The Role and Legitimacy of Former Liberation Movements in...
Transcript of The Role and Legitimacy of Former Liberation Movements in...
This is a work in progress. Please contact the author before citing.
The Role and Legitimacy of Former Liberation Movements in Democratic Societies:
A Comparative Study of South Africa and Poland
By
Kate Gunby
ABSTRACT
What is the role and legitimacy of former social movements in democratic societies? How do their pasts as movements influence them as political parties or trade unions? I examine the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and the Solidarity movement in Poland – two social movement organizations (SMOs) that have entered into formal politics as parties after overthrowing the former non-democratic regimes. This paper is based on interviews with current and former activists, supporters, and members of these movements, party and union employees and officials, political analysts, and academic experts in both countries. It was necessary for both the ANC and Solidarity to enter politics as they were the dominant opposition to the past regimes and both transitions relied on these movements to create order and unity. The ANC party has been significantly shaped by its liberation movement past, and in several ways this history has limited the party’s accountability. Despite its electoral advantage, the ANC has not lived up to public expectations during its time in office. The political parties that came out of Solidarity were short lived and prevented the union from promoting workers rights. Now that Solidarity is operating solely as a union, it has begun to rebuild its legitimacy in Polish society. These results demonstrate the complicated role of emotions in determining social movement outcomes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1 Methodology........................................................................................................................4 Defining Terms ...................................................................................................................6 Literature Review.................................................................................................................8
What are the Outcomes of Social Movements?.....................................................10 What is Success and Can it be Achieved? ............................................................11 What is the Relationship Between the State and Social Movements?...................13 What are the Categories of Success? ....................................................................14Are Success and Failure the Only Options? .........................................................15 How Do Movement Outcomes Impact Politics? ..................................................18
Previous Case Studies of Movement Outcomes ...............................................................20 Brazilian Workers’ Party ......................................................................................20 Mississippi Civil Rights Movement......................................................................21 Chilean Shantytown Dwellers...............................................................................22 African National Congress and Palestinian Liberation Organization....................22 Indian Political Parties ..........................................................................................23 Czech Republic and Sloviakia ..............................................................................23 What Theories Do Previous Case Studies Uphold?...............................................24 How Does the Literature Influence This Paper?....................................................25
CHAPTER 2: AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS CASE STUDY.........................................30 History of the Movement...................................................................................................30 Key Documents..................................................................................................................37 Traditions ..........................................................................................................................39 Political Structures and Party Cohesion.............................................................................42Leaders...............................................................................................................................46Membership, Public Opinion, Emotions, and Elections....................................................50 Service Delivery.................................................................................................................58 Interactions with Civil Society and Political Society .......................................................63 Accountability....................................................................................................................73
CHAPTER 3: SOLIDARITY CASE STUDY...............................................................................77History of the Movement...................................................................................................77 Key Documents..................................................................................................................85 Traditions ..........................................................................................................................85
Political Structures and Party Cohesion.............................................................................86 Leaders...............................................................................................................................88 Membership, Public Opinion, Emotions, and Elections…………....................................90 Service Delivery.................................................................................................................92 Interactions with Civil Society and Political Society .......................................................94 Accountability....................................................................................................................98
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS .........................................................................................................100 History of the Movements ..............................................................................................100 Key Documents................................................................................................................101 Traditions ........................................................................................................................101 Political Structures and Party Cohesion...........................................................................102 Leaders.............................................................................................................................104Membership, Public Opinion, Emotions, and Elections..................................................106Service Delivery...............................................................................................................108 Interactions with Civil Society and Political Society .....................................................109Accountability..................................................................................................................111
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION....................................................................................................112
Interviews and Group Meetings...................................................................................................121 References....................................................................................................................................123Appendix A. South Africa Interview Questions..........................................................................142Appendix B. Poland Interview Questions ...................................................................................144
This is a work in progress. Please contact the author before citing.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This paper is about two striking examples of social movements achieving their goals, the
African National Congress (ANC) and Solidarity. The ANC was a liberation movement in South
Africa that was created in 1923 and led the struggle against apartheid. In 1994, ANC leader
Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected president. Solidarity was
formed in 1980 as an anti-communist trade union in Poland, and led a coalition government after
the first semi-free elections in 1989. Yet their stories do not end with the birth of democracies in
their respective nations. The power of the ANC that led to the end of apartheid in 1994 has not
faded away since this great success. The ANC is now the ruling political party but the
organization’s history as a movement continues to influence how South Africans vote and how
ANC politicians rule. Solidarity has been in and out of political office, supported and formed
coalitions with right wing groups, and experienced a steep decline in membership and public
support. During their stint in politics, Solidarity essentially abandoned the interests of the
workers they had earlier fought to protect. Since 2001, Solidarity has once again served solely as
a trade union and has begun to represent laborers once more.
What happens to a social movement after it is victorious? Most movements never
achieve their goals, but some do so well that their “raison d’être” is no longer relevant. The way
that social movement organizations (SMOs) proceed once they have reached this level of success
can cement the changes in their society or allow their progress to slip away. Yet it is uncommon
for social movement researchers to study social movement success. The bulk of social
movement literature deals with how movements are created and maintained. When researchers
do examine the outcomes of social movements, they tend to focus on biographical consequences
for activists or the methods of measuring policy effects and institutionalization. Mixed results
are typical for most social movements, yet there are a growing number of cases in which social
movements are able to achieve their primary goals. Social movements focused on liberation,
suffrage, human rights, and other social changes sometimes lead to successful revolutions and
reforms. Issues of power and class, and the effects of past oppression linger, but these are not
regarded as shortcomings of the movements, since their principal purposes have been achieved.
Returning to the example of liberation movements, we can assume that the process of
liberation requires drastic political, structural, and societal transformations. Once these changes
have taken place, the SMO involved in bringing about the liberation must adapt to the new
landscape to stay relevant. Few studies have examined what happens to movements in these
situations and most academics who mention these scenarios conclude that one of three things
occurs: the movement changes its goals, the leaders are institutionalized and leave the realm of
social movement studies, or the SMO ceases to exist (Zald and Ash 1966). Yet these are not the
only possible results of movement success, and the scholars who limit their studies to these
options ignore the power of the legacy of liberation movements. Even in the cases where the
leaders are institutionalized or the organization dissolves, the movement still has a powerful
position in the hearts and minds of the citizens, supporters, and members who benefited from the
liberation. It is important when movements are successful that their leaders and members
understand the lasting power they hold, even when their work is done, and make a conscious
effort to move forward in a way that will preserve the changes they fought for.
Two fundamental questions about movement success guide this paper. First, how have
their pasts as movements influenced them as political parties and, in the case of Solidarity, as a
union? I examine how traditions and organizational tactics have been carried forward from their
social movement pasts, and how key documents, political structures and party cohesion, leaders,
2
membership and public opinion, and interaction with civil and political society have been
influenced by their history. Second, what is the role and legitimacy of these successful former
liberation movements in the new democracies they helped to create? Here I look at political
structures and party cohesion, leaders, public opinion polls, election data, membership statistics,
service delivery, interactions with other leaders and institutions, and accountability.
I show that it was logical for both the ANC and Solidarity to enter politics because they
were the dominant opposition to the past regimes and both transitions relied on these
movements’ abilities to create order and unity. In South Africa, though, it appears that the power
of the ANC has gone too far and without legitimate opposition to keep the party in check,
corruption and empty promises abound. They have seemingly brought a hollow version of
democracy to South Africa. The country has free elections, but that does not mean much when
the opposition parties are not viable alternatives and the public is so disenchanted that fewer
citizens show up to vote each year. Civil liberties are extremely limited and anyone who
questions the ANC is seen as “anti-democratic.” Poland, with much help from the European
Union (EU), fares slightly better. It is still one of the poorest countries in the EU, less than half
of registered voters show up at the polls, and its civil society is rather limited. Currently,
Solidarity has very little power, only operates as a trade union, and is battling to regain for
workers the rights that the parties coming out of Solidarity ignored.
Both former liberation movements have not kept their promises, and both have lost a
great deal of legitimacy. The ANC has more power than ever before and thus rarely sees their
undelivered promises, silencing of dissidents, and large inter-party rifts as a problem. Solidarity,
on the other hand, has very little power. The organization worked to limit its scope in order to
increase its legitimacy as a trade union, and has also spawned a variety of break-away parties and
3
unions that have similarly enjoyed limited success. These outcomes are linked to the role that
emotions, both attachment and disappointment, have played in these new democracies.
METHODOLOGY
The theoretical foundation for my paper is limited to works that are relevant and
scholarly, but I did not rule out sources by their academic field or publication date. Thus my
research involves books, journal articles, and manuscripts. My research spans several disciplines
that study social movements, including sociology, political science, social psychology,
anthropology, and history. It is important to examine studies across the social sciences because
all of these disciplines have done work on social movements, yet they do not always heed the
findings of other fields.
My case studies involve a combination of primary and secondary sources. The primary
sources for this research are eight personal interviews I conducted while studying in South
Africa, and a series of three group meetings and one personal interview I had while studying in
Poland. I have supplemented this research with secondary sources, using books, scholarly
articles, and the newspaper articles to provide a more full account for my case studies.
The South African interviews are with individuals who are critical of the ANC—most,
but not all, of the people I interviewed were ANC activists before South Africa became a
democracy. I interviewed people of diverse occupations who are involved with a variety of
organizations. My interviews were with eight individuals of different races, ages, and sexes.
Five are male, three are female, five are African, two are Indian, one is white, and their ages
range from late 20s to 80s. I tried to seek-out people with different political experiences,
locations, and opinions. All of the people I interviewed were recommended to me by my onsite
research advisor Richard Pithouse, the SIT Reconciliation and Development Academic
4
Coordinator John Daniel, or someone I interviewed. I was based in Durban, South Africa for my
study abroad program, so my research was confined to people in the Durban area. I asked all of
the people I interviewed the same guiding questions (see Appendix A), though I often changed
the order to best follow the flow of the conversation, and I occasionally added questions for
further clarification or when something they said was particularly intriguing. All of the
interviews were tape recorded and I also took notes by hand; both of these resources were used
for my interview write-ups.
I was able to conduct one personal interview while I was in Poland, with Solidarity’s
Public Relations and International Relations Representative for the Małopolska region (see
questions in Appendix B). We met in his office, and as in South Africa, I both tape recorded the
interview and took notes by hand. My study abroad class met with this same representative, as
well as the Co-Vice Presidents of a union. The meetings were in the form of lectures followed
by question and answer sessions, and my notes from the proceedings of these meetings were
taken by hand. These primary sources were not from a diverse group—as all were white, Polish,
male, and middle or upper-middle class—but they offered differing viewpoints regarding
Solidarity. All were conducted in Krakow, Poland.
This research project has several major limitations. The first is the language barrier.
English was the second language of several of the people I interviewed in South Africa, and
though it was seldom an obvious limitation, this factor cannot be ignored. In Poland, the class
meeting with the Co-Vice Presidents of the union was conducted through a translator, and the
remainder of class meetings and my interview were in English which was not the first language
of the respondent. The second limitation is the very selective sample of informants. My primary
data comes from eight individuals in Durban, South Africa and three individuals in Krakow,
5
Poland, and neither provide a representative sampling of their respective countries. All of the
group meetings were facilitated by my program director in Poland, and all of the interviewees
were recommended to me by my advisor, my program’s academic coordinator, or someone I
interviewed. While I managed to achieve some artificial diversity by seeking people of different
sexes, races, socio-economic statuses, and ages in South Africa, and differing perspectives in
Poland, these factors do not imply true diversity.
DEFINING TERMS
The definition of social movements has been highly contested and changes frequently as
new movements take on different forms. David Meyer and Sidney Tarrow offered a good
starting point for the definition when they described social movements as “collective challenges
to existing arrangements of power and distribution by people with common purposes and
solidarities, in sustained interaction with elites, opponents and authorities” (1998:4). However,
there is an important distinction between social movements and social movement organizations.
Social movement organizations (SMOs) are formal, coherent groups that make organized
decisions and lead activities that may involve the broader social movement (Oliver and Myers
2002:2; McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1988:716-7). The ANC and Solidarity were SMOs
within broader social movements.
Revolutions also have a variety of forms. Goodwin defines revolution as “any and all
cases in which a state or political regime is overthrown, supplanted, and/or fundamentally
transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional, and/or violent fashion”
(2005:404). This kind of revolution requires the broad participation of citizens in overthrowing
the existing regime. The narrower types of revolutions are social in nature and require a “more
or less rapid and fundamental social, economic, and/or cultural change during or soon after the
6
struggle for state power” (Goodwin 2005:405). These social revolutions require more from the
people fighting against the regime, and are consequently more difficult to create. Both South
Africa and Poland went though this type of broad revolution.
Both types of revolutions can be the product of revolutionary movements. While most
social movements try to influence the decisions of the existing power holders, revolutionary
movements are a subset of social movements that try to fundamentally change who holds the
power. Goodwin explains that the extent of change promoted by revolutionary movements
varies, with some seeking power and others fighting for more fundamental transformations
(2005:405). The ANC sought power early on, but Solidarity originally wanted nothing to do
with politics.
A more specific type of social movement and revolutionary movement is a movement of
national liberation. There are entire books that attempt to define liberation movements, which
were classically described as groups that opposed colonial domination (Quaye 1990). Yet both
the ANC and Solidarity are considered liberation movements, and neither South Africa nor
Poland were colonies of the regimes these movements opposed. These national liberation
movements involved political freedom and autonomy, and combated undemocratic governments.
Furthermore, the term liberation movement is not limited to national or human political
struggles, as the women’s liberation movement, gay liberation movement, and animal liberation
movement demonstrate. These examples lead to a broad definition: a liberation movement is a
group that seeks to end oppression and exploitation, and strives for “the basic moral principle of
equal consideration” (Singer 2002:xxi).
Democracy is another difficult term to define because with each new government, new
variables are created and its definition is questioned. The definition of democracy is debated not
7
only by academics, but by people involved in political struggles and citizens of many countries,
making it particularly hard to decide on one universal definition (Markoff 2005:396).
Furthermore, democracy should not be regarded as a system that is either present or absent, but
should instead be analyzed on a spectrum (Glenn 2001:10). Just because a government holds
free and democratic elections does not mean that its country is democratic in all spheres. For
example, many democracies are procedurally democratic and hold regular free and fair elections,
but are substantively undemocratic and punish people and groups that dissent.
While there is no universally applicable definition of democracy, the idea is still central
to the study of social movements. Most research on social movement and SMO outcomes
involves changes made within a democracy, changes made to the way the democratic system
works, or revolutionary movements that resulted in some form of democratization. If scholars
settle on one definition of democracy, they delegitimize the work that movements have done to
improve civil society, equal rights, individual freedoms, and the like. In this paper I refer to
democracy broadly, showing how important the idea is for many social movements. This
understanding that democracy is not a dichotomous variable is perhaps most important in
instances where a revolutionary movement leads to democratization. While the movement has
created a new democracy, there is still much work that can be done to improve the quality of
democracy.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Social movement success was neglected by academics until recently. Theories of
movement trajectories provide the foundation for studies of social movement success to focus on
changes based on resources, political power, and decisions made by leaders. The result has been
academic works that ignore the broader effects of social movement victories, and instead focus
8
on how specific environmental factors and decisions have created certain policies, or impacted
members of the movements. This section traces the development of theories of movement
outcomes, states common themes, highlights gaps in theories and research, and shows how they
have influenced case study research on social movement outcomes.
The relationships of movements to state and social politics have been largely
underdeveloped in social movement theory. As Buechler explains:
Social movements were not granted political status for decades because collective behavior theory defined them as psychological, noninstitutional, or irrational; each of these formulations obscured the political status of social activism. At the same time, prevalent theories of the state left very little theoretical space for social movements as agents of state politics. (1999:165)
There are four basic schools of thought regarding the trajectories of social movements and
revolutions (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001:193). The first three schools were defined by
Jack Goldstone (1980a). Goldstone said that the first “generation” of social movement theories
focused on the development of social movements as organizations with rigid stages of producing
routines and oligarchy, and was popular from about 1900 to roughly 1940 (see Goldstone 1980a;
McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001:193). The second collection of theories, dominant from about
1940 to 1975, focused on structural strains, and includes the works of Blumer, Kornhauser,
Selznick, and Smelser (Goldstone 1980a; Buechler and Cylke 1997; McAdam, Tarrow, and
Tilly 2001). The third series of theories tried to compensate for the shortcomings of the previous
two by offering a more comparative analysis that examined the impact of political, economic,
and demographic factors (Goldstone 1980a; McAdam et al. 2001; Skocpol 1979). While
portions of the case studies fit with theories that came out of these first three groupings, my
thesis ultimately aligns with a more recent group of theories.
The fourth and youngest “generation” of social movement theory is critical of the
exclusive focus on structures, and calls for a more human approach to understanding social
9
movements. Desai explains that these scholars are “calling for a better understanding of the role
of emotions, culture, and the creative and innovative capacity of leaders” (2002:622; see also
Aminzade et al. 2001; Flam and King 2005; Goodwin and Jasper 1999 and 2003; Goodwin,
Jasper and Polletta 2001; McAdam et al. 2001). Furthermore, they view activists and movement
leaders as rational decision makers who are participating in collective action to create political
and social change. This focus on human emotion is also a step towards incorporating public
opinion, an aspect Burstein and Linton have championed because it is particularly important
when studying the impacts of social movements in democratic countries (2002:395-6). This
collection of theories allows scholars to begin to address social movement success without
simply measuring quantifiable changes and trying to prove causality.
Studies of social movements and emotions have followed two major trends. One group
has attempted to integrate emotions into more traditional social movement theories such as
framing, identity, political opportunity structure, and repertoires of action (Yang 2007:1390).
The other group has tried “to bring emotional dynamics into the explanation of all aspects of
collective action and social movements. Emotions are considered to affect recruitment processes,
movement emergence, the internal dynamics of a movement, as well as movement demise”
(ibid). However these studies have not explored the role of emotions in the positive outcomes of
social movements.
What are the Outcomes of Social Movements?
While social scientists disagree on many aspects of collective action, most concur that the
discipline has neglected the effects of social movements (Berkowitz 1974; Gurr 1980; McAdam
et al. 1988; Tarrow 1993; Burstein, Einwohner, and Hollander, 1995; Giugni, 1998, 1999;
Lofland, 1993:347-8). This is particularly surprising, since change has usually been regarded as
10
the reason for forming and continuing collective action (McAdam and Snow, 1997:xviii-xxv;
McCarthy and Zald, 1997:1217-18; Tarrow, 1998:4-6). Burstein (1999) suggests that this area of
study was neglected because academics held contradictory beliefs about the power of social
movements. Though academics believed that social movements were valuable endeavors and
worthy of being studied, academics also believed that collective action rarely had an impact
(Burstein 1999:3). This was exacerbated by movement trajectory theorists who saw collective
behavior as a way for psychologically abnormal people to cope with their situation. It is difficult
to justify studying social movement outcomes when most scholars think movements are based on
“magical beliefs” (Smelser 1962:8) that will not create successful social changes. While scholars
have now moved beyond that framework, the collection of social movement literature that came
out of that framework stunted the development of theories and studies on movement outcomes
through the mid 1970s.
Fortunately, social movement outcomes have not been completely overlooked, and have
gained attention in recent years. As Marco Giugni points out, “a striking disparity exists
between the large body of work on political and policy outcomes and the sporadic studies on the
cultural and institutional effects of social movements” (1998:373). When scholars have studied
the outcomes of social movements, they have generally focused on policy effects and
biographical consequences for activists, but failed to examine the broader framework of social
and political change (Jenkins and Form 2005:331). This paper addresses work done in both
areas, using research on social movement outcomes so that we can better understand how to
study broader social movement change.
What is Success, and Can it Be Achieved?
11
Regardless of how possible or frequent movement success is, the belief that collective
action can achieve some form of victory is crucial for movements to be effective. Most social
movement members participate because they believe that their actions will result in success
(Klandermans 1984,1992). These expectations are social constructions and can be self-fulfilling
because they influence the participation of members and thus can impact the outcomes. Zald and
Ash said in 1966 that when a movement actually manages to achieve its goals, there are two
major possible responses: an SMO can either create new goals, or simply cease to exist
(1966:333). They offer a third, less likely option of ex-movement organization using the
example of the Townsend Movement, a group that remained relevant after achieving the policies
they set out to implement (ibid; see also Messinger 1955).
Other studies on movement effects examined specific policy successes, indirect outcomes
including public perceptions and countermovements, and activist careers and biographies
(McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1988:727-8). More recent studies on movement success and
failure still tend to focus either on the structural factors that facilitate or hinder movement
success, or on the strengths and weaknesses of the SMO (Younis 2000:7). Yet there has been a
shift in the way scholars think about movement outcomes, with a new appreciation for the
“importance of broader patterns of change in culture, opinions, and lifestyles” (Oliver, Cadena-
Roa, and Strawn 2003:219). This line of thought includes the possibilities of “nonlinear”
outcomes that go beyond achieving goals and analyzing various actions and reactions (Gusfield
1981; Oliver 1989; Giugni 1999; Tilly 1999:268). Like social movements, each revolutionary
movement has a different level of success, and very few manage to seize power (Goodwin
2005:405). This is because the success of a revolutionary movement depends on the failure of
the state. Since there are revolutions that can be studied, we can assume that radical change is
12
possible, even if the movement is not the only reason for the breakdown of the state (Goodwin
2005:409).
What is the Relationship Between the State and Movements?
Most SMOs, and the people who study them, regard the state as the target of their actions
(Wolfson 2001:7-8). Since the state controls social goods and has a monopoly on legitimate
violence, it is “simultaneously target, sponsor, and antagonist for social movements as well as
the organizer of the political system and the arbiter of victory” (Jenkins and Klandermans
1995:3). Particularly in democracies, social movements are required to interact with the state in
order to attain any lawful and lasting outcomes. Wolfson (2001:9) outlines three relationships
between the movement and the state including government facilitation, government co-optation
or goal repression, and active government facilitation or repression (see also McCarthy and Zald
1977; Piven and Cloward 1977; Tilly 1978; McAdam 1982; Gamson 1975; della Porta 1995).
These categories make more sense when linked to their correlation with degrees of movement
success. Government facilitation is success, government co-optation is partial success, and
government repression is failure.
Some movements seek formal entry or acceptance from authorities while others seek
concessions (Gamson 1975; Tilly 1978). Movements are considered challengers, which are
different from polity members who are able to consult with government leadership habitually (Lo
1992:230). This improves the chances that polity members are able to influence authorities in
comparison to challenge groups who do not have the same access (Tilly 1978:53-4, 117). As
Wolfson explains, “It is argued that entry into the polity, and consequent access to
institutionalized means of influence, represents a qualitative change in the potential influence of
groups on government decision making” (2001:8). However, Burstein and Linton’s (2002) study
13
of social movements from 1990 to 2000 found that there is little reason to assume that political
parties actually have a significant amount of power over public policy. They conclude that: “The
impact of political organizations is significantly different from zero, by conventional statistical
tests, only about half the time, and important in policy terms (as assessed by the authors) in just
over a fifth. There is little evidence that parties have more impact than other organizations”
(385). This study indicates that social scientists who only assess the policy impacts of political
parties with movement pasts are limiting their research to a variable that might not be
significantly affected by the organization’s movement to party transformation.
What are the Categories of Success?
The Strategy of Social Protest by William Gamson offered one of the first comprehensive
definitions of movement success. He also asked many of the big questions that scholars have yet
to answer:
What of the group whose leaders are honored or rewarded while their supposed beneficiaries linger in the same cheerless state as before? Is such a group more or less successful than another challenger whose leaders are vilified and imprisoned even as their program is eagerly implemented by their oppressor? Is a group a failure if it collapses with no legacy save inspiration to a generation that will soon take up the same cause with more tangible results? And what do we conclude about a group that accomplishes exactly what it set out to achieve and then finds its victory empty of real meaning for its presumed beneficiaries? (1975:28)
Gamson began to answer these broad questions by creating a system of determining movement
outcomes. He defined four kinds of social movement outcomes, based on the movement’s
abilities to gain acceptance and new advantages. These four categories are (1) a full response:
acceptance and new advantages, (2) co-optation: acceptance without new advantages, (3)
preemption: new advantages without acceptance, and (4) failure: neither acceptance nor new
advantages (Gamson 1975:29). Acceptance can be assumed when a movement is engaged in
consultations or negotiations, receives formal recognition, or is included in the power holding
organizational structure (Gamson 1975:32). It must be noted here that revolutionary groups are
14
unique because they attempt to overthrow the existing power holders, and thus the only way they
can be “accepted” is by taking over the role of power (Gamson 1975:32-3). For a movement to
receive new advantages, it does not have to be the cause of these benefits. Rather than getting
caught up in trying to prove causality, or the worthiness of these benefits, Gamson simply asked
if the new advantages a movement sought after are actualized (1975:34).
Through Gamson’s systematic study of a large sample of American SMOs, he found that
co-optation was most common (Gamson 1975, McAdam et al. 1988:727). Giugni notes that
Gamson’s classification system has not been used to its fullest extent by quantitative researchers,
and that when Gamson’s model has been utilized by social scientists they are limited to studying
organizations and ignoring the influence of broader cycles of protest (1998:382-3, see also
Tarrow 1994). A variety of scholars built off of Gamson’s theory in the decades following his
model for movement success (Skocpol 1979, 1982; Kitschelt 1986; Kriesi 1995; Rochon and
Mazmanian 1993; see also Giugni 1998:384). Essentially, these scholars all agreed that
acceptance and new advantages are important variables in determining movement outcomes, but
they offered additional factors based on either structural effects (Kitschelt and Kriesi) or social
values (Rochon and Mazmanian).
Are Success and Failure the Only Options?
Judging a movement based on the dichotomy of success and failure assumes the
movement has unified goals, raises the problem of subjectivity, and exaggerates the objectives of
movement participants (Giugni 1998:383). Furthermore, social movement outcomes can be
unintentional, do not necessarily benefit movement participants, and are not always immediately
apparent (Jenkins and Form 2005:331-2; Amenta and Young 1999). Despite these flaws, many
scholars have analyzed movement success and failure, and effects continue to be framed in this
15
way (Giugni 1998; see also: Piven and Cloward 1979; Goldstone 1980b; Gamson 1975; Amenta
et al. 1992).
The idea that the success/failure dichotomy is insufficient is not new, and social
movement scholars have gradually developed theories of many varied outcomes. These
outcome theories include: defending achievements, reformulating goals, losing chances or
relevance and becoming becalmed (Hiller 1975:355); political or economic change, the creation
of institutions or organizations, and changes in public attitudes (Marx and McAdam 1994:112-
3); co-optation, which has been used to represent an effect of the movement upon the state
(McCarthy and Wolfson 1992:189) or when an institution gains power over the movement
(Wolfson 2001:9; McAdam 1982; Jenkins and Eckert 1986; Helfgot 1974; Piven and Cloward
1977); incorporation into existing structures in the form of institutionalization or preemption,
transformation through a redistribution of power, democratization when there is both a transfer
of power and change in the government and society, and democratic adjustment when the rights
and obligations between citizens and the state change without a transfer of power (Giugni 1998;
Giugni, McAadam, and Tilly 1998:xv; Oliver, Cadena-Roa and Strawn 2003:218-9).
Institutionalization has received much attention in social movement literature. Hopper’s
work on revolutionary movements offered only two outcomes: revolutionaries could either stay
“rebels” or institutionalize (1950). He defined institutionalization as legalizing or organizing
power to fit within the structure of political power, and when this happens the revolution is
complete and a new society may be formed (1950:277). Mauss (1971) and Hiller (1975) viewed
institutionalization not as an outcome by itself, but instead as the key turning point for a
movement. Seippel offered three routes of institutionalization (2001). A movement may (1)
undergo a traditional transition to a bureaucratic structure, (2) become a vibrant organization
16
that preserves its values and norms while incorporating new organizational structures, and (3)
transform into a non-contentious movement by changing their normative foundation without
creating an organized structure.
Lounsbury compared the notion of institutionalization in social movement theory with
organizational theory, finding that “both literatures have tended to invoke an imagery of
incremental change that focuses on how existing social structures maintain stability and elite
positions become reproduced” (2005:73; see also Meyer and Tarrow 1998; Strang and Soule
1998). This has evolved into a new focus on qualitative shifts in the logics, institutional beliefs,
and core practices of movements (Lounsbury 2005:73; Scott 2001). These scholars have found
that institutionalization is not inevitable, and instead look at the importance of historical variation
and elements of stratification when a movement creates new organizational structures. He
concludes, "Drawing attention to the role of broader logics and contexts of action is also
consistent with recent directions in social movements research that have extended the resource
focus of the political process perspective by creating a more cosmopolitan framework that takes
cultural processes seriously – especially through the study of framing" (Lounsbury 2005:74; see
also McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996; Moore and Hala 2002; Zald 2000).
Democratization is another possible movement outcome. It is peculiar that the
relationship between movements and democratic development has not received more attention,
particularly since democratic transitions are usually coupled with a “resurrection of civil society”
and the transition to democracy or improving democracy are often goals of social movements
(Hipsher 1998:149). To better understand democratization, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly offer
several categories: “substantive criteria emphasizing qualities of human experience and social
ties; constitutional criteria emphasizing legal procedures such as elections and referenda;
17
political-process criteria emphasizing interactions among politically constituted actors”
(2001:265). While these three groups overlap, they offer a foundation for a more nuanced view
of democratization. Tilly warns against an oversimplification in the study of democratization,
lamenting that some scholars have a tendency to reduce all types of regimes into two categories:
democratic and authoritarian (2005:426). This results in comparative case studies in which
regimes are quantitatively judged for their degree of democracy.
One example of movement to party transformations are what Panebianco refers to as
“sponsor institutions,” which are essentially groups that turn into political parties (1988, see also
Schwartz and Lawson 2005:268). It is not likely that multiple SMOs will join together to form a
new party. Schwartz and Lawson argue that “More often, it is a single group that transforms
itself into a political party, as did the African National Congress after the fall of apartheid in
South Africa (prior to which it was an illegal movement) and the trade union-based movement of
Solidarity in Poland after the fall of communism” (2005:268).
How do Movement Outcomes Impact Politics?
Social movement and party activities tend to increase or diminish in unison, and since the
1800s it has been common for social movements to develop parties or be directly associated with
them (Van Cott 2005:6; Goldstone, ed. 2003: 4; Gunther and Montero 2002: 6; Glenn 2003:149).
Even so, social movements and political parties have traditionally been studied in separate
literatures. When they are studied together, the focus has been on “why, and with what
consequences, social movements might form political parties” (Van Cott 2005:6; see also Yishai
1994:184; Thomas 2001; Goldstone, ed. 2003; Tilly 2003). Studying party evolution from a
historical perspective allows us to better understand parties that have recently emerged from
social movements (Desai 2003:171). This is particularly true because there is no sound
18
distinction between institutionalized and noninstitutionalized politics (Goldstone 2003). As
Panebianco explains:
The way in which the cards are dealt out and the outcomes of the different rounds played out in the formative phase of an organization, continue in many ways to condition the life of the organization even decades afterwards…the crucial political choices made by its founding fathers, the first struggles for organizational control and the way in which the organization was formed, will leave an indelible mark. (1988:xiii)
Thus, movement outcomes can only be adequately studied within the context of the movement’s
history. In order to understand what elements of an organization’s formation are impacting the
movement’s outcomes and how, social movement researchers must look beyond policy changes.
Jack Goldstone says that while there has been an increase in study on social movement
outcomes in recent years, most have failed to do adequate research. He finds the existing
research unsatisfactory because it has kept the studies of social movement outcomes and
institutionalized politics separate, and Goldstone insists that these topics should not be studied
independently because they do not exist separately (2003:1). Scholars must examine movements
and the state together because “the very existence, actions, and structure of institutionalized
political actors are permeated by social movement activity on an ongoing basis. Understanding
how social movements give rise to parties, shape political alignments, and interact with normal
political institutions has become essential to comprehending political dynamics” (Goldstone
2003:12).
Goldstone argues that revolutionary movements have much power in creating the new
economic system, but ultimately fail to live up to expectations. He agrees with Skocpol that
revolutions in Europe and Asia have developed out of similar economic and political beginnings,
and resulted in considerable institutional changes. However, European revolutions have also
included greater shifts in social values and denounced the old government (Goldstone 2002:214).
This leads him to insist that:
19
social-structural conditions alone could not account for the different character of revolutionary outcomes, rather, the revolutionary breakdown of the former regime offers a uniquely fluid situation in which the new revolutionary leadership has choices as to how to present itself, and how to rebuild the social and political order. The ideology of the new revolutionary regime can therefore, he argued, be decisive in determining the outcome and trajectory of the postrevolutionary state. (2002:214)
Goldstone focuses on the importance of this handover from the old regime to the new system,
explaining that in the months following the demise of the old regime there is a “honeymoon”
period in which individuals think that their hopeful desires will be realized. He notes that “the
honeymoon cannot last, for the problems that initiated state breakdown—fiscal crisis, elite
competition, and popular deprivation—do not disappear and still require solutions” (1991:422).
At this point, the new governance fails to be much better than the old government, Goldstone
explains.
As popular groups almost invariably have only local concerns and goals, the task of building a dominant coalition to address these issues falls to members of the elite. Taking the various particular complaints and the various elite and folk ideologies, and forging from these elements an ideology with broad appeal, is critical to the construction of a dominant coalition. (1991:422)
This shows that movement to party transformations will not live up to the expectations of
movement supporters and sympathizers. Nevertheless, Goldstone argues that this relationship
between social movements and institutionalized politics must be further examined, with a focus
on the ideologies and values of regimes.
PREVIOUS CASE STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OUTCOMES
There is a growing collection of case studies that addresses social movement success,
outcomes, and change. Some of these movements have also been a part of democratization or
transformed into political parties; others have achieved their goals through different methods (see
Messinger’s 1955 study of the Townsend Movement). Each case study helps provide insights,
means of comparison, and fresh theoretical ideas for other scholars to consider.
Brazilian Workers’ Party. The Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, or Worker’s Party) in
Brazil won the country’s first democratic election in several decades in 1989. Margaret Keck’s
20
book is a comprehensive analysis of the PT’s trajectory, the new party’s association with the
labor movement, and the process of Brazilian democratization (1992). She asks many important
questions that are applicable to any movement to party transformation:
What were the trade-offs involved in becoming a legal party within the limits established by the military regime? How could the party simultaneously help to promote autonomous organization of the working class (broadly conceived) and represent workers and the poor at the political level? Were elected officials from the party responsible to the party membership or to a broader constituency? How could the party best insure internal democracy and widespread participation? How would it deal with internal factors? How would it resolve the electoral dilemma, that is, the competing demands of remaining closely identified with a working class base and developing a sufficiently broad appeal to win elections? Would alliances with other parties dilute its programmatic message? (1992:6)
She agrees with Panebianco’s statement that the founding of parties and institutions have
immense and long term effects on their futures (see Panebianco 1988:xiii). Keck finds that “the
PT’s initial legitimacy and its ability to survive in spite of an adverse political conjuncture has a
great deal to do with its links with an increasingly autonomous and powerful movement of
Brazilian unions for substantive change” (1992:7).
Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement is one of the United
States’ most prominent examples of social movement success, and Andrews sets out to examine
the role of the movement in creating change and how lasting the effects have been. He focuses
on three aspects of movement infrastructure: “leadership, organizational structure, and
resources” (2004:22). Furthermore, Andrews lays out five guidelines for selecting movement
outcomes to study. Scholars should: (1) identify broad domains of movement claims without
limiting their study to only explicit objectives, (2) appraise multiple outcomes within each of
those domains, (3) examine the collective benefits and costs to the movement constituency, (4)
assess relative outcomes, not absolute successes or failures, and (5) study the effects of the
movement in the long term, extending far beyond the movement’s decline. One significant
challenge Andrews’ work illustrates is leaders being confronted with unrealistic expectations
once they were in office. He states:
21
The pursuit of black political power was built on the assumption that black elected officials would be responsive to the demands of the black community and address the deeply entrenched inequities in the distribution of “public goods.” All facets of southern politics reflected these inequalities. As a result, newly elected black officials faced a tremendous burden of expectations, ranging from employment to paved roads. (2004:185)
This onus is likely one that most leaders face if they are elected into power while being a
member of the existing movement or after a movement to party transformation.
Chilean Shantytown Dwellers. Chile has become a model of democratization that
scholars have urged new democracies in Europe, Latin America, and Africa to follow (Cash
1993; Christian 1994). Patricia Hipsher (1998) argues that in order to have a lively democracy,
the government must allow social movements to exist and operate with a moderate degree of
freedom. In some countries, “by demobilizing movements and attempting to control popular
organizations, leaders of these new democracies and of popular movements may be alienating
large sectors of society and ultimately be undermining the development of a healthy democratic
polity” (1998:166). She notes that this has been a problem in countries like South Africa, where
the African National Congress silenced many social movements to create an easier government
transition. Hipsher warns, “if democracy is to survive in the long term, power relations must be
restructured in a more democratic way, such that social movements can have a greater voice”
(1998:166). This urges scholars to look at the way a movement that has transformed or achieved
social change deals with other social movements.
African National Congress and Palestine Liberation Organization. Mona Younis’s
comparative study of liberation and democratic transformation in South Africa and Palestine
found that they went through surprisingly similar liberations because the African National
Congress (ANC) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had comparable movement
developments and the same global circumstances. Their very different outcomes “may be
attributed to the fact that global and internal dynamics play out on a field of struggle where
22
opponents meet in particular ways circumscribed by inclusion/exclusion. The process and
product are thus mediated by the indigenous populations' inclusion or exclusion in the settler
projects—that is, by class” (2000:20-1). Younis concludes that in both countries, “the current
political orders took shape in the very process of national liberation that produced them”
(2000:21). This again highlights the importance of the process and movements involved in
national liberation in shaping the future of the country.
Indian Political Parties. Manali Desai’s work compares policies of a leftist Indian
political party in Kerala and West Bengal. Her analysis concentrates on three dimensions of
political parties: “the social origins of party leadership, party strategies and tactics, and the
relationship of parties to movements” (2003:181). Desai also builds from Panebianco's work,
adding that “political struggles waged at one time under party leadership can for decades
afterward impact the extent of their political power. Thus there can be significant (and
unintended) ‘lag effects’ through which political struggles affect future generations” (Desai
2003:172). This makes it particularly important that social movements and parties are studied
together with their histories in mind.
Czech Republic and Slovakia. After the end of Soviet rule, Czechoslovakia split into two
new democratic countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. John Glenn compared the cases of
party emergence in these two countries and found that the act of governing truly transforms a
movement (2003:147). Furthermore, parties that come out of movements do not always follow
standard ideas of political parties, but instead might form around political issues (rather than
socioeconomic ones) and are prone to influence from international actors (2003:147).
Postcommunist reform is relatively unstable, and Glenn found that during this time, “leaders of
new political parties are likely to act as social movement entrepreneurs seeking to mobilize
23
potential supporters in light of varying opportunities, resources, and ways of framing their
claims” (2003:165; see also McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996). International assistance for
new democracies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia focused on free elections. After these
countries held democratic elections in 1990, international funding dramatically decreased and the
state became the main source of funding for political parties (2003:167). Furthermore, in these
two case studies, the “antipolitics” that is common in revolutionary movements and their
members is “virtually powerless against the imperatives of contemporary political competition…
as social movements gain political power, even in the context of emerging democracy, they must
confront the issue of transforming themselves into parties, despite inexperience or even
reluctance to engage in party politics” (2003:168).
Conducting more comparative research in other postcommunist countries will help us
understand other variations of party emergence. Glenn suggests a comparison with Poland
“where party fragmentation hobbled postcommunist governments…or with new parties in South
Africa might provide contrasting paths of democratization” (2003:168; see also Klandermans,
Roefs, and Oliver 1998). He concludes that movement success does not guarantee successful
democratic parties, and that democratic outcomes cannot be determined by international
supervision and aid. Change “involves complex and contingent interactions among movements,
new parties seeking electoral support, the policy they seek to mobilize, and the international
agencies that provide both assistance and guidance for party formation” (2003:169).
What Theories Do Previous Case Studies Uphold?
The case studies on movement to party success tend to support the theories of Goldstone
and Panebianco. One of the main points of Panebianco and Goldstone, simply put, is that the
creation of a new political party by a former movement has large and long-lasting effects. More
24
specifically, these case studies have found that the process of liberation shapes the political order
(Younis 2000), the group’s history as a movement shapes their new party (Desai 2003), and
movements are changed when they enter the sphere of government (Glenn 2003). Keck found in
Brazil that affiliations with unions can have a significant impact on party legitimacy and survival
(1992), showing that ties with current groups can also influence movement outcomes and
change.
Goldstone also makes it clear that the new party will not be able to fix all of the problems
of the old regime (1991, 2002, 2003). Younis finds in the cases of South Africa and Palestine
that class has a role in shaping the new system (2000), and Andrews observes that civil rights
movement leaders in the United States who gained power were faced with unrealistic
expectations (Andrews 2004). Hipscher warns in particular that it is important for new parties to
allow social movements to flourish in new democracies because the problems of their former
regimes will not disappear (1998).
How Does the Literature Influence This Paper?
Some clear guidelines have emerged from this review of the literature that I am mindful
of in this paper. The notion of movement “success” is limited and outdated. Movement research
should focus on specific outcomes or broader changes, but the notions of success and failure
cannot encompass the various trajectories and influences of movements. Models of
understanding movement outcomes are constantly changing, and there may be no universally
applicable model that will work in every scenario. While this paper discusses how the ANC and
25
Solidarity fit into existing categories, I also address the nuances of the each case and show how
their outcomes are not adequately explained by these theories.
Marco Giugni wrote ten years ago in his article “Was It Worth the Effort? The Outcomes
and Consequences of Social Movements” that future research should provide a comprehensive
comparison of social movement outcomes, noting their different political environments, time
periods, and movement compositions (1998:388-9). While this sort of research has been greatly
lacking, the case studies previously mentioned have initiated this form of examination of social
movement outcomes.
Furthermore, these previous works shaped my guiding research questions and the
variables I used to measure them. Younis’ study of the ANC and PLO (2000) and Desai’s study
of Indian Political Parties (2003) both found that movement pasts influenced political futures,
and their works helped shape my first research question and determine which variables to use to
answer it. Glenn’s finding that successful movements do not always become successful political
parties (2003) provides the foundation for my second research question. Andrews’ five
guidelines aided my selection of variables, and my analysis of collective costs and benefits, and
the impacts of these movements after their decline (2004).
This paper aims to study social movement outcomes and changes from a nuanced,
comprehensive, and comparative perspective. I look beyond policy changes and examine the
influences of a movement’s history, emotions of movement members and leaders, public
opinion, and broader situations surrounding outcomes. Studies of social movements that create
social change should not end once movements gain political power, transform into another
organization, or even dissolve. It is crucial that these cases are studied extensively and
26
comparatively so that social scientists, politicians, activists, and citizens can better understand
the lasting power of social movements.
My case studies of the ANC in South Africa and Solidarity in Poland examine how their
pasts as social movements have influenced them as political parties and, in the case of Solidarity,
as a trade union. These case studies show how the movements have progressed through different
stages and have experienced institutional limitations, while also exploring the role of human
emotions in their trajectories. This includes how traditions, organizational tactics, leaders,
members, and public opinion from their histories as social movements continue to influence
them today. The power of the ANC and Solidarity led to revolutionary social changes, and their
legacies played a crucial role in shaping what they have become today.
The case studies of Solidarity and the ANC can be assessed using theories of
institutionalization, and they build on what has already been established by scholars. Both the
ANC and Solidarity were key social movement organizations and the largest forces within their
respective social movements. It was leadership within these SMOs that decided to enter the
political realm and this project will follow the trajectory of these SMOs, not the entire social
movements. Both parties ceased to be social movement organizations (and, in the case of the
ANC, a liberation movement) when they were elected to power, entered their state-regulated
political systems, and when the process of democratic consolidation began. Solidarity continued
to operate as a trade union, though rarely challenging the power of the state. Both went through
processes of institutionalization and co-optation when they took over the government as ruling
political parties.
After being institutionalized, both Solidarity and the ANC experienced a trend of
complacent and conservative leadership – both governments accepted the free market and
27
neoliberal system with open arms, even though these policies hurt the people these SMOs had
advocated for. Dissatisfied members left both parties, but much more so in the case of
Solidarity, where factions split off from the beginning and voter support fluctuated significantly.
The ANC’s supporters have become very complacent as a result of its monopoly over the
political system, even though the party has not followed through on the promises it made as an
SMO. Those who have left the ANC have become more radical, honed in on certain broken
promises, or given up on politics altogether.
I cannot ignore the multiple dimensions of these two groups, and the fact that they differ
from each other will definitely make the comparison more challenging, but also provide some
insights not available in more straightforward cases. Definitions like Sidney Tarrow’s say that a
social movement is different from a political party or interest group, but each of these cases fit
into two or all three of these classifications (1994).
The ANC, while there was some overlap, clearly moved from a liberation movement to a
political party, and as it moved from the old definition into the new it lost power as a movement
and gained power as a party. It could not be equally powerful in both at the same time, but its
power as a movement was what gave the political aspect power before the first democratic
election. Now the ANC operates only as a political party, though its leaders often reference its
SMO past.
For Solidarity, the transition was not as clear cut. When it was founded, it operated
equally as a trade union and social movement, and these identities complemented each other
rather than competed, since both challenged the socialist state. When Solidarity was outlawed
under martial law, it was the social movement aspect that kept the fight alive – the trade union
alone probably could not have survived years in exile. In 1988 when the political arm of
28
Solidarity was created, it had legitimacy (like the ANC) because of the power the social
movement organization and trade union components had accumulated. After entering into
politics, the social movement organization ceased to exist, and the trade union did little to help
laborers. The Solidarity trade union has only begun to stand up for workers rights since 2001,
when it discontinued its role in politics.
29
CHAPTER 2: AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS CASE STUDY
When I began learning about South Africa, I was surprised to find that the ANC as a
government is far different from what it was as a liberation movement. The ANC’s rise from a
movement in exile to a political party with approximately 70% of the vote shows the power of
activism. The rebels who spent years in jail, hiding from the police, or in exile are now
government officials. The evolution of the ANC from a liberation movement to a political party
is simultaneously a source of hope and disappointment. It shows that a social movement can
make a difference and achieve goals, yet as a political party in control, the ANC is failing to
deliver on the hard-won rights listed in the South African constitution.
History of the Movement
The South African Native National Congress (SANNC) was founded in 1912, and
became the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923. It was one of several organizations that
aimed to end racial discrimination in South Africa, but as former political analyst Kiru Naidoo
asserts, “the ANC has always been the leading force in the liberation movement” (interview
2007). Under British rule, land ownership was restricted to small areas for non-whites in South
Africa. When the Afrikaner National Party (NP) was elected to power in 1948, the ruling party
implemented a system called apartheid that encompassed more strict and organized laws of
segregation.
In 1955, the ANC met with the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People's
Organization and the Congress of Democrats (Holland 1990). They called this collection the
Congress of the People, and at this meeting they created a document called the Freedom Charter.
The Freedom Charter was a declaration of basic principles, including “The People Shall
Govern!” and similar exclamations for equal rights and human rights; sharing wealth and land;
30
equality before the law; work, security, learning, culture, houses, comfort, peace and friendship.
The ANC and the entire Congress of the People felt that while politics were at the core of the
struggle, liberation included a whole host of rights that were denied by the apartheid system.
One of the key elements of apartheid was that all South Africans were required to carry a
pass card with their identifying information including race, religion, and employer. The
information in the pass card determined where non-whites could travel, and anyone who did not
have a pass card was subject to immediate arrest. On March 21, 1960 an ANC breakaway party
called the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) held a protest in which South Africans marched to the
Sharpeville township jail, turned in their pass cards, and asked to be arrested. The PAC claim
that no more than 5,000 people were part of the protest, but police estimates said the crowd grew
to 20,000 (Holland 1990). Though the reasons why are unclear, in the early afternoon the police
began firing at the crowd, and 69 people were killed and almost 200 injured in less than a minute
of firing. In response to the Sharpeville Massacre, the National Party declared a state of
emergency and banned both the ANC and the PAC.
When the ANC was banned, much of the leadership went into exile or met secretly. In
December 1961, the underground ANC announced the birth of its military wing: Umkhonto we
Sizwe (MK) – the Spear of the Nation. Co-founded by Nelson Mandela, the MK stated that their
only choices were to “submit or fight” and they would fight “in defense of our people, our future
and our freedom” (Holland 1990:132). Mandela was arrested in 1962 and spent the next 27
years of his life in jail, like many ANC and MK members (Mandela 1994).
Those who managed to avoid jail did so by following the strict top-down orders of the
ANC and by operating in tight secrecy. When political analyst Kiru Naidoo was in college, he
tried to meet with a professor who was an MK recruiter. The professor turned him away,
31
probably out of fear that Kiru was part of a setup. Kiru noted that, “he wasn’t very helpful at all,
and I think with good reason because the movement was riddled with spies and things at the
time” (interview 2007). The ANC was shaped by these decades of operating underground, and
South Africans continued to protest the NP government.
In 1989, F.W. de Klerk became President of South Africa, and immediately stressed the
importance of “real, constructive negotiation” with black leaders (Huntington 1991-1992:611).
This signified a major political opportunity for change in South Africa. While the previous
President, P.W. Botha, had campaigned with the slogan “adapt or die” and had made some
progressive changes, he certainly did not want white rule to end (Hungtinton 1991-1992:598).
After much global and economic pressure, F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC in early
1990, and Mandela was released from prison. The ANC leadership began negotiating with the
ruling party, under preconditions that the ANC renounce violence and the NP release political
prisoners and allow opposition groups (Huntington 1991-1992:614). In April 1994, the country
had its first democratic elections, and Nelson Mandela was elected President.
The ANC’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle secured its place as the leading party. As
former ANC activist David Ntseng explained:
Obviously the ANC has had the legitimation by virtue of its history as a liberation movement, way back from how it began, the fact that most of its members went through exile, were forced to exile, imprisoned, some longer like former President Nelson Mandela. All of that legitimated its identity in relation to black people in South Africa and all people concerned with the liberation, irrespective of their race. Come 94, everyone was sick of national apartheid government. Now the alternative is this people’s movement, national liberation movement as everyone understood it at the time, and what it represented. (interview 2007)
The new ANC leaders were very idealistic in the beginning of their time in office. Politicians
opted for pay cuts and refused perks so that they would not be distanced from the people they
were elected to represent. South Africans had extremely high hopes for the ANC. As one news
32
article in May 1994 forewarned, “Mandela and his ANC may soon discover that it's easier to
oppose a government than it is to run one” (Ransdell and Eddings 1994).
The ANC was not completely unaware of the challenges it faced in the transition from a
liberation movement to a political party. Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa was the ANC’s Secretary
General immediately following the 1994 election. In an interview that year he discussed what
would be necessary to successfully transform the ANC into a political party. Ramaphosa said
that many wanted the ANC to continue to operate as “the leading force in a broad liberation
movement, with a program which includes - but extends beyond - contesting formal political
power” (Frazer 1994). He said the ANC might continue to lead social movements and organize
popular power, which are elements of civil society, not political society. This demonstrated the
ANC’s reluctance to give up their SMO identity and settle into traditional political party roles.
In 1994, Tokyo Sexwale was the ANC premier of the province that includes Johannesburg, and
he offered a less extreme path for the party. Sexwale argued that the ANC should regard itself as
in office, not in power (“Who Exactly is in Command?” 1994), implying that the ANC would be
most legitimate by working within the new system of government rather than taking over the
government. Many of the party’s critics feared the ANC would silence the opposition, and
Sexwale’s position helped to calm this apprehension.
When the ANC took office, they implemented an economic system of Black Economic
Empowerment (BEE) that aimed to help non-whites recover from the inequalities of apartheid.
Yet BEE was not a quick fix, and in 1996 the ANC adopted a new system of Growth,
Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) that the Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel supported
because it would create a more rapid economic change (Bond 2000). With the birth of GEAR,
many South Africans realized that their government had opted for a neoliberal system. David
33
Ntseng explains, “the open declaration of economic policy in the form of GEAR was for many
concerned people alarm bells ringing, to say something big is coming, or something has
happened and it caught us off guard. No one expected the turning point of 1996… it was so
obvious that the main thrust here is so that the government has an open way for the neo-liberal
agenda” (interview 2007). There was a lack of service delivery with BEE, but when GEAR was
implemented there was a rapid privatization of state owned assets. David continues, “That was
the beginning of the end of hopes for freedom and liberation, and that was the end of looking at
the ANC as this liberation movement as it were” (ibid). Former ANC activist Xolani Tsalong
was also aware of the magnitude of the adoption of GEAR. He told me, “That’s when I resigned
as a member of the ANC, because I really had to find myself a space where I could engage with
the government, with the ANC” (interview 2007). As I discuss later in the section on Service
Delivery, the liberation struggle was not only about political liberation, but also economic
liberation. By implementing an economic system that hurts the vast majority of South Africans,
the ANC took a step backwards in fully liberating the nation. When President Nelson Mandela
spoke at the ANC’s 85th anniversary party in January 1997, he admitted that the “the ANC had
made ‘fundamental and serious’ mistakes” since gaining power in 1994 (O’Loughlin 1997). For
the director of the Johannesburg-based Center for Policy Studies, Stephen Friedman, Mandela
recognized that the ANC was “in danger of losing its way both ethically and politically” (ibid).
Thabo Mbeki served as South Africa’s Co-Deputy President with the National Party’s
F.W. de Klerk from 1994 to 1996, as the sole Deputy President from 1996 to 1999, and became
President of South Africa in 1999. He spent nearly 30 years in exile while the ANC and MK
were banned, and his father spent 24 years in the Robben Island prison. As early as 1997, Thabo
Mbeki was blamed for “a perceived drift away from the ANC's tradition of grass-roots
34
consultation” (O’Loughlin 1997). Mbeki resigned as President of South Africa in September
2008, largely because his rival Jacob Zuma was elected President of the ANC in December 2007.
Jacob Zuma was also a member of the ANC and MK. After Zuma spent 10 years on
Robben Island, he worked underground in the Natal province for two years before going into
exile for 15 years. As President of the ANC, Zuma is likely to become South Africa’s President
in the April 2009 elections. He is quite popular despite the corruption and rape charges that have
been brought against him in recent years. One of the main ways that Zuma has become so
popular is by touting his Zulu identity; Zulus are the largest ethnic group in South Africa, yet the
nation’s first two Presidents were Xhosa, the second largest ethnic group.
Kgalema Motlanthe, South Africa’s current President, was elected ANC Deputy
President in 2007 and assumed the top office after Mbeki resigned in 2008. While Motlanthe is
not as well known as Mandela, Mbeki, or Zuma, he also was a member of the ANC and MK
during the time that they were banned. Motlanthe spent many years working underground for
the MK before he was arrested and also spent 10 years in the Robben Island prison. After his
release, he worked for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and became an ANC
politician.
The ANC and its leaders have been significantly shaped by the organization’s long
liberation history. As Jack Goldstone states, the party’s politics “bear the indelible marks of that
party’s origins in the violent struggle of protest against apartheid” (Goldstone 2003:6, see also
Seidman 2001). It’s not just the ANC and party officials who have been shaped by the decades
of resistance in South Africa – the country’s history has shaped all of its citizens. Everyone who
lived during apartheid played a part in either perpetuating or dismantling the system, and the
emotions attached to the struggle have continued to shape the opinions and behavior of South
35
Africans since the transition of power in 1994. Non-whites make up over 90% of the country’s
population (SouthAfrica.info 2007) and while they did not all support the ANC specifically, they
have more rights now than they were granted during apartheid. For many citizens, this has
created a sense of indebtedness to the party, and many ANC leaders feel that their past has
entitled them to positions of power.
On December 16, 2008 a new South African political party called the Congress of the
People (COPE) was formed by former members of the ANC. COPE was founded by ex-ANC
members Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and George Mluleki, who soon became the
party’s President, First Deputy President, and Head of Organizing, respectively (COPE website
2008). The name Congress of the People comes from the 1955 gathering where the Freedom
Charter was written (Sapa 2008). Using this historic name is part of the group’s strategy to
connect the political party with the ANC’s history as a movement and the broader liberation
struggle.
At the 2007 ANC national conference it became clear to many South Africans that the
ANC was divided when Jacob Zuma was elected President of the party. When Thabo Mbeki
resigned as President of South Africa in 2008, many of his loyal cabinet members also resigned,
including Minister of Defense Mosiuoa Lekota. Soon thereafter, Lekota organized a convention
to discuss the future of the party, and the possibility of forming a new party, and at that
convention it was decided that COPE would be created in mid-December. By December 21
2008, COPE claimed to have a total of 428,000 paid members in South Africa (Cope
Organisational Report 2008).
COPE immediately received criticism for being too focused on the rich and upper-middle
class and for simply being an anti-Zuma party. Rather than offering a new path, many feared
36
that COPE would simply be a revival of the ANC under Mbeki. Yet the party soon took a major
step away from its ANC roots. In late February 2009, Lekota lost his position as leader of the
party when Methodist Church leader Mvume Dandala was chosen to serve as the party’s
presidential candidate in the upcoming 2009 general election (Rossouw and Mataboge 2009).
Some COPE insiders told reporters that Lekota lost the position because his ANC history had
tainted him (ibid). One congress national committee member said, “Wouldn't you rather want
someone who has no ANC history, who has broader appeal to a wider range of people, including
non-ANC voters?” (ibid).
For a party that is just several months old, COPE has a very complicated relationship
with the ANC. While the full strength of this new party will not be known until the 2009 South
African general election, it may become a full fledged opposition party that will challenge the
ANC in ways that other political parties have not. Even if COPE does not become as strong as
its leaders hope and the ANC fears, it shows that the ANC is not as unified as it has presented
itself, and the power of the ANC is beginning to be challenged by former movement and party
leaders.
Key Documents
South Africa’s Constitution is one of the most progressive in the world and is highly
revered by many South Africans. As journalist Gary Govindsamy states, “In terms of the
Constitution we’ve got the best Constitution in the world. But how the Constitution protects our
own people is a factor to debate” (interview 2007). In many cases the ruling party, politicians,
police, and citizens violate the regulations stated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Activist
Louisa Motha explains, “When we march, they just send the police to just hit us, for nothing, for
no reason. The Constitution, it says we can march, but they’re hitting the people, oppressing the
37
people, it’s not a good thing” (interview 2007). The Constitution outlines a clear balance of
power between the President, Cabinet, and Parliament. Yet since Mbeki became President, “the
system of government has seen growing tension between its constitutional form and the reality of
growing centralisation in the state presidency” (Butler 2007:44). Furthermore, the South African
Constitution isn’t the only guiding doctrine that the ANC government follows as it pleases.
The ANC Constitution served as the guiding document for the liberation movement, and
now states the ideals and rules of conduct for the political party. Mashumi Figlan was
thoroughly involved with the ANC for a decade through COSAS, the ANC Youth League, and
during the time he spent canvassing for the 1994 election. His knowledge of the ANC
Constitution is solid, as is his respect for it. He says:
It’s so unfair. To voice our views is what even the ANC Constitution says, that we have to voice our views.… What they preach they are not practicing. They want other people to practice, but they themselves they don’t want to practice what they preach. To treat the social movement and all other people the way they treat is not what is written in the ANC Constitution. Just because we know the Constitution of the ANC, we read the Constitution of the ANC, and I think the Constitution of the ANC is in my head. But the people who are in power, they don’t like to follow it through and through. (interview 2007)
Mashumi sees the ANC’s Constitution as a key to getting the ANC back on the right path. “If
they follow the principles of the ANC accordingly, the way it’s written, the way they put it, and
even those who died for it. If they can follow what the ANC was, I think it will be good, and they
can fix the problem in the ANC. But if they don’t want to follow the principles, they will not be
able to change” (ibid).
The Freedom Charter is another important South African document that enshrines the
human rights that the government has disregarded. Gary Govindsamy adds, “…all that’s written
in the Freedom Charter, is not being adhered to. And that is the problem. The Freedom Charter
was supposed to have been the ideal document which would have seen people get a better life.
But in most instances that document, which was adopted by everybody, is just a piece of paper
38
thrown aside” (interview 2007). Many South Africans have become disenchanted with the ANC
because of the way the party has ignored its own doctrine.
Traditions
The loyalty of members in a liberation movement in exile is crucial to the group’s
success. But the traditions that have carried over from the ANC’s time in exile are in opposition
to the traits needed for a successful democracy. In fact, there is an “explicit clash between an
authoritarian culture of national liberation and participatory democracy” (Southall 2003a:30).
One of the reasons for this conflict is that liberation movements have a sense of entitlement after
the liberation, and assume that they are the only legitimate successors (Southall 2003b:129). Yet
one of the fundamental aspects of democracy is a system where any individual or party has a fair
chance at office.
The underground ANC was very hierarchical, centralized, organized, and disciplined in
order to keep the movement operating in a unified fashion while leaders were out of the country,
in prison, or in hiding (Butler 2007:38). These characteristics did not simply disappear when the
ANC transitioned from a liberation movement to a political party. These traditions have
remained on both institutional and individual levels. As David Ntseng told me, ANC traditions
are constantly referenced when the party experiences crisis. This practice goes back to when the
ANC headquarters were in Lusaka, Zambia and enabled leaders to give consistent orders to
activists in South Africa and worldwide (interview 2007). David says it is, “the tradition of
obedience, of capturing, grasping, and internalizing the word, the direction, as coming from the
headquarters, or as coming from the national executive council, if not the national working
community. So anything that looks disobedient or deviant to that word is anti-ANC and it’s anti-
traditional” (ibid). This carries over today to the extent that when anyone so much as criticizes
39
the party, they are dismissed as anti-ANC. He continues, “It will be difficult to imagine the
ANC that believes in the voices from the margins, the voices from the grassroots, it will be
difficult to imagine the ANC that does that” (ibid). The discussions that occur on the branch
level are not questioning, but rather about how they can best understand the directions from
national headquarters.
Another tradition that has carried over from the ANC’s past is the importance of
consensus. This is a tradition from an earlier time in the ANC’s history, before the movement
was forced into exile, and it continued while the ANC was banned because unity was crucial to
the safety of the movement. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela talks about
how he gained this idealized notion of democracy at tribal meetings. He wrote, “majority rule
was a foreign notion. A minority was not to be crushed by a majority” (1994:18). Yet as
Anthony Butler warns, this naïve view can have consequences because “a movement that
idealises consensus in this way is vulnerable to oligarchic domination” (2005:731). This is not
the only high-minded ANC tradition that has unfortunate consequences when put into practice by
the political party.
When trying to rise in the ANC ranks during white rule, individuals were discouraged
from campaigning. While it is not prohibited today, campaigning is regarded by the ANC
establishment as poor taste. According to the ANC National Working Committee, “One of the
main reasons for this is that when cadres of the movement do their work, this is not meant to be
with an eye on leadership positions or some other personal reward; but to serve the people”
(ANC 2001). The ANC feared that campaigning would turn members into enemies, rather than
having them work together for change. Now that the ANC is a political party with candidates
seeking to win elections, this tradition limits public knowledge before elections. There are
40
situations where ANC politicians deny that they are running for office and then show up on the
ballot, and those who do openly campaign are attacked by other party members for being “anti-
ANC” because they are not following the traditions.
In some cases, the reliance upon traditions has been perverted by ANC politicians
seeking to further their own interests. Jacob Zuma has often criticized “those who ‘tout’
themselves for leadership positions,” which is in accordance with ANC traditions (Butler
2005:733). But when Zuma was Deputy President, he would commonly refer to the “tradition”
that the Deputy President of the ANC should always become the next President, though this has
never been an ANC tradition (ibid). The lack of campaigning is a prime example of how a well-
intended tradition has been distorted, and the eager acceptance of anything referred to as an ANC
tradition has allowed politicians to further their goals while limiting the knowledge and choices
of the voters.
While ANC traditions worked to better the movement in the past, many South Africans
think the ANC’s focus needs to shift. Strict adherence to tradition made sense under the
apartheid regime when the ANC was banned, but now South Africa is a democracy and the ANC
is the ruling party. As former ANC leader Mac Maharaj says in his biography, “This is an ANC
government. We should encourage constant debate and the interchange of ideas, and we should
invite public criticism, taking it as being honestly offered and meriting honest response.…
Nobody, no matter how good his or her performance in the past, has a guarantee of perpetual
excellence” (O’Malley 2007:454). Failure to listen to the people in favor of tradition causes the
leaders to become further out of touch with the needs of the people as time goes on. As Gary
Govindsamy explains, “The ANC was indeed a liberalization organization, and in terms of the
liberation movement they had certain policies and ideologies and philosophies to follow. … Now
41
that they’ve achieved what they wanted to achieve, they’ve got to politicize the people in a
different form” (interview 2007). This implies that the shift away from over-valuing traditions
has to come from within the ANC.
Yet people both inside and outside the movement fear that this process may never come.
As professor Padraig O’Malley explains, “The ANC never had to face the consequences of its
own failures as a liberation movement. Whenever it engaged in a reexamination of the way it
conducted the struggle, it failed to implement corrective policies and regressed to old, entrenched
habits. … In government, the ANC is still immune to external criticism and is responsive only to
itself” (2007:491). Nevertheless, there is a chance that this will begin to change with time. A
growing number of the ANC’s members are citizens too young to have been involved in the
liberation struggle, and thus have “no intrinsic respect for conventions of authority in the
movement” (Butler 2007:41). As new people enter the ANC, so will fresh perspectives on how
to honor the past without blindly adhering to old traditions that are destructive to South Africans.
Political Structures and Party Cohesion
The ANC is clearly the dominant party in South Africa and has created a very unbalanced
national party system. The ANC lacks any significant competition on the national level, as well
as in most provinces, and this has decreased accountability to the electorate (Butler 43).
Furthermore, there is a weak boundary between the ANC and the South African government, as
the government has been ruled by the ANC since the 1994 democratic transition. There are
several organizational issues within the ANC that have exacerbated this situation.
To begin with, the balance of executive power is disproportionate to other branches of
power within the ANC party. There are mechanisms in place to “promote substantive
uncertainty,” including “legislative elections, separate powers, civil liberties, oppositional
42
political parties, an independent press” (Calland and Graham 2005:168). Yet there has been a
global trend toward a shift from legislative power to executive power in recent decades, and
South Africa has not been exempt (ibid). One reason for this in South Africa is that in elections
for President and Parliament, the ANC appears on the ballot, not the individual candidate.
Voters choose based on party, not personality, and this requires that ANC politicians be loyal to
the party in order to win political positions. This creates a system in which the elected leaders
are more accountable to their party than to the people they are supposed to represent.
Furthermore, while the legislature is supposed to provide a check on the executive
branch, this is quite difficult when there is not a balance of powers. The 1994 caucus code of
conduct forbids ANC Members of Parliament (MPs) from undermining party policies by using
Parliamentary structures (Lodge 2004:209). In the few cases when ANC MPs in the legislature
have questioned the executive branch, “they were subsequently penalised either through
demotions or political harassment” (Calland and Graham 2005:181). One of the best examples
of this lack of questioning from the ANC MPs is data from the 1999 Parliamentary sessions. The
Democratic Party asked 879 questions, the New National Party asked 609, the Inkatha Freedom
Party asked 182 and even though ANC MPs “constitute the majority of the legislature” they only
asked 111 questions (ibid). Two years earlier, O’Loughlin reported that “ANC members of
Parliament complain - off the record - that the leadership now gives them little or no opportunity
to debate policy before it is adopted. Potential dissidents have been silenced with threats of
disciplinary action” (1997). In 2001, ANC leaders launched a “campaign against ultraleftists and
open competition for leadership positions,” which essentially banned “even internal debate about
its lack of internal debate” (Butler 2005:732). The party also limits debate by imposing
committee chairs and by having the President and other ANC heavyweights attend caucus
43
meetings (Butler 2005:720-1). Whether MPs choose not to question orders, or simply are not
given a chance, the end result is the same. ANC decisions are made from the top down, and
Parliament does not provide an adequate check to the executive powers.
These governmental and party structures have in many ways managed to create a façade
that the ANC is a cohesive party. ANC politicians are aware:
that ‘healthy pluralism’ can destroy any party, bringing ideological division, rivalries between charismatic leaders, and patronage relationships. Even elite parties cannot act ‘democratically’ by allowing members or activists to decide on policy, leaders, and candidates. Democracy that is deep (deliberative) and wide (participatory) undermines the organisational and political pre-requisites for party effectiveness. (Butler 2005:728)
While the ideal democratic government would create and maintain a system where all concerns
can be voiced and power is challenged, the role of the political party is to obtain state power.
The ANC has used its immense electoral power to secure the party’s position as leader of the
government, and this has strengthened South Africa’s government. The ANC has managed to
introduce policies that show, “an integrated national programme of government rather than
merely a series of potentially conflicting interventions. As a result of this achievement, social
conflict has been contained, and the stability of the democratic regime enhanced” (Butler
2005:723).
This has been accomplished by socializing ANC politicians, “into secrecy, hierarchy and
closed systems of debate and organisation” (Butler 2005:723). The ANC favors collective
achievements, and strongly discourages individual accomplishments (Mpthapo 2001; African
National Congress 2004). Furthermore, the ANC has become more of a “catch all” party or a
“broad church” that takes very general stances on ordinary issues as an attempt to appeal to the
majority of society (Butler 2005:729) rather than pushing a radical agenda like the ANC did as a
social movement organization.
44
The ANC holds much power because the party includes so many different groups. A
1994 article marveled that, “The ANC's claim to be a broad anti-apartheid church is well backed
by the rest of its national list. A third of its candidates are women…. There are generous
sprinklings of the various ethnic groups,… communists and trade-unionists…. The Communists
and [Congress of South African Trade Unions] are both standing under the ANC's election
banner” (“The ANC on the Road to Power”). Many thought that this heterogeneous mix would
cause the party to break up quickly. An employee of the Standard Bank of South Africa said in
1994, “It embraces everyone from Capitalists to Marxists. That's because it was a broadly based
liberation movement rather than a political party. I think the Communist Party will split off. The
trade unions, too, may find themselves in conflict because they are trying to protect a labor elite”
(“From Rebels to Rulers” 1994). Yet the ANC has managed to use this diversity to its
advantage.
While the political system has remained stable, this top-down system has ultimately
harmed democracy. There are concerns that this may go too far and South Africa may become a
country that is ruled by a personality rather than by the people, which has occurred in many other
countries in Africa and presidential democracies around the world (Przeworski, Alvarez,
Cheibub, and Limongi 2000). Mistakes made by leaders go unchallenged by lower-level
politicians (Grint 2000), and the unchecked power of the executive branch is abused by political
entrepreneurs. The position of the president has become a “winner-takes-all prize” that factions
in the ANC party fight for (Butler 2005:722), as was evident in the December 2007 election
when Jacob Zuma was elected President of the ANC. This competition for executive power
shows that the cohesion of the ANC is merely a façade. Insiders know that ANC MPs often
“disparage their institution’s bourgeois character” and there are conflicts over judicial authority
45
(Butler 2005:721). It seems that the ANC’s internal divisions have become more apparent in
recent years since Zuma was elected President of the ANC, Mbeki resigned as President of South
Africa, and the ANC breakaway party COPE was formed.
The ANC has what scholar Thomas Carothers calls the “dominant party syndrome.” Like
former national liberation movements in Mozambique and Namibia, the ANC:
view themselves as the rightful inheritors of the state they fought to capture (boosting a tendency of the party to blur the line between state and party) and the rightful representatives of all the citizens of the country (weakening the rationale for the existence of other parties). As former military movements, these parties have strong hierarchical traditions. Their roots in struggle often make their leaders prone to confusing political opposition with disloyalty to the nation. (Carothers 2006:37)
If the ANC’s reign continues, the party will risk becoming too entrenched in the state. The line
between the state and the party should not be blurred because if the ANC “effectively fuses itself
with the state—such as by channeling state resources to the party and completely populating the
state with party-based personnel—other parties will have an extremely hard time gaining any
ground” (Carothers 2006:223).
Leaders
Many South Africans have been disappointed with the ANC leadership since the
democratic transition. Retired unionist Harriet Bolton complained that when she watches the
parliamentary meetings on television she sees “half of them sitting with their eyes closed,
looking half asleep, and not paying attention, walking in and out or talking to each other, they’re
not involved enough I don’t think.… They forget why they got in” (interview 2007). This
apathy is just one of many complaints I heard about the ANC in my interviews. Xolani Tsalong
pointed out that the problems South Africans are having with their leaders are not new or unique,
and are described in Frantz Fanon’s prolific book The Wretched of the Earth (1963). Xolani told
me the book inspired him and, “created this understanding of what things would look like in the
post-colonial era, and how our former liberation movement leaders would behave, and how they
46
would be disconnected from the masses. It is exactly what is happening in South Africa today,
what Fanon projected at the time” (interview 2007). While the disappointment with leadership is
not novel, it does not make it any less painful.
The most prevalent criticism of leaders that I heard was that they are extremely greedy.
Such greed was foreshadowed by an influential South African liberation writer. Steve Biko wrote
during apartheid that, “tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits
of wealth, security, and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie
and to accept it as normal that it alone is entitled to privilege. In order to believe this seriously, it
needs to convince itself of all the arguments that support the lie” (2002:88). While Biko wrote
this to explain why the formerly oppressed Afrikaners were then oppressing black South
Africans, he does not say it is unique to whites. Echoing Biko’s sentiments, Gary Govindsamy
explained that the novelty of inexperienced blacks in powerful positions that were formerly
exclusive to whites has created troubles:
To a large extent it’s a dream. You’ve taken people and you’ve put them in new positions in the new system, some of which don’t know what’s happening, don’t know what to do in that position. And many of them are trying to help but don’t have the means, don’t have the capacity. They’re handling money which they’ve never seen before, they’ve never had an idea that they were going to handle such portfolios and such large amounts of money. Our expectations are too much, so they cannot deliver, there’s a great deal of theft from within organizations, in government and liberators are now starting to line their pockets . (interview 2007)
This situation creates a lot of disillusionment. Gary continues, “our very own liberators are now
oppressing us. And that is a sad thing” (interview 2007). Activist Louisa Motha told me,
“People from government just take the money from somebody else, they never give even one
cent, they just take for themselves” (interview 2007). System Cele went so far as to say, “I think
there is nothing wrong with the ANC itself, but it’s the people who are leading it. I think it’s the
greediness, money is the thing that divides people” (interview 2007). While I think System’s view
47
underestimates the influence of structural aspects of the ANC’s operations, it shows how powerful
the citizens perceive the leaders of the ANC to be.
Several ideas about how this greediness could be overcome were put forward in the
interviews. Mashumi Figlan proposed that the leaders need to think about the needs of the
people who voted them into power. He explained, “they are there to fulfill the needs of their
family, their friends, cousins, and all those people. But if they want to take care of the people and
know that ‘these people, they voted for us to be here, to do whatever they want us to do for
them,’ they can be good, and they achieve a lot and I think this country could be a better
country” (interview 2007). Gary Govindsamy said it is a matter of education and training: “I
think it’s going to take a little while more, when the liberators are educated into understanding
that they have much more of a role to play than just lining their own pockets” (interview 2007).
He also noted that the political leaders must remember where they came from, the struggle that
brought them to where they are now, and focus on improving the lives of other people, not their
own. Gary has heard leaders say “I didn’t join the struggle to be poor,” which has caused him to
question their commitment and ideologies. This has led him to believe that:
the fight for liberation is not over. We’ve got another fight at the moment where we need to fight the liberators. The problem is that people are treating their pockets, and they can’t allow that to happen. Understandably in any society which has just been liberated we will have a situation like that. It happened all over, where colonialists insured that they will destroy everything before they give the natives their liberty. It happened in India, it happened throughout Africa, it happened in America, it happened anywhere where the natives were fighting a war of oppression and a war for their own land. (ibid)
While the historical context makes it clear that to be greedy is human nature, Gary hopes it can
be overcome if leaders think back to their beginnings. He told me, “when they stood on
platforms and they made those revolutionary speeches, it should be until death. But that is not
what has happened in a great deal of Africa, in Asia, and other parts of the world” (ibid).
Politicians must strive to live up to the standards they once judged the old regime against, and
stick to their ethics when they are tempted by their new access to wealth.
48
Careerism is another significant problem within ANC leadership. The focus has shifted
from helping the people get ahead to focusing on professionalization and bureaucratization to
help the leaders get ahead within the ranks of the party and secure their positions in power
(Butler 2005:730, Butler 2007:38). However, South Africa took a major step towards limiting
careerism when the yearly floor crossing period was abolished. During this time, members of
parliament, members of provincial legislatures and local government councilors used to be able
to change political parties. Mashumi Figlan told me that the people who cross the floor aren’t
drawn towards the ideals of the ANC, “they’re just the people who want to get a job.… And the
ANC allows those people to come, and some of them they are not doing the job the way the
ANC is doing the job, or the way the ANC wants them to do their job. They’ve got their other
Constitution on this hand, and another Constitution on this hand” (interview 2007). Although the
ANC was the main benefactor of this floor crossing policy, the ANC supermajority voted to
amend the constitution to outlaw the practice in January 2009. This might have been part of an
effort to prevent ANC MPs from leaving the party to join COPE in the upcoming crossover
period.
Another factor is that some ANC leaders left the country once they realized how the
ANC was changing and did not want to be involved. These activists left because they felt
dissatisfied, marginalized, unappreciated, or disillusioned. Gary said that many of the people
who emigrated “were part of the struggle, they were liberators to the bone” (interview 2007). He
continued, “I think many people in the hierarchy of the liberation movements stepped out
because they couldn’t handle what they were seeing. They couldn’t handle that we have
opportunists and cut-throats within the organization who are bent on treating their pockets and
not giving back to the poor” (ibid).
49
Yet there are still some South Africans who think the ANC is doing a good job given the
circumstances. Former political analyst Kiru Naidoo said, “I think that the ANC has done
superbly well in government. Inheriting a country that was on the brink of civil war, inheriting a
social and economic system that was as decrepit as you could imagine, millions of people
without homes, access to drinking water, access to food, and other social services, I think the
ANC has done magnificently in that regard” (interview 2007). He argues that we have to
acknowledge that many of the ANC leaders were involved in guerilla warfare and spent decades
in exile or prison. Kiru attributes the successes of the ANC leadership to the “depth and the
breadth of talent within the ANC, and also the enormous influence that Nelson Mandela has had
in guiding and channeling the thinking of the ANC” (ibid).
Membership, Public Opinion, Emotions, and Elections
ANC membership fluctuated between 100,000 and 500,000 in its first decade as a
political party (Lodge 2004:192). The number of active and paid members continued to grow,
and was reported to be 621,237 in June 2007 (Xundu 2007). Many South Africans have
strong emotional connections to the ANC as a liberation movement, which have profound
impacts on their opinion of the ANC as a political party. One story that highlights this is how
Mashumi Figlan first heard of the ANC and Nelson Mandela.
In 1982, when Mashumi was young, he saw soldiers harass his father for smoking
tobacco. His father was too old to fight back, and when one of the young soldiers began to beat
him with a shovel, Mashumi ran, crying, to his mother at church. She told him, “It’s like that in
South Africa. They can hit you anytime they like, they can shoot you anytime they like”
(interview 2007). The next day at school, Mashumi told his friends what had happened, and they
said not to worry, “there is a man coming who’s going to take over this country, his name is
50
Mandela. And that man, once he takes over there will be no one going to hit another one. And
everybody’s going to be safe. And everybody is… going to have a car, cows, goats, sheep, and
all those things” (ibid). Mashumi was so inspired that he asked his father about Mandela as soon
as he arrived home, and was astonished when his father slapped him and said, “don’t ever talk
about that, just because you’ll go behind bars, once you talk about that” (ibid). Mashumi didn’t
understand why he was silenced when he asked about Mandela, and continued to wonder about
this great man.
Before long, Mashumi had another chance to learn about Mandela. His uncle came to
visit and drink with his father. Mashumi realized they were planning to talk about Mandela, and
so he pretended to fall asleep so that he could listen to their conversation. Mashumi tells:
So they talk freely about Mandela, now, telling each other all those things, and I was listening attentively. Then after that I woke up and I told my uncle that I want to go to the toilet. I go to the toilet, then after that I jump over the fence, went to one of my friends, and I started to tell him. I said, ‘I heard my father talking about this Mandela.’ And I told him about Mandela, all those things. So I get inspired, and the way my father was talking to my uncle about Mandela, I was so inspired. Just because the way they were talking. And I used to open my eyes a little bit, and the way they were talking I noticed they didn’t want anyone to come inside. (interview 2007)
In high school Mashumi served as chairperson of the Congress of South African Students
(COSAS), he joined the struggle with the ANC in 1986, and became the chairperson of the ANC
Youth League in his town. In 1994 he canvassed for the ANC to help win the election, and put
great faith in what the party would do for the country. He told me, “Before 1994 I believed that
once the ANC took over the rule of this country, just because in that day we believed that the son
of God would come back, Jesus Christ. I used to say, ‘the ANC is going to hand over the rule of
this country to Jesus Christ’” (ibid). Even though Mashumi has been very disappointed with
what the ANC government has done, he still feels very strongly about the liberation movement,
and particularly Nelson Mandela. Mashumi explains:
When you think about Mandela sometimes you even forget about the politics, or what he did for the country and all those things. When I think about Mandela I think about him as a father. No matter what
51
father did wrong, he’s always your father. I rate him as a very good man who knows what the poor people need. He sacrificed his life for the betterment of the poor, but there’s still no betterment of the poor. (ibid)
This story and the strong sentiments it shows are common among those who fought for liberation
in South Africa.
Kiru Naidoo also became involved with the ANC as a young child, partially because his
aunts were activists. He told me, “My own thinking has evolved with the evolution of the ANC.
Ideologically and spiritually, from the very earliest days, my thinking has always been inline
with that of the ANC” (interview 2007). In many ways, this reflects the ANC’s ability to
become a catch-all organization that has incorporated the ideologies of other liberation
organizations. Gary Govindsamy explained, “the ANC will be in power for a long time” because
“the great majority of people in the country have been politicized into believing that the ANC
will liberate them” (interview 2007). While the ANC was not the only group that fought for
liberation, it successfully “usurped… all the policies and all the philosophies of the other
organizations” to create a party that is considered united (ibid).
There are also a lot of negative emotions attached to the ANC, particularly due to what
has happened since the transition. According to Gary, “People lost a great deal when we had
liberation, white people lost a great deal. And they felt betrayed by the old order.… Even that
white soldier who protected the border did something for his own people against what he
believed were terrorists” (interview 2007). Many whites didn’t think there would ever be a black
government, so they lost hope and interest in the political situation as soon as the ANC rose to
power. But this same disillusionment has occurred for people who fought apartheid and dreamed
of a truly equal South Africa. Gary adds, “And black people also, even if they carried a placard
one day in their life, they made a contribution. Even if they voiced their opinions about not
52
wanting to pay their electricity bills in protest, they did something for the struggle.… So people
are frustrated, but they believe there is some hope that one day they will have a better life” (ibid).
Though the ANC has disappointed many people in recent years, it seems that they will
continue to get the majority of the vote, and may enjoy their position as the ruling party for years
to come. There are a variety of factors that contribute to this theory. From a historical
standpoint, Kiru Naidoo explains that liberation movements that became parties in Tanzania,
India, and Kenya stayed in power for several decades (interview 2007). These examples may
provide a reasonable prediction of how long the ANC will retain its power. Yet, even though
history often repeats itself, they do not provide a guaranteed forecast of the future. The people of
South Africa must continue to vote in favor of the ANC for the party to retain its power, and this
may happen for several reasons.
As I mentioned earlier, the ANC has become a catch-all party that has diluted its
“ideological character in the pursuit of wider electoral support” (Butler 2007:38). The ANC tries
to appeal to a variety of social groups by “concentrating on ‘bread and butter’ issues, [and]
stressing competence above ideology” (ibid). Additionally, there have not been any worthy
opposition parties in past elections. As Xolani Tsalong told me, “People will continue to vote for
the ANC because there isn’t really a strong political party of opposition” (interview 2007). Gary
Govindsamy said that many people feel there is no better party to vote for, as the ANC has made
itself the only viable option. He elaborates, “The whole question of the government of national
unity was so carefully planned and organized and put into practice, that it destroyed other
ideologies of black people. So the ANC will stay in power for a long time” (interview 2007).
In the minds of many, the ANC has used empty promises and small gestures as an
attempt to gain the votes of shack dwellers. System Cele explained,
53
They only come to us when they want our vote…. They know that if they come do something for us they can get the majority to vote for them…. They came with biryani and juice, but after the election they forget about us…. They are buying the people with biryani and those itchy blankets, the gray ones, because they know that poverty is very high in our community of people who live in the shacks. So if you come with the food, the blankets, and the clothes, it will be like you have come with the heaven, you’ve done a good thing.… People can be easily taken because they are poor. (interview 2007)
Mashumi Figlan lives in the same shack settlement, and shared similar sentiments about how the
ANC only cares about poor people when the party needs their votes. He said, “During the
elections they always promised that ‘if you vote for us, what we’re going to do, we’re going to
build houses for you, we are going to do this and this and this and this.’ Then after that, once we
finished voting, they forget about us” (interview 2007). To my informants, it seems that the
ANC is putting in a minimal effort to maintain their electoral majority, but is not concerned with
following through.
My interviews in South Africa were conducted in late 2007, before Jacob Zuma was
elected President of the ANC party, before Thabo Mbeki stepped down, and before the creation
of COPE. The feeling at the time was that due to the amount of power and support the ANC had
accumulated, it was unlikely that another party would emerge with majority support in the near
future. Gary Govindsamy said that it is fine for the ANC to maintain their rule, so long as the
party protects rights and begins to listen to the people, “The whole question of expression and
freedom of speech exists. But we have a one party state, without doubt it’s a one party state, and
that is what they want. To a certain degree I agree with it, because only the ANC will appreciate
what the people want and what the people deserve. They’re supposed to have that as a basis to
ensure that everybody gets what is enshrined in the Freedom Charter” (interview 2007). Gary
said that if the official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), were to win the
presidency, “we’re going to go back to square one. And the kind of thinking in the DA is very
much ‘fight black’, not ‘fight back’. They will resort to the same tactics that the previous
government used to insure that they ‘fight black’” (ibid). So far, opposition parties have not
54
been able to provide an alternative to the ANC that the majority of South Africans will support.
For example, the only parties other than the ANC with more than 10 seats in the 400-member
Parliament are the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party, which are only strong in
the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, respectively. COPE may fill the void that
other opposition parties have not been able to fill, but since the floor crossing period was
abolished, there will be no way to determine this new party’s strength and breadth until the April
2009 national election.
The number and percentage of votes cast for the ANC has increased in every national
election since 1994. Former political analyst Kiru Naidoo noted, “In my mind that’s really
uncanny, but also thinking as a political scientist I think that the expectation would have been
that its support base would have dwindled. My feeling is that the ANC will be solidly in power
for at least the next twenty years” (interview 2007). As addressed earlier, Kiru mentioned that
this would not be unprecedented, as parties that won liberation in other countries have stayed in
power for three or four decades (ibid). This is what scholars at the independent, non-profit
Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) refer to as the honeymoon phenomenon, when
“citizens are reluctant to vote against liberation parties which were responsible for coordinating
the popular rebellions that brought down authoritarian regimes” (Habib and Schultz-Herzenberg
2005:168). Kiru attributes the ANC’s electoral success to the party’s strategy of being
“simultaneously right, left, and center” (interview 2007). He told me that closing down the space
for other parties to operate was “a very astute political strategy for the [ANC] party, [but]
whether this is healthy for democracy and the country as a whole, I’m skeptical. I think it’s
killing off a diversity of ideological opinion” (ibid). It seems that in order for ideological
diversity to return to the South African government, an opposition party will have to fight for it.
55
Gary Govindsamy said that if a viable opposition party were to emerge, he would not be
against it, but would urge them to focus on unity and participation. He continues, “I’m not
saying that there shouldn’t be an opposition, but the opposition has to work with what Mandela
had in mind all the time, a government of national unity, so that everybody can share and
participate in the government of the day” (interview 2007). The key to addressing South
Africans’ problems is through what the liberation struggle was fighting for: democracy. If the
government ignores the people, or the people stop trying to make the ANC listen to their needs,
nothing will improve.
The ANC has taken their electoral advantage for granted in past elections. While the
South African government has institutional methods in place to guarantee substantive uncertainty
for the ruling political party, such as “legislative elections, separate powers, civil liberties,
oppositional political parties, [and] an independent press” the ANC has enjoyed security (Habib
and Schultz-Herzenberg 2005:168). Some scholars argue that the ANC’s election victories
reflect a historically derived authority rather than a present sanction to rule (Butler 2005:730).
The result is that while there are free and fair elections, South African citizens’ voting rights do
not have any significant leverage when trying to change the actions of state elites (Habib and
Schultz-Herzenberg 2005:169).
Several of the South Africans I interviewed mentioned that the elections and the
subsequent actions of ANC politicians have created a lot of disenchantment among citizens.
Gary Govindsamy said, “There’s definitely going to be a strict decline in the number of people
who are going to the polls because people are fed up of going to the polls every so often. We
have elections every little while, and the country has become so politicized that people are fed
up” (interview 2007). Election days are public holidays so that everyone has a chance to vote.
56
But Gary said that while voting was a novelty in 1994, now most people are tired of standing in
long lines and would rather spend time with their family or at the beach, enjoying a braai
(barbeque) and a beer (ibid). He told me this lack of interest is largely due to the lack of service
delivery:
They’re fed up with this kind of promises being made by politicians and no delivery. They don’t get anything in return. So they’d rather pay their taxes, they’d rather pay their rates, and fight among themselves in their own little arguments to say, ‘I don’t get this, I don’t get that, our street lights are bad.’ Because people are indeed fed up. It is sad, but I think they’ve been politicized to a large degree in the beginning, and since 1994 there isn’t this enthusiasm anymore. (ibid)
Xolani Tsalong also said that fewer people are going to the polls because they are losing interest
and excitement. He rationalized, “There are no fruits, they are not benefiting from this process.
Once we go to the polling station to vote, we expect some kind of change. When that change
doesn’t happen, what’s the reason to go out there?” (interview 2007).
David Ntseng has found that people are choosing to withhold their vote because there is
not a viable alternative to the ANC. He said, “no one is ready to go anywhere but the ANC,
unless people consciously decide not to vote at all. People would rather hold their vote than take
that anywhere else. That’s the current trend at the moment that I’ve witnessed and I’ve heard
people sharing” (interview 2007). Even if people abstain from voting, the ANC will continue to
get the majority of the vote. David told me that this will persist:
unless other promising political parties emerge in the near future, and how that will happen I don’t know. I don’t know because what I can see is that people have realized that party politics really doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t yield any results to expect political parties to make changes. That’s part of the disillusionment that we’ve gone through with the ANC, which was most trusted. Less and less people believe that political parties will yield something. (ibid)
He thinks that people are not only frustrated with the ANC, but with party politics in general.
This could mean that the end of the ANC’s rule might not come simply from another party
getting the majority of the vote, but through a fundamental change in the governmental system.
Service Delivery
57
The lack of service delivery is a major grievance for South Africans. As political
scientist Anthony Butler wrote, “Liberal freedoms and representative democracy are easily…
rendered almost meaningless by poverty and historical disadvantage” (2005:725). Xolani
Tsalong has not been impressed with how the government has handled the nation’s problems.
He said, “If I look at the situation of poor people of South Africa today, because I think that’s
how I need to measure the successes of the ANC, I will say that I’m not very happy. The
conditions of poor people continue to be worse” (interview 2007). This sentiment was echoed
again and again in my interviews. System Cele declared, “There is nothing happening. When
they’re campaigning, they can promise everything, not only this government, every political
party, they all promise the same things, but they don’t deliver. That’s why we say we don’t care
who the leader is or which political party, as long as they are going to deliver” (interview 2007).
The liberation struggle in South Africa was not just about political rights, but also about
gaining basic human and economic rights. As Gary Gonvindsamy expressed, “the ordinary
people out there want to see something in their homes, they want to see something in their
pockets, they want to live a decent life before they die” (interview 2007). While all South
Africans can vote, not all have basics like homes, food, healthcare, and employment. Gary
continued, “There’s a great deal to be done, and I think people appreciate that and understand
that. But that liberation is taking a long time to come after the liberation, where people by now
should be sitting back and enjoying the fruits of the liberation. The whole question of pension,
the whole question of a better standard of education, the whole question of better housing, and all
that’s written in the Freedom Charter, is not being adhered to” (ibid). David Ntseng took this
argument further and said that South Africans must ask, “why does this happen under the banner
of liberations? Because it doesn’t feel liberating; you don’t get the sense of freedom… [this]
58
will probe them to think, and think about the fact that they are unable to prosper or be citizens
that they want to be” (interview 2007). The ANC has won the political liberation struggle, but
the right to vote becomes almost meaningless for those living in poverty.
Unemployment is often at the root of many South Africans’ problems. The most recent
statistic from March 2009 says that the national rate of unemployment is 21.9% (Isa 2009). This
number is smaller than the real number of jobless South Africans because it does not include
discouraged work-seekers, those looking for jobs in the informal economy, and the significant
population of migrants who do not have the proper documentation to file for unemployment.
Using the broad definition of South African citizens wanting work, but not necessarily actively
job-searching, 29.3% of the country was unemployed at the end of 2008 (ibid). These numbers
are the lowest they’ve been in years, and there are doubts about their accuracy since they were
announced just before the national election.
Thus far, the ANC has done little to create job opportunities for those who need them.
While Kiru Naidoo had a more positive outlook on the ANC’s progress in comparison to the
others I interviewed, he said, “I think that their record has been plain atrocious, if I had to be
really vicious about it, I think it’s just been creating jobs for friends rather than meeting the
agenda of national priorities related to the youth. So you have CEOs on massive salaries, and
whether the job is being done on the ground is quite another thing” (interview 2007). Xolani
Tsalong was similarly disappointed:
The ANC did not promise too much, they promised things that are possible to deliver, but again, what they promise is completely different from the policies that they are adopting. If you promise to create employment, but at the same time you create policies that take away people’s employment, it’s a different story together. Making those promises that they’ve made is fine, they’re not ambitious, they are good promises. But the problem is the implementation. (interview 2007)
As unemployment grew in the first decade of democracy, so did the inequalities that existed
during apartheid (Butler 2005:726). The result is a democracy with higher rates of
59
unemployment and larger wealth disparities than during apartheid. To put it simply, the average
South African was better off economically during apartheid than they are in the country’s new
democracy.
The ANC has declared on several occasions since 1994 that the party will end
homelessness in South Africa. Mashumi Figlan lives in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in
Durban and he told me, “People still stay in squatters and there are fires, floods, everything bad,
crooks are there, we are really not protected. I cannot say they’ve done well just because they
say, ‘ja, we’ve got the right of expressing ourselves, we can say whatever we want to say.’ But
that is not the freedom we are fighting for, only to talk” (interview 2007). Louisa Motha also
lives at Kennedy Road, and put the issue in perspective, “We haven’t got houses, we’re shouting
for houses, even my mother today is passing away from the shacks. Myself too I will pass away
from the shacks, even my children” (interview 2007). Many residents at Kennedy Road and
other shack settlements would like to improve their shacks and make them into viable houses
with stronger materials, running water, and electricity, but this is outlawed in South Africa and
the police demolish any shacks that are improved. When the ANC has built houses, they force
shack dwellers to move into them, and the houses tend to be tens of miles from places of
employment, making them worthless for the people who are living in shack settlements in or
near the city so that they can have a job. David Ntseng grew up in a shack and is now employed
by the Church Land Programme, an NGO that works to find solutions for land reform that go
beyond the state’s process. He explained that:
land reform is going nowhere, restitution in particular is going nowhere. I think the dates for actual completion of restitution programs have been shifted three times now. The first was by 1999, 30% of land in South Africa would have been transferred from whites to blacks, it was pushed to 2004, and it was pushed to 2008. And until now only 4%, and it’s been over ten years, it’s been 4%. Now this thing of halting poverty by 2014 then becomes a dream, a far fetched dream just to lure people into hoping, hoping, hoping but nothing actually takes place on the ground. (interview 2007)
60
This creates a hazardous living situation for millions of South Africans. Living in shack
settlements is dangerous for many reasons, not the least of which are the lack of hygiene without
running water or enough toilets, shack fires that are created by propane which is used for
cooking and heat, and limited shelter from the elements and wildlife.
The number of people in South Africa living with HIV/AIDS has grown rapidly since the
early 1990s (Friedman and Mottiar 2006:24). During Mandela’s presidency, he did nothing to
increase awareness and treatment of the epidemic, and many people were reluctant to be
associated with the HIV/AIDS movement through fear of being stigmatized (ibid). After leaving
office, Nelson Mandela announced that HIV causes AIDS and that he had lost a niece and two of
his nephew’s sons to AIDS. On one occasion he even wore an “HIV POSITIVE” shirt that was
part of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a social movement that aims to treat people with
HIV/AIDS and reduce new infections (Power). When the former President, a symbol of the new
South Africa, took this strong stance he helped to significantly decrease the stigma attached to
HIV/AIDS.
Though Mandela did help to improve awareness about HIV/AIDS after he left office, the
ANC has yet to have a President fully take on the issue while in office. Mbeki publicly
questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, and his former Health Minister Dr. Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang encouraged HIV positive South Africans to eat lots of beetroot and garlic
rather than promoting anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), which scientists say are the most successful
way of combating AIDS. It also was also detrimental that the current President of the ANC,
Jacob Zuma, admitted in court when he was accused of rape, that he had unprotected sexual
intercourse with an HIV positive woman, and that the only thing he did to protect himself was
shower afterwards. Jacob Zuma’s immense popularity and the vast media coverage of this
61
statement added clout to many of the South African public’s unscientific perspectives on
HIV/AIDS. While the new Minister of Health, and longtime ANC activist and member, Barbara
Hogan has the TAC’s approval for her stance on HIV/AIDS, the ANC has its work cut out for it
in terms of getting the epidemic under control.
While service delivery in South Africa has been limited, the ANC has made some
progress in improving other Southern African countries. Gary Govindsamy told me:
the President [Thabo Mbeki] is doing a fantastic job at trying to stabilize the destabilized sub-Saharan Africa so that everybody below the equator can live a proper life. People are flocking to South Africa because they believe there is gold on the streets of South Africa. And as white countries have destabilized Africa for their diamonds and gold and all that goes with it, and the wars need to be stopped in sub-Saharan Africa, so the entire sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t converge into South Africa and create problems here. And the President is doing a fantastic job in that. But also the President needs to see what is happening within his own backyard to insure that crime is curtailed and people are living a life where there is security and comfort for all. (interview 2007)
By working to improve neighboring countries, the ANC has managed to limit some migration
into South Africa, yet there are still millions of migrants, many from Zimbabwe, who are living
in South Africa and competing with citizens for jobs, houses, and other basic resources.
Xolani Tsalong summed up the problem clearly when he told me, “The issue of service
delivery is still a major issue here in South Africa. It’s going to continue to be an issue as long
as we continue to have these policies” (interview 2007). The South Africans I interviewed who
are critical of the ANC are not asking for much, just the ability to live a decent life and to
maintain their dignity. They want jobs, houses, and health care. These are reasonable requests,
and in fact these rights are guaranteed in the South African Constitution and the Freedom
Charter. Yet the people of South Africa are still denied many of the rights that the ANC fought
for during the liberation struggle.
Interactions with Civil Society and Political Society
Everyone I interviewed in South Africa complained about the ANC’s treatment of civil
society. Xolani Tsalong’s opinion is that once democracy was achieved, the government worked
62
to silence civil society, and the nation has paid for it. He said, “I think the government missed an
opportunity to work with civil society in addressing some of the major service delivery problems
in the country. Civil society is desperate because we didn’t accommodate it” (interview 2007).
The ANC tried too hard to keep civil society silent due to its liberation tradition, but that should
no longer apply. He continues:
Civil society is independent of government and is therefore able to be critical of government. Some people wouldn’t take that positively. Some people look at it as an effort to criticize the ANC government. That has been a major problem.… We’ve been received as anti ANC government because of being critical. It goes back to the theme of being loyal to a post development organization, being loyal to a liberation movement, because the ANC was a liberation movement, so it expects therefore people to be very loyal to it. It becomes a different story altogether if you are critical of that movement in a post-apartheid or post-colonial era. (ibid)
Mac Maharaj, a former ANC member who had a falling out with the party, agrees that
“government and civil society have not found ways of working together without undermining
each other’s independence. Their relationship still simmers with latent tension, and has taken an
unhealthy form. At best, government tends to smother civil society; at worst, it is downright
antagonistic toward it” (O’Malley, 448-9). The government does not want to hear what people
have to say, and it ignores what it does not want to be told. When it is no longer able to ignore
these voices, the ANC has resorted to attempts to silence the public. As Louisa Motha tells us,
“they’re just trying to close the mouths of everybody…. Words from everyone have to be heard.
They mustn’t listen to just the words of the rich, or the big people, they must listen to the words
from everyone. They say it’s a government for everyone, but the way they do they don’t look
like they’re a government for everyone” (interview 2007). The police presence, brutality, and
arrests at all of the Abahlali movement’s marches and the scare tactics the ANC has used to try
to silence certain members outside of the marches are just a few examples among many.
Kiru Naidoo offers a perspective that balances a harsh reality with steadfast optimism.
He says:
63
I think the ANC has effectively demobilized and decimated civil society. Now that’s strong language and I’m happy to say it in that way, because I think that what the government did was to poach the best and the brightest leaders from civil society movements into government and its apparatus. So the effect of that has been that many organizations simply collapsed. The flip side of that argument is that these organizations existed to serve the cause of national liberation. And once national liberation had been won, then their reason d’être had passed. I think in many ways, a stronger civil society would have contributed to much sounder governance and service delivery. And I’m still optimistic that the ANC will create the spaces for our civil society to flourish. (interview 2007).
If Kiru is right and the ANC creates a space for civil society, or at least allows civil society to
create and preserve its own space, the ANC’s power will begin to be checked by the public.
This is exactly what Mac Maharaj thinks the ANC needs – a strong civil society. He
says, “The check on the ANC is a healthy civil society. The check is a society that is debating.
The check is a society that does not look only at corruption but also at the abuse of power, one
that recognizes that the abuse of state power is a threat to freedom, one that debates the danger.
The check is a society that does not say, ‘Because you, the government say so, therefore it’s
right.’ It says, ‘I believe you, but I would like to be convinced.’” (O’Malley 2007:455).
Maharaj, like many others who were active in the struggle and are now critical of the ANC,
hopes that the party will return to its tradition of participation. He continues, “The vibrancy of
civil society that was present at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle has significantly
diminished. Yet the challenge for South Africa is whether we will succeed in deepening and
realizing a participatory democracy, or whether we will allow our democracy to become frozen
in formal trappings and structures. Participatory democracy requires that we encourage and
stimulate the development of civil society” (ibid). With any luck, the people of South Africa
have already begun to gain the momentum necessary to make this vision a reality, as it seems
unlikely that this change will come from the ANC.
Social movements were instrumental in the collapse of apartheid, but the ANC no longer
encourages protests and often criticizes activists who try to take action. The ANC now “calls for
active support for state institutions and demands law-abiding citizens” (Zuern 2004:3). Social
64
movements are forced to choose between following state policies and forfeiting a critical
perspective, or speaking out for the people they represent and being quieted by the government.
David Ntseng told me that some social movement organizations:
will look into forming partnerships with the state, affirming what the state is doing, looking up to what the state is promising even if it doesn’t offer. That social movement of course will be legitimate in the eyes of the state. Now to me that says any organization or social movement that does the opposite, that breaks away from the state politics or state projects, then it’s launching an offensive to the state, and they will be treated by all means as an enemy, and be crushed. (interview 2007)
Luckily, not all social movements that speak out against government policies have been trampled
by the ANC.
The Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers) movement began in early 2005 when 750
shack dwellers blocked a major road in Durban for four hours (Abahlali BaseMjondolo 2006;
Gibson 2006:Zabalaza). They were protesting the sale of a piece of land near the Kennedy Road
settlement that had been promised for shack dweller housing (Abahlali BaseMjondolo 2006).
Abahlali has grown to be “the largest organisation of the militant poor in post-apartheid South
Africa” and includes tens of thousands of residents from almost 40 settlements in the Durban area
(ibid). Since its creation, Abahlali members and supporters have suffered over a hundred arrests
in addition to police assaults, death threats, and various other forms of intimidation (ibid). Half
of the people I interviewed in South Africa – System Cele, Mashumi Figlan, Louisa Motha, and
David Ntseng – are involved with Abahlali’s struggle, and provided in-depth information on the
movement’s interactions with the ANC.
Mashumi explained that Abahlali operates with truth, in stark contrast to the lies of the
ANC. He said, “The thing I like about Abahlali baseMjondolo is that they speak truth. If they
don’t know how to do something they say, ‘No, we don’t know how to this and this and this and
this. Can you tell us what we can do?’ That is what I like. They’re transparent, and tell the
truth, not to lie about it, just because I don’t like the people who are lying” (interview 2007). In
65
his opinion, this truth is hard for the ANC leadership to handle, and why Abahlali is constantly
threatened in hopes of keeping the people quiet. Mashumi continued, “They can listen anytime
if they want to, but if they are still corrupt I don’t think they can listen to Abahlali, just because
Abahlali, they are speaking the truth all the time. But I don’t think they can associate with the
people who are only speaking truth when they don’t want to hear it” (ibid). While Abahlali will
continue to seek the attention of the ANC, Mashumi is aware that the movement cannot force the
government to be accountable. He said, “You can’t force the ANC to listen if they are not
prepared to. Or change their mind, you can’t do it” (ibid). All that Abahlali can do is protest
“the lack of service delivery because it’s our right to voice what we are dissatisfied with” (ibid).
Although the South African constitution guarantees freedom of speech and the right to
protest, at times the police have denied these rights to Abahlali members. Louisa Motha told me,
“When we march, they just send the police to just hit us, for nothing, for no reason. The
constitution it says we can march, but they’re hitting the people, oppressing the people, it’s not a
good thing” (interview 2007). Mashumi added to this idea, saying that simply because the ANC
says all South Africans are liberated does not mean that the statement is true. He explained, “If
we are involved in that new liberation, why when we express ourselves, why when we share our
opinion we are silenced, if we are all free? They must say they are free, not all of us. Just
because… whenever we are marching they are trying by all means to silence us” (interview
2007).
Even though the government has yet to give in to Abahlali’s demands, the movement has
made significant progress in giving shack dwellers the voice that all citizens in a democracy are
supposed to have. System Cele said, “Before, even though we had the right, we were not
allowed to speak for ourselves. People from the shacks were ignored when they went to the
66
official’s office, they just ignored you. Now we are able to talk to our government, we are able
to talk to any official we want to talk to because we are a community” (interview 2007). Still,
the ANC remains blind to the reasons behind Abahlali’s actions, or perhaps in denial of their
responsibilities, and tries to silence the people of Abahlali. System continued, “If you are
marching they think you are mad, they don’t understand, they think we act like uneducated
people. But we are not mad, our mothers are not mad, our grannies are not mad, they are not
going to the street and jump[ing] for nothing.… We go with the memorandum with our demands
and to show them that we are not fighting. But they don’t understand what we’re doing, they just
hit us. When we march at the end they just beat us” (ibid). The way that the police and local
politicians have dealt with Abahlali show that the ANC has not yet learned how to embrace
criticism of policies as a means of improvement, and instead view protests as an attack on the
party.
The ANC has held a similar attitude towards non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
According to scholar Anthony Butler, the party has made a point of “building relationships with
non-governmental organisations that refrain from public criticism of the party and government.
It expects its partners… to refrain from public denigration of the movement and its
representatives in government. The ANC has been ruthless, adroit and successful in using its
system of alliances to its own benefit, and to produce widespread consensus around most of
government’s programmes” (2007:39). NGO worker David Ntseng explained to me that the way
the ANC treats an NGO “depends how that NGO conducts itself, or how that NGO regards itself.
If it feels it’s a quasigovernment NGO, surely it will be treated with high respects and all, or it
will be regarded highly as a partner with government, by virtue of it being quasigovernment”
(interview 2007). NGOs are caught between working with the government but giving up their
67
autonomy, or staying true to their principles while being shunned by the authorities. Either
choice tends to limit the NGO’s effectiveness.
Since its founding in 1998, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has engaged with the
ANC in the streets and in the courtroom, and won several battles. Yet there is more than meets
the eye with the relationship between the ANC and TAC. Xolani Tsalong began volunteering for
TAC in 2001, worked for the NGO full time from 2003 to 2006, and now volunteers again while
studying for a masters degree in Development Studies. He explained, “It would seem that the
relationship is very hostile between the TAC and the ANC. But we have found that there are
people within the ANC who support the TAC and the things it’s doing. But unfortunately some
of them cannot come out and support TAC publicly…. Certain leadership of the ANC doesn’t
agree with TAC. So they don’t want anyone from the ANC to come out and support TAC”
(interview 2007). Though the TAC does have support from certain individuals in certain
provinces within the ANC, these sentiments cannot be announced publicly as they are not
accepted by the party. To complicate things further, the majority of TAC members are ANC
supporters, though many are not satisfied with the government’s policies. Xolani continued, “In
2003 we embarked on a civil disobedience campaign just to force the ANC government to adopt
the initial treatment plan, which was a clear indication that those members of TAC who were
ANC supporters were not entirely happy with what the ANC government was doing at the
time…. Immediately after that, late 2003, the government adopted initial treatment plan. I think
that the pressure that we exerted on them really worked” (ibid). While this was a major success
for the TAC, the government has not followed through to provide adequate resources for
implementation of the treatment plan.
68
The relationship between TAC and the government is something that the NGO has spent
a lot of time thinking about and trying to navigate so that it can be most effective. Xolani
expressed, “We’ve been going through difficult times in terms of our relationship with the
government, how government looks at civil society, it’s been really really difficult” (interview
2007). For now, the TAC has decided to operate as a watchdog of government HIV/AIDS
legislation in South Africa. Xolani stated, “As long as HIV/AIDS continues to exist, there is of
course a need for TAC to continue to exist as well…. There needs to be a watchdog to say, ‘this
is what the government promised us, these are the things that were adopted in the latest policies.’
The delivery is not there, so we demand delivery” (ibid).
The ANC originally planned to “safeguard and extend” labor and trade union rights when
the party took office in 1994 (Frazer 1994), but in many ways the ANC has failed to follow
through. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is part of the Tripartite
Alliance with the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, and there
has been much tension between these groups (Butler 2005:727). While the ANC has rarely
created policies that serve the unions’ interests, COSATU has stayed in the alliance and
continues to encourage union members to vote for the ANC. COSATU maintains the view that
the best way to change the ANC is by continuing their partnership (Habib 2005).
Many South Africans who are actively involved in civil society are not pleased with how
the government treats them. David Ntseng is employed by an NGO, involved in a social
movement, and educated in activism, and finds this situation unacceptable. He declares, “It’s so
not on, so not on. It’s unethical; it’s not supposed to be that way. It’s immature, both at the level
of politics and at the level of governing the country. So it’s not allowed to be like that”
(interview 2007). Yet as Xolani points out, not all South Africans feel this way:
69
There’s been this culture that everything’s fine now. We’ve got politics. All that the youth needs to do, is to get their education and get job opportunities. That’s it. I think that it’s been the mission of the ANC to silence the youth in the post-apartheid or post-colonial era. Because really if you look at power that the youth has, it’s very potent. It’s got huge power in influencing policies and politics, which it did before 94, ANC Youth League has been very influential in politics. But it became a different story after 94, to say, ‘things are fine now’. (interview 2007)
If future generations of South Africans continue to put a lot of trust in the government, there is a
good chance that the ANC will continue to consolidate power. The South African government
will not have much political uncertainty again if civil society members continue to partner with
the ruling party (Habib 2002; Habib 2005).
Yet there is hope that some civil society actors have begun to rise to the occasion. Xolani
says, “Civil society in South Africa has been very vocal in the past few years. I think it has
demanded space, and it continues to demand its space, and the government is beginning to listen.
Even though listening is one thing and delivering is another” (interview 2007). The number of
protests in South Africa have increased in past years, and this is a clear indication of how
dissatisfied South Africans have become. Xolani continues, “With the socio-economic
conditions the South African people are facing today, lack of employment, HIV/AIDS, and so
forth, it really forces people to unite and be vocal about these issues.… People forge alliances,
united fronts, to demand their space or demand service delivery” (ibid). This provides great
hope. As Xolani says, “I believe that if we have a strong civil society movement that really
exerts pressure on the government, there could be some change” (ibid).
Furthermore, there are some cases of the ANC encouraging civil society actors while
giving the organizations some autonomy. An example that has provided Kiru Naidoo with this
hope, that the ANC will foster the space for civil society, is the Conflict and Governance Facility
(CAGE). He told me:
This is an ostensibly civil society organization, but it’s funded through the national treasury, doing research and setting up structures in community and things, which ordinarily should not be the business of government. And government is doing this, funding it but not interfering in how it operated, not setting the
70
agenda for research and the like. I feel very pleased to see that, because these were university professors, who given their positions within universities would have been very happy to be critical of government, but they were people saying, ‘the state has put money in this, but we have not been told what may or may not research, what we may or may not write.’… So there was one example I saw of something being promoted where credible research is being done and a civil society organization is developing out of it. (interview 2007)
These relationships and creation of space should extend to other realms of civil society as well,
for the government can learn much from grassroots movements. Kiru continues, “I think that
State Departments like Health, Social Services, Education and so on would benefit from closer
associations with civic movements, students’ movements, women’s movements, because often
these bodies are the ones who have their ears to the ground” (ibid). By working with civil
society, the ANC can begin to understand what the people want, and engage with an array of
opinions about how to improve this country.
Kiru’s enthusiasm is not without reservations due to an awareness of the ANC’s previous
actions. He says, “I think in many ways the ANC is failing to hear the multiplicity of voices.
There is that one body of psycho fans who will trumpet anything the ANC says. Then there’s a
whole body of people who are quite tuned out. And then there’s a body which, I’ve written
something where I described them as ‘serial critics’, they are constantly bashing everything that
the state puts forward. I think that that’s as destructive as the psycho fans” (interview 2007).
Kiru does not consider himself to be a member of any of these groups, as he tries to judge the
ANC’s actions and policies on a case by case basis. He adds, “Civil society is a very useful
sounding board for government policy, and with the upcoming ANC conference, I’m pleased
that a lot of the policy documents through SANGOCO [South African NGO Coalition], the civic
movement structures, have been fed through the local community. But whether or not those
views get fed up the system, I’m skeptical but I’d like to be optimistic” (ibid). Kiru concludes
this thought simply, “I think that government tends to be very defensive, and it need not be that
71
way. There is enough room and space for both government and civil society to flourish. I think
government would be enriched if it worked more closely with civil society” (ibid).
The South African government has done a lot of work to improve their reputation and
economic relationship with western countries since the ANC took power though, as David
Ntseng points out, this is not a new phenomenon:
It’s a long story and there are so many connections to it. The fact that South Africa has brought itself to countries of Europe in a silver platter, or maybe shall I say platinum platter, is one of the reasons. You can’t open yourself up to be dictated to by the western countries, they are way ahead of you in this economic trade and what have you. They are way ahead because they started a long time ago, with manipulating resources and raw material from Africa. Now the interest of seeing this democratically elected or popular elected leadership of this country, to them it’s still a win, because then they will introduce you to some of the wonders, as understood in Western economics, of being part of the players in world economics. (interview 2007)
David says that this relationship with the West is beneficial for many of the rich South Africans,
but does not help the ordinary people, “Yet they are all represented by one government, the
liberation government” (ibid). The result is that the interests of the shack dwellers and farm
owners are not represented in these global interactions. Rich South Africans, David continues,
“are represented because it’s easy to side with other heavyweights in the Western economy. To
me it’s all linked to economic play. To grow the economy, how that is grown, is just play the
game” (ibid).
As in many other countries, the poor in South Africa are harmed by globalization. Xolani
Tsalong explained that many of the ANC’s failures can be blamed on the inability of the leaders
to stand up to global pressure. He said, “Corporate globalization is basically contributing to the
social injustices in developing nations. The World Bank, the IMF, how they seem to be
operating to make situations worse for people in poor countries.… As long as we continue to
have these institutions operating the way they are, we will continue to see some form of pressure
exerted on our leadership in developing nations” (interview 2007). Leadership must be
dedicated to eliminating social ills, and must not give in to the pressure of corporate
72
globalization. Xolani continues, “You need a strong leader to say enough is enough, I am
definitely not bowing down to this pressure” (ibid). One example of the government giving in to
globalization is the country’s preparations to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup which will bring a
mass influx of visitors and media coverage from around the world. System Cele stated:
I think they are too busy preparing for 2010, we will hear on the radio that the cement is poured and the stadium is not finished yet. They forgot about us. Even the people coming from the other countries, they won’t show them [the shacks], they’ll just show them inside the city where they will stay at hotels, they won’t show them here because it will be embarrassing because they went to the other countries and said they are doing their job, they are taking care of the poor. (interview 2007)
System thinks that the politicians present a false view of South Africa to other countries, and that
when the government does gather money it is not actually used to improve the nation for all
citizens. She continued, “the people in government positions, they go to different countries
saying they are going to deliver to our people, they are going to help us, they get the money and
we do not know what they are doing with that money. They don’t come back to us to give the
report, how they are doing, what they told the people from other countries what sort of solution
they would be doing” (ibid). The ANC as a political party seems to be more focused on pleasing
people outside of South Africa than on listening to or helping its constituents.
Accountability
A topic that came up in most of my interviews is the importance of listening to the voice
of the people. This is a simple point, but something politicians often fail to acknowledge.
System Cele states, “They will talk about the people living in the shack, they don’t even know
how it would feel to live in a shack. They talk about us, about our needs, but they’re doing
nothing for us. So that’s why we’re saying don’t talk about us, talk to us, because we are the one
who are suffering” (interview 2007). It is incongruous for leaders with steady incomes, houses,
running water, proper sanitation, their own means of transportation, and so many other goods
and resources to assume that they know what impoverished people living in shacks want. Louisa
73
Motha further emphasizes this point, “Come and see what’s happening. You can say you know
I’m hungry, but you never come in my house and see if I’ve got food or not. At the end of the
day you just go to the Parliament and shout, ‘my people are full,’ but you never see that thing.
You’re not coming to see the people and connecting with the people” (interview 2007). The
more the government tries to ignore the voice of the people, the longer it will take for change to
come about.
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth spends much time dealing with this very topic.
He wrote:
In an underdeveloped country, experience proves that the important thing is not that three hundred people form a plan and decide upon carrying it out, but that the whole people plan and decide even if it takes them twice or three times as long. The fact is that the time taken up by explaining, the time ‘lost’ in treating the worker as a human being, will be caught up in the execution of the plan. People know where they are going, and why. (1963:193)
Politicians in South Africa seem to underestimate the aptitude of ordinary people, particularly
when they are poor or live in shacks. They buy into the notion that material poverty is the result
of people’s limited intellectual capacity, when in fact this poverty is a product of the politicians’
own policies. Truly listening to the people is imperative for this backwards thinking to be
disproven, and for the will of the citizens to be actualized.
Valuing what the people say and want does not have to be contradictory to ANC methods
of leadership. Gary Govindsamy adds that:
As activists in the old days we consulted with the people. We always had meetings. People’s concerns change all the time, people’s wants change all the time, and if you don’t talk to your people, if you don’t talk to your voters, you’re not going to know what they want. You’re not going to know what they have in mind. Granted, the powers that be have the means to make those changes, they have the powers to make them, but there has to be consultation. We cannot imagine what they want, we cannot dream about what they want, they must tell you what they want. (interview 2007)
If we accept that the government has the power, and the people have knowledge, an open
partnership is necessary to improve South Africa.
74
Though the government may be in charge, the people are not powerless; the more they
find their voice and make it heard, the stronger they become. This is not a matter of asking the
government to make changes, it is about saying what is wrong and what should be done about it,
and then demanding that the government deliver. As Fanon tells us, “The masses should know
that the government and the party are at their service. A deserving people, in other words a
people conscious of its dignity, is a people that never forgets these facts” (1963:198). While
current civil society demands are not as strong as they were in past decades, people are once
again finding their voice and their power. As more people speak out, others gain confidence in
their own voices, and join in the demand that the government start listening and acting
accountable. According to David Ntseng:
This to me is just the beginning, there’s more to come. If more and more people believe in their own power, believe in the power of their own intellectual resources, their own strategies, their thinking capacities, their dreams, because that’s what’s how you drive them to a better future, to believe in the actualization of their dreams, their dreams to be human beings, that’s what they want, it’s nothing more than that. If movements like this one make that more and more visible to anyone and everyone, surely people will want to do the same. At the moment to me Abahlali are like a cloud of witness that need to convince everyone that as an ordinary person you can still make your voice heard, or you can force your voice to be heard. That will begin to allow other people to gain conviction and do likewise. (interview 2007)
The people of South Africa must become aware of the problems surrounding them, compare this
to their hopes for a democratic nation, and find the strength from within to make their voices
heard. Gary Govindsamy says this is important because existing ideologies do not always fit
with the current situation. He explains, “because of it’s uniqueness in terms of it’s people, in
terms of the country, in terms of the infrastructure, in terms of the geography, we need to take
issues up based on what we see with the people. That’s why I’m saying without consultation
with the people, you cannot go forward. You cannot think you know what the people want”
(interview 2007).
75
One of the reasons it might be so hard for ANC politicians to listen to the public is that
sometimes what the people are asking for does not fit with the word coming from the leaders at
the top. When movements ask for basic things like homes near their workplaces or safe water,
David says that:
it doesn’t code the word from the national headquarters. Actually, it works against the word from the national headquarters because at the moment the word from the national headquarters is the BEE, the ensuring of economic growth being GEAR. Now if you have people who are forcing you to account and actually put them in a picture that says as the country this is how you transform ordinary people’s lives, it doesn’t offer that opportunity. And so, the ANC tradition then suggests you silence those voices because they are disobedient to the word. So it’s hard to imagine a transformed ANC. (interview 2007).
In this way, the traditions of the ANC prevent the government from listening to the people and
making the improvements that the public wants. Louisa Motha calls for accountability, “They
must listen to us, we mustn’t listen to them. They ignore our struggle. We came from the shacks,
we know this life, we carry on with this life, but something for us needs to change. They mustn’t
expect to just get the vote and go away” (interview 2007). The ANC’s obsession with following
tradition and top-down order is preventing politicians from listening to the citizens, and thus
hinders democratic representation and progress.
76
CHAPTER 3: SOLIDARITY CASE STUDY
Solidarity is another SMO that entered into politics, yet has simultaneously remained a
union throughout its trajectory. Solidarity began as a Polish trade union and social movement,
and was very instrumental in the fall of communism and rise of democracy in Poland. Though
Solidarity originally claimed to be uninterested in politics, there were hints at a political future
from the beginning (Touraine 1983), and Solidarity’s power against Soviet rule eventually
compelled the organization to enter into politics. The parties and politicians that came out of
Solidarity experienced great fluctuations in public support throughout the 1990s. Since 2001,
Solidarity has limited its scope to that of a trade union and has begun to regain the legitimacy it
had in the 1980s.
History of the Movement
On August 14 1980, laborers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk went on strike in defense
of Anna Walentynowicz, a dismissed crane driver. Walentynowicz had co-organized the illegal
Free Trade Unions (FTU), which was established in 1978. The strike was initiated by three
fellow shipyard workers, as well as FTU and Workers Defense Committee (KOR) member
Bogdan Borusewicz, and Lech Wałęsa, a 1970 strike organizer and FTU member who had also
been fired (Wancerz-Gluza 2008). The strike continued for several days – with other shipyards,
plants, and ports joining the workers at the Lenin Shipyard. On the night of August 16, just less
than a thousand workers stayed overnight in the shipyard and established the Inter-Enterprise
Strike Committee (ISC) and its list of 21 postulates, the first being the right to independent trade
unions. The ISC’s plan was embraced by most of Poland and by the end of August, 700 plants
had joined the ISC with 700,000 workers on strike in the majority of Poland’s provinces.
77
Just a month later, on September 17, 1980, representatives from individual Inter-
Enterprise Committees decided to establish a unified national organization which they called the
Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity (Niezależny Samorządny Związek
Zawodowy “Solidarność”). At its founding, Solidarity was affiliated with three million blue and
white collar workers. Solidarity’s structure then changed to include college students and farmers
and to create a National Coordinating Committee, led by Wałęsa (Wancerz-Gluza 2008). Poles
and the free world alike had great expectations for this trade union that had 10 million members
by the end of 1980 – almost half of the adult population in Poland (Sharman 2003:106; Gliksman
group meeting 2008).
Solidarity was unique not only because it was the first independent organization in a
Soviet state, but because of the attitude it maintained about the state. When the workers at
Gdansk met with the government negotiating committee in August they said, “We don’t want to
engage in politics. We’ll have nothing to do with politics. Politics is your business, not ours”
(Ost 1990:1). The goal was not to change politics, but to create a free space that was
independent of the state: “They were so eager to avoid becoming captured in the routines and lies
of the party-state that they elevated the situational ethics of oppositional behavior into a general
principal of the ‘politics of anti-politics’” (Linz and Stepan 1996: 271-2). Solidarity not only
rejected the state and its power, it wanted to eliminate power “so ‘anti-politics’ is not just the
necessary rejection of the state, but also the deliberate rejection of the state, the belief that what
is essential to a just order is not a benign government and good people in power, but rather a
viral, active, aware, self-governing, and creative society” (Ost 1990:2). Another unique aspect of
Solidarity was its commitment to pacifism, explaining that solidarity was not just the name of the
movement, but a principle to live by. This called upon “the principles of social solidarity and
78
moral values in public life. By its very nature it contradicted the rules of the communist system
– thus eroding the foundations of communism in Poland” (Wancerz-Gluza 2008). Even without
trying to engage with the state, Solidarity began to shape politics in Poland simply by existing as
an institution separate from Soviet power.
These revolutionary ideas did not come only from the shipyard workers in Gdansk. The
path Solidarity followed was created in the 1970’s by democratic intellectuals who opposed the
Polish state. “The ‘anti-political’ strategy of social openness and political self-restraint, the
commitment to dialogue, and eschewal of force—all of those followed from KOR narratives that
identified political dictatorship (not just communism) as the prescribed object of anger” (Ost
2005b:191-2). This is important because these intellectuals were the ones who went into politics
using the name of Solidarity a decade later. Furthermore, Solidarity could not claim to be
outside the realm of politics and power for long because the nature of its position opposed
current politics and gave the movement power. Simply, “the very existence of Solidarity altered
the character of the state, Solidarity could no longer ignore the state. It tried for a while, but
could not do so for long” (Ost 1990:1). Without intending to, Solidarity had become a political
player.
Solidarity’s situation intensified in a matter of months. In March 1981, the police abused
several union activists and Solidarity responded by holding a four-hour warning strike, bringing
the country to a standstill (Wancerz-Gluza 2008). This strike was described by one scholar as
"the most impressive democratic mass mobilization of any European society in peacetime,
against its rulers’ wishes" (Ash 2002:155). By the autumn of 1981, Solidarity was as strong as
ever and the state quickly responded by enacting martial law on December 13, 1981. Many
79
Solidarity leaders were sent to prison and about one million members, mostly the well-educated,
were forced to leave the country (Gliksman group meeting 2008).
In April 1982 the Provisional Coordinating Commission, the clandestine national
leadership of Solidarity, was formed by the leaders of underground regional organizations that
had evaded arrest. Underground Solidarity participated in political acts like street protests,
education, and uncensored publishing (Wancerz-Gluza 2008). By the time martial law formally
ended on June 22, 1983, almost 12 thousand Poles had been arrested and imprisoned for their
involvement with Solidarity. Sentencing of Solidarity members continued until mid-September
1986, when all political prisoners were released. This was largely due to a major change in the
political opportunity structure. Mikhail Gorbachev became President of the Soviet Union in
1985 and, partially due to economic pressure from several international superpowers, Gorbachev
focused on reforming the Soviet system (Paczkowski 2003). After the Soviets released all of
their Polish political prisoners the United States lifted their economic sanctions against Poland,
as requested by Lech Wałęsa and a group of intellectuals, which allowed the negotiation process
with the authorities to begin (Wancerz-Gluza 2008).
It is commonly said that Solidarity negotiated with the Polish government, but this is not
entirely true. Lech Wałęsa created the Civic Committee as a direct political branch of Solidarity
in late 1988 because the union was just beginning to revive from its time in exile (Ost 2005b:34).
This was the beginning of a faction within Solidarity. One group, which included Lech Wałęsa,
wanted to work with the government to create a new regime, while the other camp believed that
the only way to fix the system was by destroying it and did not want to collaborate with the
Soviet-ruled state (Gliksman interview 2008). The Civic Committee was composed of
Solidarity’s foremost liberal intellectuals and led the 1989 roundtable discussions on Solidarity’s
80
behalf. This was a major shift in Solidarity’s focus. Rather than depending on charismatic union
leaders and activists to build public support, the round table required competent professionals
who could create a contract with the new government (Wenzel 1998:143). The Civic Committee
prioritized politics over trade union goals and Solidarity has dealt with the effects of this ever
since.
The round table began on February 6, 1989 and ended just two months later on April 5.
The Civic Committee was represented by 230 people who were selected by Lech Wałęsa
(Wancerz-Gluza 2008). It was decided that 35% of the Sejm (lower house of Parliament) and all
of the seats in the Senate would be decided by a free election (Gliksman group meeting 2008).
The remaining 65% of the Parliament would retain former socialist politicians, and this was done
largely out of fear that Solidarity would not fare well in the election (Gliksman interview 2008).
The results of the semi-free election surprised everyone. “Solidarity candidates won 160 seats in
the Sejm (practically all the seats they were allowed to contest) and all but one of the 100 seats in
the Senate” (Wancerz-Gluza 2008). Neither Solidarity nor the state had anticipated results of
this magnitude, and the public’s overwhelming support for the Solidarity’s candidates expedited
the turnover of the state.
Though Wałęsa was President, Solidarity and other unions had very little power in the
early 1990s. Lech Wałęsa’s declaration that the unions could not be strong until the economy
grew implied that when the economy began to grow, trade unions would finally gain power. In
1995, the economy began to grow, but unions did not become stronger. Solidarity membership
had decreased to about two million and continued to decline for years to come (Crowley and Ost
2001:80). The intellectuals got a step up in the new democracy while their former comrades,
81
Polish laborers, paid the price. Many intellectuals gained wealth and power in their new
positions of authority, while workers dealt with unemployment and did not gain new labor rights.
Poles were not pleased with Solidarity’s leadership and thus made a move towards the
previous regime, which had given them full employment and a sense of unity. Parliamentary
changes quickly: the post-Solidarity Polish Peasant Party-Peasant Agreement (PSL-PL) won
only 5.46% of the vote in the 1991 election (Szczerbiak 2001:17). 29 parties won seats in the
1991 parliamentary election, and the largest party, the Democratic Union (UD) won only 12.31%
of the vote (Szczerbiak 2001:16-7). A majority coalition government in this parliament required
at least five parties, and thus the parliament was unstable and quite weak (Jasiewicz 1997:138).
This gave Wałęsa a lot of executive power as president of a country with an interim constitution
and ineffective parliament (Jasiewicz 1997). Many Poles were dissatisfied with the government
and in the 1995 presidential election Wałęsa lost by a narrow margin, winning 48.28% to his
opponent’s 51.72% (Szczerbiak 2001:22). At the end of 1995, just six years after the end of
Soviet rule, post-communists occupied the positions of both President and Prime Minister (Ash
2002:377).
Solidarity Trade Union leaders organized a meeting in June 1996 with other trade union
representatives and leaders of 21 right wing parties (Wenzel 1998:144). Solidarity Electoral
Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnosc: AWS) was created, uniting 36 political parties and other
organizations (Toole 2000:447). They hoped that this new alliance would re-create Solidarity to
have a larger scope than typical trade unions, while using the symbolic name of Solidarity to
invoke the past, though the level of connection was actually quite weak (Wenzel 1998:43 and
151; Gibala meeting 2008). Marian Krzaklewski, Solidarity’s President, traveled around Poland
speaking about the importance of God, Catholicism, and keeping abortion illegal. He said that
82
these values would counter the social ills created by the “communists” and “atheists” in
government (Krzaklewski 1996).
In the 1997 election, AWS won 33.83% of the vote, giving the party 201 seats in
Parliament (Szczerbiak 1999:1402). The AWS electorate was 40% workers, 32.7%
businessmen, 22% “ordinary people”, and 18% unemployed (Szczerbiak 1999:1419). This
demonstrated that the AWS, while still strong with the workers, was also able to attract
businessmen who were typically opposed to having trade unions in their companies. The support
of the unemployed, who were largely out of work because of the weakening of unions, also
showed that AWS had appealed to a different constituency. In terms of the religiosity of AWS
voters, 36% frequently and 25% weekly attended church, while 21% were average, 12% were
sporadic attendees, and 8% never attended (Szczerbiak 1999:1422). It seems that Krzaklewski’s
campaign scheme had worked quite well – religious Poles supported AWS.
Solidarity Electoral Action operated under a strange mixture of trade union control,
corporate agreements, and religious values. Though AWS was composed of many different
political parties and other organizations, it was clear that having the name Solidarity behind it
was a major factor in the party’s success. Marian Krzaklewski was the head of Solidarity and
AWS, and AWS politicians were not allowed to run for Parliament without the union’s support
(Crowley and Ost 2001:79). What’s more, Solidarity did not oppose the AWS even when the
government implemented drastic health care and education reforms that hurt workers (Crowley
and Ost 2001:89). Like when Wałęsa was President, Solidarity discouraged unions from
organizing out of fear that they might hurt the capitalist system. At the same time, AWS was a
corporate agreement among many institutions. These included “the big state enterprises, where
Solidarity originated, but also organized professional groups, such as teachers and doctors”
83
(Wenzel 1998:148). While many political parties are criticized for being too influenced by big
business, AWS was in fact a union of various corporations. AWS also took advantage of the
scale of Catholicism in Poland and used these values to create their ideological identity (Wenzel
1998:151). This helped AWS to win voters without constructing their own system of values to
promote.
By 1999 it became clear that the public was displeased with AWS, and so in 2000
Solidarity began to focus on serving as a union once again (Meardi 2005:276). They became
more concerned with increasing membership, acting professionally and autonomously, and
organizing workers (Ost 2005b:156). In 2001 Solidarity retracted its name from the party and
vowed to limit its work to that of a trade union (Gliksman group meeting 2008). It was decided
that politicians could not be active in Solidarity, and Solidarity employees and members could
not enter into politics; they must choose one role (Gliksman interview 2008). Solidarity’s
rationale was that during Soviet rule, trade unions were unable to fight for workers without
standing up to the power of the state. Now that the system had changed, Solidarity was able to
concentrate on roles traditionally delegated to trade unions (Gliksman 2005:11). Furthermore,
when Solidarity was in power it was very close to policy in Poland and could have created
reforms that helped laborers - but neither the Civic Committee nor AWS did this. While leaving
the realm of politics meant that Solidarity gave up a position with a potential for great power, the
party was then able to focus on organizing workers and acting like a typical trade union
(Gliksman group meeting 2008). Though Solidarity is no longer a social movement, some
scholars argue that the social movement history continues to influence the union (Meardi
2005:276-7). Examples of this include the union’s discourse about workers as human beings and
“by diffusing (in Tarrow’s sense) the capacity to develop collective action” (ibid).
84
Key Documents
Poland’s Constitution has gone through many revisions since the transition to democracy,
and is not especially progressive or popular among Poles. In 1992, Poland’s new “Little
Constitution” that denounced socialism was enacted, and the full democratic Constitution was
finalized in 1997 (Sanford 2002:1). The process of creating the 1997 Constitution was lengthy,
and the final version was met with underwhelming public support (Sanford 2002: 91). Many
amendments were made to the 1997 Constitution so that Poland could gain European Union
membership in 2004. The result is that Poles do not know their Constitution well, and are not
invested in it.
Traditions
Solidarity has gone through many stages in its 30 year history. First there was the
formation of Solidarity in August 1980, which created an “independent social space occupied by
the new trade union” (Goodwyn 1991:347). The remainder of 1980 saw rapid movement to
another stage in which almost ten million Poles were able to experience the idea of free space by
joining the movement (ibid). The third stage for Solidarity, from 1981 until martial law,
occurred as the movement created a democratic infrastructure (ibid). After martial law ended,
many groups grew out of Solidarity, such as the Civic Committee which was created in 1988 to
organize the roundtable discussions; Solidarity as a political party from 1990 to 1995; and the
creation of the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) in 1997.
Throughout these stages, Solidarity has had different goals and at times there have been
multiple groups with competing objectives operating under the broad banner of Solidarity.
During the 1980s, Solidarity functioned “as a trade union, as a force for democratization and as a
movement for national independence” (Kennedy 1991:64). During the 1990s, Solidarity’s trade
85
union functions took the backseat to political party aspirations, and became more
institutionalized (Meardi 2005:274). As a result, there are many different and competing
traditions today.
Solidarity’s ideals have changed as it has gone through its successive stages. Dr. Kemp-
Welch’s study of Solidarity’s beginnings found that the movement’s key ideals were autonomy
(1991:202-5), non-violence (205-9), compromise (210-5), pluralism (215-9), and sovereignty
(219-22). Class consciousness was also a key element of Solidarity in the early 1980s. Touraine
wrote that “Solidarity is a trade union, but it is also, more broadly, a workers’ movement,
animated by class consciousness” (1983:44). While these values did not fit Solidarity’s political
objectives in the 1990s, politicians were able to use them to gain an advantage in elections. Even
though Solidarity had effectively “split into two competing political entities, the inheritor
organizations continue[d] to rely on a moralistic identity and to appeal for popular support” in
the early 1990s (Bielasiak 1992:201). By maintaining the idea that Solidarity was a
representative of the entire citizenry, the political party was able to “remain the symbol of
political independence and the guardians of society as a whole” (ibid:202).
Political Structures and Party Cohesion
When Poland’s democratic government was created, it combined elements of two failing
systems. The current Polish governmental structure is a mix of the “decaying one-party system
and of a military-based martial law system led by a military officer who was also secretary
general of the Communist party” (Huntington 1991-1992: 582). The largest and most
immediately apparent problem with the new democratic system was the way that parties were
formed and were granted power. In 1991, there were roughly 200 political parties involved in
the Parliamentary election, and representatives from 29 political parties were elected
86
(Siemienska 2006:207). In 1993 the law changed so that a party must have at least 5% of the
votes to be in Parliament (ibid) but this has not completely solved the problems of the weak party
system. Many Polish parties remain “chronically unstable, coming and going continuously on
the party scene, and failing to develop stable constituencies and lasting identities” (Carothers
2006:70). The fluidity that Solidarity and the AWS experienced as political parties was not
unique, but rather part of a larger trend in Poland in which the government and parties are “fluid,
weakly organized, and fragmented” (O’Dwyer 2006:53). Even though Solidarity is now out of
formal politics, Poland’s democracy is still “sagging under the weight of political
disillusionment. Clearly, voters do not like governments they perceive as corrupt, but when
party competition is not robust enough to offer them clear choices and accountability, they
withdraw, which only furthers the cycle of patronage politics and voter disillusionment.”
(ibid:193) This has been particularly evident in records of voter turnout in the past two decades.
The amount of power that a party or union has directly relates to the amount of “good”
and “bad” they can do. In the early 1980s, Solidarity had gained substantial power from the
people, but very little as an institution. This institutional power was taken away during martial
law, began to return during the round table negotiations, and came on full force when the Civic
Committee was in office. When Wałęsa was not reelected this power decreased, grew again with
the AWS in office, and shrunk once more when Solidarity decided to leave politics. Solidarity
has been able to maintain their level of power as a union since 2001.
Many of Solidarity’s problems arose from a lack of unity between supporters and leaders.
Factions of Solidarity first formed in the late 1980s, and have continued to grow since then. The
AWS was able to create a new sense of togetherness by making religion a central aspect of its
campaign in an overwhelmingly Catholic country. However, this unity was very different from
87
the camaraderie that workers shared under Soviet rule and many continue to miss today. Since
functioning solely as a trade union, Solidarity has no longer needed to juggle political and union
decisions that are inherently in conflict. This has helped to recreate the sentiment for which the
union was originally named.
Leaders
Solidarity began with a collection of strong-willed, highly motivated, and well educated
leaders. It is difficult to overstate the importance of these leaders in the rise of the movement,
and particularly that of Lech Wałęsa, because “Solidarity was propelled from illegality to
government in a matter of weeks largely by its leader’s force of character and personal
following” (Kemp-Welch 1991:200). Over time many leaders left the party and a lot of those
who stayed with Solidarity did so for personal gains. Lech Wałęsa is an extreme example of
this. During his time in politics he ruled Solidarity like a dictator and his ego grew out of control
(Boyes 1994; Jasiewicz 1997; Kurski 1993). Poles know this side of him and his tarnished
reputation has hurt Solidarity’s as well.
When Solidarity reemerged from its time in exile it was frail and its leaders rebuilt the
union to stay that way. “Instead of building a strong union, Solidarity set out to build a weak
one, meaning a union that would follow the government as it pursued a painful economic
reform” (Crowley and Ost 2001:82). Much of this was Lech Wałęsa’s doing, though it is unclear
if he intentionally meant to sabotage the union or was simply too caught up in his own power.
During the early 80s, Wałęsa stood by his statement that “Solidarity will not be divided or
destroyed” (Ash 2002:375). Yet his tune changed once he began to gain power. In September
1989 Wałęsa told the Gazeta Wyborcza, “We will not catch up to Europe if we build a strong
88
union.... We cannot have a strong trade union until we have a strong economy” (Gazeta
Wyborcza 1989).
Wałęsa’s campaign for the 1990 presidency exacerbated the divisions in Solidarity. The
Polish constitution does not allow politicians to be involved in non-governmental organizations,
including trade unions, so Wałęsa ran as a nonparty candidate (Gliksman interview 2008; Linz
and Stepan 1996:274). He stayed true to his anti-political stance and “articulated the need to
maintain the value of spontaneity and antiformal politics, not of institutionalization” (Linz and
Stepan 1996:274). The campaign had two sides – Wałęsa was both conveying the growing
concerns of the Polish people and at the same time addressing his own discontent at his limited
role as Chairman of Solidarity after the 1989 semi-free elections (Ash 2002:373). Wałęsa won
the elections in December 1990 and was Poland’s president for the following five years.
According to Adam Gliksman, a Solidarity employee, Wałęsa has the type of personality
that always wants to be on top, to be the best (interview 2008). For some this was apparent from
the beginning: “even in 1980-1 the young Wałęsa had a high-handed, authoritarian style, and a
rather ambivalent attitude to democracy. World fame and the Nobel Prize greatly strengthened
these inclinations” (Ash 2002:374). Though almost everyone in Poland had something about
Wałęsa to criticize, they realized he was important for the country's democratic transition
(Goodwyn 1991:344). Critics warned that Wałęsa’s tendency to act like Solidarity’s dictator
would transfer into his new role as President, and some went so far as to say that Wałęsa’s
physical being was changed when he came into power (Ash 2002:374, Goodwyn 1991:346).
One of the most worrying symptoms was, “his habit of talking about himself in the third person,
as ‘Wałęsa’. Wałęsa could not accept this, he would say, Wałęsa will not do that. But he said
many different, often contradictory things, and seemed genuinely unsure of the direction in
89
which he wanted to go” (Ash 2002:374). Regardless of Wałęsa’s intentions and egotism, the
policies he promoted as president were counter to his previous trade union motives, and
ultimately hurt Polish laborers.
Membership, Public Opinion, Emotions, and Elections
Voter turnout has been a major problem since the beginning of the new Polish
democracy. In the June 1989 election, roughly four in ten eligible voters stayed home, and
another two in ten voted against Solidarity (Jasiewicz 1992:186). A major factor in the low
turnout was that many voters didn’t know what their political positions were in the new system
(Tworzecki 2003:241). Soviet rule had been so repressive, and without being able to unify
behind Solidarity, many people weren’t sure who to support or what their beliefs were. The
large number of political parties to choose from made the process of voting even more daunting.
Turnout for local and Parliamentary elections has also been remarkably low. Turnout for
Parliamentary elections has ranged from 42% to 52%, and has been between 33% and 45% in
local elections (Siemienska 2006:224). What is even more disappointing is that the 45% turnout
for a local election was not the result of an “increased interest in the local elections, but instead
reflected the bundling of local elections with those for the newly established regional and district
governments (Zarycki 1999). That the turnout for elections for two brand-new, much-trumpeted
levels of government was only 45 percent was in fact a sign of public apathy” (O’Dwyer
2006:127). While public apathy is apparent, the reasons behind it are not as easy to determine.
On the one hand it could be a lack of interest in politics altogether, or it might reflect negative
feelings towards the current political parties and their policies (Siemienska 2006:225).
Public opinion of Solidarity has not been consistent over the years. Following the end of
martial law in Poland, there was a sharp decrease in public confidence in all institutions,
90
including Solidarity. While Solidarity enjoyed 90% public support in 1981, this declined to only
11% to 13% in 1984 and 1985 (Mason 1992:160). By 1988, Solidarity’s public support was
back up to 25%, and grew to 75% in 1989 (ibid). From 1988 to 1989, the public perception that
Solidarity was a beneficial institution for society increased from 18.2% to 67.2% (ibid). Yet
after the new democracy was in place, Poles again lost their confidence in Solidarity. In an early
1997 poll, “political parties enjoyed the lowest level of confidence (only 12.8 percent trusted
parties a "great deal" and "quite a lot"). Parties were followed by trade unions, with 19.9 percent
approval rates. The share of respondents trusting government, Parliament and the civil service
was in the range of 30-40 percent” (Siemienska 2006:213). It appears the public’s support of
institutions and Solidarity was unreliable.
Most of the workers originally involved with Solidarity have clearly lost in the transition
to democracy. A Professor of European Studies met with workers in the Gdansk (formerly
Lenin) Shipyard in 1999, almost two decades after the uprising there that started Solidarity. He
described the workers as “gloomy” and “disillusioned,” and he only talked to those who had
managed to stay employed (Ash 2002: 379). Workers were the ones who paid the price for the
new market economy, and they explained that their new liberties mean nothing without
prosperity. “Yes, they had freedom: but what good was that if you had no money to buy the
shiny goods in the shops? And what use was a passport if you could not afford to travel? They
had imagined capitalism to be very different. They deeply resented the fact that former
communists had not only gone unpunished but also made private fortunes in transition—and a
political comeback as well” (Ash 2002: 379-80). Furthermore, they actually missed some
aspects of life under Soviet rule. With the new freedom, each man was only looking out for
himself and they did not have the solidarity that was necessary under the old regime. Security in
91
numbers was a thing of the past. Some of the former workmates of these laborers are now their
bosses, and run private, capitalist, union-free businesses. Anna Walentynowicz, the crane driver
who started the 1980 strikes, takes an even more extreme view. She says that, “The people were
cheated and, contrary to appearances, Solidarity was used to destroy the nation, to plunge it into
poverty, to create conditions that are even worse than under communism” (Ash 2002: 379).
Solidarity will never again have the 10 million members it once had in the early 1980s,
but this should not be regarded as a loss because the scope of the organization has also shrunk.
Solidarity’s membership was so high in the 80s because it was a trade union and a social
movement. Since the movement is no longer needed to fight Soviet rule, Solidarity cannot
expect to have the same membership that it did before. Civic Committee and AWS members
came and went much like the voters, showing instability rather than loyal support. Since 2001,
Solidarity has begun to gradually gain union members and now has about 1.1 million. This
should not be seen as a failure compared to the numbers during the 1980s and 90s, but rather as a
small success when measured against past numbers of trade union members.
Service Delivery
Many Poles thought life would improve drastically once the state was overthrown and
Poland entered an era of democracy and the free market. In reality, "standards of living declined
steadily, the share of citizens with incomes far below the social minimum continued to rise,
unemployment rates were increasing and services offered by the Polish welfare state continued
to decrease" (Siemienska 2006:203). Democracy and capitalism are not magical fixes; like any
system they have flaws, and contain different sets of challenges. The new government was
aware of this and allowed the free market to take its toll on the public, and purposely didn’t build
strong trade unions to protect workers from the free market (Ost 2005a:6-8). Laborers also
92
understood that the transition would not be an overnight success, but felt betrayed and believed
that this new system had set them up for failure (Ost 2005a:7). Though Solidarity had a great
deal of power, they used it primarily to expedite the transition to a liberal market economy
(Crowley and Ost 2001:93). The results were that real wages declined 30% from 1989 to 1991,
unemployment grew into the double-digits, workers no longer had self-management boards, and
new jobs were created without basic health and safety conditions (Crowley and Ost 2001:80).
Poles were disappointed with Solidarity for several reasons. The first was the widespread
unemployment. This occurred because large state-owned companies had to be privatized in the
new system, resulting in widespread dismissals, and even some corporate closures (Gliksman
2005:37). The national unemployment rate reached 12% in 1997, and in some regions it was as
high as 20% (Siemienska 2006:209). The service sector grew while industries shrank, so finding
a new job required significant retraining. Secondly, Poland lacked the social unity that Solidarity
had provided during Soviet rule. “Solidarity was a part of their identity, of their emotional
life…. There was no mistaking a genuine pain, sorrow, and often bitterness felt at the parting of
ways with former comrades” (Ash 2002:375). Without a unifying force to keep people together,
they felt very much alone.
Joining the European Union was a step in the right direction for workers. The EU courts
are a place where workers can fight to protect their rights and the EU even gives some
protections to trade unions (Gliksman group meeting 2008). Furthermore, the EU allows Poland
to work with Western European trade unions and creates growth in civil society (Gliksman
2005:40). While EU membership has not solved union grievances in Poland, it has helped to
move the country in the right direction.
93
Trade unions in Poland remain weak, and Solidarity is no exception. Unions exist in just
25% of companies and only 10% of laborers (about 2 million people) are unionized (Gliksman
group meeting 2008). The most significant way to increase the power of trade unions is by
increasing membership and so this has become a priority for Solidarity (Gliksman 2005:40).
One of their greatest challenges is that Solidarity fights for the rights of all workers, not just
those that are unionized, so most laborers don’t see any reason to join because they can reap the
benefits without membership (Gliksman group meeting 2008). Another problem is that young
people do not know much about Solidarity. They either don’t know its role in Polish history,
think it is a political party, or blame it for price increases since the fall of Soviet rule (Gliksman
group meeting 2008). Polish businesses have developed in recent years, but it is the companies
that are benefiting, not the workers. Employers have found ways to get employees to fake self-
employment or hire without contracts, which are practices that Solidarity is fighting to end
(Gliksman group meeting 2008).
Interactions with Civil Society and Political Society
Poland was one of few countries under Soviet rule in which social movements helped
overthrow the regime. Surprisingly, the nations that had active civil societies before 1990 have
very limited civil societies now. According to O’Dwyer:
Ironically, the total collapse of the communist regimes in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia in 1989 sealed the fate of the dissident movements that overthrew them. Without the communist enemy, these informally organized dissident movements collapsed entirely, [d]riven (sic) by internal conflicts, and spawning new, constantly subdividing factions. Solidarity was the most dramatic example of this failure to translate the shared experience of opposition into organizational capital. (2006:20)
By the late 1990s, Poles participated in protests equally or less often than other post-soviet
countries (Siemienska 2006:227). The only protest of any considerable size following the
democratic transition was a railway strike in 1990. Solidarity immediately denounced the strike
and told the workers to return to their jobs without gaining anything (Crowley and Ost 2001:85).
94
With labor representatives functioning to prevent workers from protesting the system, it became
close to impossible for workers to get ahead. In December 1992 it seemed that Solidarity might
be making progress. The union organized a nation-wide coal miners’ strike that involved
180,000 miners; it was the largest coal strike in European history. Solidarity then explained that
it only wanted to demonstrate the union’s leadership ability, not benefit the strikers, and settled
without winning anything significant for the workers (Błaziak 1994).
This created a difficult situation for the activists who had shunned the political life after
Solidarity gained power because there were limited options for them to participate in civil
society (Carothers 206:23). Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Poland are weak and
tend to be focused on professional interests, not public welfare (Kurczewski and Kurczewska
2001). Social movements are rather frail and, other than unions for specific industries or
peasants, collective action is infrequent (Frybes and Kuczyn´ski 2002). According to a national
survey of Poles, since the democratic transition: 20.4% have signed a petition, 9.8% have
demonstrated, 5.5% have taken part in a boycott, 4.1% have participated in a strike, and 2.2%
have occupied a building (Siemienska 2006:225). While some have argued that the lack of
voting might be attributed to Polish society’s “ethical motivations which do not square well with
the pragmatic and compromise-seeking orientations needed for participation in today's political
life” (Siemienska 2006:231), this analysis does not explain the lack of non-participatory political
and social action in Poland. Given that roughly half of all Poles were members of Solidarity
during Soviet rule, these percentages show just how limited civil society has become in a
democracy. In the last decade there have been signs of youth protest, yet they have only
occurred “in cultural forms (hip-hop music, deviance) and, interestingly, against, not in
continuity with, the generation that made Solidarity. Although Polish society has been defined as
95
one of the most rebellious in the world (Ekiert and Kubik 2001), the opposite seems true”
(Meardi 2005:272).
Solidarity, according to employee Adam Gliksman, has begun to recognize the
importance of social dialogue and is trying to encourage it (2005:31-4). Furthermore, Solidarity
is now critical of the government’s inadequate treatment of social dialogue “as nothing more
than a bothersome necessity,” to quote a 2004 report from the Małopolska region (Gliksman
2005:35-6). The report goes on to condemn the government’s treatment of trade unions. It
declares, “Obstructing the actions of trade unions and restricting workers’ rights by changing the
Labour Code, supposedly in order to improve the situation of the employment market, has no
positive effects. The effect that the modifications made to the Labour Code allegedly had on the
level of unemployment in Poland is still unknown, however, since the level is still very high, one
can assume that the effect was miniscule if any” (Gliksman 2005:36). It seems that for the first
time since the 1980s, Solidarity has found its voice.
Other trade unions are also displeased with what Solidarity has become, even if these
other unions don’t have many strengths of their own. The OPZZ, National Confederation of
Trade Unions, was created by the socialist government in 1984 after Solidarity was outlawed and
there was an open space for a new union to fill (OPZZ 2006). These two remain the largest
unions in Poland, though their structures and views differ. Solidarity has regional headquarters
all functioning as part of the national institution. OPZZ is a national association with 90 trade
union organizations that are voluntary members (ibid). When I visited one of these groups, the
NSZZ Pracowników, it appeared that the union building, leadership, and methods had not
changed in decades. This seems to be indicative of the larger organization: “OPZZ remains too
hobbled by its past, saddled with a conservative local leadership of mostly older men with low-
96
level managerial positions that makes it inaqequate as an organ of labor protest” (Crowley and
Ost 2001: 80-1). The Vice Presidents of the NSZZ Pracowników, Marian Skubisz and Jan
Mazgaz, told me that three years ago they had 24,000 workers but now only 10,500 (group
meeting 2008). Employers still need more workers on the production line, but they are hiring
short term workers, who get less pay and have worse conditions while leasing companies make
most of the money. On issues like this, the OPZZ and Solidarity work together and have
changed some work codes and regulations. Together, they have made some progress in keeping
workers from getting fired, or at least making sure that they get their full wages and severance
pay (Mazgaz and Marian 2008 group meeting).
The larger the scale of the issue, the harder it is for these unions to work together.
Solidarity employee Adam Gliksman told me that on issues about what happens within a
corporation, and even within a region, OPZZ and Solidarity tend to agree (interview 2008).
However when national scale issues come into play, so do politics, and this is where the unions
have the greatest trouble finding common ground (ibid). Typically, trade unions are leftist
organizations, but Solidarity was created as a response to the socialist government and thus has
been on the right since it was founded. The OPZZ was created by the socialist government and
as a result is on the left, as is typical of trade unions.
Knowing OPZZ’s background, it becomes difficult to take their criticism of Solidarity
too seriously, even if they have some valid arguments. The Vice Presidents of NPZZ
Pracowników lamented that the main problem with Solidarity is that it relies too much on the
government and should be independent of the government (Mazgaz and Marian 2008 group
meeting). Given that OPZZ was created by the socialist government and has worked closely
with the Polish government at times when post-communists have been President or Prime
97
Minister, the same could be said about the OPZZ. Both parties see the government as a major
source of power but have not had many opportunities to harness that power to establish
regulations that help workers. My other major critique is that a union must be opposite the
government in order to protect workers. If there is a conflict they cannot be subservient to the
state; they must support laborers. This is indeed something Solidarity has struggled with,
particularly during the 1990s, but has made great improvements in this area since they left
politics in 2001.
Solidarity originally rejected the value of the state, but after the regime change began to
revere it. Only after suffering a political defeat in 2000 did the union learn that they could act –
like a typical trade union – outside of the government and still have a valid place in the system.
The AWS was extremely involved with corporations, but Solidarity is once again working for
laborers, much to the chagrin of businessmen. While Solidarity does not see eye to eye with
other Polish trade unions, it has made valiant efforts to cooperate with OPZZ in situations where
their goals are the same.
Accountability
Solidarity began as the voice of the people, but in the early 1990s when Wałęsa was
president he abandoned the workers he had once represented. When the AWS was created, it
tried to get in touch with Poles through a different method—religion—and initially succeeded.
However, the party continued to work in a top-down fashion and the politicians’ ideas of what
was good for the country often failed to take the pleas of citizens into consideration.
Furthermore, the Solidarity trade union didn’t actually work for laborers but became a pawn for
the government in the 1990s. It had access to a great deal of power but did not responsibly look
after workers’ needs. This was particularly detrimental for the country, as the majority of the
98
Polish workforce consisted of laborers in the agricultural and industrial industries until the
service industry took the lead in the mid-2000s (Kosc 2004; Ministry of Labour and Social
Policy 2008). Only since Solidarity decided to work solely as a trade union has it begun to
improve things for laborers, as it sought to do in its early history.
99
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS
My research focuses on two distinct, though at times interrelated, questions. First, how
have the pasts of ANC and Solidarity as movements influenced them as political parties and, in
the case of Solidarity, as a union? Second, what is the role and legitimacy of these successful
former liberation movements in the new democracies they helped to create? In order to most
thoroughly answer these questions, I will not address the first, and then the second, or each case
study separately. Instead, my analysis will follow the same order as the subsections in the case
studies (history of the movement, key documents, traditions, etc.). This arrangement allows me
to draw comparisons between the two cases and to address either or both guiding questions as
they are applicable, and showing how they relate to the guiding literature.
History of the Movements
There are some very obvious differences between circumstances in South Africa and
Poland, as well as in the histories of the ANC and Solidarity, that must be established before
delving into a deeper comparative analysis. While there are some similarities, apartheid and
Soviet rule were very different political systems. At a basic level, apartheid exacerbated racial
distinctions and Soviet rule sought to end class distinctions. South Africa is a very diverse
country, with citizens of various ethnicities, religions, and languages. Poles, on the other hand,
are mostly white, Catholic, and speak Polish. The ANC was founded in 1923, and the
movement’s roots go back to 1912 with the creation of the South African Native National
Congress (SANNC). Solidarity is much younger; it was created in 1980, and has roots going
back to the Workers Defense Committee’s (KOR) formation in 1970. Furthermore, the ANC
was founded before apartheid, though it clearly positioned itself against apartheid once it came
into being, whereas Solidarity was created in response to Soviet rule.
100
Key Documents
South Africa’s Constitution and the Freedom Charter are well known and highly regarded
by the country’s citizens. Many of the South Africans I interviewed talked about how the ANC
has not followed these guiding documents, and that the party could improve simply by following
the standards it set. Poland’s Constitution has gone through many changes, and is neither well
known nor highly regarded by the public. When Solidarity began, the Inter-Enterprise Strike
Committee (ISC) list of 21 postulates served as a guiding document of sorts, but it has been long
forgotten by the union and the Poles.
This demonstrates a contrast between how the ANC and Solidarity’s pasts have continued
to influence their parties and countries. The two key documents in South Africa were created
with much input from the ANC, and before the movement had fully transformed into a political
party. These documents have remained relatively unchanged, and provide a way for the people
to judge the party against what it promised as a social movement. Poland lacks similar guiding
documents, as the current constitution includes many sections that Solidarity did not influence
and the constitution was updated after the AWS dissolved.
Traditions
The ANC began as a liberation movement with a focus on open debate and seeking
consensus. When the ANC was banned and went into exile, it became a top-down system in
which secrecy was of the upmost importance. These traditions from the ANC’s decades in exile
continue to dictate the actions of ANC politicians and the attitude of the political party today.
The tradition of consensus has been renewed, but in a more authoritarian sense as it is combined
with the top-down structure, and open debate is now limited by the party. For the ANC, several
key traditions from its movement past continue to guide the party and its leaders.
101
Solidarity went through many different stages that were not as fluid as the ANC’s
trajectory. Furthermore, Solidarity operated as both a movement and as a union; thus the goals
of Solidarity changed often, and at times different branches had competing goals. The political
parties that have come out of Solidarity have not placed the same emphasis on class-
consciousness, autonomy, non-violence, compromise, pluralism, and sovereignty. Nevertheless,
the Civic Committee and AWS used Solidarity’s past to gain an electoral advantage as many
voters still identify with Solidarity’s traditional platform. In contrast to the case with the ANC,
however, these traditions have not guided the parties once in office.
Political Structures and Party Cohesion
The ANC has been the dominant political party in South Africa since the first democratic
elections in 1994. While there are opposition parties, they have lacked a broad enough base to
serve as a legitimate challenge to the ANC’s rule, though this may change with the creation of
COPE. The South African government has three branches that are supposed to foster a system of
checks and balances, but in reality the executive branch dominates and is rarely questioned. This
is an example of how an ANC tradition, the top-down system from the movement’s time in exile,
has carried over and impacts not only how the ANC party functions, but also the national
government’s structure. The ANC has a history of breakaway parties, the most notable being the
Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), which led the protest that resulted in the Sharpeville Massacre
and the banning of the ANC. This history makes it even more understandable that the ANC has
worked throughout its time in exile to be perceived as united against the government, and now
strives to be a united party. Without competition from other parties, checks on executive power,
or debates within the ANC, South Africa’s democracy suffers.
102
Solidarity did not originally plan to become a political party, and instead preached anti-
politics. This is similar to the situation in the neighboring Czech Republic and Slovakia, where
Glenn found that even though the movements wanted to remain outside of politics, the power
they gained forced them to become parties (2003:168). The Polish political system got off to a
rough start because it began with too many political parties, which made it difficult for citizens
to understand differences between them and to choose who to vote for. Political parties from
Solidarity have been in power twice, but each time it was a different party, they were in office
for only one term at a time, and they were not well established; in fact neither party exists today.
Both parties used their connections with Solidarity to help build their support, the Civic
Committee based on members and leadership, and the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS)
through use of its name. Yet Wałęsa did not work to support unions, and AWS used an entirely
different platform that centered around Catholicism. Once these parties gained power, they
limited the ability of the government to accomplish things. While the Solidarity Leaders won the
most votes of any party in the first democratic political election, they did not live up to voters’
expectations and failed to be reelected in the following election. The instability of party politics
in Poland has created a lot of disillusionment, and very few people vote, which has weakened the
country’s democracy.
Solidarity struggled with the notion that it could exist solely as a union and still be able to
make changes. This goes back to the distinction between being a polity member and a
challenger (Lo 1992; Tilly 1978). While the Civic Committee and AWS were in government,
Solidarity was a polity member because it was so closely affiliated with these parties and had
reliable access to their politicians. Yet Solidarity was no longer able to make its voice heard or
organize the people like it did during the 1980s when the union and movement were challengers
103
to the government. By staying out of politics since 2000, Solidarity has been able to regain a
position that can create change by working as a challenger rather than a polity member.
Both of the political parties coming out of the ANC and Solidarity gained office in their
country’s first free elections, but after that point their trajectories diverge. South Africa’s ANC
and Poland’s Civic Committee gained power in these new democracies with strong public
backing. It is likely that chaos would have ensued if for some reason these parties, which had led
the public struggles against their respective authoritarian regimes, had not gained significant
political power to lead the democratic transition. While the ANC has remained solidly in power,
and Solidarity’s political parties failed to gain reelection, both country’s democracies have
suffered. The ANC is so powerful that it has inhibited the development of viable alternatives to
ANC rule, and Solidarity’s lack of continuity and inability to stay in office have discouraged
citizens from participating in the democracy.
Leaders
The leaders of the ANC were very idealistic when the democratic transition came about,
but this soon changed. Politicians who spent decades ‘paying their dues’ for the liberation
struggle felt entitled to their positions of power in the ANC. In the interviews I conducted,
politicians were described as being apathetic, disconnected, greedy, and motivated only by their
careers. Some former leaders were appalled by this, and either left politics, the ANC, or South
Africa
Solidarity’s leadership parallels that of the ANC in many ways. As in the South African
liberation struggle, Solidarity’s leaders were key in the rise of the movement and the democratic
transition. Yet once the Civic Committee was created, many leaders left Solidarity, and those
who stayed did so for personal gains. The Civic Committee’s leadership was also very self-
104
centered, but unlike in South Africa, in Poland this centered around the President. Wałęsa’s
egotistical personality is in stark comparison to Mandela’s warm and forgiving persona.
The rise of new elites in both countries caused leaders and supporters of the original
movements to shy away from the political parties that they helped to create. According to
Lawrence Goodwyn, a historian of democratic and social movements, this is somewhat
inevitable. He wrote, “All societies are governed by elites… even when nonelites gain power,
the governing presumptions they attempt to codify into custom have the purpose of providing
ethical protection for themselves as a privileged stratum” (Goodwyn 1991:354). Both the ANC
and Solidarity support this theory. Goodwyn continued, “the dynamics of political struggle,
especially struggle against powerful adversaries habituated to the use of a number of modes of
cultural and physical repression, make the maintenance of communitarian behavior extremely
difficult to sustain over time. Abused people can simply get too angry to behave democratically”
(1991:355-6). By applying this analysis to the cases in South Africa and Poland, it seems that
both the ANC and Solidarity’s histories as movements contributed to the changes in the
behaviors of the movements’ leaders once they were in positions of political power. While these
changes often happen in political parties that do not have movement histories, both groups’ pasts
in the struggle created an added sense of entitlement that has compounded these issues.
Furthermore, these leadership problems harm the democratic process and accountability, and
have created public distrust in the political system.
The perceptions of leaders in both the ANC and Solidarity fit with other case studies of
movement success. Andrews’ study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement found that
movement supporters are likely to have unrealistic expectations for their leaders who take public
office (2004). My study did not seek to determine whether South Africans and Poles had
105
realistic expectations of their leaders, but in both countries it appears that the leaders have not
lived up to the public’s expectations. Part of this may be attributed to what Glenn found in the
Czech Republic and Slovakia—leaders of SMOs who enter into politics are likely to act like
“social movement entrepreneurs” (2003:165). Activists want their leaders to take the high
ground, and become disappointed when their leaders become politicians who deal with capitalist
realities.
Membership, Public Opinion, Emotions, and Elections
Since the transition to democracy, the ANC has actually increased both the number and
percentage of votes the party has won in national elections. There are many emotions attached to
the struggle in South Africa, and also to the ANC. Most South Africans alive today were born
after the ANC was founded, and grew up believing that it would offer a better life than the
former regimes. As Mashumi Figlan told me, many South Africans thought that the ANC’s rise
to power would mean the ‘coming of Jesus Christ’, and many regard Mandela as a father figure
whom they love unconditionally. Another reason for the ANC’s success is that the party
strategically co-opted different political ideologies from other groups that were active in the
struggle, which has effectively removed them as alternatives to the ruling party. The ANC has
successfully used its social movement past, and the high public regard and strong emotions that
were part of that history, towards maintaining a political lead now that the ANC is a party.
Though the ANC remains popular, many South Africans of every race feel betrayed by
the ANC. Poor South Africans in particular are frustrated that the ANC has used false promises
and bribes to gain votes. The ANC has such a large support base that it can take votes for
granted, and because there have not been any competitive opposition parties, the citizens do not
have much leverage over the ANC. What’s more, the ANC sees their significant election lead as
106
proof of how democratic their party is. The Durban City manager, Dr. Michael Sutcliffe, went
so far as to say, “The ANC has led this continent and probably leads the world in terms of
democratic practices” (Lander 2007). While the South African government holds regular free
and fair elections, when the ANC wins national elections by roughly 70% this should be seen as
a red flag that other aspects of the system are not as democratic as they could be. The lack of
alternatives, both in the hearts and minds of the citizens and on the ballot, show that the ANC has
been winning a stacked game. It remains to be seen if the creation of COPE will change this,
and if the ANC will finally have a suitable opponent that will force the ruling party to compete
for votes.
Public opinions of Solidarity have been inconsistent since its founding, and membership
has never been as high as the union membership was in the early 1980s. While the Civic
Committee and AWS were able to win elections, voter turnout has been low for all Polish
elections, and the political parties that came out of Solidarity no longer exist and do not hold any
lasting power. Many of the workers who were involved with the union and movement aspects of
Solidarity are now disillusioned, though Solidarity did gain more support and members once it
went back to being only a union. Overall, Solidarity lacks the public sway that ANC has been
able to maintain. Part of this may be due to Solidarity’s shorter and inconsistent history which
did not allow for the kind of emotional attachments that South Africans have with the ANC. The
widespread lack of attachment to Solidarity, and all Polish political parties, has hindered the
democratic process in Poland because so many citizens are disillusioned and do not feel
compelled to vote.
Both the ANC and Solidarity are examples of how movements continue to have a lot of
power over the public, even when they are no longer SMOs, fail to live up to previous
107
expectations, and even when they adopt a completely different political platform. This fits with
Panebianco’s statement that the formation of an organization can continue to shape it for decades
(1988:xiii). Furthermore, the initial popularity of both the Civic Committee and AWS, which
came from their association with Solidarity, is very similar to Keck’s finding that the Workers’
Party (PT) in Brazil first gained legitimacy because it was linked to the unions movement
(1992:7).
Service Delivery
Many scholars have stressed that a government’s legitimacy comes from its effectiveness
(Lipset 1960; Huntinton 1991; Siemienska 2006:204). In the cases of the new democracies in
South Africa and Poland, both have been quite ineffective at providing basic services and
improving the quality of life for their citizens. For both countries, the standards of living have
decreased and unemployment has increased since the democratic transition. In South Africa, the
conditions are much worse for poor people than before, the government has failed to create new
job opportunities, homelessness has increased, and the government has not made stopping the
HIV/AIDS epidemic a priority. This is appalling to citizens who know that the Constitution and
the Freedom Charter promise healthcare, jobs, homes, food, and sanitation to everyone in South
Africa. While the situation in Poland is not as dire, thanks in large part to the European Union,
Solidarity’s time in politics created a country where unions are weak and have low membership
—the opposite of Solidarity’s original goals.
In both countries, the lack of sufficient service delivery is the result of adopting neo-
liberal and capitalist economic systems that participate in the global market. This makes it
harder than it was during apartheid for South Africans who are not highly skilled, well educated,
or well connected to find employment with livable wages. In Poland, prices were controlled by
108
the government and everyone had employment and basic goods and services during Soviet rule.
While Poles now have political freedoms, they are coupled with a liberal economic system that
does not guarantee employment and service delivery for everyone.
The liberation struggles of both the ANC and Solidarity focused on issues of ‘political
liberation,’ as was demonstrated by both movements transforming into parties and leading
roundtable discussions to aid the political transitions to democracy. The new political freedoms
in South Africa and Poland demonstrate the most significant progress made by these liberation
groups, even though these movements were also centered around economic and human rights.
Both movements had platforms that called for ‘economic liberation’. For the ANC as a
movement, economic liberation did not mean a neo-liberal system, but rather a more socialist
system that provided everyone with basic goods and services so that they could be free from
poverty, hunger, homelessness, and disease. For Solidarity as a union and a movement,
economic liberation meant freedoms for workers including the rights to form independent trade
unions and go on strikes. The ANC and Solidarity also fought for fundamental human rights
such as freedom, justice, and equality. There is still much work to be done so that South
Africans and Poles can achieve the economic and human rights that these movements once
fought for.
Interactions with Civil Society and Political Society
During apartheid, the ANC worked with other liberation groups, even though they often
had conflicting ideologies. This has continued in the new democracy, as the ANC has remained
a member of the Tripartite Alliance, and has worked with various unions. Yet while the ANC
has worked with different civil society and political society actors within the country, the party
tends to only enter into these relationships when the other group is willing to bend to the ANC’s
109
agenda. The party has worked to silence groups that criticize or try to change the ANC’s policies
because they regard such actions as anti-ANC. This overly-defensive aspect of the party seems
to be a continuance of how the ANC dealt with opposition during apartheid.
Though social movements, NGOs, and unions in South Africa have made some progress
in recent years, they remain relatively weak. While the ANC has made a point of not giving in to
civil society and political actors within the country, the party has worked to improve its
reputation with Western countries. The ANC has catered to foreign powers at the expense of the
needs of its own citizens and the country’s democracy. In order to behave democratically, the
ANC must learn to constructively deal with criticism, rather that working to silence dissent.
Given that Poland had the most active civil society of any country that was ruled by the
Soviets, the current lack of civil society activity in the nation is shocking. By denouncing a
strike in 1990 and then holding a strike in 1992 purely to demonstrate leadership abilities,
Solidarity quickly made it clear that it was no longer fighting for workers rights. Poles seem to
be so disillusioned by the results of their previous activism that many have simply given up, both
in terms of participating within the current structure and in trying to change it. This has been
terrible for the country’s democratic process, as most people do not vote and, as in other Eastern
European countries, there are very few institutions working to keep the Polish government in
check (Butler 2005:720). Though Solidarity as a union has had trouble finding common ground
with other unions on national issues, it has begun to regain power outside of the sphere of
politics, and may be able to help strengthen Poland’s democracy if it continues on this trajectory.
Hipscher’s study of Chilean Shantytown Dwellers stated that the government must allow
social movements to exist and have some freedoms in order for Chile to have a lively democracy
(1998). This fits with what scholars and activists are calling for in South Africa; to allow civil
110
society to have its own space so that it can provide constructive, democratic feedback and ideas.
However, the problem in Poland is not that the government banned movements, but rather that
the citizens have given up on activism. It seems that this is due to the great disillusionment
created by the outcomes of past civil society actions in Poland.
Accountability
Government accountability to the people is minimal in both South Africa and Poland.
The ANC no longer listens to average citizens and does not consult with communities as the
movement used to. Furthermore, the party’s top-down system means that politicians do not feel
pressured to answer the people on the bottom. The parties that came out of Solidarity abandoned
the workers who were so crucial to the movement, and the union was submissive to government
power. However, now that Solidarity is operating once again as a union, it has begun to slowly
re-focus on what laborers want. Overall, both the ANC and Solidarity’s minimal accountability
to the people whom they are supposed to be representing has been detrimental to their
legitimacy.
111
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
One of the first discussions of social movement outcomes was in William Gamson’s The
Strategy of Social Protest where he asked, “what do we conclude about a group that
accomplishes exactly what it set out to achieve and then finds its victory empty of real meaning
for its presumed beneficiaries?” (1975:28). Gamson’s use of the world “exactly” is problematic
since it is impossible to determine a group’s aims because they change during different stages of
the movement, and similarly their outcomes vary over time. Yet Gamson’s fundamental
question is central to the results of this paper so, rather than discredit Gamson’s inquiry due to
his choice of wording, I seek to answer his question with the word “exactly” omitted.
The African National Congress and Solidarity are two prime cases of liberation
movements that achieved their primary goals and have been touted worldwide as examples of
great political change. Both movements peacefully ushered the old, non-democratic regimes out
of their countries and replaced them with procedurally sound democracies. Yet the presumed
beneficiaries, non-whites in South Africa and workers in Poland, have found that these new
political and economic systems do not guarantee a satisfactory quality of life. Though these
cases clearly match the situation Gamson presents, the answer to his question is not as
immediately apparent.
The simplest and most cynical answer is that these changes only mattered for the rulers of
these societies, and the conditions of the general public did not improve. Democracy is not a
perfect political system, equality is unattainable, and those who try to dismantle the hegemonic
structure will either become leaders like those they despise or end up worse off in the new
system. Power differentials, hierarchies, and hegemony will always exist. If this is true, then
social movement outcomes do not matter and social movements are altogether inconsequential.
112
Nonetheless, activism persists. It is easy to give up and to settle for what you are given,
yet people around the world continue to struggle for improvement no matter how miniscule the
rewards may be. Citizens have strong ideas about how their members of their communities
should behave, the proper role of their government, and the quality of life they deserve.
Movements provide hope that change is possible and serve as a tool of the people when the
political system is not providing the results or accountability that citizens want. When people
become involved with movements based on their deep-seated beliefs of how things should be,
they can become emotionally attached to the organization. This emotional connection is likely to
grow as people invest more time and energy into the struggle, and allows positive outcomes to be
cherished more by activist, as was demonstrated by the national public response to the end of
apartheid in South Africa. However this emotional attachment to movements also makes
disappointments, such as the results of capitalist economies in South Africa and Poland, even
more devastating.
The answer to Gamson’s question is complicated because it involves the role of
emotions, which can be difficult to judge because emotions are not always rational or reasonable.
Emotions played an important role in the success of the anti-apartheid struggle and yet because
of their emotional attachment to the movement’s history, many citizens have not been willing to
give up on the ANC even though the political party is not serving their best interests. Emotions
also aided the Polish case, where workers’ commitment to activism was instrumental in the end
of Soviet rule. However Poles quickly became disillusioned with the new democratic system
and most do not vote while even fewer participate in forms of activism. These cases demonstrate
how the role of emotions was able to help both national liberation movements achieve
democracy. Yet the resulting attachment in South Africa and disillusionment in Poland have
113
limited the ability of the people to hold their leaders accountable in their new democracies.
Emotions have helped these groups to accomplish what they set out to achieve while also
preventing the presumed beneficiaries from achieving the quality of life they want.
The cases of South Africa and Poland show that fundamental political changes are
possible. Though not everything that the people wanted, the rights and liberties that came with
these new democracies are a big step in the right direction because they provide the public with
more control over government institutions. If properly utilized, the public’s power over these
new democratic structures may lead to the implementation of policies that truly serve the
interests of the majority. Thus far, emotions have restricted citizens from taking advantage of
their rights to vote, organize, and protest in ways that were not possible under their old regimes.
While there are still some structural economic and political factors that have limited the progress
of non-whites in South Africa and workers in Poland, emotions have further hindered the ability
of these presumed beneficiaries to fully utilize their institutional gains to their benefit.
This paper set out to show how the ANC and Solidarity’s pasts as movements have
affected them as political parties and, for Solidarity, as a union. I found that these parties have
been influenced and aided by their pasts as SMOs, though different factors have had different
effects on each group. Guiding documents written by the ANC during the struggle and soon
after taking office are not always strictly adhered to by the party. Instead, South African citizens
refer to the Freedom Charter and Constitution to show how the ANC should behave and to
determine what progress should be made. While these key documents are important in South
Africa, Poland and Solidarity lack any equivalent documents.
Most traditions from the ANC’s founding, including consulting with citizens, have little
bearing on how the party conducts itself. However, the top-down ways of the ANC during its
114
decades in exile continue to impact the party and its politicians. This history is so powerful that
it has influenced the government’s structure and set the party’s tone. Solidarity’s traditions still
appeal to Poles, and were utilized by the Civic Committee and Solidarity Electoral Action
(AWS) to win elections, but did not influence their time in office.
The ANC’s political structure and façade of party cohesion come out of the movement’s
secrecy, top-down system, and emphasis on unity that were necessary in exile. While this aspect
of the party is heavily influenced by its liberation movement past, the veneer of unity is slowly
beginning to fade. Solidarity’s history was used as a foundation for both the Civic Committee
and AWS to gain support and stand out against the many Polish political parties. While the
Civic Committee was run by leaders who were also involved in Solidarity, the AWS used
Solidarity’s name and was otherwise disconnected from the movement’s past.
The leaders of both the ANC and Solidarity filled crucial positions of power in their
respective new democracies, which aided the handover of power. Yet, as social movement
scholars have found in other cases of movement success, these leaders were ultimately unable to
live up to expectations. This may be attributed to inflated egos or greed caused by being in new
positions of power, a sense of entitlement after paying dues during the struggle, lack of
experience, the young democratic systems, or unrealistic expectations on the part of the citizens.
The ANC has maintained a lot of public support and continues to win elections in large
part because of their history as a liberation movement. This support is not simply based on
reason, but also an emotional attachment that developed during the struggle against apartheid and
subsequent democratization. While Solidarity does have some lasting clout, as demonstrated by
the ability of the Civic Committee and AWS to use their affiliations with Solidarity to gain votes,
115
Solidarity has not experienced the same degree of lasting affection that the ANC has enjoyed.
This is likely a result of Solidarity's rocky record of public support and shorter history.
The ANC's current interactions with civil society are significantly shaped by the party's
history as an SMO. Rather than promoting dissent for the sake of democracy, the ANC is
defensive and often tries to silence criticism, as it did during the liberation struggle. When the
Civic Committee and AWS were in office they also limited the trade union aspects of Solidarity,
and Lech Wałęsa even said that civil society should be weak to give the government time to
become strong. The unfortunate result is that Poles are discouraged and disillusioned, and as a
result, Polish civil society is small and rather inactive.
Secondly, this paper examines the role and legitimacy of these successful former
movements in the new democracies they helped to create. Both countries are certainly more
democratic than they were under the previous regimes, but there is much substantive progress to
be made. Furthermore, while citizens have new political rights, their overall quality of life is not
what they expected under the new democracies.
The ANC has taken its position of power for granted because there have not been any
viable opposition parties and because a growing number and percentage of citizens have voted
for the ANC in previous elections. This has weakened South Africa's democracy because the
ANC does not need to provide basic services or be accountable to the people in order to be
reelected. Poland has the opposite problem; party politics are very unstable and most people
don't vote. The lack of participation and continuity limit the nation's ability to become a vibrant
democracy. South African leaders who have taken advantage of the ANC's power and Polish
leaders who have used Solidarity's history only to gain power, have lost legitimacy in the eyes of
the people, and consequently created distrust of their governments and of the democratic process.
116
The extent of support for the ANC has become a warning sign for the quality of the
country’s democracy. While there are many reasons why the ANC has such an immense
electoral advantage, so far there have not been any parties that have provided adequate
competition, and the result is that the ANC has enough politicians in office that it can change the
Constitution. The right to vote means very little when the results seem inevitable, even if the
process is just. On the other hand, the lack of attachment to Solidarity or any other Polish
parties, has hindered Poland’s democratic process because so few citizens vote.
People in both South Africa and Poland have been disillusioned by their countries’ shifts
to neo-liberal and capitalist economic systems. While they have new political rights, these are
not fully guaranteed in South Africa and not taken advantage of in Poland. Yet the primary
concerns of many people are not about their political freedoms, but their general quality of life.
Service delivery has been particularly lacking in South Africa, where joblessness, homelessness,
and HIV/AIDS are major concerns. Poland remains one of the poorest countries in the European
Union, and has had problems with unemployment and poverty. The standard of living has
decreased for the average citizen in both countries, and this has tainted their opinions of the
legitimacy of their governments. Particularly in South Africa, there is a feeling that the
liberation struggle is not yet over, as citizens are still waiting for an economic liberation to go
along with their political liberation.
The ANC’s interactions with South African civil society have not been particularly
democratic. When NGOs, unions, or SMOs are willing to act as the ANC dictates, the party has
no problem with these other groups. Yet when civil society criticizes ANC policies, they are
dismissed and devalued by the ruling party. On the other hand, the ANC has often catered to the
will of Western nations and participated in globalization in a way that has not benefited the
117
majority of South Africans. While Poland’s participation in the European Union has been
beneficial for its citizens, Polish civil society is not faring well. This trend began when the Civic
Committee was in office and shunned unions and workers strikes. Then, while Solidarity
Electoral Action (AWS) was in power, Solidarity continued to stand aside as workers rights were
trampled. Solidarity is now slowly gaining legitimacy as a union that it is staying outside of
politics, but Polish civil society remains weak.
Government accountability in South Africa is minimal, as the ANC has not had any
viable opponents in past elections and has been able to take the citizens votes, and thus the
party’s position in power, for granted. This may change in coming months if the Congress of the
People (COPE) proves to be a viable opposition party. Solidarity was not accountable to Polish
workers during the 1990s, largely due to the political parties affiliated with the union. Luckily,
Solidarity has begun to work for laborers’ rights again since 2000, and has gained some
legitimacy in this regard.
This work contributes to the growing literature on movement outcomes in several ways.
First, it finds that when an SMO targets the state to gain political rights, the movement’s
outcomes and politics are not only intertwined, but inseparable. This fits with Goldstone's
argument that scholars should not study movement outcomes and institutionalized politics
separately (2003). Though Solidarity fought with an anti-political stance, by challenging the
Soviet regime it was forced to become a political player, and ultimately spawned a political party
in order to successfully end Soviet rule and transition into a new democracy. The ANC had
political aspirations early on, so its transition to a political party is not surprising. While
Solidarity has now left the realm of politics, its movement past has had a lasting impression on
the Polish governmental system, civil society, and the political participation of Polish citizens.
118
Furthermore, this study details how movement pasts have influenced the political parties
and union that grew out of them. This agrees with Panebianco's theory that “the way in which
the cards are dealt out and the outcomes of the different rounds played out in the formative phase
of an organization, continue in many ways to condition the life of the organization even decades
afterwards” (1988:xiii). Desai (2003), Goldstone (2002), and Younis (2000) have all built on
Panebianco's work, and my study adds to this growing body of scholarship.
Additionally, this paper demonstrates how social movement outcomes are complex, and
provides a detailed, historical, and comparative approach to studying these outcomes, as Giugni
suggested (1998). This serves as an example of social movement scholarship that goes beyond
the success or failure dichotomy, and is not limited to biographical consequences, policy
outcomes, or institutionalization. This study seeks to better understand outcomes without being
confined to established categories, with hopes that this may become a more common practice
among social movement researchers.
Further research should be done on social movement outcomes, both in party
transformations and otherwise, following these principles. This type of scholarship will work to
balance the academic understanding of social movements that is so focused on creation and
maintenance, but not outcomes. Perhaps more importantly, this research will provide current
leaders of parties or unions with social movement pasts with a framework to better understand
their position. Moreover, it will provide a foundation for current social movement leaders and
activists to plan ahead so that they may make formative decisions that create more favorable and
long-lasting outcomes.
Finally, this paper demonstrates how the emotional attachment approach to social
movement scholarship ties into movement outcomes and party transformations. Earlier social
119
movement theorists would have dismissed this attachment as irrational or the result of a
psychological disorder. In context, the extent of South Africans' emotional connections to the
ANC and the leaders of the liberation struggle are significant. When compared to the Polish case
study through examination of personal accounts, survey data, and election results, clear
distinctions arise between the roles of emotions in shaping the trajectories of the ANC and
Solidarity. While human, cultural, and emotional aspects are not easily quantifiable, my results
show that such studies are not fruitless. Furthermore, it reveals how emotions can both help and
hinder social movement outcomes that benefit movement members and supporters.
120
Interviews and Group Meetings
Bolton, Harriet. former Garment Workers’ Industrial Union Secretary. Personal interview.
Durban, South Africa. 26 November 2007
Cele, System. Abahlali member, Kennedy Road informal settlement resident. Personal interview.
Durban, South Africa. 21 November 2007
Figlan, Lindelani (Mashumi). former COSAS chairperson, former ANC Youth League
chairperson, Abahlali Vice-President, Kennedy Road informal settlement resident.
Personal interview. Durban, South Africa. 15 November 2007
Gibala, Lukasz. Parliament Member from the Citizens Platform (PO). Group Meeting. Krakow,
Poland. 7 April 2008.
Gliksman, Adam. Public Relations and International Relations for Solidarity in the Małopolska
region. Group Meeting. Krakow, Poland. 31 Jan. 2008.
Gliksman, Adam. Public Relations and International Relations for Solidarity in the Małopolska
region. Personal interview. Krakow, Poland. 17 April 2008.
Govindsamy, Gary. former liberation activist, SABC News Bulletin Editor for Lotus FM.
Personal interview. Durban, South Africa. 20 November 2007
Mazgaz, Jan and Marian Skubisz. Co-Vice Presidents for NSZZ Pracowników. Group Meeting.
Krakow, Poland. 8 April 2008.
Motha, Louisa. Abahlali Coordinator, Motala Heights informal settlement resident. Personal
interview. Durban, South Africa. 21 November 2007
Naidoo,Kiru former member of countless ANC affiliated organizations, researcher, teacher,
political analyst. Personal interview. Durban, South Africa. 20 November 2007
121
Ntseng, David. former liberation activist, Church Land Programme Employee, Abahlali member.
Personal interview. Durban, South Africa. 28 November 2007
Tsalong, Xolani former ANC Youth League member, former TAC employee, masters student in
Development at UKZN. Personal interview. Durban, South Africa. 19 November 2007
122
References
Abahlali BaseMjondolo. 2006. “A Short History of Abahlali BaseMjondolo, the Durban Shack
Dwellers' Movement.” Retrieved November 7, 2007 (http://www.abahlali.org/node/16).
African National Congress. 2001. “Through the Eye of a Needle: Choosing the Best Cadres to
Lead Transformation.” Discussion Document of the National Working Committee of the
ANC, Umrabulo 11, Retrieved March 21 2009
(http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/umrabulo11d.html).
------. 2004. African National Congress Gauteng Province, Build and Safeguard the Unity of the
Movement. Discussion Document of the African National Congress Gauteng Provincial
Executive Committee. Retrieved March 21, 2009
(http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/discussion/gauteng/pec_doc.htm).
Amenta, Edwin, Bruce G. Carruthers, and Yvonne Zylan. 1992. “A Hero for the Aged? The
Townsend Movement, the Political Mediation Model, and U.S. Old-Age Policy, 1934-
1950.” American Journal of Sociology 98:308-39.
Amenta, Edwin and Michael P. Young. 1999. “Democratic States and Social Movements:
Theoretic Arguments and Hypotheses.” Social Problems 57:153-68.
Aminzade, Ronald, Jack A. Goldstone, Doug McAdam, Elizabeth J. Perry, and Sidney Tarrow.
2001. Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Andrews, Kenneth T. 2004. Freedom is a Constant Struggle: The Mississippi Civil Rights
Movement and Its Legacy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Ash, Timothy Garton. 2002. The Polish Revolution: Solidarity. 3rd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
123
Berkowitz, William R. 1974. “Socioeconomic Indicator Changes in Ghetto Riot Tracts.” Urban
Affairs Quarterly 10:69-94.
Bielasiak, Jack. 1992. “The Dilemma of Political Interests in the Postcommunist Transition.” Pp.
199-216 in The Polish Road from Socialism: The Economics, Sociology, and Politics of
Transition, edited by W. D. Connor and P. Płoszajski. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Biko, Steve. 2002. I Write What I Like. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
Błaziak, Wojciech. 1994. “Górniczy Strajk Generalny na Śląsku” in Górnicy Górniośląscy—
ludzie zbędni, ludzie luźni? Edited by Marek Szczepański. Krakow, PO: amp. found in
Crowley and Ost 2002.
Bond, Patrick. 2000. Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa. Sterling,
VA: Pluto Press.
Boyes, Roger. 1994. The Naked President: A Political Life of Lech Wałęsa. London, UK: Secker
& Warburg.
Bozóki, András, and John T. Ishiyama. 2002. The Communist Successor Parties of Central and
Eastern Europe. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc.
Buechler, Steven M. 1999. Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy
and Cultural Construction of Social Activism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Buechler, Steven M. and F. Kurt Cylke, Jr., ed. 1997. Social Movements: Perspectives and
Issues. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
Burstein, Paul. 1999. "Social Movements and Public Policy." Pp. 3-21 in How Social Movements
Matter, edited by M. Giugni, D. McAdam, and C. Tilly. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
124
Burstein, Paul, Rachel L. Einwohner, and Jocelyn A. Hollander. 1995. “The Success of Political
Movements: a Bargaining Perspective.” Pp. 275-95 in The Politics of Social Protest,
edited by J. C. Jenkins and B. Klandermans. Minneapolis, MN: University Minnesota
Press.
Burstein, Paul and April Linton. 2002. “The Impact of Political Parties, Interest Groups, and
Social Movement Organizations on Public Policy: Some Recent Evidence and
Theoretical Concerns.” Social Forces 81(2):381-408.
Butler, Anthony. 2005. “How Democratic is the African National Congress?” Journal of
Southern African Studies 31(4): 719-36.
------. 2007. “The State of the African National Congress.” Pp. 35-52 in State of the Nation:
South Africa, edited by S. Buhlungu, J. Daniel, R. Southall, and J. Lutchman. Cape
Town, SA: HSRC Press.
Calland, Richard and Paul Graham, eds. 2005. Democracy in the Time of Mbeki. Cape Town,
SA: IDASA.
Carothers, Thomas. 2006. Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New
Democracies. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Congress of the People. 2008. “Cope Organisational Report” Congress of the People (COPE):
Mpumalanga Information Center. Retrieved March 20, 2009
(http://copempu.co.za/blog/2008/12/21/cope-organisational-report/)
COPE website. 2008. “Congress of the People” Retrieved March 20, 2009
(http://www.congressofthepeople.org.za).
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. 1996.
(http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/index.htm)
125
Crowley, Stephen, and David Ost. 2002. Workers After Workers' States: Labor and Politics in
Postcommunist Eastern Europe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Davis, Gerald F., Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott, and Mayer N. Zald, eds. 2005. Social
Movements and Organization Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.
della Porta, Donatella. 1995. Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Desai, Manali. 2002. “The Relative Autonomy of Party Practices: A Counterfactual Analysis of
Left Party Ascendancy in Kerala, India, 1934–1940” American Journal of Sociology
108(3):616–57.
------. 2003. “From Movement to Party to Government: Why Social Policies in Kerala and West
Bengal are So Different.” Pp. 170-96 in States, Parties, and Social Movements, edited by
J. A. Goldstone. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ekiert, G. and Kubik, J. 2001. Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic
Consolidation in Poland 1989–1993. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, Inc.
Flam, Helen and Debra King, eds. 2005. Emotions and Social Movements. London, UK:
Routledge.
Frazer, Jendayi. 1994. “Interview with M.C. Ramaphosa, secretary general of the African
National Congress (ANC).” Africa Today 41(1):7-10.
Friedman, Steven, and Shauna Mottiar. 2006. "Seeking the High Ground: the Treatment Action
Campaign and the Politics of Morality." Pp. 23-44 in Voices of Protest: Social
Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa, edited by A. Habib, R. Ballard, and I.
Valodia. Pietermaritzburg, SA: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
126
“From Rebels to Rulers.” 1994. Canadian Business, 67(8):43.
Frybes, M. and Kuczyn´ski, P., eds. 2002. Panorama rucho´w społecznych w Polsce (Warsaw:
Collegium Civitas, Zeszyt Naukowy No. 4). Found in Meardi, Guglielmo. 2005. “The
Legacy of ‘Solidarity’: Class, Democracy, Culture and Subjectivity in the Polish Social
Movement.” Social Movement Studies 4(3):261-80.
Gamson, William A. 1975. The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.
Gazeta Wyborcza Interview, cited in “Tygodnic Solidaranosc 18.” September 19, 1989. 2. found
in Crowley, Stephen, and David Ost. 2002. Workers After Workers' States: Labor and
Politics in Postcommunist Eastern Europe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 81-2.
Gibson, Nigel. 2006. "Zabalaza, Unfinished Struggles Against Apartheid: the Shack dwellers
Movement in Durban." Illinois State University. International Seminar Series. Illinois
State University, IL. Retrieved November 7, 2007 (http://abahlali.org/node/1108).
Giugni, Marco G. 1998. “Was It Worth the Effort? The Outcomes and Consequences of Social
Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 24:371-93.
------. 1999. “How Social Movements Matter” Pp. xiii-xxxiii in How Social Movements Matter,
edited by M. C. Giugni, D. McAdam and C. Tilly. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
Glenn, John K. 2001. Framing Democracy: Civil Society and Civic Movements in Eastern
Europe. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
------. 2003. “Parties Out of Movements: Party Emergence in Postcommunist Eastern Europe.”
Pp. 174-69 in States, Parties, and Social Movements, edited by J. A. Goldstone. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
127
Gliksman, Adam. 2005. The NSZZ “Solidarnosc” of Malopolska: History, Structure, Activities.
Translated by Jaromir Król. Krakow, Poland: Zarząd Regionu Małopolska NSZZ
“Solidarnosc”.
Goldstone, Jack A. 1980a. “The Weakness of Organization: A New Look at Gamson's The
Strategy of Social Protest.” The American Journal of Sociology 85(5):1017-42.
------. 1980b. “Theories of Revolution: The Third Generation.” World Politics 32(3):425-53.
------. 2002. “Theory Development in the Study of Revolutions.” Pp. 194-226 in New Directions
in Contemporary Sociological Theory, edited by J. Berger and M. Zelditch Jr. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
------., ed. 2003. States, Parties, and Social Movements. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, Jeff. 2005. “Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements.” Pp. 404-22 in The
Handbook of Political Sociology, edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A.
Schwartz. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, Jeff and James M. Jasper. 1999. “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural
Bias of Political Process Theory.” Sociological Forum 14(1):27-54.
------. 2003. Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Goodwin, Jeff, James M. Jasper and Francesca Polletta, eds. 2001. Passionate Politics: Emotions
and Social Movements. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1991. Breaking the Barrier: The Rise of Solidarity in Poland. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Grint, Keith. 2000. The Arts of Leadership. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
128
Gunther Richard and José Ramón-Montero. 2002. “Introduction: Reviewing and Reassessing
Parties.” Pp. 1-38 in Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, edited by R.
Gunther, J. Ramón-Montero, and J. J. Linz. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Gurr, Ted Robert. 1980. “On the Outcomes of Violent Conflict.” Pp. 238-94 in Handbook of
Political Conflict, Theory and Research, edited by T. R. Gurr. New York: Free Press.
Gusfield, Joseph R. 1981. The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic
Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Habib, Adam, ed. 2002. “Editor's Introduction.” Pp. vii-xii in The Size and Scope of the Non-
Profit Sector in South Africa, edited by M. Swilling and B. Russel. Johannesburg and
Durban, SA: University of the Witwatersrand School of Public and Development
Management and the Centre for Civil Society.
Habib, Adam. 2005. “State-Civil Society Relations in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Social
Research. 72(3): 671-92.
Habib, Adam and Collette Schultz-Herzenberg. 2005. “Servants of the People: Accountability
and Democracy: Is the Ruling Elite Responsive to the Citizenry?” Pp. 167-88 in
Democracy in the Time of Mbeki, edited by R. Calland and P. Graham. Cape Town,
South Africa: IDASA.
Helfgot, Joseph. 1974. “Professional Reform Organizations and the Symbolic Representation of
the Poor.” American Sociological Review 39(4):475-491.
Hiller, Harry H. 1975. “A Reconceptualization of the Dynamics of Social Movement
Development.” The Pacific Sociological Review 18(3):342-360.
Hipsher, Patricia L. 1998. “Democratic Transitions and Social Movement Outcomes: The
Chilean Shantytown Dwellers’ Movement in Comparative Perspective.” Pp. 149-68 in
129
From Contention to Democracy, edited by M. Giugni, D. McAdam, and C. Tilly.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Holland, Heidi. 1990. The Struggle: A History of the African National Congress. NY: George
Braziller, Inc.
Hopper, Rex D. 1950. “The Revolutionary Process: A Frame of Reference for the Study of
Revolutionary Movements.” Social Forces, 28:270-79.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. "Democracy's Third Wave." Journal of Democracy 2, 2.
------. 1991-1992. “How Countries Democratize.” Political Science Quarterly 106(4):579-616.
Isa, Mariam. (March 3) 2009. “Job growth anomaly sparks disbelief” Business Day.
(http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A950823).
Jasiewicz, Krzysztof. 1992. “Polish Elections of 1990: Beyond the ‘Pospolite Ruszenie’.” Pp.
181-98 in in The Polish Road from Socialism: The Economics, Sociology, and Politics of
Transition, edited by W. D. Connor and P. Płoszajski. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
------. 1997. “Poland: Wałęsa’s Legacy to the Presidency.” Pp. 130-67 in Postcommunist
Presidents, edited by R. Taras. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, J. Craig and Craig M. Eckert. 1986. “Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and
Professional Social Movement Organizations in the Development of the Black
Movement.” American Sociological Review 51(6):812-829.
Jenkins, J. Craig and Bert Klandermans, eds. 1995. The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative
Perspectives on States and Social Movements. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
130
Jenkins, J. Craig and William Form. 2005. “Social Movements and Social Change.” Pp. 331-49
in The Handbook of Political Sociology, edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and
M. A. Schwartz. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Keck, Margaret E. 1992. The Brazilian Workers Party and Democratization in Brazil. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Kemp-Welch, A. 1991. The Birth of Solidarity. Second Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press
Kennedy, Michael D. 1991. Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland: A Critical Sociology
of Soviet-type Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kitschelt, Herbert. 1986. “Political opportunity structures and political protest: anti-nuclear
movements in four democracies.” British Journal of Political Science 16:57-85.
Klandermans, Bert. 1984. “Mobilization and Participation: Social Psychological Expansions of
Resource Mobilization Theory.” American Sociological Review 49:583-600.
------. 1992. “Social Construction of Protest and Multiorganizational Fields.” Pp. 77-103 in
Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, edited by A. D. Morris and C. McClurg Mueller.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Klandermans, Bert, Marlene Roefs, and Johan Oliver. 1998. “Protest Intentions On The Eve Of
South Africa's First Nonracial Elections: Optimists Look Beyond Injustice.” Mobilization
3(1):51-68.
Kosc, Wojciech. 2004. “Poland: Labor Is Job No. 1.” Transitions Online. December 13.
Kriesi, Hanspeter. 1995. “The political opportunity structure of new social movements. its
impact on their mobilization.” Pp. 167-98 in The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative
Perspectives on States and Social Movements, edited by J. C. Jenkins and B.
Klandermans. Minneapolis, MN: University Minnesota Press.
131
Krzaklewski, Marian. 1996. “16 rocznica Sierpnia,” Tygodnik Solidarnosc, September 13. found
in Ost. 2005.
Kurczewski, J. and Kurczewska, J. 2001. “A Self-Governing Society Twenty Years After:
Democracy and the Third Sector in Poland.” Social Research 68: 937–76.
Kurski, Jaroslaw. 1993. Lech Wałęsa: Democrat or Dictator? Translated by P. Obst. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Lander, Alice. 2007. “Durban Basks in Zuma's ANC Victory.” BBC News, December 19.
Retrieved March 5, 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7151935.stm).
Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation:
Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MA: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1960. Political Man, New York: Doubleday.
------. 1968[1950]. Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in
Saskatchewan. A Study in Political Sociology, updated. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Lo, Clarence Y. H. 1992. “Communities of Challengers in Social Movement Theory.” Pp. 224-
47 in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, edited by A. D. Morris and C. McClurg
Mueller. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lodge, Tom. 2004. “The ANC and the Development of Party Politics in Modern South Africa.”
Journal of Modern African Studies 42(2): 189-219.
Lofland, John. 1996. Social Movement Organizations: Guide to Research on Insurgent Realities.
Hawthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter.
Lounsbury, Michael. 2005. “Institutional Variations in the Evolution of Social Movements:
Competing Logics and the Spread of Recycling Advocacy Groups.” Pp. 73-95 in Social
132
Movements and Organization Theory, edited by G. F. Davis, D. McAdam, W. R. Scott,
and M. N. Zald. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mandela, Nelson. 1994. Long Walk to Freedom. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Markoff, John. 2005. “Transitions to Democracy.” Pp. 384-403 in The Handbook of Political
Sociology, edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A. Schwartz. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Mason, David S. 1992. “Public Opinion in Poland’s Transition to Market Democracy.” Pp. 147-
66 in The Polish Road from Socialism: The Economics, Sociology, and Politics of
Transition, edited by W. D. Connor and P. Płoszajski. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Mauss, Armand C. 1971. “On being Strangled By The Stars and Stripes: The New Left, The Old
Left, and The Natural History of American Radical Movements.” Journal of Social Issues
27:183-202.
McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
------. 1997. “The Classical Model of Social Movements Examined.” Pp. 135-48 in Social
Movements: Perspectives and Issues, edited by S. M. Buechler and F. K. Cylke, Jr.
Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald. 1988. “Social Movement.” Pp. 695-737
in Handbook of Sociology, edited by N. J. Smelser. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
------., eds. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
McAdam, Doug and David A. Snow. 1997. Social Movements: Readings on Their Emergence,
Mobilization, and Dynamics. Los Angeles: Roxbury.
133
McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, John D. and Mark Wolfson. 1992. “Consensus Movements, Conflict Movements, and
the Cooptation of Civic and State Infrastructures.” Pp. 273-297 in Frontiers in Social
Movement Theory, edited by A. D. Morris and C. McClurg Mueller. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
McCarthy, John D. and Mayer N. Zald. 1977. “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A
Partial Theory.” American Journal of Sociology, 82:1212-41.
Meardi, Guglielmo. 2005. “The Legacy of ‘Solidarity’: Class, Democracy, Culture and
Subjectivity in the Polish Social Movement.” Social Movement Studies 4(3):261-80.
Messinger, Sheldon L. 1955. “Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of a Declining
Social Movement.” American Sociological Review 20(1):3-10.
Meyer, David S. and Sidney Tarrow. 1998. “A Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a
New Century.” Pp. 1-28 in The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New
Century, edited by D. S. Meyer and S. Tarrow. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Michels, Robert. 1962 [1911]. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical
Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Free Press.
Ministry of Labour and Social Policy: Labour Market Department. 2008. “National Action Plan
for Employment.” Warsaw, PO. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
(http://www.mps.gov.pl/_download.php?f=userfiles%2FFile%2FEnglish
%2FNAPE_2008.pdf).
134
Moore, K. and N. Hala. 2002. “Organizing Identity: The Creation of Science for the People.” In
Research in the Sociology of Organizations. 19: xx-xx., edited by M. Lounsbury and M.
J. Ventresca. New York: JAI/Elsevier.
Mpthapo, Walter. 2001. “On the Question of Collective Leadership”, Umrabulo 13, December.
Retrieved March 21, 2009
(http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/13/umrabulo13u.html).
O’Dwyer, Conor. 2006. Runaway State-Building: Patronage Politics and Democratic
Development. Baltomore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Oliver, Pamela E. 1989. “Bringing the Crowd Back In: The Nonorganizational Elements of
Social Movements.” Research in Social Movements and Conflict 11:1-30.
Oliver, Pamela E., Jorge Cadena-Roa, and Kelly D. Strawn. 2003. “Emerging Trends in the
Study of Protest and Social Movements.” Pp. 213-44 in Political Sociology for the 21st
Century, Vol. 12. edited by B. A. Dobratz, L. K. Waldner, and T. Buzzell. Stanford, CT:
JAI Press.
Oliver, Pamela E. and Daniel J. Myers. 2002. “The Coevolution of Social Movements.”
Mobilization: An International Journal 8(1):1-24.
O'Loughlin, Ed. 1997. “S. Africa's ruling party not playing by its rules.” Christian Science
Monitor, January 22, 89(39): ______
O'Malley, Padraig. 2007. Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa.
New York: Penguin Group.
OPZZ. 2006. “About Us: the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ).” OgóLnopolskie
Porozumienie ZwiąZkóW Zawodowych. Retrieved April 21, 2008
(http://opzz.org.pl/english/about_us.html).
135
Ost, David. 1990. Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press.
------. 2005a. “Solidarity 25 Years Later.” The Nation. 12 Sept.: 6-8.
------. 2005b. The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe. 1st ed.
Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005.
Paczkowski, Andrzej. 2003. The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to
Freedom. Translated by J. Cave. Pennsylvania, PA: The Pennsylvania State University
Press.
Panebianco, Angelo. 1988. Political Parties: Organization and Power. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Piven, Francis Fox and Richard A. Cloward. 1977. Poor People's Movements: Why They
Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon.
------.1979. Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Vintage.
Power, Samantha. "The AIDS Rebel: South African AIDS Activist Zackie Achmat." The New
Yorker. 13 May 2003. Retrieved November 7, 2007
(http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/stateofdenial/special_rebel.html).
Przeworski, A., M. Alvarez, J.A. Cheibub and F. Limongi. 2000. Democracy and Development:
Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950–1990. Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press.
Quaye, Christopher O. 1990. Liberation Struggles in International Law. Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press.
Ransdell, Eric and Jerelyn Eddings. 1994. “The rebels take charge.” U.S. News & World Report,
00415537, 5/2/94, Vol. 116, Issue 17 Database: Academic Search Premier
136
Rochon, Thomas R. and Daniel A. Mazmanian. 1993. “Social Movements and the Policy
Process.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
528(1):75-87.
Rossouw, Mandy and Mmanaledi Mataboge. 2009. “How Terror Lost Cope” Mail and Guardian
Online, February 27, (http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-02-27-how-terror-lost-cope).
Rucht, Dieter; Blättert, Barbara and Dieter Rink, eds. 1997. Soziale Bewegungen auf dem Weg
zur Institutionlisierung. Frankfurt: Campus.
Sanford, George. 2002. Democratic Government in Poland: Constitutional Politics since 1989.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sapa. 2008. “Cope Wins Name Battle.” The Times, Dec 12,
(http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=904235).
Schwartz, Mildred A. and Kay Lawson. 2005. “Political Parties: Social Bases, Organization, and
Environment.” Pp. 266-86 in The Handbook of Political Sociology, edited by T. Janoski,
R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A. Schwartz. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Scott, W. Richard. 2001. Institutions and Organizations. 2nd ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Seidman, Gay. 2001. “Guerillas in Their Midst: Armed Struggle in the South African Anti-
Apartheid Movement.” Mobilization 6:111-27.
Seippel, Ørnulf. 2001. “From Mobilization to Institutionalization? The Case of Norwegian
Environmentalism.” Acta Sociologica 44:123-37.
Selznick, Phillip. 1970. “Institutional Vulnerability in Mass Society.” Pp. 258-74 in Protest,
Reform, and Revolt, edited by J. R. Gusfield. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Sharman, Jason Campbell. 2003. Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe. New York:
RoutledgeCurzon.
137
Siemienska, Renata. 2006. "Poland: Citizens and Democratic Politics." Pp. 203-34 in Democracy
and Political Culture in Eastern Europe, edited by H. D. Klingemann, D. Fuchs, and J.
Zielonka. New York: Routledge.
Singer, Peter. 2002. Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States & Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia,
& China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
------. 1982. “Rentier State and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian Revolution.” Theory and Society
11(3):265-83.
Smelser, Niel J. 1962. Theory of Collective Behavior. New York: The Free Press.
SouthAfrica.info. 2007. “South Africa’s Population.” Retrieved March 20, 2009
(http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/population.htm)
Southall, Roger. 2003a. Democracy in Africa: Moving Beyond a Difficult Legacy (Cape Town,
Human Sciences Research Council, 2003). P 30
------. 2003b. ‘Post-Colonial Legitimacy in Lesotho’, in H. Melber (ed.), Limits to Liberation in
Southern Africa (Cape Town, Human Sciences Research Council, 2003), p. 129.
Strang, David and Sarah A. Soule. 1998. “Diffusion in Organizations and Social Movements:
From Hybrid Corn to Poison Pills.” Annual Review of Sociology, 24: 265-290.
Szczerbiak, Aleks. 1999. “Interests and Values: Polish Parties and Their Electorates.” Europe-
Asia Studies 51.8: 1401-32.
------. 2001. Poles Together?: The Emergence and Development of Political Parties in
Postcommunist Poland. New York: Central European University Press.
Tarrow, Sidney. 1993. “Social Protest and Policy Reform: May 1968 and the Loi d'Orientation in
France.” Comparative Political Studies 25:579-607.
138
------. 1994. Power in Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press.
------. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Mass Politics in the
Modern State. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
“The ANC on the Road to Power.” The Economist, February 19 1994. 330(7851): 46-50.
Thomas, Clive S. 2001. “Studying the Political Party-Interest Group Relationship.” Pp. 1-23 in
Political Parties and Interest Groups: Shaping Democratic Governance, edited by C. S.
Thomas. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company.
------. 1999. “Conclusion: From Interactions to Outcomes in Social Movements.” Pp. 253-70 in
How Social Movements Matter, edited by M. C. Giugni, D. McAdam and C. Tilly.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
------. 2003. “Afterward: Agendas for Students of Social Movements.” Pp. 246-56 in States,
Parties, and Social Movements, edited by J. A. Goldstone. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
------. 2005. “Regimes and Contention.” Pp. 423-40 in The Handbook of Political Sociology,
edited by T. Janoski, R. Alford, A. Hicks, and M. A. Schwartz. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Toole, James. 2000. “Government Formation and Party System Stabilization in East Central
Europe.” Party Politics 6:441-61.
Touraine, Alain. 1983. Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tworzecki, Hubert. 2003. Learning to Choose: Electoral Politics in East-Central Europe.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
139
Van Cott, Donna Lee. 2005. From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of
Ethnic Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wancerz-Gluza, Alicja. “Solidarity and the Systemic Transformations in Central-Eastern
Europe.” KARTA. Warsaw, Poland. 20 Apr. 2008
(http://www.solidaridad.gov.pl/files/rola_solidarnosci/rola_solidarnosci_en.doc).
Wenzel, Michal. 1998. “Solidarity and Akcja Wyborcza ‘Solidarnosc’. an Attempt At Reviving
the Legend.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31.2:139-156.
“Who Exactly is in Command?” The Economist, November 19 1994. 333(7890):48
Wolfson, Mark. 2001. The Fight Against Big Tobacco : The Movement, The State, and The
Public's Health. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Xundu, Xolani. 2007. “ANC gears up for Limpopo.” 12 Oct 2007.
(http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=585228).
Yang, Guobin. 2007. “Emotions and Movements.” Pp. 1389-1392 in Encyclopedia of Sociology,
edited by G. Ritzer. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Yishai, Yael. 1994. "Interest Parties: The Thin Line Between Groups and Parties in the Israeli
Electoral Process." Pp. 197-225 in How Political Parties Work. Perspectives From
Within, edited by K. Lawson. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Younis, Mona N. 2000. Liberation and Democratization: South African and Palestinian
National Movements. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Zald, Mayer. 1970. Organizational Change: The Political Economy of the YMCA. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
------. 2000. “Ideologically Structured Action: An Enlarged Agenda for Social Movement
Research.” Mobilization 5:1-17.
140
Zald, Mayer N. and Roberta Ash. 1966. “Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay and
Change.” Social Forces 44(3):327-341.
Zald, Mayer N., Calvin Morrill, and Hayagreeva Rao. 2005. “The Impact of Social Movements
on Organizations: Environment and Responses.” Pp. 253-79 in Social Movements and
Organization Theory, edited by G. F. Davis, D. McAdam, W. R. Scott, and M. N. Zald.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Zarycki, Tomasz. 1999. “Wybory samorządowe w 1998 r” [The Subnational Elections in 1998].
Pp. 39-57 in Decentralizacja terytorialnej organizacji kraju: założenia, przygotowanie,
ustawodawstwo [The Decenstralization of the Territorial Organization of the Country:
Foundations, Preparation, Legislation], edited by G. Gorzelak. Reports of the Center for
Social and Economic Research no. 21. Warsaw: CASE Foundation.)
------. 2000. “Politics in the Periphery: Political Cleavages in Poland Interpreted in Their
Historical and International Context.” Europe-Asia Studies 52(5):851-873.
Zuern, Elke. 2004. “Continuity in Contradiction? The Prospects for a National Civic Movement
in a Democratic State: SANCO and the ANC in Post-Apartheid South Africa.”
Globalisation, Marginalisation & New Social Movements in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Durban, SA: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Retrieved March 21, 2009.
(http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/files/Zuern%20SANCO%20Research%20Report.pdf)
141
Appendix A. South Africa Interview Questions
1. What is the history of your activism?
2. Which groups have you been involved with and when?
3. How involved have you been?
4. What are the reasons for any changes in your activism over time, both before and after
1994?
5. What are your current feelings about the ANC?
6. What do you think the ANC has done well?
7. Where do you think the ANC has failed to deliver?
8. What do you think about the current state of South Africa?
9. What are your hopes for the future of South Africa?
10. What are your hopes for the future of the ANC?
11. What are your hopes for the future of the South African government?
12. What is your analysis of how the ANC has changed from a liberation movement to a
political party?
13. What do you think about how the ANC interacts with, treats, and has relationships with
social movements now, and how this differs from the past?
14. How should the people of South Africa fix current problems? (voting, activism,
individual responsibility/choice, etc.)
15. What is your opinion of current social movements, created both before and after 1994?
16. What motivates your activism? How to you keep on struggling when there is so much
still to be done?
142
17. Do you think there is too much complacency and passivity in South Africa today, and
among the youth? Why or why not?
18. How long will the ANC remain in power? How will the end of the ANC’s power come
about?
143
Appendix B. Poland Interview Questions
1. What is the influence of Solidarnosc’s history as a ruling party on their current trade
union activities?
2. What is behind Solidarnosc’s decision to stay out of the political realm?
3. What are the challenges and benefits of the union’s current position?
4. What practices are in place for Solidarnosc to hear and represent the opinions of its
members?
5. How does the union arrive at decisions?
6. How free are lower-level employees and leaders to disagree with the top-level leaders
within Solidarnosc?
7. What are some of Solidarnosc’s greatest successes and strengths?
8. What are some of Solidarnosc’s biggest challenges and failures?
9. To what extent does Solidarnosc’s power impact Poland on a national level? Local level?
10. What is the future of Solidarnosc?
11. What is the public opinion of Solidarnosc?
12. What is Solidarnosc’s relationship with civil society like?
13. What is Solidarnosc’s relationship with other trade unions?
14. When Solidarnosc entered into politics, did the organization's goals change from those
they originally outlined when the union formed in 1980?
15. How would you describe Solidarnosc’s political and social views on a left to right
continuum? how have they changed over time?
16. How has founder and former Polish President Lech Wałęsa’s reputation affected public
opinion of Solidarnosc?
144