Books

This collection draws on a range of methodologies and approaches to explore the similarities, differences and overlaps between the contemporary debates on international development and humanitarian intervention and the historical artefacts and strategies of Empire. The parallels between the language of nineteenth-century liberal imperialism and the humanitarian interventionism of the post-Cold War era are striking. The American military, both in Somalia in the early 1990s and in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, used ethno-graphic information compiled by British colonial administrators. Are these interconnections accidental curiosities or more elemental? The contributors to this book articulate the belief that these comparisons are analytically revealing. From the language of moral necessity and conviction, the design of specific aid packages, the devised forms of intervention and governmentality, through to the life-style, design and location of NGO encampments, the authors seek to account for the numerous and often striking parallels between contemporary international security, development and humanitarian intervention, and the logic of Empire. This book will be of great interest to all those concerned with understanding the historical antecedents and wider implications of today's emergent liberal interventionism, and the various logics of international development.

This is the first in a planned series of papers to explore the respective role of traded an domestically oriented sectors in generating the employment needed to rapidly expand employment opportunities in South Africa

This, the third book in a trilogy studying transformation in post-apartheid South Africa, follows on two studies published in 2000: Infrastructure Mandates for Change and Empowerment through Service Delivery. This volume, with the help of 15 case studies, assesses the prospects for empowerment through economic transformation in South Africa.

The primary aim of Empowerment through Service Delivery is to critically appraise the challenges facing infrastructure and service delivery in South Africa. The secondary aim is to assess, evaluate and analyse perceptions of infrastructure and service delivery since 1994. An array of case studies drawn from various provinces and diverse rural and urban settings is presented. The analysis of infrastructure and service delivery goes beyond just providing 'statistics', which are often used uncritically. Empowerment through Service Delivery brings together both qualitative and quantitative analyses, covering various sectors such as water, electricity, transport, education, health, human resources and local economic development.

The main focus of this publication is the link between South Africas grand pan-African ambitions, especially in the area of peace, security and governance, and its own capacity to pursue these objectives. Specifically, the paper examines Pretorias involvement in Africa, and internal capacity to support its mediation, peacekeeping and strengthening the abilities of African institutions for peacemaking. Further, it examines the challenges posed by tension between its pan-African and economic interests as well as power rivalry at the continental level, which have greatly limited its ability to take a more assertive role in regional political and economic developments. It briefly describes South Africas relations within SADC and the AU, as well as with Zimbabwe and examines the challenges posed by the agendas of China and Africas former colonial powers.

This occasional paper provides an analysis of government efforts to improve the access of poor South African households to various energy sources, particularly electricity, on an affordable and sustainable basis. The two authors describe the energy situation of the poor and comment on essential ingredients for a sustainable energy strategy.

Economic growth in South Africa depends on engineering capacity to provide state-of-the-art, safe infrastructure for service delivery. At the same time the new democracy needs to address transformation. This monograph explores current capacity to address these challenges.

Environmental practitioners provide insight into environmental progress and challenges in diverse African contexts. Case studies and contributors from South Africa, Malawi, Uganda, Angola, and Zimbabwe focus on issues of environmental management, sustainable development, nature conservation and environmental journalism.

The book opens up a space of frank discussion about the often unsettling, messy realities of ethical decision-making in the thick of social research. All the contributors write in the first person about personal experiences of research. They expose tensions within professional codes of ethics, as well as a range of dilemmas that arose when personal ethical convictions jostled with disciplinary and institutional ethical imperatives. The book is unique in spanning a range of research scenarios, qualitative and quantitative, across different disciplines, fields of study and institutional settings. The book will be of interest to all social researchers - in universities, NGOs and other applied milieu - working in fields of research structured by hierarchies of difference and conditions of inequality.

This study of community-driven economic development is a collaboration between the human and natural sciences. The report investigates the  agricultural and economic success of the community-based Hertzog Agricultural Co-operative (HACOP) in the Kat River Valley. It looks at the influence of natural, social, tenure, historical and marketing issues on that development initiative.