THE STATE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN STATE: capacity, capability and ethics

419pp., paperback, MISTRA, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781991274038

A collection of essays that assess the South African state's achievements and failures post-1994 and a year after the formation of the GNU, with a specific focus on important events and trends since 2014.

Contributions include:

"Missed development: South Africa's unrealised middle economy" by Musa Nxele

"Politics and power: The Contested state and the just energy transition in South Africa" by Laurence Caromba

"State autonomy and state capture in South Africa: A conceptual critique" by Mabutho Shangase

""Traditional leadership in the era of multi-party democracy: A focus on South Africa" by Lungisile Ntsebeza

"South African foreign policy in the evolving global context" by Garth le Pere and Na'eem Jeenah

"Court of the people? The judiciary and democracy on post-1994 South Africa" by Steven Friedman

"Reorganising the state delivery machinery: Towards a performing state" by Eddie M. Rakabe

"Civil Society and the South African state: Building a capable, ethical and responsive state" by Mark Heywood and Brian Levy.

Sandy Africa is Director of Research at MISTRA and a research associate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pretoria.

Na'eem Jeenah is a senior researcher in the Humanity faculty at MISTRA and a research associate in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg.

Musa Nxele is Academic Director at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town.