My apologies for the long gap in blogs. My wife and I had another child so life has been full with child care and housework. It has made lockdown surreal: a content bubble in the midst of catastrophe. We also celebrated Pesach amongst the plague. They are very strange times, though I have yet to find the poet or novelist to give it, its proper language. It has also been a strangely productive period. I am making good progress on the book that Jacana has commissioned on Sovereignty, State and Government after Empire. I am not allowed to say much about the book at this stage other than that I think it covers new ground and the argument is novel .
There is a new essay on Defining State Capture coming out this year in the South African journal Transformation. The Defining State Capture has been called an important step towards a "unified theory of political science and public administration". It argues that the distinction made in the 19Century by amongst others Woodrow Wilson between the political and the administrative not only helps define the field of public administration but must be regarded as a key democratic principle. I will make the essay available as soon as I can (It is not the same as the working paper by a similar name that is available on the GAPP website).
Jelena and I wrote 'Monitoring and Predicting Organisational Efficiency in Postcolonial Societies'. It is coming out soon in Development Southern Africa. It is like nothing I have ever done before, essentially a methodological paper presenting the conceptual framework that informs the new technology that we have developed. I will make it available as soon as I can.
Otherwise, the Government and Public Policy Thinktank is flourishing thanks, in part, to some very committed and generous funders. It is involved now in two of the most important reform initiatives in SA since the dawn of democracy. I won't spoil GAPP's thunder here. Look out for the advertisements for senior policy analysts that GAPP has advertised on LinkedIn and elsewhere.
Ivor Chipkin
Lockdown