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98 4 Disciplining Dissent We were used in order to further the interests of the private sector [and] the government. We would be invited to go to give credibility to meetings throughout the country, and I am still bitter about the fact that SANCO [the South African National Civic Organization] is being used. Ntsokolo Daniel Sandi, interview, August 5, 1997 The frustration expressed by a civic leader in the Eastern Cape three years into South Africa’s new democratic dispensation was often repeated by supporters of local civics and ordinary citizens: their new democracy was not sufficiently accountable or responsive. People were asked to attend meetings, but their inputs seemed to be ignored. Democracy was not offering citizens the participatory and inclusive system of governance for which they had fought. These shortcomings provide an important contrast to the often idealized image of South Africa’s victorious struggle. Because of the great sacrifices so many had made, expectations were high for what democracy would mean in practice. Under apartheid, the opportunity for real voice brought many to civic meetings and encouraged their participation in civic campaigns. The domestic antiapartheid movement extolled basic principles of empowerment through participatory democracy. This ideal was not forgotten with the ANC’s election to government. Citizens who played a role, raised their voices, and contributed to change in their country expected to be empowered by their new regime. South Africa is hardly unique in the central role that social movements played in bringing about regime change or in its failure to fully realize popular ideals of democracy. Popular mobilization was crucial to regime change in countries in Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay), Eastern Europe  (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland), and other parts of the African continent (Benin, Malawi, Mali, Zambia). Each of these countries faces challenges in creating effective and accessible democratic institutions. In the decades since the beginning of the so-called third wave of democratization, several regimes that were initially considered democratic have been relabeled by analysts as limited, partial, incomplete, or simply false democracies. South Africa’s democracy, in contrast, is frequently praised for a number of its key strengths: a progressive constitution detailing a wide range of rights, an independent high court (the constitutional court), an impartial electoral commission , a critical media, and a range of well-established political parties (Alence 2004; Friedman 2009a). Despite these facts, the expansion of political rights coincided with complaints of citizen disempowerment and a broader demobilization of representation. This demobilization of representation was in part a product of the decline of social movements, which is in and of itself not surprising. South Africa ’s decrease in wide-ranging popular mobilization echoed similar movement downturns in countries as different as Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Hungary, Poland, Hong Kong, and Spain (Canel 1992; Hipsher 1996; Pickvance 1999). In each of these cases, liberalizing authoritarian regimes had encouraged the expansion of social movements as a product of the opening of political space in a context of weakened political parties (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). The presence of large numbers of movement actors prior to a successful regime change was understood as part of a “cycle of protest” (Tarrow 1994) that would be expected to decline over time regardless of the success of the movements in bringing about change. But this decline in cases of regime transition is often much more dramatic than that which occurs in regimes that have been largely democratic throughout the cycle. In democratizing regimes, this decline is a product of momentous changes occurring both within the movements themselves as well as their environment. While new democratic regimes are expected to provide greater space for the representation of a wide range of interests (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001), they also seek to strengthen their own institutions. Through a process of institutional disciplining , regimes work to rein in the multiplicity of actors that had taken advantage of a weakening old regime, and often the state itself, to make their claims to power. This entails the routinization of claim making through the institutions of the state and the discouragement of protest actions outside of these institutions or government-sanctioned events. Institutional disciplining is central to the consolidation of any new system. In the case of democratization , it also contradicts the broader expectations of democracy as opening spaces for dissent, protest, and debate. D i s c i p l i n i n g D i s s e n t 99 [18.223.196.59...

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