Development Planning in South Africa

This book offers a novel perspective on a vital question: why, years after the fall of Apartheid, do so many in South Africa still live in such severe poverty? Development Planning in South Africa draws on John Reynold's personal experiences working on the Eastern Cape Provincial Growth and Developm [...]
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This book offers a novel perspective on a vital question: why, years after the fall of Apartheid, do so many in South Africa still live in such severe poverty? Development Planning in South Africa draws on John Reynold's personal experiences working on the Eastern Cape Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP), a ground-breaking project which - with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme - attempted to forge a ten-year plan to eliminate poverty, unemployment and inequality in the province. Coming at a time when social movements in South Africa were at their most vocal and visible, the PGDP was consciously seized on in the Eastern Cape as a chance to mount a radical policy challenge to the status quo. However, it soon found itself undermined and obstructed by the South African state. Drawing on the strategic-relational approach pioneered by Bob Jessop, Reynolds explores the ways in which this challenge was negotiated and, eventually, neutralised, as well as considering what the failure of the PGDP can teach us about the nature of the state and state power as expressed through policy.