Le prochain séminaire de l’unité de recherche ACT aura lieu le vendredi 25 octobre de 14h à 16h, sur le Campus Condorcet en salle 4.023 du bâtiment recherche Sud, et en ligne (https://spaces.avayacloud.com/spaces/63b690a1505b66817486154b).
Nous recevrons Sibulele Nkunzi, de l’Université du Wirwatersrand, qui présentera un article intitulé :
Is the New Public Management paradigm an accomplice to state capture in South Africa?
Vous trouverez ci-dessous un résumé de l’article :
“In an attempt to develop a transparent, accountable and autonomous state, the South African post-apartheid democratic government turned to the neoliberal principles of good governance endorsed by New Public Management (NPM). NPM, thus, veered away from proposals of Developmental State-type interventions and ultimately became the ruling party’s (African National Congress) chosen paradigm towards public sector reform. The implementation of NPM in South Africa has entailed, to varying degrees, a commitment to practices such as the decentralisation of public services, contract appointment, outsourcing, and performance management. 2018 was, however, a watershed moment for South Africa when the State Capture Commission of Inquiry was established following recommendations from the Public Protector. After four years of investigation, the Commission handed its final report to the President in June 2022. The commission concluded that state capture (fraud, corruption, racketeering and treason) was ‘facilitated by a deliberate effort to exploit or weaken key state institutions and public entities, but also including law enforcement institutions and the intelligence services.’ In this chapter, the NPM and its associated practices emerge as one of the more unusual elements of state capture that remain largely unexplored in the South African state capture literature. These generally unusual elements of state capture tend to be hidden and masked by understandings of state capture in South Africa, which are typically reduced to the relationship between the Gupta family and their business activities and the then President, Jacob Zuma. Less attention has been given to other global and local interests should be given favourable status. Not only should we think about state capture in terms of how agents – political elites, professionals, corporations, consultants – have morally and ethically conducted themselves, but we ought to also examine how certain mechanisms have been deployed and exploited by these agents in supposedly air-tight public and procurement governance frameworks with the aim of capturing the state and its resources. The chapter, thus, interrogates whether and to what extent could the NPM paradigm may actually have been an accomplice to state capture.”