Between civil Society and the state: the political trajectories of South Africa's independent trade union movement from 1970-1993.

[摘要] This thesis examines the political trajectories of the Independent union movement from 1970-1993. Itargues that the political strategies adopted by tbe unions' leadership reflected significant difterenceswith regard to the political contest over the democratic form of South African society. The politicalideology of the unions' leadership was made up of two contrasting 'logics' of political struggle. Theone, which we characterise as simple polarisation, viewed the objective of the unions' strugglesprimarily in terms of a competition for political dominance which involved a simple dichotomybetween the apartheid state and a unified opposition movement. In this view the opposition wasconceived of as a homogenous, collective subject, unified in its common assault on the state.Underlying this logic of opposition was a denial of specific and different identities and interests anddemocracy was seen to be directly associated with the destiny of one distinct social actor. The logicof simple polarisation was dominant within the Congress of South African Trade Unions(COSATU) throughout the 1980's. It was nourished primarily by COSATU's close relationship withthe charterist section of the wider opposition movementThere existed within the unions a second political tradition which emphasised a logic ofinstitutionalised pluralism. This current viewed the organisation of opposition primarily ininstitutional terms. It emphasised the building of union independence outside the aegis of the wideropposltlon movement. Underlying this tradition was a pluralist conception of democracy, Associatedwith the early Federation of South African Trade Unions legacy of institutional independence, thislogic reared its head within COSATU towards the late 1980's when the federation entered a series ofcorporatist arrangements with employers and the state. Although there seems to be evidence thatthere existed (at least some) support within the ranks of FOSATU of a form of workers' controlmore easily reconellable with an anti-pluralist than pluralist conception of democracy, the nature ofFOSATU was such, that. when sufficiently pressed on the issue of which logic of democracy - simple polarisation or institutionalised pluralism- it endorsed, the latter would have beenselected over the former.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand