Reforming Public Administration in South Africa: A Path to Professionalisation

This short book analyses three distinct and key features of the state: the system of appointment and removal in the public service and municipalities, high-level appointments and removals within the criminal justice sector, and public procurement. A state’s politics and its capacities are constituted in important ways by how it fills its public administrative offices (including its prosecution service) and purchases its necessities. The book, considering outcomes in South Africa, advocates for specific reforms in each area. It argues that the timely consideration and adoption of reforms along these lines is an urgent task. With that in mind, the book has been written chiefly for two audiences: both for activists keen to build a state which can play its role in advancing the progressive transformation of South African society, and for scholars who are interested in understanding the character and possibilities of the evolving South African public administration.