Redefining political-administrative relationships in South Africa

In Robert Cameron’s article, “Redefining political-administrative relationships in South Africa,” he discusses the growing politicization of public services and the South African bureaucracy. The piece begins by examining the New Public Management (NPM) movement in the 1980s that was focused on privatization and the early rise of politicization with managers having more control over their selection for agency heads. After giving a short summary of the government structure in South Africa, Cameron goes on to explore the politicization before 1994 with the control of office that the National Party had, citing that 40% of directors were appointed by political influence and 13% by both seniority and political influence. This escalated with the African National Congress (ANC) and their appointments of those individuals who supported their radical policies. After exploring some of the data behind his results, Cameron concludes by calling for a reform of public service policy by moving “away from the ANC’s Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy to a merit-based human resources system” and writing that depolarizing the bureaucracy will lead to more effective public service delivery (698).