On the international stage, South Africa is often viewed as the gateway to Africa. The country is a relatively stable democracy with a sophisticated financial services industry that attracts global investment, making it an economic powerhouse in the re …

The 2021 South African Reconciliation Barometer (SARB), a nationally representative public-opinion survey conducted regularly by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), aims to provide a measure of several aspects of public opinion. The fir …

In anticipation of South Africa’s annual State of the Nation Address (SoNA), this document contains an assessment by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) of some of the key questions that will be facing the country in 2022. This is based …

In July 2021, as South Africa grappled with a third wave of COVID-19 infections, widespread looting and rioting erupted in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the two most populous provinces. The riots damaged businesses, public buildings, and key infrastructur …

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in South Africa was identified on 5 March 2020. Since then, the country has recorded more than 2.3million cases and at least 70,018 deaths related to the disease, although the real death toll could be more than twic …

South Africa has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 1 million cases have been recorded, millions more have lost their livelihoods, and tens of thousands of people have succumbed to the disease. Scientific consensus suggests that vaccination …

In anticipation of the State of the Nation Address (SONA), the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) has produced this succinct policy brief assessing where we are as a nation and the opportunities that we can leverage in the interest of stren …

Nearly a generation has passed since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. At this stage, how healthy is the country’s democracy? Since the proliferation of electoral democracy in Africa in the 1990s, some critics have argued that liberal …

In South Africa, “social grants” providing income support to poor households have a long history. More than 17 million citizens, almost one-third of the population, receive a cash transfer from the state each month. The largest social grant programs ar …

Where do South Africans get their news and do they believe it to be trustworthy? This question takes on even greater significance in the context of a national lockdown to limit the spread of COVID-19. This policy brief, using insights from the 2019 Sou …

In his first State of the Nation Address, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (2018) announced “a new dawn” signaling the end of “all the negativity that has dogged our country,” including perceptions of widespread corruption under his predecessor, …

Access to land is a contentious issue in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, a legacy of colonialism and accompanying dispossession. While neighbouring South Africa has moved toward expropriation without compensation, Namibia’s debate has highlighted the …

Acknowledging that interactions between South Africans from various backgrounds extend beyond contact, but also take place within a historical and contemporary context, this report consists of several parts. Firstly, it explores the changing nature of …

This paper has broadly explored four important aspects of land reform in South Africa, with a view to informing the present land debate with public opinion data from the SARB surveys. Firstly, by providing a historical overview of land and property rel …

After a tense election period, a government crackdown on opposition supporters, and months of uncertainty, the leaders of Kenya’s two major political coalitions came together in March to announce an end to their bitter fight (Wanga, 2018). With their “ …