The political economy of mobile telephony in South Africa: MTN, Vodacom and the state

Abstract

The idea for this book began with my graduate studies when I realized the level of power mobile telephony companies wield in the Global South. At the time, many scholars and commentators focused on how these companies were a proxy for the newly democratic South Africa in their quest to build new relationships across the continent. Yet my research found the relationship between mobile telephony companies and the state – particularly in South Africa – is an intricate web of relations and interests. The first iteration of this book began as my doctoral research. I asked whether or not mobile telephony network operators (MNOs) were an instrument of South Africa’s foreign economic policy on the African continent. This book builds on this research and considers the power of mobile telephony companies in two contexts: as a transformational agent and how companies become embedded in foreign policy.