Democracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. What is less obvious is that the sources of the democratic rot are integral to the systemic crisis generated by neoliberal capitalism, which assigns economic metrics to all aspects of life. In other words, the crisis of democracy is the political crisis of neoliberal capitalism. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens.

Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy.

Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global global South and global North.

South Africa has become a nation defined by its protests. Protests can, and do, bring societal problems to public attention in direct, at times dramatic, ways. But governments the world over are also tempted to suppress this right, as they often feel threatened by public challenges to their authority. Apartheid South Africa had a shameful history of repressing protests. The architects of the country's democracy expressed a determination to break with this past and recognise protest as a basic democratic right. Yet, today, there is concern about the violent nature of protests.

Protest Nation challenges the dominant narrative that it has become necessary for the state to step in to limit the right to protest in the broader public interest because media and official representations have created a public perception that violence has become endemic to protests. Bringing together data gathered from municipalities, the police, protestor and activist interviews, as well as media reports, the book analyses the extent to which the right to protest is respected in democratic South Africa. It throws a spotlight on the municipal role in enabling or mostly thwarting the right.

This book is a call to action to defend the right to protest: a right that is clearly under threat. It also urges South Africans to critique the often-skewed public discourses that inform debates about protests and their limitations.

In 2013, former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents revealing that state agencies like the NSA had spied on the communications of millions of innocent citizens. International outrage resulted, but the Snowden documents revealed only the tip of the surveillance iceberg. Apart from insisting on their rights to tap into communications, more and more states are placing citizens under surveillance, tracking their movements and transactions with public and private institutions. The state is becoming like a one-way mirror, where it can see more of what its citizens do and say, while citizens see less and less of what the state does, owing to high levels of secrecy around surveillance.

In this book, Jane Duncan assesses the relevance of Snowden’s revelations for South Africa. In doing so she questions the extent to which South Africa is becoming a surveillance society governed by a surveillance state. Duncan challenges members of civil society to be concerned about and to act on the ever-expanding surveillance capacities of the South African state. Is surveillance used for the democratic purpose of making people safer, or is it being used for the repressive purpose of social control, especially of those considered to be politically threatening to ruling interests? She explores the forms of collective action needed to ensure that unaccountable surveillance does not take place and examines what does and does not work when it comes to developing organised responses.

This book is aimed at South African citizens, academics as well as the general reader, who care about our democracy and the direction it is taking.

In spite of Edward Snowden’s disclosures about government abuses of dragnet communication surveillance, the surveillance industry continues to expand around the world. Many people have become resigned to a world where they cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The author looks at what can be done to rein in these powers and restructure how they are used beyond the limited and often ineffective reforms that have been attempted. Using southern Africa as a backdrop, and its liberation history, Jane Duncan examines what an anti-capitalist perspective on intelligence and security powers could look like. Are the police and intelligence agencies even needed, and if so, what should they do and why? What lessons can be learnt from how security was organised during the struggles for liberation in the region? Southern Africa is seeing thousands of people in the region taking to the streets in protests. In response, governments are scrambling to acquire surveillance technologies to monitor these new protest movements. Southern Africa faces no major terrorism threats at the moment, which should make it easier to develop clearer anti-surveillance campaigns than in Europe or the US. Yet, because of tactical and strategic ambivalence about security powers, movements often engage in limited calls for intelligence and policing reforms, and fail to provide an alternative vision for policing and intelligence. Surveillance and Intelligence in Southern Africa examines what that vision could look like.

The South African government stands accused of having fallen under the sway of the securocrats. Who, or what, are they? Securocrats are officials located in the security establishment - the police, intelligence services or the military - that have the power to influence government policy in their favour. When securocrats come to dominate government decision-making, the democratic life of a country can be threatened. This is because they can arrogate to themselves the power to subvert democratic processes to entrench their own power or the power of their favoured leader(s), and use the armed might of the state to suppress opponents of their political project. According to author and researcher, Paul Holden, the ANC has become dominated increasingly by the 'securocrats and fat cats' who have politicised the state, including the security services, to advantage Zuma and those around him. Holden is not the only person to say this. The ministry of state security's introduction of the Protection of state information bill - a controversial Bill giving the security cluster and possibly other state institutions the power to classify information in an overbroad manner, and that is otherwise known as the Secrecy bill - has intensified perceptions that the securocrats are on the rise in South Africa. This is because the Bill has been driven by that Ministry in the main. In The rise of the securocrats Professor Duncan throws a spot- light on the hidden corners, murky bureaucracies and power grab that is currently underway. It is a much needed book.

For nearly ten years - indeed more if we include his period of influence under Mandela's presidency - Thabo Mbeki bestrode South Africa's political stage. Despite attempts by some in the new ANC leadership to airbrush out his role, there can be little doubt that Mbeki was a seminal figure in South Africa's new democracy, one who left a huge mark in many fields, perhaps most controversially in state and party management, economic policy, public health intervention, foreign affairs and race relations. If we wish to understand the character and fate of post-1994 South Africa, we must therefore ask: What kind of political system, economy and society has the former President bequeathed to the government of Jacob Zuma and to the citizens of South Africa generally? This question is addressed head-on here by a diverse range of analysts, commentators and participants in the political process. Amongst the specific questions they seek to answer: What is Mbeki's legacy for patterns of inclusion and exclusion based on race, class and gender? How, if at all, did his presidency reshape relations within the state, between the state and the ruling party and between the state and society? How did he reposition South Africa on the continent and in the world? This book will be of interest to anyone wishing to understand the current political landscape in South Africa, and Mbeki's role in shaping it.

In spite of Edward Snowden's disclosures about government abuses of dragnet communication surveillance, the surveillance industry continues to expand around the world. Many people have become resigned to a world where they cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The author looks at what can be done to rein in these powers and restructure how they are used beyond the limited and often ineffective reforms that have been attempted. Using southern Africa as a backdrop, and its liberation history, Jane Duncan examines what an anti-capitalist perspective on intelligence and security powers could look like. Are the police and intelligence agencies even needed, and if so, what should they do and why? What lessons can be learnt from how security was organised during the struggles for liberation in the region? Southern Africa is seeing thousands of people in the region taking to the streets in protests. In response, governments are scrambling to acquire surveillance technologies to monitor these new protest movements. Southern Africa faces no major terrorism threats at the moment, which should make it easier to develop clearer anti-surveillance campaigns than in Europe or the US. Yet, because of tactical and strategic ambivalence about security powers, movements often engage in limited calls for intelligence and policing reforms, and fail to provide an alternative vision for policing and intelligence. Surveillance and Intelligence in Southern Africa examines what that vision could look like.

A compassionate, practical guide to end-of-life matters, empowering us to clarify and share our wishes and continue to live life to the fullest. Many people say “I wish I had known what they wanted� when their loved one has died. Too often, a person’s wishes for end-of-life care, and for after they have gone, have not been recorded. With this valuable guide, you can now begin to do this for yourself, so your relatives will be able to honor your wishes more easily, saving them unnecessary stress and upset at a potentially intense time. Before I Go addresses the emotional, spiritual, and practical aspects of end-of-life planning to help you make well-informed decisions about your end-of-life care and prepare well for your death. Jane Duncan Rogers guides you with equanimity, care, and humor through subjects such as how to have a conversation about dying, the impact of grief on relatives responsible for estate matters, DIY funerals and what that entails. She states clearly what you need to have in place to ensure the best end of life possible, helps you identify your values and beliefs in this area, and demonstrates which actions you then need to take, and when. With a full resource pack of essential information available to you, including guiding questions, exercises, and recording tools, as well as downloadable worksheets and supportive online courses, decision-making will be much easier and you will find relief and peace of mind knowing you have taken care of outstanding matters. You will also be giving a great gift to your loved ones. When they have this information in advance, you spare them many difficult decisions and administrative hassle at a time when they will be grieving and not in a fit state to cope. It can bring great comfort to those left behind to know they are indeed carrying out your wishes. It also provides an opportunity for you to record your achievements and history, giving them a legacy they would otherwise not have.  

The fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe brought about major socio-political changes towards the end of the 20th century. Dennis Barnett and Arthur Skelton explore the effects these changes had on theatre and performance in Russia, the former Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia, while drawing clear parallels with theatre globally. This fascinating collection of articles describes the various factors contributing to the changes in theatrical performance, including the important move from government control to a capitalist, market-driven environment. The idea of art as business and a consumer product vs. art as a social prerogative or means for national dialogue is a common thread throughout the articles, many of which also look at the role of censorship during the communist era. This collection includes updated reports on vital cultural institutions such as the Moscow Art Theatre, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Sarajevo International Theatre Festival (MESS), and the Hungarian National Theatre Festival at Pecs. Also, a number of important theatre practitioners, directors, and playwrights, such as Boris Eifman, Du?an Kovacevic, Slobodan ?najder, Arpad Goncz, and Yordan Radichkov, are introduced to the Western reader. Organized according to country, the book presents both an inclusive and general overview of the subject-as well as specific in-depth examinations of the situations in each country-and includes a broad variety of perspectives: from native scholars to outside researchers, from personal memoirs to academic inquiries. The volume concludes with a bibliography, an index, and five informative appendixes listing works of some of the artists and companies discussed.