Abstract
Contemporary democracies are located mostly within the broader institutional framework of the nation state. Some small island societies such as Mauritius and a few democratic city-states such as Monaco remain as exceptions. The state by definition holds a monopoly on violence; in the evolution of liberal thought the state has therefore been singled out as a primary threat to liberty and other cherished liberal rights. What has not always been adequately appreciated within liberal thought is that democracy can only flourish within the security offered by the state. With a few exceptions, this omission is also found in analytical studies of democratic transition and especially so within the Transition Paradigm.1 And, as can be expected, it also barely features as a factor in identifying the roots of the liberal democratic peace.
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Notes
A consistent exception in this regard has been the work of Charles Tilly. The most recent example is found in Charles Tilly, Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States – State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 4, 5, 20–24, 30–33. We do not measure state strength and state capacity directly, but only gauge the extent of confidence in state institutions, an attitude that has a bearing on state strength and capacity but is not a measure of these variables.
Both the concept and empirical measurement of state capacity is well examined by Merilee Grindle, Challenging the State, Crisis and Innovation in Latin America and Africa (New York; Cambridge University Press, 1996).
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S.B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism? (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1977). Davenport places the civilian casualty levels in the concentration camps at 28,000, while Thompson has a slightly lower figure of 25,000. Both agree on a death rate of 344 per 1000 per annum at the height of the epidemic. This was a pivotal event in the process of state building not only in South Africa but also in Britain. It marked the rise of liberal values among the British public, particularly through the avenues of democratic participation; via the sterling lobbying of Millicent Fawcett and Emily Hobhouse, it shaped the way the British then, and subsequently, had to conduct themselves in war. Liberal criteria for treating civilian noncombatants were increasingly imposed onto the war maker.
See Thomas Packenham, The Boer War (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1979), 503–518.
Davenport, South Africa – A Modern History 228–229; Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, From Apartheid to Nation-Building (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1989), 11–12.
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Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 235–238.
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The conceptualization and measurement of social class in South African social research is the subject of intense debate. We choose to make use of an item that is based on the Living Standards Measure used in the World Values Survey. See the Technical Appendix for the coding. See also Carlos Garcia-Rivero, Pierre du Toit, and Hennie Kotzé, “Tracking the Development of the Middle Class in South Africa,” Politeia 22, 3 (2003): 6–29.
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This conception of civil society is drawn from Edward Shils, “The Virtue of Civil Society,” Government and Opposition 26 (Winter 1991): 3–20.
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Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Anthea Jeffery, Shaun Mackay, Rory Gallocher, Herma Forgey, and Cheryl Chipps, South Africa Survey 1995/96 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1996), 465.
Anthea Jeffery, Bill of Rights Report 1996/97 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997), 38–40.
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Anthea Jeffery, Shaun Mackay, Herma Forgey, Cheryl Chipps, and Terence Corrigan, South Africa Survey 1996/1997 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997), 99.
Carole Cooper, Colleen McCall, Robin Hamilton, Isabelle Delvare, John Gray Moonsamy, and Kristine Mueller, Race Relations Survey 1989/90 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1990), 151, 152.
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© 2011 Pierre du Toit and Hennie Kotzé
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du Toit, P., Kotzé, H. (2011). The State as Guardian?. In: Liberal Democracy and Peace in South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116320_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116320_3
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