PARI in the news

• ‘Public sector ‘manages’ to fail’, Mail and Guardian, March 2013

Ivor Chipkin and Sarah Meny-Gibert have published an opinion piece in the Mail and Guardian about the institutional character of the South African state. They argue that a flawed perception of a uniformly developed apartheid state has led to a disregard for institution building in post-1994 South Africa. In turn, this has allowed for corruption, mismanagement and an uneven public service. To read the article, click here.

• ‘Narrowing the farmer-worker gap’, Mail and Guardian, January 2013

The Mail and Guardian published an article by Tracy van der Heijden, arguing that the crux of the farm worker protests lies in the broader food economy, rather than just a polarized relationship between farmers and workers. To read the Mail and Guardian article, click here.

• ‘South Africa – and global – food security is under threat’, Daily News, August 2012.

Tracy van der Heijden is quoted in this Daily News article, explaining that urbanisation has led to fewer skilled subsistence farmers, and in turn, contributed to increasingly high food prices. To read the Daily News article, click here.

• ‘Moulding an active citizen’, Pretoria News, July 2012.

In an article about violent service delivery protests, Ivor Chipkin is quoted on the massive changes that the public sector has undergone and how this should inform our understandings of the capability of the state. To read the Pretoria News article, click here.

• ‘Nombembe rings alarm at SA’s ‘dire’ situation’, Business Day, May 2012.

A front page article in Business Day quotes Ivor Chipkin on recent comments by the Auditor-General on the dire state of departments’ supply chain management, human resource management and other “pillars of governance.” To read the Business Day article click here.

• ‘How history haunts us’, Times Live, April 2012.

Jemery Cronin draws on a PARI short essay by Ivor Chipkin and Sarah Meny-Gibert (‘Why the past matters’) in this article publised in the Sunday Times. Cronin argues that we need “a sober analysis of the systemic ways in which the past continues to distort our present”, including an analysis of the transformation of the South African public sector.  He claims that New Public Management was a “bad cure for a disease we didn’t have”.  To download the article click here.

• ‘A New Society’, City Press, April 2012.

As part of the lead up to the PARI symposium and public lecture, ‘A view from Roodepoort: city, identity and governance in post-apartheid South Africa’, the print and online editions of City Press recently featured an opinion piece by Ivor Chipkin. Entitled, ‘A new society’, the article draws on the research PARI is undertaking in townhouse complexes, luxury estates and informal settlements on the western edge of Johannesburg.

• ‘Call to put skills before ideology in the public service’, Business Day, March 2012.

A recent PARI publication by Ivor Chipkin and Barbara Litpietz (Transforming racial bureaucracy: New Public Management and public sector reform in contemporary South Africa) is quoted in another Business Day article. Ivor calls for attention to the unglamorous task of fixing basic administration. Click here  to access the Business Day article.

• ‘High school drop outs can fill a stadium’, IOL, March 2012.

Sarah Meny-Gibert was asked to present a paper at a Gauteng Department of Education colloquium on school drop-out. Click here for an IOL article covering the event.

• ‘State plugs the equity gaps by shifting staff’, Business Day, February 2012.

‘State plugs equity gaps by shifting staff’ reports on the impact and causes of high staff turnover in government departments. The Business Day article draws from PARI’s Short Essay, Beyond the Popular Discourse: Capacity Constraints in the Public Sector.

• ‘More state bodies failed audit tests — Nombembe’, Business Day, February 2012.

This Business Day article focuses on the low number of government departments receiving clean audits. Click here for the article.

• ‘The Public Sector – is it alive, and do we need it?’, Radio Today, August 2011.

Ivor Chipkin was interviewed on Radio Today by Paul Perreira from Tshikululu Social Investments on the state of the public service. To listen to this episode click here .

• ‘Chess Moves Against the ANC Youth League’, Sunday Times, July 2011.

Julius Malema thinks like a chess player. On e.tv the other night he discussed politics as one might a game of strategy, moves to anticipate and outwit, opponents to trap and defeat. Click here to link to the article in the Sunday Times by Ivor Chipkin.

• ‘Challenge is anathema to the party that ‘is the nation’, Mail and Guardian, June 2011.

In the recent local-government elections the Democratic Alliance emerged as a serious rival to the ANC. For the first time since 1994 the ANC appears vulnerable. Many have celebrated this as a sign that South Africa’s democracy is maturing, but the celebration is premature. They mistake electoral competition, or ‘electoral uncertainty’, as one analyst called it, for democracy itself. Click here to link to the article in the Mail and Guardian by Ivor Chipkin.