The Panopticon, the State and Non-Profit Organisations in South Africa: A Systematic Review of Literature
type: CreativeWork
description: The role of civil society, including non-profit organisations (NPOs), in promoting and protecting democratic processes is one of the key global debates about democracy. One indicator of the development of an enabling democratic environment is the nature of the relations between NPOs – especially advocacy NPOs - and the state. Advocacy NPOs tend to play a “watchdog” role in society and are often critical of the state, which can lead to an antagonistic relationship and repression of state critics. Monitoring relations between advocacy NPOs and the state is critically important as a barometer of the health of any democracy. With the ushering in of democracy in 1994, the adoption the new constitution (based on the principles of liberal democracy), and constructive working relations between many NPOs and the state during the Mandela administration, there was a general perception that a healthy democracy was evolving. However, relations between advocacy NPOs and the ruling party in South Africa soon became strained and at times adversarial. Over the past 25 years various scholars have contributed to a growing body of literature (e.g. Swilling & Russell, 2002; Habib, 2005; De Wet, 2010 & 2012; Leonard, 2014: Duncan, 2016; Volmink & Van de Elst, 2017; Maboya & McKay, 2019) which has analysed the nature of relations between NPOs and state in post-apartheid South Africa. While these authors sometimes reference each other, no single literature review has emerged. For this reason, I have undertaken a systematic literature review of a substantial portion of the relevant literature published in the past 25 years. I focus on relations between the South African state and NPOs in the context of a bigger debate about how the nature of this relationship is a proxy for the health of democracy in the country. The analytical lens used in my literature review is informed by Foucault's panopticon metaphor. In this regard, I was interested in understanding how the state has used its power a…
abstract: The role of civil society, including non-profit organisations (NPOs), in promoting and protecting democratic processes is one of the key global debates about democracy. One indicator of the development of an enabling democratic environment is the nature of the relations between NPOs – especially advocacy NPOs - and the state. Advocacy NPOs tend to play a “watchdog” role in society and are often critical of the state, which can lead to an antagonistic relationship and repression of state critics. Monitoring relations between advocacy NPOs and the state is critically important as a barometer of the health of any democracy. With the ushering in of democracy in 1994, the adoption the new constitution (based on the principles of liberal democracy), and constructive working relations between many NPOs and the state during the Mandela administration, there was a general perception that a healthy democracy was evolving. However, relations between advocacy NPOs and the ruling party in South Africa soon became strained and at times adversarial. Over the past 25 years various scholars have contributed to a growing body of literature (e.g. Swilling & Russell, 2002; Habib, 2005; De Wet, 2010 & 2012; Leonard, 2014: Duncan, 2016; Volmink & Van de Elst, 2017; Maboya & McKay, 2019) which has analysed the nature of relations between NPOs and state in post-apartheid South Africa. While these authors sometimes reference each other, no single literature review has emerged. For this reason, I have undertaken a systematic literature review of a substantial portion of the relevant literature published in the past 25 years. I focus on relations between the South African state and NPOs in the context of a bigger debate about how the nature of this relationship is a proxy for the health of democracy in the country. The analytical lens used in my literature review is informed by Foucault's panopticon metaphor. In this regard, I was interested in understanding how the state has used its power a…
author: Plamana, Pilisa
language: en
keywords: Non-Profit Organisation, South Africa
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:22:38Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Sociology

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42585