Shape collage pro 3.1 full3/16/2024 The settlement which ushered in majority rule left intact core features of the apartheid economy and society. Building on the work of the economic historian Douglass North and the political thinker Mahmood Mamdani, Friedman shows that South African democracy’s difficulties are legacies of the pre-1994 past. In Prisoners of the Past Steven Friedman astutely argues that this misreads the nature of contemporary South Africa. The negotiated settlement of 1994, it is claimed, ended racial domination and created the foundation for a prosperous democracy – but greedy politicians betrayed the promise of a new society. South Africa’s democracy is often seen as a story of bright beginnings gone astray, a pattern said to be common to Africa. Sithembile Mbete, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Sciences and Associate Fellow of the Centre for Governance Innovation (GovInn), University of Pretoria. Using the work of Mamdani and Wolpe, Friedman makes a compelling argument for new negotiations to create an economy in which all members of society have a stake. Friedman offers incisive analysis of South Africa’s incomplete transition by demonstrating how ‘path dependence’ has entrenched a political economy of insiders and outsiders that reinforces the racial and social inequalities of the past.
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