South Africa’s democratic state needs capability now, not more promises

South Africa’s problem now is not a shortage of state institutions, but growing uncertainty about their purpose and effectiveness.

We inherited formidable but unjust apartheid machinery; then built a constitutional democracy; and the government extended services to millions. Yet the democratic promise is retreating behind broken infrastructure and bureaucratic indifference – evidenced by the water system failure. 

This is not an argument for nostalgia. It is an argument for renewal.

The security state

Thomas Hobbes argued that the state’s first responsibility was order: protecting people from the insecurity of life without someone powerful and legitimate in authority. Apartheid South Africa wielded formidable coercive power – and punished the innocent. It also built major infrastructure – power stations, dams, transport networks – and developed pockets of administrative excellence, serving the minority.

But this was order for some, enforced through domination of others. While it ensured stability and wealth for some, its institutions enforced racial dispossession and repression. Its apparent efficiency was skewed towards those whose needs counted. As we eventually learnt, competence without justice is not a sustainable model.

The state for liberty 

John Stuart Mill reminded us that the state must also protect liberty against arbitrary power. In 1994, South Africa achieved something the apartheid state never could: government founded on equal citizenship and democratic consent. Independent courts, a free press, competitive elections and watchdog institutions gave us means to contest power rather than merely endure it.

Our constitutional order is world-class and remains a priceless asset. But rights on paper cannot indefinitely compensate for insecurity in the street, failure in the classroom or the absence of economic opportunity. Democracy must be more than the right to complain when government fails. It must deliver the means and ends of a better life. 

The welfare state 

Beatrice Webb stood on the shoulders of Hobbs and Mill and articulated the next expansion of state purpose: social welfare. Here, South African democracy can be said to have delivered. It extended housing, basic services and social protection to populations systematically neglected under apartheid. Statistics South Africa reports that household access to mains electricity rose from 76.7% in 2002 to 90.6% in 2026; access to improved sanitation rose from 61.7% to 84.0%. Social grants now reach 39.5% of individuals, keeping millions from extreme poverty. 

These gains show how political equality can become material citizenship. But, inherited spatial and economic inequalities remain difficult to dismantle, and the social disbursement model is fast becoming unsustainable, both in terms of fiscal capacity and the shrinking tax base. 

Simply put, expansion of the state’s social obligation is not the same as fulfilment of its purpose. A grant can soften poverty without creating a dignified livelihood. A water connection is not much use if the tap sporadically runs dry. A school building cannot substitute for actual learning. A municipal budget is not a delivered service, especially if it is mismanaged and the money is stolen. 

The market-friendly state

Milton Friedman challenged us to admit that the expanding state has become a self-serving bureaucracy – costly and unresponsive. One need not embrace Friedman’s preference for markets in every domain to recognise his warning.

South Africa’s danger is not simply that government does too much. It is that government too often promises more than its institutions can reliably execute, while political patronage and corruption consume scarce capacity. This skews and eventually destroys the markets on which economic progress relies. 

The latest municipal figures are sobering: only 39 of 257 municipalities achieved clean audits for 2024-25. In the second quarter of 2026, official unemployment stood at 33.6%, and is climbing. These figures reveal the chasm between public commitments and lived experience.

Private provision 

Increasingly, those who can afford it purchase privately what public institutions should secure collectively: electricity, water, education and protection. Those who cannot are left to negotiate failure. They fear crime, drink sewage and wait in darkness for a future that looks bleak.

When the state becomes an obstacle to navigate rather than a shared platform for flourishing, the social contract breaks down. That is when stone-throwing and the burning of tyres return to the streets, and migrants become scapegoats for state failure. 

The two popular and tempting narratives that dominate the discourse are inadequate: 

Either apartheid had capacity while democracy has legitimacy; or markets should simply replace a wasteful state. 

Reality is harder and more hopeful. 

Apartheid’s capacity was selective and morally compromised. Democratic government has expanded both rights and services, while also weakening, neglecting or politicising institutions essential to their delivery. 

Markets, meanwhile, also depend on public goods: security, infrastructure, predictable regulation and the rule of law. This is why, in spite of our political legitimacy, investment is stalled. 

Our next stage in state evolution must therefore not be a tribalist, racist or authoritarian return, nor a larger catalogue of promises. It must be a democratic revolution in state capability. Accountability is the bread and milk of democracy. Economic and job growth is the cherry on top. 

That starts with:

• Professional administration insulated from party patronage; 

• Municipalities that maintain pipes before announcing projects; 

• Police and courts that make law credible; 

• Public spending judged by outcomes rather than allocations; and 

• Partnership with business and civil society where they can deliver genuine public value. 

It requires preparation for technological, demographic and environmental change, rather than crisis management and lame-duck excuses such as blaming climate change for potholes. 

Time for renewal

We have more to work with than our despair allows: a constitutional settlement, substantial infrastructure, sophisticated industries, universities, civil society, professional expertise and citizens who have repeatedly defended democratic accountability. 

The question is whether we can mobilise these assets around a renewed public purpose.

In the end, success depends on whether, as Hobbes argued, the state secures order and, as Mill showed, it preserves freedom while providing welfare, as Webb proposed, and if it can harness the animal spirits of the market, as Friedman firmly believed. South Africa must now answer all four questions at once, and our failure to do the latter is putting the first, second and third at risk. 

The true measure of our democratic experiment is not how much power it commands or money it spends through state coffers, but whether ordinary people experience it as a trustworthy instrument of safety, dignity and opportunity. We have built a legitimate democratic state. The urgent task now is to make it worthy of that legitimacy, through effectiveness. DM