Is South Africa heading towards authoritarian rule? Instability myths and expectations traps in a new democracy

Political analysts are ambivalent about leadership in new democracies. Such states need powerful leaders to establish fresh economic and political institutions, to deflect the demands of interest groups and activists, and to build consensus out of the inevitable conflict of transition. At the same time, however, weak constitutional forms and feeble countervailing forces make personal power dangerous. This article argues that ill-founded assumptions of inherent social instability and weak political accountability in South Africa have turned such ambivalence into an expectations trap that threatens the consolidation of democracy.