ABSTRACT
We now turn our attention to the value of development. In South Africa social and economic development, particularly as it relates to the hope of eradicating poverty, is seen as crucial to the future of the nation, and is often perceived as the goal that trumps all other governmental agendas. Public policies in most areas tend to legitimatize themselves by pointing to the positive effects they are assumed to have for alleviating poverty.1 A public and scholarly debate on conditions for development in a globalized world, and in particular on the critical role of the institutions and agencies of the South African state, emerged with the transition to democratic rule (see Edigheji, 2010; Bond, 2005, 2006; Maharaj, Desai, & Bond, 2010). The Zwelethemba modelers were very conscious of this debate, realizing that if the security governance model they sought to build were to become a success, it had to face up to the challenge of development in the sense of finding ways for mobilizing resources and enhancing capacities within the local communities where it operated. A particular concern of the modelers, as we have already argued in the previous chapters, was how to support development in a manner that balanced the need for local autonomy and self-directedness with broader cosmopolitan values, in particular the values of universal human rights. In this chapter we explore how the modelers faced this challenge, and the extent to which the practices that unfolded actually can be perceived as having contributed toward development within South Africa. As in the previous chapters, we begin this exploration by first turning to the scholarly debate on development, its perceptions and conditions.
