Attachment and its relevance to the ANC's attainment of hegemony by 1999

Abstract

The period of 1990 - 1999 saw a major turn in the fortune of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. While the seeds for the ANC’s political ascent to the seat of government were sown during the 1980s, it was during the following decade that the party became a hegemonic political actor in South Africa. The ANC’s success was in no way guaranteed at the beginning of the decade. In a country where political power was highly contested (often violently) and in a global context of American triumphalism, the party’s achievement of hegemony required specific action that mitigated these challenges. One of the means of mitigating resistance from other groups was to cultivate a stake for these groups in the ANC. This dissertation argues that a set of actions which fall under the de novo typology of attachment were key to the hegemony achieved by the ANC by 1999. Attachment is defined as the nonviolent act of one group aligning its interests with those of another, with either the purpose or effect of gaining power. Four kinds of attachment are conceptualised: consensus, negotiation, cooptation, and coercion. The question pursued in this dissertation is the degree to which ANC hegemony by 1999 was characterised by attachment. The theorisation of the ANC’s actions through the lens of attachment identifies a trend, across different spheres in South Africa, which significantly and crucially contributed to ANC hegemony. It is hoped that through this historical analysis, this dissertation can contribute to the understanding of the ANC’s longevity and the concurrent contradictions the party endures today.