The tendency for abstract theorists of democratization to overlook gender dynamics is perhaps exacerbated in the South African case, where racial inequality is obviously key. Yet, attention to the processes through which South African activists inserted gender issues into discussions about how to construct new institutions provides an unusual prism through which to explore the gendered character of citizenship. After providing an explanation for the unusual prominence of gender concerns in South Africa's democratization, the article argues that during the drawn-out (...) democratic transition, South African activists, often influenced by international feminist discussions, developed a collective definition of gender interests and began to build those interests into the structure of democratic institutions, in ways that will affect politics and the definition of “women's interests” in the future. (shrink)

Focusing mainly on the 2000 strike at Volkswagen in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape, Ashwin Desai argues that the signing of productivity pacts by the National Union of Metalworkers involved the signing away of many of the shopfloor gains made during the struggles of the 1980s. It also meant that management was able to call upon the union to discipline workers who challenged the pacts. This in turn saw workers come out in a strike that in reality was a strike against their (...) own union. The strike and the changing nature of labor relations in the auto industry prompt some conclusions about the role of the biggest labor federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions , in the contested transition in South Africa. (shrink)

Imre Szeman reviews Göran Therborn’s From Marxism to Post-Marxism? The title is posed as a question, but the book leaves little doubt about the necessity of such a move. But would “post-Marxism” involve the abandonment of the insights of Marx and of the dialectic, or would it be better thought of as the refocusing of these very traditions on our own “bad new days”?