Will state dysfunction persist?

In June 2012, US academics Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson authored an article on the subject of failed states.

Published in Foreign Policy magazine, it covered such diverse fields as the ideological, political, economic, constitutional and legal factors
which gave rise to state failure in 10 countries.

The authors also cited apartheid for state failure in pre-1994 South Africa. It is, of course, debatable whether the system amounted to a failed state in the sense of institutional ineptness.

However, it is undeniable that the government lacked legitimacy – one of the considerations in a state’s success or failure. It derived from a minority of the population, even as it subjugated the majority.

A lone ranger cut off and isolated from the rest of the world, the combined weight of the political, economic and social problems which underscored the crisis of legitimacy could be said to have rendered apartheid a fragile state more than a failed one.

Acemoglu and Robinson’s catalogue on the reasons for state failure in each of the 10 countries is suffused with greater complexity.

Nevertheless, they note that: “States don’t fail overnight. The seeds of their destruction are sown deep within their political institutions.”

Additionally, “most countries that fall apart… do so not with a bang but with a whimper.

They fail not in an explosion of war and violence but by being utterly unable to take advantage of their society’s huge potential for growth, condemning their citizens to a lifetime of poverty”.

Since 1994, the South African state has been a reconstruction site.

Deriving its legitimacy from the popular will, the intention has been to build agile and capable state machinery which responds timeously, satisfactorily and fairly to the needs of the population as a whole.

It was also a radical break with the ethical insolvency of the apartheid system.

The adoption of the Batho Pele – People First– principles in October 1997 was an affirmation of the supremacy of a people-centred ethical outlook in the public sector governance process which is no less an ingredient for legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

The political labours that went into the Batho Pele concept underscored the place of politics in shaping the destiny of governments and whole countries.

In contrast, what has rightly or wrongly been referred to as “nine wasted years” is a euphemism for a process which has had the effect of undermining the reconstruction advances of the post-1994 era.

Noteworthy is that this process was enabled by political elites through various acts of commissions and omissions.

One consequence of this has been the much-publicised gutting of state institutions – some of which once boasted world-class efficiency – and the demoralisation of public servants who have had to live with the moral burden of discretion as the better part of valour.

One such institution is the South African Revenue Service whose merciless dismembering of the Nugent inquiry (Commission of Inquiry into Tax Administration and Governance by the South African Revenue Service) report has been chillingly laid bare.

Another is the Directorate of Special Operations, popularly known as the Scorpions, which was disbanded by resolution of the ruling party’s 2007 conference.

The fact that it has been reincarnated as the Investigative Directorate speaks volumes about the short-sightedness of the 2007 decision.

Among other things, this must surely mean the much-vaunted fetish for “strong institutions” as the ultimate saviour of nations places the cart before the horse in that public institutions are political and not self-made creations.

Left unattended, the political commissions and omissions that took us significant steps backwards during the “nine wasted years” would ultimately result in measures of state fragility, dysfunction and who knows what else in the long run.

Acemoglu and Robinson also lamented the tendency of elites to create “a tilted [political] playing field” for their own benefit.

The tilted field facilitates the pursuit of power at all costs, regardless of consequences to voluntary associations such as individual political parties and society more broadly.

In turn, social and political discourse gets cloaked in ridiculous propositions that often do not stand and, in fact, eschew rational and logical scrutiny.

A herd mentality soon forms, brooking neither higher principles nor promoting the democratic culture we desperately need to impact positively on the national development process.

Whereas politics was once about ideas for models of social organisation, it is now just a career in which the most savagely determined battle for pole position and, in the process, mercilessly cannibalise one another to secure maximum advantage.

Worse still, there is a sense in which political actors, apprentices and aspirants alike – across the party political divide – seem impervious of the need for familiarity with the basic concepts on which the issues of the day are anchored.

The pursuit of life-long learning seems to be receding ever backwards, ironically in an era which has revolutionised knowledge production and massified its dissemination through electronic communication gadgets such as smartphones and tablets.

One result of this state of affairs is that, increasingly, the output of especially the political elite is about their personal and group concerns more than social issues.

Such is the decadence, that the concerns are then spun and presented as if they are major social and political matters of principle.

If in doubt, examine the news in a given week to determine the issues on which politicians across the party political divide express themselves.

It is small wonder that finding intra and interparty consensus on any major issue of the day among our political parties and, for that matter, labour and business, is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

South Africa is not about to become a failed state. The state is a stubborn creature; it takes long to fall on its knees.

But we dare not rest on our laurels, either, for we have pressing problems.

The elephant in the room is that the best appear to lack all conviction, while the worst are, as is their wont, full of passionate intensity. The political tendency and machinations that began our descent are still in vogue.

Does this portend continued state dysfunction, or even its failure in the future?

Mukoni Ratshitanga is a consultant, social and political commentator

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