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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:From Icon to Scapegoat: The Experience of South Africa's Reconstruction and Development Programme
Author:Blumenfeld, JesmondISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:Development Policy Review
Volume:15
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:65-91
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:economic policy
national plans
Politics and Government
Ethnic and Race Relations
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
External link:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7679.00026
Abstract:The most urgent policy facing postapartheid South Africa is to regenerate rapid economic growth whilst simultaneously alleviating the poverty affecting the black population. Following the historic April 1994 elections, the primary vehicle chosen by the new Government of National Unity (GNU) to address this challenge was the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Initially, the RDP received virtually universal political support. Within one year, however, this support had begun to erode, and within two years, the separate ministry set up to implement the programme had been abolished, and the RDP thereby severely downgraded. This article explains the rise and fall of the RDP. It reviews the origins of the programme and its changing character over its two-year existence, analyses the institutional structure and the politics of the RDP, and then enquires from an economic perspective into the intellectual justification for, and the theoretical basis of, the programme. The conclusion is that, despite the favourable political environment in which it was launched, the RDP failed to take root because it fell foul of its own institutional and analytical shortcomings. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
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