Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/267819 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2022/58
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Capital spending on infrastructure presents a significant counter-cyclical tool, however contested it might be in a society as unequal as South Africa. The history of racial capitalism, racebased exclusion from economic participation, and an enduring political economy based on the concentration of capital, product, and service markets has given rise to a post-apartheid 'politics of entry' that mobilizes both formal and informal adaptations of redistributive policies aimed at ensuring redress of past injustices and access and participation by small and medium-sized enterprises owned by historically disadvantaged people. This is observed in stark form in the capital spending on economic and social infrastructure, which the South African government envisages as the 'flywheel' of the country's economic reconstruction and recovery. Applying a combination of tools from new institutional economics, political sociology, and heterodox political economy frameworks, this paper considers the 'informal' and at times violent adaptation of policy, here defined as the 'Delangokubona phenomenon', which uses both formal mechanisms and the threat (perceived or real) of violent disruption to negotiate access to policy-sanctioned economic 'rents' under the auspices of 'black economic empowerment' in public infrastructure projects.
Subjects: 
redistribution
redress
economic rents
public infrastructure
black economic empowerment
JEL: 
O16
O17
O55
P16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9267-189-1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.