In the Shadow of Policy. Robert Ross
and positions (see also James 2011). Taoana, in chapter 8, and Phetlhu, in chapter 9, problematise the brokerage role of extension officers. The implication of these processes is that the state does not act as a monolithic, Weberian institution. Rather, it has multiple layers which act according to their own interpretations of the state’s reform discourse, which often turn out to be contrasting interpretations of state policies, directives and objectives. Next to the state there are many other coordinating mechanisms and practices that shape the dynamics and outcomes of land and agrarian reforms. This helps to explain why policies generate unexpected and perhaps unwanted outcomes in practice.
5 Governance practices
‘The will to’ initiate, to partially quote Li (2007), new forms of governance and citizenship that might be expected to come about in periods of change such as the post-apartheid era in South Africa has not (yet) really come to fruition. Innovative policy processes, as explored by McGee (2004), that would be capable of replacing and transforming colonial and apartheid-era policy-planning mechanisms have not emerged since 1994. Several observers and commentators have criticised (agrarian) policy and its implementation in, for instance, the Eastern Cape. Hadju (2006) points to the still existing unequal power relations between policymakers and local actors, leaving the latter with the feeling that they have limited control over their own fate. The homeland style of governance is reproduced rather than discontinued. Monde (2003) notes that the record of the post-1994 interventions to promote agriculture in the former homelands is long on new initiatives but short on measurable success stories. Both Ainslie (2005) and Kepe (2002) argue that the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture has failed to table a comprehensive and consistent livestock development plan.
It is not just the state and its prostrate institutions, as Scott (1998) labels and understands them, that require critical analysis. Civil society organisations, social movements (such as the Landless People’s Movement; see James 2007 for a critical view on LPM and Greenberg 2004 for a glorifying assessment) and NGOs also appear to be ineffective and incapable of leading the reform ‘from below’ that Rosset (2006) and Borras (2008) call for. The few experiences with mobilisation, such as the land occupations in Mahlahluvani, are not organised into any movement that even NGOs engage with, let alone the state (Wegerif 2010). In addition, as some of the chapters (notably chapters 6, 9 and 16) elucidate, processes through which elites capture development potentials at village or project level colour the outcomes of the reforms.
6 The knowledge base of policy
All actors construct knowledge and they do so in different and contrasting ways. Not all knowledge, but particular bodies of knowledge, however, feed and shape the policy process. Policies are generally informed by knowledge generated by experts and scientists that derive from ill-conceived assumptions about empirical (rural) realities and development that have not been tested in the conditions in which the policies will be applied. Such knowledge results in received wisdoms, which, as Leach and Fairhead (2000) argue, lead to erroneous interpretations of urban and rural change in Africa and also to ‘bad’ or ill-informed policy choices. This helps to explain why most development policies fail to bridge the gap between the perceptions of the experts and the day-to-day experiences of people at grass roots (Keeley and Scoones 2003; McGee 2004; Scoones 1992). Moreover, the national statistics that inform policies are not always reliable, available and up to date (Jerven 2010), and frequently fail to adequately reflect developmental trends at grass-roots level. One of the most influential pieces of ‘received wisdom’ that today shapes land and agrarian reform practices is that agricultural development in communal areas can be realised only by following the ‘commercial’ farming model (Cousins and Scoones 2010; Scoones 1992), which adopts strict notions of what constitutes the agrarian. The latter is brought to the fore in chapters 14, 17, 19 and 20. Scott (1998) describes this phenomenon as ‘seeing like a state’, which reinforces the critical conclusion various chapters draw that the land and agrarian reform policies have not taken into account how land reform beneficiaries – ‘communal farmers’, women, youth and pensioners, understand and enact development. In their response to past and present state interventions, their ability to redesign programme components and their autonomous practices, local actors expose the limitations of policymakers’ assumptions about contemporary rural realities, questioning in turn the capacity of the state to design and deliver services and intervene.
7 Post-settlement support dynamics
What this book substantiates is that post-settlement support has often failed to deliver relevant knowledge and information to the ‘new’ landowners. Post-settlement support advice and project and business plans are often irrelevant to the needs of the beneficiaries (Cousins and Scoones 2010; Hall 2009a; Hebinck et al. 2011). The dissonance between the type of support that is required – assuming that this is voiced in some way – and what is offered can largely be explained by the predominance of a particular paradigm as to what constitutes ‘viable’ farming. This paradigm, as chapter 3 details, is based on the planning models that are associated with large-scale, capital-intensive farming. It also defines agriculture rigidly and narrowly. It assumes, too, that agriculture is rural people’s only livelihood source. Chapters 14, 17 and 18, among others, have shown that this assumption does not reflect rural realities. It is also important to take into account that agriculture in the real world includes more than simply cultivation and livestock. More and more scholars maintain that ‘doing’ agriculture includes harvesting from the natural environment (Hebinck and Lent 2007; Shackleton et al. 2001). Agriculture, they argue, supplements a range of livelihood sources, including wages and, increasingly, state grants. Chapters 4–10 provide accounts of what happens when post-settlement advice does not resonate with local conditions: outsiders blame beneficiaries for the failure of projects. Their style of ‘doing agriculture’ is not recognised or seen by the state as productive. State actors often oppose and misunderstand local development trajectories and ‘accumulation from below’. The prevailing view is that rural people should walk the path of modernisation as defined by Siyakhula and Siyanzondla. The authors of chapters 15, 16, 17 and 18 make this clear in their account of the disenchantment and disappointment that follow when modernisation is forced on people, leading them to withdraw from land-reform-related developments. In addition, some of the chapters also document the way in which bureaucratic procedures hamper the inclusion of a range of potential participants in the reform programmes. De Klerk and Van Leynseele, in particular, draw attention to rigid bureaucratic procedures that exclude people from benefits and meaningful participation. The red tape that attends DOA interventions makes it difficult to execute plans for farm operations in the allocated time frames. These are only two examples of the sort of top-down planning that allows little room for participation and flexibility.
8 The importance of historical continuities
Policies not only ‘have left their historical traces’, as James (2010: 222) argues, which are visible and still felt to this day; they also have many common characteristics even though they have emerged from contrasting political ideologies and governance regimes. This book demonstrates that the overriding reality is that old ideas and institutional repertoires continue to prevail. These often constrain reform programmes from achieving the stated objectives. Both past and present development policies limit local people’s capacity to use the resources made available to them in the ways that they see fit, but as argued earlier, these do not completely prevent local people from manipulating and redesigning land reform interventions. An important continuity that hinders reform from coming to fruition is that, as in the past, policymakers, experts, extension workers and many – but not all – students and scholars of agricultural and rural development link local practices with ‘underdevelopment’.
While there are significant continuities with the past (chapters 2 and 3), post-apartheid policies have also contributed a new set of ideas and institutional practices, as parts 2 and 3 of this book show. For a start, these policies have produced new social categories and terms for them: ‘emergent farmers’; ‘land reform