Page 8 - 2018 UCT Catalogue

6
new titles
2016
178 pages
Soft cover
Print: 978 1 77582 215 8
Web pdf: 978 1 48511 568 7 World rights available
R268.00
$26.95
£16.95
BISAC: HIS047000, HIS037070, POL053000, POL023000
BIC: HBJH, HBLW, HBTK, KCP
Eskom
Electricity and technopolitics in South Africa
A Dubresson & S Jaglin
Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, the largest company generating electricity in Africa, is a public utility, vertically integrated and wholly owned by the South African state. Forced to implement load shedding in 2008 and then in 2014-2015, this national champion is said to be close to technical and nancial disaster. In this book the authors attempt to understand how and why an emblem of South African state capitalism is today in distress.
The authors argue that the origins of this crisis are to be found in the power relationship between the state before, during and after apartheid, and Eskom, born as a commission in 1923, corporatised in 1987 and transformed into a public enterprise in 2001. The technical failures of Eskom’s power supply network aside, the techno-political regime of Eskom and its neopatrimonialism have reached their limit. Eskom has become a powerful tool of the Black Economic Empowerment process, facilitating the redistribution of pro ts generated by the rentier coal economy to political elites. But the weakening of its technical system shakes the whole political edi ce. Ine cient, its nances increasingly under scrutiny, this public enterprise and its continued existence as a monopolistic public utility is once again a matter of debate.
Recommended for
A general readership interested in the evolving status of Eskom; scholars interested in South African Politics and Political Economy.
About the authors
Alain Dubresson, Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense, has published several books on African urban development and infrastructure, in particular about South Africa. Sylvy Jaglin, Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Paris-Est Marne-La Vallée, has also written book chapters on urban governance in Africa and South Africa in particular.