![]() ![]() Increases in inequality since the 1980s, and their attendant social and political consequences, have been largely self-inflicted wounds. But for the United States, the converse may be true. By the late 2010s, the risks were palpable in both South Africa and the United States of an accelerating breakdown of the norms and institutions that sustain inclusive political settlements.įor South Africa, the reversals were not wholly unexpected, given the country’s difficult inheritance-though a recent turn away from angry populism suggests that, paradoxically, the rawness and recency of the anti-apartheid struggle and triumph might perhaps offer some immunization against a further-accelerating a downward spiral. However, unlike in South Africa, political entrepreneurs and economic elites in the United States also used divisive rhetoric as a way to persuade voters to embrace inequality-increasing policies that might otherwise not have won support. Paralleling South Africa, America’s divisive political entrepreneurs also cultivated an us-versus-them divisiveness. South Africa’s economy slid into sustained stagnation. But opportunistic political entrepreneurs also pushed an increasingly polarized and re-racialized political discourse and pressure on public institutions, with predictable economic consequences. In the 2010s, South Africa went through a new ideational reckoning, in part to correct the view that the transition to democracy had washed the country’s apartheid history clean. In both South Africa and the United States, polarization was fueled by divisive political entrepreneurs, and in both countries, these entrepreneurs leveraged inequality in ways that added fuel to the fire. ![]() Such economic adversity and associated status anxiety can trigger a heightened propensity for us-versus-them ways of engaging the world. ![]() Younger generations could no longer expect that their lives would be better than those of their parents. economy was more unequal than it had been since the 1920s. But that hope turned to anger as the benefits of growth became increasingly skewed from the 1980s onward. In the United States, a steady and equitably growing economy and a vibrant civil rights movement had fostered the hope of social and economic inclusion. Fueled by massive continuing inequities in wealth, income, and opportunity, South Africans increasingly turned from hope to anger. It became increasingly evident that the economic deck would continue to be stacked, and that the possibility of upward mobility would remain quite limited. In the initial glow of transition, South Africa’s citizens could hope for a better life for themselves and their children. From a society marked by racial dominance and oppression, there emerged the aspiration to build an inclusive, cooperative social order, underpinned by the principles of equal dignity and shared citizenship. South Africa was able to transition from a society structured around racial oppression into a nonracial democracy whose new government promised “a better life for all.” Especially remarkable was the speed with which one set of national ideas appeared to give way to its polar opposite. Governance at the University of Cape Town. He was the founding academic director of the Nelson Mandela School of Public Brian Levy teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins ![]()
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