Center for African Area Studies (CAAS), Kyoto University and African Studies Centre, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (ASC - TUFS) will jointly hold the 8th KU-TUFS Seminar on December 18, 2018.

◆Speaker: Dr. Mabutho Shangase
(Lecturer, University of Pretoria; Visiting Professor, ASC-TUFS)

◆Time & Date: Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 3:00pm - 5:00pm

◆Venue: Conference Room Ⅱ (#331), 3rd Floor, Inamori Foundation Building, Kyoto University

◆Title:
Conjunctural State Autonomy and Policy Change in South Africa, 1994 -2014

◆Abstract:
This presentation narrates the exercise of state autonomy to achieve macro-economic stability and effect incremental policy change in South Africa between 1994 and 2014. Employing a composite case study of the macro-economic policy framework; the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) (1996) strategy, and two micro policies, Free Basic Electricity (FBE) (2003) and No Fee Schools (NFS) (2006), it demonstrates how the post-apartheid state introduced reforms at macro and micro policy levels. Most importantly, the ability to exercise this relative state autonomy is a direct result of a configuration herein termed conjunctural state autonomy.
Conjunctural state autonomy is comprised of at least three elements, namely, the historical context, the prevailing neoliberal paradigm, as well as a professional bureaucracy. The idea of conjunctural state autonomy is significant for understanding and predicting South African public policy and politics going forward. Conjunctural state autonomy reveals how the exercise of relative state autonomy is structurally mediated. The emergence and exercise of conjunctural state autonomy are therefore contingent on time and space factors hence the identification of the three elements of historical context, the prevailing framework of ideas, as well as a professional bureaucracy. The exercise of relative state autonomy within this configuration is thus time and context specific; its applicability is subject to the concurrent availability of the three core elements that comprise conjunctural state autonomy. Arguing from a historical institutionalist perspective, this presentation typically focuses on determinants at macro-political and economic levels, ideas, as well as on the attendant institutional arrangements.

◆Jointly sponsored by Center for African Area Studies, Kyoto University and African Studies Centre - Tokyo University of Foreign Studies