Copyright (c) 2008 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson Recent documents in Stefan Andreasson en-us Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:48:38 PST 3600 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/10 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/10 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:35:00 PDT This chapter examines the emergence of new economic groups in South Africa and Zimbabwe in the context of "paternalistic trusteeship" by governments themselves or by old economic groups managing to retain economic and political influence and aiming to forge stable and mutually profitable relations with new economic elites. New economic actors emerge when political and economic liberalization increases "points of entry" to economic (and political) activity for those previously marginalized or barred from entry. A key point of contention in the debate on the aims and roles of these groups is whether old, entrenched economic groups are simply in the business of "grooming" a new comprador class to serve (or at least not actively oppose) their interests, or if they are indeed making an effort to facilitate empowerment by engaging with and supporting the new economic groups emerging as a result of political and economic liberalization.Taken together, experiences in these two countries provide a nuanced picture of the opportunities and difficulties governments face when attempting to manage oftentimes cross-cutting pressures from businesses and civil society. The two "case studies" examine interactions between key economic and political actors in each country and their preferences with regard to policies governing economic and sociopolitical transformation. Both economic groups and governments have inevitably become transformed (in terms of policy preferences and strategies) by the many changes sweeping across the region in recent decades. Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/9 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/9 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:22:22 PDT This article examines the political and economic context of corporate governance reform in post-apartheid South Africa. It does so by situating the debate on corporate governance in a wider political economy context, ultimately anchored in the varieties of capitalism literature and emerging research in IPE on global pressures for convergence of corporate governance practices worldwide. In particular, the article examines how the Southern African political economy and global actors shape societal debates on corporate governance; what the role of the King Reports on Corporate Governance are in the reform process and ensuing legislation; and whether South Africa can construct a system of corporate governance that takes into consideration both economic and social outcomes. The findings suggest that while those in charge of corporate governance reform in South Africa face pressures on policy decisions that are present across the Global South, it is also the case that the debate about shareholder v stakeholder rights, and whether 'best practice' in corporate governance can be aligned with urgent political and social pressures for socio-economic transformation of society, is particularly salient in emerging markets with a legacy of uneven development and social conflict. Stefan Andreasson Working papers http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/8 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/8 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:19:21 PDT This article investigates global and local influences on corporate governance reform in South Africa in the context of the country's international links with Anglo-American corporate governance and domestic pursuit of socio-economic development. Two key questions are evaluated: 1) can the traditional approach to corporate governance in South Africa be combined with increasing attention to stakeholder issues, and will a "South African model" emerge from ongoing reforms; and 2), to what degree has Sarbanes-Oxley influenced the debate on corporate governance reform in South Africa? Evaluating these questions, the following issues are explored: the contrast between shareholder and stakeholder models in the context of a post-apartheid model of corporate governance; a recent divergence between Anglo and American approaches to corporate governance, exemplified by the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley; the reform of South Africa's corporate governance regime prompted by King I and II; and the view of domestic actors on the ongoing reform process. Stefan Andreasson Working papers http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/7 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/7 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:02:55 PDT Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/6 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/6 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:28:48 PDT This article examines whether a Modern World-Systems (MWS) perspective can provide an improved understanding of the processes of democratization in Africa (and other developing regions of the world) by conducting a comparative case study of South Africa and Zambia in the 1990s, examining the transitions to democracy and divergent processes of democratic consolidation in each country. Semi-peripheral South Africa has, due to its more advantageous position in the world-system, been better equipped than peripheral Zambia to safeguard democracy against erosion and reversal. The central irony of the MWS is that the weakest states in the MWS can be pushed around by core powers and are more easily forced to democratize while at the same time they are least likely to possess the resources necessary for democratic consolidation. Semi-peripheral states can maintain their independence vis-à-vis the core to a higher degree, but if the decision is made to undertake a democratic transition they are more likely to possess the resources necessary for successful consolidation. The MWS perspective allows for an improved understanding of the causal pathway of how position in the MWS translates into the ability to consolidate democracy than does approaches that emphasize domestic factors. Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/5 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/5 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:22:01 PDT Following two decades of 'neoliberal' reforms in the global South, development goals have not been achieved. Firstly, neoliberal reforms aggravate exclusionary tendencies in emerging democracies, resulting in 'virtual democracy' where both vertical and horizontal accountability is eroded. Secondly, where virtual democracy is well advanced, the societal pressures generated by neoliberal reforms can cause a complete breakdown of democracy. Thirdly, the virtual democracy perpetuates underdevelopment in poor countries unable to resist, or negotiate, the terms of global economic pressures for reform. Political and socioeconomic trajectories in the 1990s in South Africa and Zimbabwe, respectively, are representative of the first and second propositions, and developments in both countries are symptomatic of the third proposition. Virtual democracy and perpetuation of underdevelopment are logical outcomes of neoliberal reforms. Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/4 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/4 Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:29:16 PDT Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/3 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/3 Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:15:27 PDT Contemporary Africa is generally depicted as a 'failure'. 'Progress' has eluded the continent throughout the twentieth century, and despite new ways of thinking about the reasons for failure and possibilities for success, allusions to the 'natural weakness and incapacity' of Africans and their social realities remain evident in theoretical, policy and political discourse on development in Africa. The practice of 'reductive repetition', as identified by Abdallah Laroui and Edward Said, has been imported into African development studies from Orientalist scholarship. Reductive repetition reduces the diversity of African historical experiences and trajectories, socio-cultural contexts and political situations into a set of core deficiencies for which externally generated 'solutions' must be devised. In the field of development studies, the notion of development is introduced to Africa as deus ex machina. In this article, modern conceptualisations of development are challenged in three steps. First, it traces the history of development discourse over the post-Berlin Conference colonial and post-WWII development eras, suggesting that while rhetoric of racial and cultural inferiority has been transformed the notion of African deficiency remains at the conceptual and discursive levels. Second, the primarily liberal idea that 'development for all' is possible is challenged as being an ecological and economic, and therefore also social, impossibility. Third, given the problems of growth-based development the article suggests that modern development theory ought to give way to post-developmental thinking which challenges standard a priori assumptions regarding rationality, linearity and modernity, thus offering some modest hope for a move 'beyond' the current development impasse. Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/2 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/2 Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:09:46 PDT Post-apartheid South Africa is characterized by centralized, neoliberal policymaking that perpetuates, and in some cases exaggerates, socioeconomic inequalities inherited from the apartheid era. The ANC leadership's alignment with powerful international and domestic market actors produces tensions within the Tripartite Alliance and between government and civil society. Consequently, several characteristics of 'predatory liberalism' are evident in contemporary South Africa: Neoliberal restructuring of the economy is combined with an increasing willingness by government to assert its authority, to marginalize and delegitimize those critical of its abandonment of inclusive governance. A new form of oligarch power, combining entrenched economic interests with those of a new 'black bourgeoisie' promoted by narrowly implemented Black Economic Empowerment policies, diminishes prospects for broad-based socioeconomic transformation. Because the new policy environment is failing to resolve tensions between global market demands for increasing market liberalization and domestic popular demands for poverty-alleviation and socioeconomic transformation, the ANC leadership is increasingly forced to confront 'ultra-Leftists' that are challenging its credentials as defender of the National Democratic Revolution which was the cornerstone in the anti-apartheid struggle. Stefan Andreasson http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/1 http://works.bepress.com/stefan_andreasson/1 Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:00:55 PDT Property rights necessarily generate violent, and oftentimes lethal, processes of dispossession. While liberal theorists from Locke to Hayek consider property rights an essential and emancipatory component of human freedom, they fail to consider societal power asymmetries impeding the ability of property rights to protect interests of the weak and marginalised. If property rights produce freedom and prosperity, they do so very selectively. More obvious is the ongoing historical process of already propertied classes making 'clever usurpation into an irrevocable right' by extending private property regimes along two key dimensions - type and space. Examining various uses of private property over time reveals processes whereby relatively basic notions of private property, enforced by a Weberian state at the local level in the early era of industrialisation, are extended to encompass new and sophisticated forms of property that are enforced globally via international institutions. Two contemporary empirical cases of using property rights are examined in this article: land reform in Southern Africa (specifically Zimbabwe) and intellectual property rights. In this context of ongoing dispossession, further privatisation and commodification can only exacerbate contemporary problems of marginalisation and dispossession. Stefan Andreasson