Open minds and closed systems: Comments on the functions and future of the ‘urban’ ‘English‐speaking’ university in South Africa
The paper is in two parts. The first part is a specific critique of Orkin, Nicolaysen and Price''s paper entitled ‘The Future of the Urban University in South Africa’ (Social Dyna‐mics 5(1)). In particular, the critique draws attention to Orkin et aVs failure to understand (1) the complexity of the relationship between poverty, fertility and urbanization, (2) the relationship between economic growth and developmentjunderdevelopment, and (3) the nature of the capitalist mode of production, and, more specifically, how this mode of production has developed within the S. African social formation. The first part of the paper also presents evidence to show how the overall economic condition of the Black working class in South Africa, contrary to widely held beliefs, has deteriorated during the second half of the 1970s. Part 2 of the paper questions many of the ‘liberal’ assumptions about the role and functions of the ‘urban’ ‘English‐speaking’ universities in SA. In particular, it shows that the University's co...
The academic boycott of South Africa debate: Science and social practice
ABSTRACT The academic boycott against South Africa has had a limited success. The original idea was proposed by exiled South African students in the late 1950s and social science theorists supported the proposal. The central rationale for the boycott was the inequalities in access to higher education because of race. The paper examines the higher education system in South Africa today and relates it to the established dogma for imposing an academic boycott. It seeks further to establish an extended rationale based on modern sociology of science. The notion of science as a cultural and societal product opens new and radical ways of criticising South African science in general. The paper criticises the defending of a collaboration with South African science. It claims this bears the signs of a scientistic programme, a reminiscence of a technical rationality within the global scientific community. It reviews a number of sectors where science and the scientists are deeply involved in industry, business and go...
Deliberative Democracy and the Resource Curse: A Nationwide Experiment in Tanzania
Oil and gas discoveries in developing countries are often associated with short-sighted economic policies and, in response, calls to insulate resource management from populist impulses. We report on a randomized experiment testing methods to overcome this apparent tension between sound resource governance and democratic politics. Soon after Tanzania’s discovery of major natural gas reserves, we invited a nationally representative sample of voters to an intensive public deliberation of policy options featuring nationally recognized experts and small-group discussions. Democratic deliberation reinforced the public’s strong preference for rapid spending of gas revenues, but also increased support for various prudential and economically orthodox measures, including independent oversight of gas revenues, limits on government borrowing, and selling gas abroad rather than subsidizing fuel at home. These effects were driven by deliberation per se, rather than a pure information treatment, and show no evidence of contamination by facilitatoror peer-effects in group deliberations. www.cgdev.org Justin Sandefur, Nancy Birdsall, James Fishkin, and Mujobu Moyo