Local government failure as first stage of state collapse Video Summary Introduction
Introductory & Contextual Note
A number of political developments in the year 2021 had a decided impact on the outlook for South Africa’s broader state-systemic, economic, and social stability. During the month of July the country was brought to a standstill by way of insurrectionist actions, unrest and looting for nine days, while the local government elections towards the end of the year revealed more disconcerting dynamics that have a negative impact on the outlook for South Africa’s systemic stability in the period 2022-2024.
More recently, the release of the first ‘instalments’ of the much awaited Zondo Commission report into State Capture, further underlines the critical governance weaknesses, and breakdowns the South African state system has been suffering for more than a decade. RiskRecon consider these developments significant- with major consequences for citizens in the first instance, and, secondly, the outlook for the stability of the state system itself.
The year 2022 opened on a high note with as yet to be fully explained fires that gutted parliamentary buildings in Cape Town. This has proverbially rendered parliament, and implicitly South African democracy – homeless. While the report consider broader issues and developments with a bearing on the subject, it should be noted that the main question interrogated here is quite simple, being:
Is the failure of local governments in South Africa the first stage, or, harbinger of state collapse?
It is contended that unstable and failing local governments, undermine the social contract. It furthermore erodes more than trust in government, and political leaders. It is a cancerous force undermining the legitimacy, authority, and viability of the state system in general.
The core problem(s) RiskRecon addresses in terms of the concepts State Failure and State Collapse particularly in the South African local government context are:
- How to better read the risks, multiple moments of micro-collapse, and micro-failure, that precede ‘big moments of state collapse’? The latter is one of the core issues pertaining to the analysis of the South African case presented herein;
- How to understand the grey-zone that marks the passage from state failure to collapse;
- RiskRecon proposes that a non-linear time-relationship exists between state failure and collapse. There is not a single unidirectional time and causal relationship that leads from failure to collapse. Instances of state failure, and manifestations of collapse, can co-exist in both time and space. Thus these acidic forces become mutually reinforcing driving socio-systemic instability, institutional decay, political fragmentation & conflagration.
