Paper short abstract:

The paper traces the role and influence of the Economic Freedom Fighters' (EEF) populist politics in processes leading to radical policy shifts by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) on land reform and higher education funding in South Africa.

Paper long abstract:

In December 2017, South Africa's ruling party, the ANC, announced that they will adopt expropriation of land without compensation and free higher education for 90 percent of students. These policy positions had been associated with the radical left-wing EFF party. This paper traces the role and influence of EEF populist politics in processes leading to these two policy position shifts by the ANC. It asks whether the EFF influenced the ANC policy shifts, and if they did, how? The paper's conceptual framework draws on Williams (2006)'s theory of peripheral party impact. It used the qualitative process tracing method to review policy documents, manifestos, speeches by ANC and EFF political leaders, social movement leaders, government policy papers, parliamentary motions/order papers, academic papers and media reports and opinion pieces by prominent commentators and academics. The paper's findings show evidence of EFF direct causal contribution on ANC policy shift on land reform. It also found strong grounds for inferring indirect influence of the EFF on ANC policy shift on higher education funding. The paper makes three mutually reinforcing contributions. First, it contributes to peripheral party impact scholarship by studying a left-wing populist case- study since the extant literature on peripheral party impact largely focusses on radical right populist parties. Second, it complements emerging scholarship on populism in Africa and contributes to debates on impact of fringe opposition politics in the continent. Third, it provides insights into the policy making dynamics of arguably Africa's most advanced democracy.