories that were given to ethnic communities as their black homelands. But despite the facade of territorial self-rule, these were often economically unsustainable, and politically unviable enclaves ruled by cooperative tribal leaders. They were satellites of the apartheid regime and not truly autonomous. Any talk of federal autonomy for ethnic communities in the new said Africa was bound to be perceived as the rebirth of the unloved Bantustans by some. The past made it difficult for an explicitly federal system to be accepted by all, but a majoritarian unitary state was also a non starter as a compromise solution. The way out was what we briefly discussed in module one, to be precise, the third lecture. And that is the difference between federalism and federation. This allowed the country to navigate the stormy post-apartheid waters. As you will recall from module one, federalism is a non-majoritarian political principle that favors territorially-divided political authority where regions and the center both share power and have autonomy in the areas under their control. South Africa needed this as the way it fold. A federation, on the other hand, is a formal designation of a type of political architecture enshrined in a country's constitution. South Africa's past and the political party dominating South Africa's post-apartheid politics would not accept the formal recognition of autonomous regions in the constitution. So what we get is federalism, but without the formal label federation. Federalism came to be seen as a potential way to balance unity and diversity in a post-conflict democratic settlement. After all, the country clearly had a federal society with strong territorially-based social divisions. Ethnic and racial groups were not evenly distributed throughout the land. Most are territorial concentration in different parts of the country. In module three, we had seen how the colored community, representing almost half of the Cape Region itself, constituted less than 10% of the national population. While the majority of Zulus lived in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, and other ethnic groups had similar territorial concentrations. And the South African federal society is not only about the territorial concentration of 11 language groups recognized in the constitution. We also see territorially based differences in economic activity and levels of development. Provincial economic powerhouses like the Western Cape and the Gauteng coexist with a economically disadvantage provinces like the Eastern Cape, or Limpopo. So coming back to federalism and federation and also to paraphrase a renown scholar of federalism, Michael Burgess made the statement on the Spanish state of autonomies and it applies to South Africa as well. The absence of federation should not blind us to the presence of federalism. So South Africa comes indeed very close to what William Livingston had claimed when he wrote, the essence of federalism lies not in the institutional or constitutional structure but in the society itself. The formal label might not be a federation, but with strong provinces enjoying constitutional recognition and protection. And with policy areas where provinces and the center have self-rule, and establishing areas where they have shared-rule. It is clear that there is a strong measure of federalism, in post-apartheid South Africa. Like everywhere, the promises of South Africa's federal system require the orders of government to successfully carry out the tasks the constitution grants to them. But the past decade shows a rather mixed record, suggesting that not all orders of government have the administrative capacity to deliver on their promises. So this is going to be an angle that we will revisit in our examination of decentralization in the next module, that is module 5. But before that, we have two very diverse federal countries to visit after South Africa. The first one is Ethiopia.
