Civil Society and Democracy in Post-apartheid South Africa

Revision with unchanged content. Since the transition to democracy, the South African government s response to the crisis of AIDS has been subject to much public debate and controversy. Of particular interest are the events surrounding the government s initial decision to delay the implementation of an HIV-medications rollout program in South Africa. It was during this period that the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) established itself as a prominent AIDS activist organisation, and successfully pressured the government to reform its litigious HIV treatment policy. In this study the TAC s success is selected as a case and examined from the following thematic departures: - A discussion of the theoretical strengths of a popular-democratic perspective of civil society. - An overview of AIDS discourse, activism, and expertification. - The strategies used by the TAC to enable the participation of its membership (and HIV-positive patients) in key AIDS issues. - And, the political capacity for the continuation of AIDS-related participation in a post-TAC society. This book is addressed to students, academics and researchers in the social sciences that are interested in the political and social affairs of HIV/AIDS.

Autorentext

Associate of the Department of Sociology, University of Pretoria, South Africa.