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Contradictions of Democracy : vigilantism and rights in post-apartheid South Africa / Nicholas Rush Smith.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Smith, Nicholas Rush, author.
- Series:
- Oxford studies in culture and politics.
- Oxford scholarship online.
- Oxford studies in culture and politics
- Oxford scholarship online
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Vigilantes--South Africa.
- Vigilantes.
- Crime--Government policy--South Africa.
- Crime.
- South Africa--Social conditions--21st century.
- South Africa.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (265 pages)
- Place of Publication:
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2019.
- Summary:
- Despite being one of the world's most vibrant democracies, vigilantism is regularly practiced in South Africa. In any given year, police estimate between 5 and 10 percent of the country's murders result from vigilante violence. Vigilantism is also frequent in other democracies across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. High rates of vigilantism are particularly puzzling in South Africa, though, given that it underwent a celebrated transition to democracy, has a lauded constitution, and enacted massive reforms of the state's legal institutions following democratization. 'Contradictions of Democracy' asks why vigilantism is prevalent in South Africa, asks what South Africa reveals about vigilantism in other emerging democracies, and uses vigilantism to explore contradictions of democratic state formation generally.
- Contents:
- Vigilantism and the contradictions of democratic state formation
- The people's justice: historical antecedents of contemporary vigilantism
- Spectacles of state craft: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and post-apartheid law making
- Rights in translation: vigilantism and the meanings of institutional effectiveness and failure
- Taking charge: the contradictory pleasures of citizen crime fighting
- The risks and rewards of vigilantism
- The racial geographies of criminal panic: protesting crime in the suburbs
- Against vigilantism: citizen and state action to combat vigilantism
- Law-making and state-making as vigilantism.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references.
- Description based on print version record.
- Previously issued in print: 2019.
- ISBN:
- 0-19-084721-2
- 0-19-084722-0
- 0-19-084720-4
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