Abstract
D.Phil.
Civil society organisations have and will be mentioned as partners, agents and
autochthonous actors of social security. This has come about through advances in
insurance products, through the kinds of social action engaged in by civil society
organisations, and through the devolution of state power to citizens and civil society
organisations. Rights to social security are decisively affected by the use of civil society
organisations in the social policy field, and the implications of this use are investigated.
This reality of the changing nature of social action needs to be brought to bear on human
rights, if rights are to respond adequately to the concerns of injustice, inequality and
poverty today. The thesis develops a framework within which civil society-based action
could be made rights-based and justiciable, and which could guard against the
retrogressive substitution of state action by civil society-based activity.
Civil society-based action can be seen as upholding rights if it conforms to the
fundamental requirements of human rights. These fundamental requirements derive from
a performative conception of rights that sees the individual as subject of rights and as the
fundamental actor of rights. This view of rights sees rights as dependent on the abilities
and volition of all in society, and is presented as an alternative to a realist view of rights,
as well as a view of rights as derived from basic human functionings. The intersection of
this view of rights, the reality of non-state action for rights, and the legal discourse
around socio-economic rights is the central problem that this thesis addresses. The legal
discourse has only partially recognised this form of social action, and this thesis proposes
a framework within which we may interpret and assess whether civil society action is
indeed conducive to the realisation of rights. This framework includes democratic norms
for conduct inside civil society organisations, for the interaction between civil society
organisations and other actors, like the state and market, and also delineates the role of
the court in this performative conception of rights. These interactions will shape the content, and nature of socio-economic rights, and here these insights are made applicable
to the right to have access to social security in South Africa.
The thesis discusses the suitability of South African civil society for this normative
programme developed here. I analyse South African civil society, its historical role in
transformation, in the current context, and its place in social and economic policy. There
are ample opportunities for participation by civil society organisations in the further
reform of the social security system. The realisation of novel ways to realise the right to
have access to social security through civil society organisations for South Africans
would depend on clarity on how civil society organisations could contribute to the
enjoyment, realisation and performance of this right.
The framework of accountability developed here has precedents and roots in law, civil
society theory and in the discourse of social security. I analyse each, and I show how the
social security discourse has incorporated civil society organisations in its historical
development. Currently, it is a leading avenue for the further development of this
discourse. However, this possibility – which intersects with the discourse of civil society
– would depend on civil society being able to realise normative ends in its interaction
with wider society. To gain clarity on this I analyse the civil society discourse, and
critically point out problems that could stand in the way of this normative project.
However, theorists of civil society have emphasised how this problem can be overcome; I
draw on these writings to substantiate and legitimate the framework of accountability
developed earlier. The realisation of this framework of accountability and action would
enable civil society organisations to realise normative ends in society, and thus contribute
to the realisation of rights. This vision of how rights could be realised is also discussed
from a legal point of view, and I point out the features of the legal discourse that would
support my thesis. The central objective of the thesis is to show that the South African
constitution can support this reading of rights and the place of civil society action in its
realisation.