Crafting dominance: political power and the marketing of the African National Congress

Abstract

Recent analyses of the continued dominance of the African National Congress (ANC) have centred on its organizational, electoral, governmental and popular bases of power. This paper extends this analysis by arguing that the ANC derives significant political power through its political communications, and particularly its political marketing. Through the lens of the latter, it examines the ANC's strategic political behaviour over time. It extends its analytical purview beyond election campaigns to include the process of creating the symbolic bases of the South African state through the discursive continuity of economic policy. This paper roots the ANC's political marketing within a wider historical, cultural, representational and political setting. It demonstrates the recursive practices and effects of the ANC's communications and the deep entanglement of politics with marketing. This paper makes an initial contribution to reconceptualizing the bases of the ANC's political dominance and sheds light on an understudied aspect of its political and cultural orientation.