Satisfaction with the way democracy is working in post-apartheid South Africa
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2008
TITLE AUTHOR(S): Y.D.Davids, A.Hadland
KEYWORDS: DEMOCRACY, POST APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
DEPARTMENT: Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 5947
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/4725
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/4725
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
A constitution, relatively well-run elections and stable elected representative institutions are not sufficient for democratic consolidation. It is argued that democracies require people who are willing to support, defend and sustain them. The article emphasizes that the use of 'satisfaction with democracy' as the dependent variable is a more appropriate method to assess the way a democracy is working than determining support for democracy. However, the lack of a suitable indicator has prompted the use of the satisfaction indicator as a proxy for support for democracy. A multidimensional approach is adopted to explain satisfaction with democracy. The study is based on a South African national representative survey conducted in 2005. The article concludes that South Africans seem satisfied with the way democracy is working if the overall life circumstances of all citizens are good, if their own situation is improving and if they have trust in institutions. On the other hand, the study found that government performance in policy areas such as housing had no significant impact on satisfaction with democracy.-
Related Research Outputs:
- Conclusion: emergent perspectives on opposition in South Africa
- Political alliances and parliamentary opposition in post-apartheid South Africa
- Developing the culture of governance and democracy in South Africa, 1994-1999
- State of the nation: South Africa 2003-2004
- State-civil society in post-apartheid South Africa
- Epilogue: the lives of our future leaders
- Servants of the people: accountability and democracy: is the ruling elite responsive to the citizenry?
- State of the nation: South Africa 2005-2006
- Globalization issues of identity and the implications for governance and democratization in the post-apartheid South Africa
- Foreword
- Introduction: can South Africa be a developmental state?
- Soldiering on: the post-presidential years of Nelson Mandela 1999-2005
- South Africa's role in conflict resolution and peacemaking in Africa: conference proceedings
- The happy transition?: attitudes to poverty and inequality after a decade of democracy
- Rainbow voices: diversifying media in a new democracy: the South African experience
- Electoral administration: achievements and continuing challenges
- Conclusion: Cosatu and the democratic transformation of South Africa
- Afterword: ANC-COSATU relations and the battle for the presidency
- Electoral politics in South Africa: assessing the first democratic decade
- Feminist intellectual activism: within and beyond the academy: constructions of 'whiteness', gender and sexuality in South African magazines