The political-administrative dichotomy in coalition-led Metropolitan municipalities: a South African perspective

Abstract

The discipline of Public Administration has long grappled with the issue of the political administrative dichotomy. A lopsided binary and categorical approach to political and administrative relationships appears to have been unable to reveal the complexity and multifaceted contextual nature of most contemporary coalition-led governments. As a result, academics and practitioners alike have debated the normative and empirical design for arranging effective and efficient relationships between politicians and administrators in state institutions, particularly when those relationships are complex and coalition-led. For example, South Africa is gradually moving towards coalition politics in a multiparty democracy in local government. However, the political-administrative discourse is unable to account for coalition politics in most of South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities. More importantly, political and administrative instability has become common in most of South Africa’s coalition-led metropolitan municipalities. This study transcended the dichotomous design by focusing on the lived experiences of political office bearers in the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and administrative officials from the South African Local Government Association (SALGA). It thus offers a multifaceted contextual account of how coalition governments affect political administrative relationships in the CoJ Metropolitan Municipality. This study aimed to devise an enhanced contextualised South African coalition-led framework towards an effective and efficient political-administrative dichotomy in the CoJ Metropolitan Municipality.

Several scholars (Thornhill, 2005; Svara, 2006; and Cedras, 2021) indicated the need to rethink or reconsider the explanatory value of the political-administrative dichotomy in the contemporary epoch. In other words, complex contemporary government arrangements necessitate complex conceptual formulations capable of explaining more nuanced descriptions of the political-administrative dichotomy in coalition-led metropolitan municipalities. Instead of devising a purely “local design” or focusing only on the South African context, this study drew comparative international literature and empirical data. Subsequently, this study incorporated empirical perspectives from developed and developing countries on how coalition-led governments affect the effectiveness and efficiency of political and administrative relationships in state institutions.

This study adopted the qualitative research approach and a case study design situated within the interpretive research paradigm. The study utilised qualitative data collection instruments (e.g., document literature reviews and semi-structured individual interviews). The DEDOOSE qualitative software programme was used to analyse the data.

Literature on Coalition Theory in Political Science and the political-administrative dichotomy discourse in Public Administration is yet to be combined in a single study. Clearly, complex coalition-led political-administrative relationships demand a framework with multiple approaches. This study amended age-old theories on the political-administrative dichotomy, offering new interpretations for devising a multiple-approach framework that recognises formal and informal relationships for streamlining complex coalition-led political-administrative relationships in South Africa’s coalition-led metropolitan municipalities. The multiple comparative lenses employed to explore the utility of the political-administrative dichotomy in coalition-led governments revealed the necessity to follow a multifaceted, comparative and contextualised approach to contemporary coalition-led municipal governments and governance. Mono-theoretical and discipline-specific approaches to this dilemma cannot improve one’s understanding beyond classical assumptions and restrictions. In the context of the CoJ Metropolitan Municipality, the findings highlighted the dynamic and interchangeable nature of the political-administrative interface in coalition-led municipal governments. It particularly identified the intersectionality of coalition politics and the institutional domain of the political-administrative interface.

The participants’ lived experiences revealed significant cross-cutting lessons for uncovering the nexus between the political-administrative dichotomy and coalition-led governments in developed and developing countries. Thus, the empirical differences and similarities across and within developed and developing countries’ realpolitik and administrative realities are crucial for gaining new insight into the political-administrative dichotomy in coalition-led municipal governments. The CoJ Metropolitan Municipality has experienced some of the most short-lived coalition-led municipal governments. Thus, poorly constituted coalition governments in the CoJ Metropolitan Municipality have resulted in administrative and service delivery paralysis. In order to mitigate coalition-led municipal government turnover and instability, the empirical data revealed the significance of pre- and post-coalition discussions and the need to design comprehensive and in-depth coalition agreements.

This study significantly contributed to the discipline of Public Administration. First, as far as could be established, this was the first South African study that cross-fertilised the political administrative dichotomy theoretical discourse with theoretical contributions from Political Science, specifically Coalition Theory. Thus, it is a novel contribution, expanding the theory of the political-administrative dichotomy beyond the locus and focus of Public Administration (e.g., public organisational domain), subsequently drawing from the non-institutional domain of Coalition Theory. Second, this study significantly contributed to how a lack of local government legislation on coalition-led municipalities affects the political-administrative dichotomy. As a result, this study made a rare empirical contribution to the contemporary discourse on the possible role, if any, legislation can play in regulating coalition-led municipalities. Lastly, this study significantly contributed to an alternative contextual coalition-led framework towards a functioning political-administrative dichotomy in the CoJ. Although this study was confined to local government and the CoJ, it holds valuable lessons for the 2024 national coalition-led government (i.e., Government of National Unity). As a result, this study proposes a novel political-administrative polychotomous framework towards a functioning political-administrative dichotomy in the CoJ.