Skip to main content
Fachgebiete
Automobil + Motoren Bauwesen + Immobilien Business IT + Informatik Elektrotechnik + Elektronik Energie + Nachhaltigkeit Finance + Banking Management + Führung Marketing + Vertrieb Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe Versicherung + Risiko
DE
EN
Bücher
Zeitschriften
Themenseiten
Organisationspsychologie Projektmanagement Marketing Smart Manufacturing
Weitere Formate
Podcasts Webinare Technik Webinare Wirtschaft Kongresse Veranstaltungskalender Awards
Jetzt Einzelzugang starten
Zugang für Unternehmen
Referenzkunden
SLX-Digitalkonferenz: Zukunftswerkstatt 2024

Mehr Umsatz mit Top-Kontakten

Am 7. Mai erfahren Sie, wie Vertriebsteams Leadgenerierung, Leadnurturing und Leadstrategien effizient steuern können.
Erweiterte Suche
Anmelden
nach oben
Urban Forum
Erschienen in: Urban Forum 4/2021

27.05.2021

Isomorphism and Municipal Amalgamations in South Africa: the Case of Vhembe District

verfasst von: Godwin Dube

Erschienen in: Urban Forum | Ausgabe 4/2021

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

In 2015, the minister responsible for local government requested the Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) to restructure municipalities with a view to increasing their financial viability, a process that was duly conducted in 2016. This study assessed the requests for boundary redeterminations received by the MDB after this restructuring took place with a specific focus on those from the Vhembe District. These requests included a call for the reversal of the restructuring that occurred in 2016. The study found that insufficient attention was paid to ethnic identity issues before reorganising the municipalities in the district. Also, financial viability did not improve after 2016 with some municipalities becoming more dependent on government transfers. The argument in this paper is that municipal restructuring in South Africa after 2002 was characterised by isomorphism—international trends were copied based on concepts such as “scale economies” that promised financial viability in amalgamated municipalities. However, South Africa is a developing country with developing country problems—poorly qualified and corrupt managers running municipalities, semi-literate councillors who cannot provide effective oversight and ethnic groups that still set great store on tradition, language and culture. The MDB will have to revisit some of the boundary redetermination decisions of the past. Where errors have occurred, these will have to be corrected. Redetermination decisions in areas such as the Vhembe District need to be based on advice from anthropologists and not just the criteria as laid out in the legislation. Sensitive ethnic issues cannot be wished away in South Africa.
Vorheriger Artikel A Spatio-temporal Analysis of Commercial Parks in Cape Town, South Africa
Nächster Artikel Impact of Virtual Cash Economy on Livelihood Outcomes of Informal Cross Border Traders in Gweru, Zimbabwe

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe




 

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren
Fußnoten
1
The term amalgamation is used to refer to a type of boundary redetermination involving the merger of two (or more) municipalities or the incorporation of one or more municipalities into another, larger, one.
 
2
South Africa has three types of municipalities: single-tier category A (i.e. metropolitan) municipalities that exercise legislative and executive authority in their areas and a two tier system made up of category B (local) municipalities and category C (district) municipalities. A local municipality shares executive and legislative authority with a district municipality within whose area it falls.
 
3
Municipal boundary requests that do not involve amalgamations and the related economic and administrative efficiency motives are common in South Africa. The MDB has, since its establishment, received a large number of technical and minor alignment requests with one study estimating a receipt of over 1000 such requests over a 15-year period (City Insight 2018).
 
4
Although rare, voluntary mergers through referenda are a feature of countries such as Finland, Japan and Switzerland (see Strebel 2019).
 
5
According to the legislation, boundary determinations are triggered by requests from the national/provincial ministers or municipalities. The MDB can also, on its own initiative, determine/redetermine boundaries (the MDB has avoided taking this route relying instead on requests from non-government actors such as individuals and organisations).
 
6
The national minister’s 34 requests in 2015 (of which only 13 were approved by the MDB) were solely based on financial viability (Municipal Demarcation Board 2019)—the minister did not see this as just one of the factors to be considered. The MDB in 2016 considered four major factors before amalgamations—interdependence of people; spatial and development planning; governance and functionality; and financial and administrative factors. However, financial viability was given prominence (and high scores) in its merger justification reports and this may have only served to strengthen the view that financial viability would improve after these mergers (Municipal Demarcation Board 2008, 2015b).
 
7
In its justification reports for the restructuring of municipalities, the MDB’s indicator for financial viability was essentially similar to that of COGTA—“the sources of revenue in addition to government transfers [are] a useful indicator of a municipality’s ability to be financially viable and sustainable over time” (Municipal Demarcation Board 2015c, p. 29).
 
8
It is, however, important to note that there were those that resisted apartheid’s forced removals with some communities remaining ethnically diverse (Municipal Demarcation Board 2015c).
 
9
A study by Musitha (2016) did not find any evidence for this bias. It points out that politicians from Malamulele were represented in the upper echelons of the governance structures. The study found that it was the Malamulele community’s lack of participation in the governance structures (i.e. ward committees) that led to what the author refers to as “governance paralysis”.
 
10
The type C proposal from Mpumalanga, which does not form part of this study, was for a reversal of the MDB’s decision to amalgamate Umjindi and Mbombela local municipalities in 2016.
 
11
Those in Headingley, a rural community, felt that their needs were different and that they had nothing in common with the urban City of Winnipeg before and after the 1971 forced merger. In the Montreal case mentioned earlier in this article, the “politics of language” was at the core of the dissatisfaction (Hamilton 2012; Harris 2013).
 
Literatur
Adlparvar, N., & Tadros, M. (2016). The evolution of ethnicity theory: Intersectionality, geopolitics and development. IDS Buletin, 47(2), 1–9.
Andrews, M. (2010). How far have public financial management reforms come in Africa?.
Annez, P. C., & Peterson, G. E. (2007). Financing Cities: Fiscal Responsibility and Urban Infrastructure in Brazil, China, India, Poland and South Africa. Sage Publications.
Auditor-General South Africa (2018). General report on the local government outcomes: MFMA 2016–17. Auditor General South Africa.
Blöchliger, H., & Vammalle, C. (2012). Reforming fiscal federalism and local government: Beyond the zero-sum game. OECD.
Chan, J., To, H. P., & Chan, E. (2006). Reconsidering social cohesion: Developing a definition and analytical framework for empirical research. Social Indicators Research, 75(2), 273–302.CrossRef
Chipkin, I. (2008). Set-up for failure: Racial redress in the Department of Public Service and Administration. In A. Habib & K. Bentley (Eds.), Racial Redress and Citizenship in South Africa (pp. 129–152). HSRC Press.
City Insight (2018). Annual Report 2013/14. City Insight.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (2009). The state of local government in South Africa. Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
Couch, J. F., King, B. A., Gossett, C. H., & Parris, J. B. (2004). Economies of scale and the provision of public goods by municipalities. Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research, 5(3), 69–80.
Dafflon, B., & Madies, T. (Eds.). (2012). The political economy of decentralization in Sub-Saharan Africa: A new implementation model in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal. World Bank Publications.
de Souza, S. V., Dollery, B. E., & Kortt, M. A. (2015). De-amalgamation in action: The Queensland experience. Public Management Review, 17(10), 1403–1424.CrossRef
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American sociological review, 147–160.
Dollery, B., & Fleming, E. (2006). A conceptual note on scale economies, size economies and scope economies in Australian local government. Urban Policy and Research, 24(2), 271–282.CrossRef
Drew, J., & Dollery, B. (2014). Separation anxiety: An empirical evaluation of the Australian Sunshine Coast Regional Council de-amalgamation. Public Money & Management, 34(3), 213–220.CrossRef
Dube, G., & Radikonyana, P. (forthcoming). Municipal amalgamations and service delivery: The case of Kagisano-Molopo and Mangaung. International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management.
Fritz, B. Fiscal effects of municipal amalgamations: Evidence from a German state. In 15th Annual Conference of the International Society for New Institutional Economics, Walter Eucken Institute, Freigburg, Germany, 2013.
Government of South Africa (1998). Municipal Demarcation Act. Government of South Africa.
Government of South Africa (2003). The white paper on traditional leadership and governance. Government of South Africa.
Habib, A. (2010). The state of the nation and its public service in contemporary South Africa. Administratio Publica, 18(3), 2–24.
Hamilton, D. K. (2012). Measuring the effectiveness of regional governing systems: A comparative study of city regions in North America. (Vol. 2). Springer.
Holtug, N. (2017). Identity, causality and social cohesion. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(7), 1084–1100.CrossRef
Kanyane, M. (2014). Exploring challenges of municipal service delivery in South Africa (1994–2013). Africa’s Public Service Delivery & Performance Review, 2(1), 90–110.CrossRef
Kanyane, M., Pophiwa, N., Raseala, P., Mdlongwa, T., Viljoen, J., Moolman, B., et al. (2017). “We didn’t ask for a municipality”: Unintended consequences of municipal boundary re-determination: Vuwani at a glance. HSRC.
Karkin, N., Gocoglu, V., & Yavuzcehre, P. S. (2019). Municipal amalgamations in international perspective: Motives addressed in scholarly research. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 41(4), 187–202.CrossRef
Kgatle, M. S. (2018). The impact of the Vuwani protests on teaching and learning: Practical theological reflection. Stellenbosch Theological Journal, 4(1), 247–266.
Khumalo, B., & Ncube, M. (2016). Financial and functional viability, and sustainability of municipalities – Beyond the demarcation instrument. Finacial and Fiscal Commission.
Koma, S. B. (2016). Rationalisation of municipalities: A panacea for improved municipal governance in South Africa? African Journal of Public Affairs, 9(2), 127–139.
Krause, P. (2013). Of institutions and butterflies: Is isomorphism in developing countries necessarily a bad thing. Background Note: The Overseas Development Institute, 1–4.
Letlape, B., & Dube, G. (2020). The analysis of underlying causes in several requests received by the Municipal Demarcation Board. MDB.
Miljan, L., & Spicer, Z. (2015). De-Amalgamation In Canada: Breaking up is hard to do. Fraser Institute.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2008). Justification report for DEM279 the amalgamation of the Kagisano Local Municipality (NW391) and the Molopo Local Municipality (NW395) in the North West province into one local municipality. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2014). Annual Report 2013/14. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2015a). Annual Report 2014/15. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2015b). DEM4542: Investigation into the Redetermination of Boundaries Report - Naledi (FS 164) Free State. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2015c). Summary Report DEM4519. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2017). Annual Report 2016/17. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Municipal Demarcation Board (2019). Twenty Years Later. Municipal Demarcation Board.
Muramatsu, M., Iqbal, F., & Kume, I. (2001). Local government development in post-war Japan. Oxford University Press.
Musitha, M. E. (2016). Governance theory paralysis: Case of Malamulele of the Thulamela Municipality in Limpopo Province. Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research, 8(5), 45–58.
Ncube, M., & Monnakgotla, J. (2016). Amalgamation of South Africa’s rural municipalities: is it a good idea? Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, 19, 75–95.
Putnam, R. D. (2007). E pluribus unum: Diversity and community in the twenty-first century the 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2), 137–174.CrossRef
Raseala, P. S. (2020). Analysis of municipal demarcation on financial non-viability of the Vhembe District Municipality. University of South Africa.
Rasila, B. N., & Musitha, M. E. (2017). Assessing challenges to ineffective communication in government institutions: A case study of Vuwani area, Limpopo, South Africa. Africa’s Public Service Delivery & Performance Review, 5(1), 1–13.CrossRef
Ratshitanga, T. (2018). New cities-new economies: Policy framework for redirecting South Africa’s patterns of urban development in pursuit of integrated and sustainable socio-economic development. University of Delaware.
Reingewertz, Y. (2012). Do municipal amalgamations work? Evidence from municipalities in Israel. Journal of Urban Economics, 72(2–3), 240–251.CrossRef
Schwartz, H. (2009). Toronto ten years after amalgamation. Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 32(3), 483–494.
Shava, P. V. (1985). South Africa: Popular theatre and the political ferment of the 1960s and the 1970s. Présence africaine(136), 124–149.
Slack, E., & Bird, R. (2013). Merging municipalities: Is bigger better? Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance.
Stats SA (2012). Census 2011 Census in Brief. Statistics South Africa.
Strebel, M. A. (2019). Why voluntary municipal merger projects fail: Evidence from popular votes in Switzerland. Local Government Studies, 45(5), 654–675.CrossRef
Swianiewicz, P. (2010). If territorial fragmentation is a problem, is amalgamation a solution? An East European perspective. Local Government Studies, 36(2), 183–203.CrossRef
Tavares, A. F. (2018). Municipal amalgamations and their effects: A literature review. Miscellanea Geographica, 22(1), 5–15.CrossRef
Tolbert, P. S., & Zucker, L. G. (1983). Institutional sources of change in the formal structure of organizations: The diffusion of civil service reform, 1880–1935. Administrative science quarterly, 22–39.
Van der Meer, T., & Tolsma, J. (2014). Ethnic diversity and its effects on social cohesion. Annual Review of Sociology, 40(1), 459–478.CrossRef
Metadaten
Titel
Isomorphism and Municipal Amalgamations in South Africa: the Case of Vhembe District
verfasst von
Godwin Dube
Publikationsdatum
27.05.2021
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in
Urban Forum / Ausgabe 4/2021
Print ISSN: 1015-3802
Elektronische ISSN: 1874-6330
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-021-09432-w

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 4/2021

Urban Forum 4/2021 Zur Ausgabe

OriginalPaper

Spaces of Transformative Practice: Co-producing, (Re)Making and Translating Fractional Urban Space in Gugulethu, Cape Town

OriginalPaper

The Nelson Mandela Bridge as a Great Sign of Urban Transformation in Johannesburg, South Africa

OriginalPaper

Power Struggles on Urban Green Spaces in Kumasi, Ghana: Implications for Urban Policy and Planning

OriginalPaper

Impact of Virtual Cash Economy on Livelihood Outcomes of Informal Cross Border Traders in Gweru, Zimbabwe

OriginalPaper

Gendered Infrastructural Citizenship: Shared Sanitation Facilities in Quarry Road West Informal Settlement, Durban, South Africa

OriginalPaper

A Spatio-temporal Analysis of Commercial Parks in Cape Town, South Africa