Democracy in the US and South Africa: Two Elections in Comparative Context

In May 2024, South Africa went to elections in a plebiscite that saw the African National Congress (ANC) losing the absolute majority it had garnered since 1994. In November 2024, the United States goes to the polls in what will determine whether former President Donald Trump returns to the White House or Vice President Kamala Harris succeeds outgoing President Joe Biden.

There are distinct electoral politics differences between the two democracies. For instance, the U.S. elections are based on a direct presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial voting system. South Africa, on the other hand, operates a proportional representation voting system where citizens vote for parties, and each party chooses its cabinet, parliamentary, and municipal representatives from party lists. Whereas South Africa is evolving into a multiparty democracy with tens of political parties gunning for political power, the U.S. has two dominant parties, the Democratic and Republican parties.

Yet, there are a couple of similarities between the two democracies. For instance, race and race relations are hot-button issues. Migration and migrant populations are equally contentious electoral issues, as are issues of economic inequalities, matters of social justice, unemployment, and variances in the economic wherewithal of various regions. Equally important is that the apex leadership in both countries determines the ebb and flow of the relations between them. In the recent past, geopolitical tensions have sparked contestations on the current and future nature of South Africa-US relations.

Jonathan Jansen (Stellenbosch University) will moderate the virtual discussion, where panelists from Stanford University and the University of the Witwatersrand will weigh in on these and more issues, fleshing out similarities and debating differences. By the time of the discussion, the president of the United States would have been declared. This will permit moving the analysis away from speculation and toward a measure of certainty on what to expect in the US-South Africa relations in the next four years.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Center for African Studies (CAS), and the African Center for the Study of the United States, University of the Witwatersrand.

panelists

Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. His research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy, and U.S. and international policies to advance democracy and counter authoritarian influence. He was the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and he remains a consultant to the National Endowment for Democracy. Among his books is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.

Didi Kuo

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. At Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), she oversees the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave - and Why They Don't (forthcoming, Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press 2018). She is a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a 2018 National Fellow at New America. She received a PhD from Harvard University, an MSc from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

Bob Wekesa

Bob Wekesa is the Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa. He is the interim coordinator of the Africa-U.S. Universities Network. He teaches and supervises international media and communications projects focusing on Africa-China and Africa-United States topics. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi (1998) and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Communication University of China (2012 and 2015 respectively). He has published over the years across thought leadership, academic journal papers, chapters and books, and policy papers.

Thokozani Chilenga-Butao

Thokozani Chilenga-Butao is a lecturer in Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where she also achieved her PhD. Her research interests are decentralization and federalism and their roles in state formation, governance, public administration, and public policy. She conducts empirical and applied research in a range of topics, including education, recentralization, and social grants such as the social relief of distress grant and the just energy transition. This involves research in some of South Africa’s largest government departments, including the Department of Basic Education, the National Treasury, and the former Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. In addition to teaching and research, Thokozani is an active member of university committees and research collaborations. She often comments on South African politics and the effects on governance, public administration, and public policy in local and international media.