Papers by Stephen Louw
Politics, Religion & Ideology, 2022
Thomas Sankara was an outstanding leader whose integrity and forthright attack on corruption plac... more Thomas Sankara was an outstanding leader whose integrity and forthright attack on corruption placed him head and shoulders above his contemporaries. He was an Upright Man indeed. But it is less obvious what political lessons should be drawn from his praxis. This article, which is an exercise in political theory rather than historical scholarship, considers three related strands in Sankara’s thought, each of which speak to his ontology. Section I sets out the basic structures of power after the revolution, and Sankara’s understanding of the body politic. Sections II and III explore this further, through a discussion of two of the most important centres of power, the military and the popular courts, through which this alternative conception of politics was pursued. The article suggests that Sankara had no appetite for impersonal perpetually lived institutions. Despite his frequent attempts to moderate the repressive actions of his colleagues, at no point did Sankara ever question the goal of a politicised state controlled from the centre by a vanguard party—a totalising vision in which human interests are reduced to the interests of the polis. For him, the political was simply a place within which a ‘conscious people’ (or their representatives) eliminated antagonism.
Safundi The Journal of South African and American Studies, 2020
This article considers the emergence and decline of black-owned numbers games in inter-war Harlem... more This article considers the emergence and decline of black-owned numbers games in inter-war Harlem. Numbers became part of the cultural capital of Harlem, a popular activity which functioned as a nodal point in the quilting of everyday life, framing the associated skills and habits of community life in all its discursive and institutional complexity. Numbers provided entertainment as well as employment opportunities, but above all it provided an illicit means for black people long excluded from the racial capitalist order to convert money into capital, a form of primitive accumulation. This ended when white gangsters muscled in on Harlem numbers operations, introducing a considerably more effective, top-down, business model. The reasons for the success of white gangsters are discussed – superior violence potential, organizational and managerial efficiencies, closer links to political elites – after which I consider the career of the most successful female banker, Stephanie St. Clair, her war with white gangsters, her race politics, and her struggle to define herself, in the context of patriarchal norms and widespread female exclusion from the formal economy, as “respectable” and a “lady.”
Postcolonial Africa has produced a myriad of economic and political systems intended to
unleash o... more Postcolonial Africa has produced a myriad of economic and political systems intended to
unleash or contain violence by limiting or opening access to rents, and in so doing to
fashion particular distribution regimes. This course is intended to explore this dynamic by
considering the different ways in which institutions and systems of governance evolve, and how these shape and are in turn shaped by what North and his collaborators call their response to ‘the problem of violence’.
The central text under review throughout the course is Violence and Social Orders by
Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, although students are expected to
contrast this with other approaches to the study of institutions, governance, and violence; in particular with the political settlements approach developed by Mushtaq Khan.
Part one considers the Access Order framework in some depth. Part two focuses on
case studies that illustrate and problematize this approach.
South African Law Journal, 2018
Gambling, which is an area of concurrent national and provincial competence, provides a lens into... more Gambling, which is an area of concurrent national and provincial competence, provides a lens into South African federalism and co-operative government. Bingo machines may play a disproportionately important role in determining the fate of provincial powers in South Africa as s 146 of the South African Constitution, which regulates conflict between national and provincial legislation, threatens to become the subject of a defining court
decision. The substance of the dispute is that the old-fashioned game of bingo has given way to bingo machines which have the look, feel and sound of casino slot machines. Some provincial legislation allows for the licensing of these machines, an approach resisted by central government. This mirrors a battle in the United States, where the same machines
were used in order to get around regulatory distinctions in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
African Affairs, 2018
Since independence, at least 28 African countries have legalised some form of gambling. Despite s... more Since independence, at least 28 African countries have legalised some form of gambling. Despite strict limitations, a wide range of informal unregulated gambling activities persist, often provoking widespread public concerns about the negative social and economic impact of gambling on poor communities. Public outrage and moralistic condemnation, however, is not sufficient basis for effective regulation, and it is vital that we learn more about the hopes and aspirations of informal gamblers, and situate our discussion in the context of the precarity that, for many at least, constitutes their daily lived experience. This article addresses one small aspect of this universe, an illegal South African numbers game called fahfee. Drawing on extensive interviews with players, operators, and regulatory officials, this article explores two aspects of this game. Firstly, it explores in some detail the way in which fahfee is run and played. This sheds some light on the clandestine world of Chinese operators, as well as the lives of both players and runners. Secondly, the article examines the subjective motivations and aspirations of players, and asks why they continue to play, despite the fact that their aggregate losses easily outstrip their aggregate gains. In contrast with those who reduce its appeal simply to aggregate changes in wealth, I conclude that, for the (mostly) black, elderly, working class women who play fahfee several times a week, the associated tradeoff—regular, small losses, versus the social enjoyment of playing and the prospect of occasional but realistic windfalls—takes on a whole new meaning, and helps explain the continued attraction of fahfee. This has both sociological and policy/regulatory significance for the study of unregulated informal gambling in Africa generally, and reinforces the need to understand players' own accounts of gambling utility rather than simply to moralistically condemn gambling or to dismiss gamblers behaviour as irrational.
In Maharashtra, as in India more widely today, tribal communities are located at the intersection... more In Maharashtra, as in India more widely today, tribal communities are located at the intersection of a traditional forest-based way of life and the competing needs of the agents of development and modernization that make alternative claims to ancestral land and water. The study focuses on so-called tribal, scheduled, and other backward class communities living around the Tansa Lake and Wildlife Sanctuary and documents their ongoing struggle over land and water in the face of the expansion of urban Mumbai. On account of their socioeconomic vulnerability, tribals are increasingly forced to reduce their reliance on agricultural activities and the forest, with which they have been associated for generations, and to become wage laborers. Tribals, in this view of the world, are simply jungle rats, a threat to the twin (and all-too-contradictory) forces that drive contemporary Maharashtrian politics: the ever-present "march of the modern and the urban," in the sense of economic transformation, development, and expansion of Mumbai, and the rise of the violently antimodern Maratha-Hindu political movements. It is also suggested that the discourses of conservation and protection marginalize tribals without achieving the desired objective of protecting important ecological resources.
Economy and Society, 2000
This article considers the Bolsheviks’ proposals to militarize labour. While concerned ostensibly... more This article considers the Bolsheviks’ proposals to militarize labour. While concerned ostensibly to secure a steady supply of disciplined labour during the civil war, this was clearly seen as a means to effect a transition to communism. Labour militarization was understood as an instrument to suppress commodity production, which would help usher in a new form of socialized labour. The theoretical roots of this policy can be found in Marx's writings on commodity production and ideology. Although Marx believed that the commodity form would be overcome through endogenous structural developments, there is no reason to suppose the forceful suppression of commodity production cannot produce the same outcome
This article examines the relationship between the classical Marxist tradition and the conceptual... more This article examines the relationship between the classical Marxist tradition and the conceptual roots of totalitarianism. Here totalitarianism is understood to entail the attempt to frame the developmental impulses of modernity within the logic of a premodern political imaginary—defined as internally homogenous and transparent to itself. In the first part, we take issue with those who try to distinguish between the thought of Marx and Engels, and who insist that it is only in Engels's thought that the traces of a totalitarian politics might be found. In the second section, we outline briefly the context within which Marx's thought was developed, after which we argue that Marx's vision of communism is dependent on the three-phase vision of historical process which he inherited from Hegel. Without denying the historical peculiarities of the imposition of communism in Russia, we conclude that it is out of this latter vision of history that the conceptual roots of totalitarianism must be located. It is tempting for socialists to dismiss the experience of &dquo;commu-nism&dquo; in the Soviet-type countries as a violation of the essentially democratic tenets of classical Marxism, and in so doing, to uphold the integrity of this latter tradition and its relevance to those seeking an alternative to the hegemony of capital. Did not Marx explicitly state, in his correspondence with Vera Zasulich, that his account of the genesis of capitalism applied to Western Europe only-and was therefore not intended to suggest a unilinear and universal model of historical process? Did not Engels frequently warn against the dangers of a &dquo;premature&dquo; seizure of power? In this article we take issue with such claims and suggest that it is possible to demonstrate the
Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 2006
This article considers, against the background of an extended discussion of Claude Lefort’s conce... more This article considers, against the background of an extended discussion of Claude Lefort’s conception of the birth and specificity of ‘the political’ (le politique), the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) endorsement of Robert Mugabe’s electoral ‘victories’ in Zimbabwe since 2002. The article suggests that this reveals far more than simply bad foreign policy but, more troublingly, is suggestive of a partial if not hostile attitude to political society and the contingency and pluralism upon which democracy, necessarily, rests.
South African Journal of International Affairs, 2000
Book Reviews by Stephen Louw
Theoria, Issue 169, Vol. 68, No. 4, 2021
Reports by Stephen Louw
Department of Trade and Industry - booklet, 2019
Feasibility study on the legalisation of unlicensed lotteries in SA, primarily fahfee, conducted ... more Feasibility study on the legalisation of unlicensed lotteries in SA, primarily fahfee, conducted for the National Lotteries Commission (NLC). The study also investigates the viability of centralised/NLC regulation of sports pools and bets placed on the outcome of a lottery. The authors are supportive of legalising fahfee, although sceptical of the viability of so-doing. The authors raise various concerns about changing the regulatory responsibility for sports pools and lottery betting.
The Regulatory Debates Bulletin (the dti), Edition 8, September 2018, 23-25], 2018
Very short popular article reviewing the conflict between provincial and national authorities ove... more Very short popular article reviewing the conflict between provincial and national authorities over the licensing of new forms of high-value slot machines disguised as electronic variants of the traditional game of bingo, and supporting the growing assertiveness of provincial licensing authorities, which we believe is in keeping with s 146 of the South African Constitution.
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Papers by Stephen Louw
unleash or contain violence by limiting or opening access to rents, and in so doing to
fashion particular distribution regimes. This course is intended to explore this dynamic by
considering the different ways in which institutions and systems of governance evolve, and how these shape and are in turn shaped by what North and his collaborators call their response to ‘the problem of violence’.
The central text under review throughout the course is Violence and Social Orders by
Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, although students are expected to
contrast this with other approaches to the study of institutions, governance, and violence; in particular with the political settlements approach developed by Mushtaq Khan.
Part one considers the Access Order framework in some depth. Part two focuses on
case studies that illustrate and problematize this approach.
decision. The substance of the dispute is that the old-fashioned game of bingo has given way to bingo machines which have the look, feel and sound of casino slot machines. Some provincial legislation allows for the licensing of these machines, an approach resisted by central government. This mirrors a battle in the United States, where the same machines
were used in order to get around regulatory distinctions in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
Book Reviews by Stephen Louw
Reports by Stephen Louw
unleash or contain violence by limiting or opening access to rents, and in so doing to
fashion particular distribution regimes. This course is intended to explore this dynamic by
considering the different ways in which institutions and systems of governance evolve, and how these shape and are in turn shaped by what North and his collaborators call their response to ‘the problem of violence’.
The central text under review throughout the course is Violence and Social Orders by
Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, although students are expected to
contrast this with other approaches to the study of institutions, governance, and violence; in particular with the political settlements approach developed by Mushtaq Khan.
Part one considers the Access Order framework in some depth. Part two focuses on
case studies that illustrate and problematize this approach.
decision. The substance of the dispute is that the old-fashioned game of bingo has given way to bingo machines which have the look, feel and sound of casino slot machines. Some provincial legislation allows for the licensing of these machines, an approach resisted by central government. This mirrors a battle in the United States, where the same machines
were used in order to get around regulatory distinctions in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
Constructed largely through a critical engagement with Claude Lefort, the course presents a particular reading of the liberal-democratic state form in which the ‘place of power’ is said to be empty, and acknowledged openly as such, and in which the markers of certitude once derived from a master narrative or Truth (god, history, etc.) are displaced. Importantly, this reading locates the individual subject within a web of inherently subversive social relations, a ‘political form’ (Lefort) at odds with both the ancien régime and (to varying degrees) actually existing liberalism in modern capitalist societies. This makes possible a politics of open-ended discovery and socio-political contestation, which is contrasted with the type of ‘anti-political politics’ and state form that emerged in twentieth century totalitarian regimes.
This reading of the democratic revolution and its political possibilities is not taken as given, and students are expected to engage critically with it.