The social contract and struggles for recognition in South Africa water services

Abstract

The social contract and struggles for recognition in South African water services is a truly political topic. It involves the disempowered on a quest for recognition, and this study presents a new logic to think of the state institutions responsible for water services as disempowered due to the financial limitations that impede service delivery and its extension to the unserved. Therefore, disempowerment is not an experience of individuals or communities alone. This study is based on the research problem that the breach of the social contract justifies struggles for recognition due to people’s perceptions of the state’s non-response to violations of their human dignity and demands for redress. The incidents that explain the problem statement include the fact that no one wants to take responsibility for failing water services. The state blames the people for non-payment of services charges, while the people blame the government for corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies that have let to collapsing water services. Therefore, there is a collective denial of risk and passing culpability off onto individuals in cases of service delivery failure. There is a widespread lack of access to water for residents in rural areas and water cut-offs are becoming a concern in urban areas as taps run dry. Municipalities are also in a debt trap, defaulting on their bulk water and electricity payments, which further undermine their ability to supply basic services. Water demand is on the increase while unaccounted for water remains a serious challenge, exacerbated by decaying infrastructure and endemic cheating. The institutional design of water services is top-down and bears inherent characteristics of people’s dependency. People resort to bottom-up initiatives to provide water for themselves, but this according to the law, is illegal. The study proposes a transition from reliance on unilateral technical interventions, to prioritising the intellectual or spiritual integrity of affected communities in water services. This shift from old centralised technical (state-centric) management practices to new and more externalised practices (multipolar new institutionalism) can facilitate collaboration at the core of water services. This balance is possible through adherence to norms that promote mutual advantage. Using the social contract theory, this study calls for moral and political obligations among residents from the society in which they live. This is a call for a water honouring culture vii as people realise that their inner worth (human dignity) is at stake if water services collapse due to lack of cooperation under the statist approach of water governance. Water is an object that demonstrates the evolution of South Africa’s political community from the state of nature (apartheid) to civil society (democracy). The practical relevance of the social contract theory as an analytical tool explains struggles for recognition due to the unmet expectations of access to water under a democratic dispensation. Thus, dyadic (institutional and interpersonal) contractarian relations shape the state of South Africa’s water services now and in the future. A collective qualitative case study design allows inductive reasoning about the social contract breach and struggles for recognition and suggests a new multipolar collaboration for water security. Focusing on macro analysis of water service institutions’ performance and challenges in the administration of water services, the study includes the meso level of groups or communities in their struggles to claim the right to water services. And further to the micro level of people’s perceptions of the impact the standard of water service has on their bodily and psychological integrity. From the methodology perspective, the study argues that the water crisis resembles the state of nature and could signify a failing state.