ABSTRACT
By raising the question of development, the spectre of ‘modernization’ reenters the discourse about democracy. Obviously, the asymmetrical nature of South Africa’s development under apartheid has produced a first/third-world society: an industrialized, urban, technological society running in parallel with an impoverished rural hinterland. In fact, it is believed that taken as a whole, South Africa is a ‘third world country’. Cheryl Carolus presents the paradox graphically when she observes that the highest percentage of deaths in white children is caused by drowning in swimming pools, whilst the predominant cause of death among black children is the result of dehydration due to lack of drinking
water (ibid.). In the past, liberal democracy was seen as co-terminous with economic advancement, yet, as Adrian Leftwich points out, a new orthodoxy now prevails, which sees democracy as part of the process of development, that is, countries will not develop appropriately if they do not embrace some form of liberal democratic political expression (Leftwich 1996). However, the promotion of economic growth can inflict social costs and pressures upon those who struggled against the former regime. Tom Lodge asserts: ‘Labour may not view increased government expenditure on the needs of the rural poor-primary health care, clean water and electrification-as adequate compensation for curbing the wage claims of urban workers’ (Lodge 1996:204). Whilst Carolus speaks of the need for the ANC to raise people’s socio-economic expectations, studies of other countries have pointed to the potentially destabilizing consequences for democracies unable to meet those needs: ‘New interests are generated, new consciousness is kindled and new political and organisational capacities are acquired at the individual and group level. Demands multiply both for the right to participate and for tangible and symbolic benefits. If these are not met, institutions run the risk of breaking down with society lapsing into chaos’ (Diamond, Linz and Lipset 1988:34).
