Shadow State

The 2017 publication of Betrayal of the Promise, the report that detailed the systematic nature of state capture, marked a key moment in South Africa's most recent struggle for democracy. In the face of growing evidence of corruption and of the weakening of state and democratic institutions, it provided a powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance within the Tripartite Alliance and across civil society. Working often secretly, the authors consolidated large amounts of evidence from a variety of sources. They showed that the Jacob Zuma administration was not simply a criminal network but part of an audacious political project to break the hold of white business on the economy and to create a new class of black industrialists. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet were central to these plans.Shadow State is an updated version of the original, explosive report that changed South Africa s recent history. It introduces a whole new language to discuss state capture, showing how SOEs were repurposed , how political power was shifting away from constitutional bodies to kitchen cabinets , and how a shadow state at odds with the country s constitutional framework was being built.