Development planning in South Africa: provincial policy and state power in the Eastern Cape

Despite being celebrated as a beacon of democracy and reconciliation, why do so many people in South Africa continue to live in such severe poverty? Development Planning in South Africa draws on John Reynold's first-hand engagement working on the Eastern Cape Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP), a ground-breaking project which - with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme - attempted to forge a ten-year plan to eliminate poverty, unemployment and inequality in the province. Coming at a time when social movements in South Africa were at their most vocal and visible, the PGDP was consciously seized on in the Eastern Cape as a chance to mount a radical policy challenge to the status quo, soon to be undermined and obstructed by the South African state.

Drawing on the strategic-relational approach pioneered by Bob Jessop, Reynold's empirically rich study explores the ways in which this challenge was negotiated and eventually neutralised. The first of its kind, Development Planning in South Africa provides an essential micro-level study with profound implications for how we understand state power is organised and expressed in state policy, both in South Africa and beyond.