I'm currently reading Francis Fukuyama's "Political Order and Political Decay" (Amazon)
Much to chew over, and I think all policy makers in South Africa should read it. For Fukuyama, "political order" refers primarily to a state that is able to enact goals effectively, but also does so on an impersonal basis, by reference to general political principles. In contrast, a state is "patrimonial" insofar as people are able to gain access to state resources by way of personal connections to state officials.
However, Fukuyama distinguishes two kinds of patrimonial states, one of which is considerably more harmful than the other. Under a patronage state, the state is treated as an outgrowth of the ruler's household, and state resources are dispensed to friends and family, all of whom come to comprise a relatively small elite class. This sort of organisation is what we normally mean when we think of political "corruption". In contrast, under a clientilist state, there is mass participation in politics, and resources are dispensed to entire *classes* of favoured people, often delineated on ethnic grounds or other markers of social identity. Fukuyama argues that clientilism is often the first step in creating an inclusive impersonal state, as it leads to some degree of accountability for elites. It is often the means by which formerly excluded classes come to make their needs known on a mass scale. One example is the inclusion of non-Anglophone, non-Protestant immigrants in the US, who were able to challenge existing power structures via participation in clientilist urban political "machines".
Relating to South Africa, it is clear that Apartheid was a form of clientilism - the National Party government was able to gain support for its political programme by preferentially handing out state resources firstly to Afrikaners and then all white South Africans. (There were also, as is well documented, more overtly corrupt patronage relationships happening at the same time.) Given full democracy, it is now possible to create a state machinery that operates along fully impersonal lines. However, it seems that the old, white, elite is continuing to shut out new, black, entrants. I think this is what Steven Friedman is getting at when he talks about the frustrations of middle class black people who are sick of racist exclusion at the hands of the existing white business elite. To the extent that frustration builds, there will be increasing pressure for clientilistic political programmes, i.e. the use of BEE and other measures to direct resources preferentially towards black people.
That's not to say that we can't make a case for BEE on the principled grounds of redress for past injustice. The worry is that the debate becomes thought of as a naked competition for resources between different groups. Given the realities of South African's demography, BEE will still happen, but it will increasingly come to resemble a clientilistic distribution of goodies rather than an impersonal process. This is already going on to the extent that political connections count for something in the award of tenders and so on. This process is in some ways necessary to break the hold of the existing elite, but if we do it on this basis, we'll find it increasingly hard to 'put the genie back in the bottle' and build impersonal institutions. Obviously, it's up to the government to apply BEE criteria personally, but I also think a lot of the onus is on the existing white elite to get fully on board with BEE and collaborate in creating inclusive institutions as soon as possible.
There's also a lot that could be said about elite patronage networks around Zuma and other ANC higher-ups, but that's a slightly different story...
Much to chew over, and I think all policy makers in South Africa should read it. For Fukuyama, "political order" refers primarily to a state that is able to enact goals effectively, but also does so on an impersonal basis, by reference to general political principles. In contrast, a state is "patrimonial" insofar as people are able to gain access to state resources by way of personal connections to state officials.
However, Fukuyama distinguishes two kinds of patrimonial states, one of which is considerably more harmful than the other. Under a patronage state, the state is treated as an outgrowth of the ruler's household, and state resources are dispensed to friends and family, all of whom come to comprise a relatively small elite class. This sort of organisation is what we normally mean when we think of political "corruption". In contrast, under a clientilist state, there is mass participation in politics, and resources are dispensed to entire *classes* of favoured people, often delineated on ethnic grounds or other markers of social identity. Fukuyama argues that clientilism is often the first step in creating an inclusive impersonal state, as it leads to some degree of accountability for elites. It is often the means by which formerly excluded classes come to make their needs known on a mass scale. One example is the inclusion of non-Anglophone, non-Protestant immigrants in the US, who were able to challenge existing power structures via participation in clientilist urban political "machines".
Relating to South Africa, it is clear that Apartheid was a form of clientilism - the National Party government was able to gain support for its political programme by preferentially handing out state resources firstly to Afrikaners and then all white South Africans. (There were also, as is well documented, more overtly corrupt patronage relationships happening at the same time.) Given full democracy, it is now possible to create a state machinery that operates along fully impersonal lines. However, it seems that the old, white, elite is continuing to shut out new, black, entrants. I think this is what Steven Friedman is getting at when he talks about the frustrations of middle class black people who are sick of racist exclusion at the hands of the existing white business elite. To the extent that frustration builds, there will be increasing pressure for clientilistic political programmes, i.e. the use of BEE and other measures to direct resources preferentially towards black people.
That's not to say that we can't make a case for BEE on the principled grounds of redress for past injustice. The worry is that the debate becomes thought of as a naked competition for resources between different groups. Given the realities of South African's demography, BEE will still happen, but it will increasingly come to resemble a clientilistic distribution of goodies rather than an impersonal process. This is already going on to the extent that political connections count for something in the award of tenders and so on. This process is in some ways necessary to break the hold of the existing elite, but if we do it on this basis, we'll find it increasingly hard to 'put the genie back in the bottle' and build impersonal institutions. Obviously, it's up to the government to apply BEE criteria personally, but I also think a lot of the onus is on the existing white elite to get fully on board with BEE and collaborate in creating inclusive institutions as soon as possible.
There's also a lot that could be said about elite patronage networks around Zuma and other ANC higher-ups, but that's a slightly different story...
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