Publications and Research Outputs

Our report on ‘state capture’ of the South African Social Security Agency that was released in August 2018. We did this work because we wanted to analyse state capture dynamics that were not tied to the Gupta network. I am starting to realize how significant this work is because as the Gupta networks get dismantled, new ‘capture networks’ are being assembled. The fight back by state capture forces within and outside the ANC reveals that these networks were not created by the Guptas, nor are they dependent on the Guptas going forward. The SASSA story is significant in this regard. However, ultimately, the SASSA story is a hopeful story: action by civil society and the robustness of the courts they mobilized saved SASSA and the monthly payments to 17 million South Africans.

FULL REPORT: SASSA State Capture _2018-07_ A4 report

Finally, after 4 years of intensive work by an international research team co-led by myself and Prof Maarten Hajer from Utrecht University, the final report was launched at the Resilient Cities conference in Bonn on 26 April 2018. Herewith all the links to the main report, summary, press release and fact sheet:

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Author: Mark Swilling

Type of publication: book chapter

Reference details: Swilling, M. 2010. Dealing with Sustainability. In Pieterse, E. (ed.), Counter Currents: Experiments in Sustainability in Cape Town. Johannesburg: Jacana.

Download: Swilling (2010) Dealing with Sustainability

This is my latest paper co-authored with colleagues from Melbourne. It provides a useful summation of the literature on South Africa’s contradictory commitments to decarbonisation, renewable energy and expanded coal-based energy production. The information on the declining coal industry is useful. With renewables now half the price of fossil fuel-based energy and ESKOM on the threshold of an institutional rupture and subsequent break-up, South Africa might be able to do now what it was unable to do in 1994, i.e transcend the mineral-energy-complex (MEC) which was the economic core of Apartheid. The post-1994 Government did little to dismantle the MEC, partly because of socio-technological lock-in. The remarkable growth of investments in renewables over the past five years suggests that there may be some truth in the CSIR claim that renewables could meet up to 90% of our energy requirements. For the paper, click on link below.

Published version_MSSI-Briefing-Paper_10_SA_2018 (1)

Authors: Mark Swilling and Maarten Hajer

Type of publication: Journal publication

Reference details:Swilling, M. & Hajer, M. 2017. Governance of urban transitions: towards sustainable resource efficient urban infrastructures. Environmental Research Letters, 12. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7d3a

Keywords: cities, sustainable, governance, transition, urban

Download: Swilling_2017_Environ._Res._Lett._12_125007

Abstract
The transition to sustainable resource efficient cities calls for new governance arrangements. The
awareness that the doubling of the global urban population will result in unsustainable levels of
demand for natural resources requires changes in the existing socio-technical systems. Domestic
material consumption could go up from 40 billion tons in 2010, to 89 billion tons by 2050.
While there are a number of socio-technical alternatives that could result in significant
improvements in the resource efficiency of urban systems in developed and developing countries
(specifically bus-rapid transit, district energy systems and green buildings), we need to rethink
the urban governance arrangements to get to this alternative pathway. We note modes of urban
governance have changed over the past century as economic and urban development paradigms
have shifted at the national and global levels. This time round we identify cities as leading actors
in the transition to more sustainable modes of production and consumption as articulated in
the Sustainable Development Goals. This has resulted in a surge of urban experimentation across
all world regions, both North and South. Building on this empirically observable trend we
suggest this can also be seen as a building block of a new urban governance paradigm. An
‘entrepreneurial urban governance’ is proposed that envisages an active and goal-setting role for
the state, but in ways that allows broader coalitions of urban ‘agents of change’ to emerge. This
entrepreneurial urban governance fosters and promotes experimentation rather than suppressing
the myriad of such initiatives across the globe, and connects to global city networks for systemic
learning between cities. Experimentation needs to result in a contextually appropriate balance
between economic, social, technological and sustainable development.

Authors: Mark Swilling, John van Breda, Albert van Zyl & Firoz Khan

Type of publication: Report

Reference details: Swilling, M., van Breda, J., van Zyl, A. & Khan, F. 2007. Economic Policy-Making in a Developmental State: Review of the South African Government’s Poverty and Development Approaches, 1994-2004. Economic Policy and Poverty Alleviation Report Series, Report Number 3. Durban: Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Swilling, M. & van Breda, J. 2007. Institutionalising the Developmental State: the Case of the ‘Special Funds’. Economic Policy and Poverty Alleviation Report Series, Report Number 4. Durban: Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Keywords: developmental state, economic policy, fiscal policy, development funds

Download:DevStatePapers.pdf[1]

Authors: Jacobs, G., Swilling, M., Nagan, W., Morgan, J. & Gills, B.

Type of publication: journal article

Reference details: Swilling, M. & Annecke, E. Building sustainable neighbourhoods in South Africa: learning from the Lynedoch case. Environment and Urbanization, 18(2):315-332.

Keywords: sustainable city, urban transition, ecological design, ecovillage, sustainable living

Download: E&U_18-2_Swilling_and_Annecke2

Authors: Jacobs, G., Swilling, M., Nagan, W., Morgan, J. & Gills, B.

Type of publication: journal article

Reference details: Jacobs, G., Swilling, M., Nagan, W., Morgan, J. and Gills, B. 2017. Quest for a New Paradigm in Economics – A Synthesis of Views of the New Economics Working Group. Cadmus, 3(2):1-25.

Keywords: new economics, transdisciplinarity, transition, neoliberalism, people-centred, sustainability

Download: A Synthesis of Views of the New Economics Working Group_ _ Cadmus Journal