The book describes and evaluates the state of the discipline of political science and international relations in South Africa. Fourteen South African political scientists present their own appraisals of various aspects of the study of Politics in South Africa, in the 20th year of the countrys post-Apartheid existence.
This book
In 2013 and in 2014 respectively, the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS) and Politikon (the South African Journal of Political Studies) celebrate their 40th anniversary. Also, in April 2014 South Africa celebrates twenty years since the advent of the post-Apartheid democracy, and the birth of the rainbow nation. This book provides a timely account of the birth and evolution of South African politics over the past four decades, but also of the study of Political Science and International Relations in this country. Fourteen political scientists contribute chapters to this volume, situating the study of politics within its global context and recounting the development of politics as a field of study at South African universities. The fourteen contributions evaluate the state of the discipline(s) and suggest conclusions that are surprising and in many instances unsettling, not only with regards to what and how politics is taught, but also how its study has variously gained and lost pertinence for South Africans understanding of their own polity as well as its place in the world. The implications are uncomfortable, and pose interesting challenges for South African scholarship, pedagogy and national self-reflection.
This book was published as a special issue of Politikon.
Dedication
1. A Word from a Founder, to Those Who Follow
2. The Study of
Politics in South Africa: A Prolegomenon
3. The Subject as Object: 40 Years
of Scholarship
4. Celebrating 40 Years: The State of Political Science in
South Africa in 2014
5. Working in a South African Politics Department During
the 1980s: Recollections
6. Teaching Politics in Exile: A Memoir from
Swaziland 19731985
7. The Idea of Africa in South African Political Science
8. Systematic, Quantitative Political Science in South Africa: The Road Less
Travelled
9. The State of Comparative Politics in South Africa
10. The
Promise of Political Theory in South Africa
11. International Relations in
South Africa: A Case of Add Africa and Stir?
12. Twenty Years on, Its All
Academic: Progressive South African Scholars and Moral Foreign Policy After
Apartheid
13. The State of Public Administration as an Academic Field in
South Africa
14. The Personal Is the International: For Black Girls Whove
Considered Politics When Being Strong Isnt Enough
Peter Vale is Professor of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, and Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics Emeritus, Rhodes University.
Pieter Fourie is the Editor of Politikon, the South African Journal of Political Studies, and Associate Professor of Political Science, Stellenbosch University.
