Inside the municipality : locating debates on local government

Abstract

The rise of African liberation parties to power in the 1960s brought to the fore ‘questions about the role and position of the African state’ (Doornbos 1990:179, also see Mamdani 1996, Amin 1972). Leaders of newly independent African states looked upon the state as the machinery to drive far-reaching social and economic transformation, following the sustained ravages of colonial rule. As the ‘institutionalised expression of political power’ (Doornbos 1990:180), the state was to be directed towards confronting the ills and contradictions of the colonial past and foster ‘development’. Faith that the state would provide a path towards salvation emerged from both liberal and Marxist ideologies, but for antagonistic reasons. While the former viewed the state as a vehicle to advance capitalism, the latter saw it as means to dismantle it and engender a classless society (Doornbos 1990:182-3). But the enormous expectations about what can be achieved through the state since the heady days of the 1960s have undergone profound rethinking.