CRG Seminar: Political power in post-apartheid South Africa
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Political leadership is a controversial aspect of the study of politics and history. Many social scientists and historians prefer ‘structural’ explanations for events that focus on what is likely to happen in the longer term, regardless of the intentions and actions of particular political actors. Leaders, for them, are vectors rather than makers of history. Others argue that leadership is a great resource – and also potentially a great source of risk. In this seminar, Prof. Anthony Butler explores academic studies of post-apartheid South Africa to understand how the role of presidential leadership has been understood. Butler hopes to do this without reducing leaders to the stereotypes or caricatures that have dominated much recent analysis. The presentation also advances a new way of conceptualising apex political power. Butler distinguishes various dimensions of apex political leadership: the president is a party/coalition leader; a head of state; and the key actor within the executive branch of government. His argument is that the success of apex leaders is best explained by their ability to draw on power resources from each dimension – manipulation of party structures, public leadership and the power of ideas, and managerial/state-technocratic control – while minimising the tensions between these dimensions of the exercise of power.
This seminar is organised by the CRG Patterns of Living in Southern Africa, 1780s to the present
Photo: Unknown, probably taken around 1990-1994.
Speaker
Anthony Butler is professor of political studies at the University of Cape Town. Educated at the Universities of Oxford (MA) and Cambridge (PhD), he has previously been a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, director of the politics and administration programme at Birkbeck College, University of London, and chair in political studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. His research focuses on public policy analysis and contemporary South African government. He is the author of a number of books, including The Idea of the ANC (Ohio University Press, 2012), Contemporary South Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and Cyril Ramaphosa (James Currey, 2019). Butler is a regular columnist for Johannesburg’s Business Day newspaper. During his fellowship at ASCL Butler hopes to prepare a very short book on the power of South Africa’s post-apartheid presidents.
Date, time and location
12 November 2024
15:00 - 16:30
Herta Mohr building, Witte Singel 27a, Leiden
Room 0.31
Registration
Posted on 23 September 2024, last modified on 26 September 2024