ABSTRACT
Six years into democratic rule, the post-apartheid South African state continues to face challenges of exceptional magnitude: the transformation of the polity, society and economy to redress geographies of inequality, and policy reformulation to give effect to national projects that will make transformation a reality. Delegation of functions between the tiers of the state introduces interdependent and dependent processes. Concomitantly, various departments and ministries of the state distribute financial, human and infrastructure resources. The overall design for South African institutional governance attempts to create a sustainable framework through imbuing the national, provincial and local state tiers and the function-driven line departments within them, with autonomy that is concomitantly embedded in the national agenda for transformation. The dominant international discourse on state theory revolves around the ‘hollowing out’ or ‘rolling back’ of the state. The post-apartheid political condition or terrain is a product of the negotiated compromise and political settlement that led to the transition.
