Paper short abstract:

During Jacob Zuma's presidency in South Africa, 2009-2018, he and other ANC actors crafted narratives from cultural, religious and ideological discourses. In conjunction with political contests, they reshaped the meaningful markets and rules of the game in the political economy .

Paper long abstract:

Neoliberal frameworks of politically and culturally disembedded markets dominate among Western political risk analysts for business. So does an implicit strict dichotomy between states and markets. This paper explores whether and how diverse narratives from cultural, religious and ideological discourses co-constituted markets during Jacob Zuma's presidency in South Africa, 2009-2018.

The narratives of Zuma and his supporters in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) were crafted for political and business ends from discourses involving a revisionist and anti-imperialist international order, a state-led National Democratic Revolution, racially-tinged nation-building, nativism, appeals to Christianity and African traditional religion and custom, socio-economic redistribution and the decolonization of universities.

The narratives were endogeneous to competition, coopetition and cooperation between domestic intra-party elites, inter-party elites and foreign political and business elites in a hybrid regime. In interaction with political forces and events, they shaped the institutional rules of the game, the horizons of intelligibility, the position of some actors, and the symbolic frameworks of entrepeneurship, production, market participation and consumption. They also shaped local and international processes related to labour, the allocation of profits and resources, and investor and property rights. In this sense, markets were full of contested meaning and meaning-making.

The narratives and patronage politics under Zuma helped the ANC to maintain one-party dominance in South Africa. However, the weaker state capabilities and socio-economic value destruction during Zuma's presidency created discursive and structural opportunities and incentives for decentralization and self-help initiatives. A more multipolar order is emerging. Whether decentralization and self-help initiatives will become discursively coupled to decolonization, remains to be seen. Compared to the first five years of ANC rule under Nelson Mandela (1994-1999), the interaction between discourses, agents and structures under Zuma (2009-2018) significantly reshaped the meaningful markets and rules of the game in the political economy.

Paper Download (286 KB)