South Africa’s Suspended Revolution: hopes and prospects by Adam Habib (review)

South Africa is probably more divided now that at any time since the transition to democracy. Whatever fragile social pact once existed between Business, Labour and the State has disintegrated and the realistic possibility of any substantive, policy-driven change in the current economic trajectory is remote. Crisis levels of unemployment, extreme inequality, deep rural and urban poverty, and a corrupt, unaccountable political elite are among the most obvious in a long list of problems. How did we get to where we are, and what is to be done? Why do so many of the original hopes for an inclusive social democracy remain frustrated, and what are the realistic prospects for change? These are the questions that South Africa’s Suspended Revolution – hopes and prospects takes up and attempts to answer.

The book is written for a wide readership and initially the attempt to combine academic and public discourse seems a little strained – no one gets quite what they want. Yet as Habib’s account of the post-apartheid malaise progresses, he manages to balance well-placed discussions of political theory with applied, critical analysis. And in fact it is this balance that emerges as one of the book’s major strengths. Familiar developments are usefully recast within a robust theoretical framework, and new details are carefully presented to make a persuasive case about South Africa’s development trajectory. This makes for an illuminating read and perhaps more than any other book of its kind, the Suspended Revolution has the potential to stimulate an informed political discourse among a large audience not confined to the usual silos. Translation of the book into Afrikaans, Sesotho and isiZulu is also an important achievement.

It comes as no surprise that Habib locates the critical questions for South Africa in the politics of the country. Emphasis is placed on an analytical approach that privileges both ‘structural’ and ‘agential’ variables, reflecting Habib’s view that in order to fully understand post-apartheid South Africa one must concentrate not only on the role of individual political actors but also on the changing balance of power and how this limited what could be achieved at different moments. For example, during the transition the powerful influence of large corporates, combined with the fall of the Soviet Union, directly restricted ANC policy options and necessitated many of the liberalising economic reforms that followed. This analytical strategy is not new but what many analyses fail to note, according to Habib, is how the balance of power has shifted in recent years, and he stresses the progressive policy options that have opened up since Polokwane. Partly as a result of their inability to provide leadership in this regard the book is heavily critical of the ANC, calling it ‘a grubby instrument of enrichment that speaks the language of empowerment and democracy, while its leadership plunder the nation’s resources’ (3).

In eight energetic chapters the book covers the changing features of South Africa’s political economy over the last 25 years. Beginning in 1990, Habib provides a detailed account of the transition, and the construction of South Africa’s Constitution and broader institutional architecture. It is the lack of political accountability to the ‘social democratic vision encapsulated in South Africa’s Constitution’ (33) that he immediately identifies as one of the most serious disappointments of the post-apartheid era. This accountability deficit, across all three tiers of government, has led to widespread service delivery failure, while allowing corruption and cadre deployment to flourish; so compounding the problem. In addition the absence of a viable political opposition has created an unresponsive political elite, gradually weakening South Africa’s democracy. This is familiar terrain but Habib’s summary is perceptive and builds towards his broader arguments.

The book moves on to discuss the evolution of economic policy where the side-lining of the Reconstruction and Development Program and adoption of the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy in 1996 are reliably documented. In Habib’s telling the foreign and...