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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

It was a long journey from the West Indies to Scotland - but Janet's holiday turned out to be unforgettable . . . It was a wrench for Janet to leave her husband behind-but Twice's heart condition did not permit him to leave the West Indies. So she set off to Scotland without him, to spend a holiday with her family-her brother Jock, his wife and their three lively children, Liz, Duncan and George. Having to take their mother's place while she is in hospital, Janet finds the Hungry Generation almost too much for her . . . but stories of her childhood at Reachfar prove the first step towards a surprising alliance . . .

'She was very small with fragile birdlike bones, and although she had slept in the white shirt and shorts she still looked fresh and airy, as if she had just flown in from the open sky . . . ' When Janet Sandison returns to her Caribbean home from a holiday in Scotland she finds her husband Twice Alexander wonderfully restored to his old self, full of hope for the future and no longer haunted by the illness which had shadowed their lives for several years. Sir Ian has made him Manager of the Paradise sugar mills, with gawky young Mackie as his assistant; but Janet senses that almost the main contribution to his recovery is the arrival on the island of a girl who is keeping house for a team of young social workers, whom the island has nicknamed the 'Teeth and Feet people'. For Twice this is the daughter he has never had, but for Janet the relationship is more complicated. The girl has flown into Janet's house and Twice's heart but seems somehow always ready to take wing again, like the swallows of Janet's beloved childhood home, Reachfar. This is a wise story of ends and beginnings, for the lives of not only Janet and her husband but of all their friends in St Jago and in Scotland are moving on, changing and developing in a way which holds sadness and fortitude, gaiety and love, all woven together with that mixture of humour, hard sense and understanding which make Jane Duncan's novels such engrossing reading.

My Friend Annie takes the reader back into Janet Sandison's childhood. It opens as the death of her mother shatters the bliss of her Highland home. Janet migrates with her father to grimy, lowland Cairnton, where she meets the hateful and stupid Jean, soon, alas, to be her step-mother-and pretty Annie Black. Years of unhappiness are relieved by holidays among the unchanging loveliness of Reachfar. But while at school, Janet finds out about Annie's profession-a discovery that troubles her strong sense of right and wrong.

'One wants to believe that everything lasts for ever, but it doesn't,' said Twice. 'One has to move on . . .' Janet and her husband 'Twice' Alexander are on a homeleave visit from St. Jago in the Caribbean. Motoring down from Reachfar to Crookmill, the house they made for themselves out of a string of ruined cottages, the most human of married couples in fiction realise that, with the pattern of their lives changing, a hard decision must be made involving two of their dearest 'Friends'. But fate intervenes in the person of the exotic clairvoyant, Madame Zora, and nothing is quite the same again . . .

'I think you are forgetting one thing, Twice,' I said. 'You seem to forget that my home is where you are.' Janet is unhappy in St Jago. Although Twice Alexander is now convalescing from his serious illness, the strain of the past year has caused an emotional rift between them-and Reachfar, her beloved childhood home, is sold. Friends from Cairnton, past and present, unknowingly provide the help she needs. The rich, pathetic Lady Hallinzeil arrives with Mrs Drew, her malignant companion; and later come those beloved friends of Janet's schooldays, Violetta Cervi and Kathleen Malone-now a famous singer. When these memorable characters leave, Janet and Twice are able to face their new life together with hope and understanding.

It was a long journey from the West Indies to Scotland - but Janet's holiday turned out to be unforgettable . . . It was a wrench for Janet to leave her husband behind-but Twice's heart condition did not permit him to leave the West Indies. So she set off to Scotland without him, to spend a holiday with her family-her brother Jock, his wife and their three lively children, Liz, Duncan and George. Having to take their mother's place while she is in hospital, Janet finds the Hungry Generation almost too much for her . . . but stories of her childhood at Reachfar prove the first step towards a surprising alliance . . .

When the problem-child Dee Andrews runs away from her Knightsbridge home to see her father in his City office, she starts a chain of events which involve Janet Sandison in the life and loves of her step-mother Rose. The beautiful tawny-gold Rose; the cold-creamed Rose in her fantastically-ornate bedroom; the vulgarly 'frank' Rose who regales Janet with the intimate details of her love affair with such relish . . . Yet for all her brashness, Rose exerts a curious charm which makes this one of the most engrossing of all the warmly human and popular stories about Janet Sandison and her engaging 'Friends'.

'Since I lost the baby, you and I have been so close together that we have been almost a single person' Janet Alexander returning by sea to the Caribbean with her husband 'Twice' finds their domestic harmony threatened by the emotional problems of the two young people aboard. Ashore at St Jago the shipboard characters find themselves at the centre of a fast-thickening plot, with Friends old and new joining in against the colourful background of Carnival and sugar-harvest, regattas and plantation life. And on land or sea is Cousin Emmie herself, dominating the scene in her shapeless dresses with her voracious appetite and her uncanny ability to get at the heart of a problem.

'From the rail I looked down at Sashie's upturned face and the brilliant, early tropical sunlight made me think of the lights upon the stage of a theatre long ago . . .' With these thoughts Janet Sandison says goodbye to the West Indian island that has been her home for many years, for her husband Twice has died, the great house where old Madame Dulac held court for so long is to be sold, changes are coming to the island, and Janet herself is setting out on a new and adventurous life. That she is doing so is due in no small measure to her friend Sashie, the ex-RAF pilot who walks on 'tin legs' and whose tender, sensitive friendship has drawn Janet from the dark limbo of desolation into which her husband's death had plunged her. The flamboyant Sashie is a brilliant and subtle character, as readers of Jane Duncan's previous 'Friends' books know; and in this story of Janet's move to a new life he is revealed with all the perception and clear-sightedness that make Jane Duncan so compelling a story-teller.

After her husband's death and her own breakdown, from which she has been rescued by her good friend Sashie, Janet Sandison sets sail from her West Indian home to return to Scotland and make a new life for herself as an author. She is beset by doubts, but as the days pass aboard R.M.S. Mnemosyne the personalities and dramas of her fellow passengers claim her attention more and more, not least of all the puckish child Helga, and the three elephantine sisters, the Misses Kindness, whose mission in life is to make everyone as much like themselves as possible. Behind their backs they are soon nicknamed 'The Friendly Ones' for, like the Furies of Greek mythology, they must be placated as well as, if possible, avoided. There are other Furies aboard too, for each passenger has his or her private interior demon; but in the young Second Engineer Janet finds an unexpected and rewarding friend, and as the ship draws near to England the threads of all their lives dramatically come together for a while. The deep vein of truth that underlies all Jane Duncan's books is here at its most impressive and, together with her sharp observation of human nature and her story-telling skill, make this one of her most compelling novels.

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.

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.

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.