This course serves three purposes: (i) to provide a substantive overview of South African Politics; (ii) to survey the institutional foundations of South African politics as well as the activities of the political elites, societal organizations and ordinary citizens; and (iii) to explore the application of general political science concepts and analytical frameworks to specific episodes and phenomenon in the South African Politics. It delves very deeply into these issues in the shirt tail of Four overarching pertinent questions: (i) What are the foundations of the South African political system? (ii) How do leading institutions such as the executive, the legislature and the judiciary function? (iii) Where do citizens, political parties, interest groups and the pressure groups fit in? (iv) What explains the South African socio-economic policies? In short, the course unpacks and dissects four central pillars of South African politics, encompassing, (i) State Formation; (ii) Structures of the State; (iii) Instruments of the State; and (iv) The functionality of the State.

Lecturer: Professor Alexius Amtaika

Period: Term 2

Last Modified: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 15:32:09 SAST