Mining Corporations, Democratic Meddling, and Environmental Justice in South Africa

REVIEWER 1 - Comment

Author Response

The   methodology has been nicely written but can the author(s) provide a brief   justification why those cases (communities) were chosen?

Done,   please refer to the methodology where this has been clarified (i.e.  These specific study sites were chosen due   to a lack of academic research conducted on mining development in these   areas. Whilst limited research has been conducted in well-known sites such as   Marikana due to political upheaval and the killing of mining workers by state   police (see for example Marinovich 2016; Hill and Maroun 2015) this paper   focuses on the lesser well known microsites that also deserve attention.)

The author(s) discusses democracy and   how it has not assisted South Africa to protect the environment and locals   from the mining companies due to a seeming alliance between the national   elites, local leaders and the transnational companies. This paper will be   enriched if the author(s) discusses, (at least have a paragraph or so) on   political settlement and how this shape resource use and development, even in   democratic setting.

For instance, di John and Putzel   (2009, p.4) defined political settlement as the balance or distribution of   power between contending social groups and social classes…’. It involves   establishing a dominant political order and trying to persuade other competing   political interests to accept the dominant view either through co-option,   forced/suppression or elimination. Political settlements – that is, processes   of intra-elite bargaining and negotiation (Desai and Woolcock 2012). Driven   from a political economy perspective, the political settlements approach   offers a strong focus on the role that capitalism and political organisations   play in shaping development processes and outcomes (Hickey 2013, p. 6 – 7).

This list of references might help.

Hickey, Sam (2013). Thinking about the   politics of inclusive development: towards a relational approach. ESID   Working Paper No. 1, University of Manchester.

Desai, D. and Woolcock, M. (2012). The   Politics of Rule of Law Systems in Developmental States: ‘Political Settlements’   as a Basis for Promoting Effective Justice Institutions for Marginalized   Groups. ESID Working Paper No. 8, University of Manchester.

Di   John, J. and Putzel, J. (2009). ‘Political Settlements: Issues Paper’.   Governance and Social Development Resource Centre, University of Birmingham,   June 2009.

Literature on   political settlement and linked to democracy has been added. Refer to last   paragraph under section:  Democracy and political settlement   epistemologies

The   following references have also been added:

Behuria, Pritish, Buur Lars and Gray Hazel. 2017.   Studying political settlements in Africa. African   Affairs 116(464):508-525

Desai, Deval and Woolcock, Michael.   2012. The Politics of Rule of Law   Systems in Developmental States: ‘Political Settlements’ as a Basis for   Promoting Effective Justice Institutions for Marginalized Groups. ESID   Working Paper No. 8, University of Manchester. Available online: http://www.effective-states.org/wp-content/uploads/working_papers/final-pdfs/esid_wp_08_desai-woolcock.pdf. (accessed 21 November   2018) 

Di John, Jonathan and   Putzel, James. 2009. ‘Political   Settlements: Issues Paper’. Governance and Social Development Resource   Centre, University of Birmingham, June 2009. Available online: http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/645/1/EIRS7.pdf.   (accessed 21 November 2018).

Hickey, Sam. 2013. Thinking about the politics of inclusive   development: towards a relational approach. ESID Working Paper No. 1,   University of Manchester. Available online: http://www.effective-states.org/wp-content/uploads/working_papers/final-pdfs/esid_wp_01_hickey.pdf. (accessed 21 November   2018).

Kelsall, Tim. 2016. Thinking and working with political   settlements. Overseas Development Institute Briefing, January 2016.   Available online: https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/10185.pdf. (accessed 22 November   2018)

Menocal, Alina. 2015. Inclusive political settlements:   evidence, gaps, and challengers of institutional transformation, Governance   and Social Development Resource Centre, University of Birmingham, June 2015,   Available online: http://publications.dlprog.org/ARM_PoliticalSettlements.pdf.   (accessed 21 November 2018).

Need to improve the general language   of the paper.

Some few specifics are highlighted   (red highlights are missing)

1. Line 90 - Within the above context,   this paper is interested in the extent that mining corporations …

2. Lines 94-5 - As ‘Full Disclosure’   reports (2015 and 2016) conducted by the Centre for Environmental Rights   (CER), a public interest law group, ….

3. Lines 94 – 100 is too long and   complex. It can be broken down to make reading simpler.

The   suggested changes have been undertaken and the paper edited.

The   author(s) will help the readers by interpreting the some of the issues   discussed in the literature or theoretical section in the analysis and   discussions to see where the paper aligns or departs from other studies

Done   – the author has now made stronger links the theoretical section with the   analysis and discussion. Please refer to these sections.

There is little connection between the interview   findings, which are presented as long quotations about specific issues at the   'micro' level, and the general analysis of mining in South Africa at the   'macro' level. More conceptual work and structuring the article is needed to   tie the empirical findings together with the literature review and   conclusions

More stronger links   are made between the empirical findings and the literature review. However,   the author initially decided to keep the broader debates and linkages between   findings and the macro-level connection in the conclusion and discussion   section.  

The conclusions   presented do made links with the literature and with the general analysis of   mining in South Africa.

The empirical/interview-based section as it is based   on a very little number of interviews, which are, in addition, realised with   anti-mining persons only. This is, in my opinion, the main limitation of the   paper.

Unfortunately, the   author tried to secure interviews with mining and government personnel but   this proved fruitless. This challenge is reported on and such challengers are   noted and accepted in qualitative techniques.

As the author notes   under 2.1 - Regrettably   attempts to secure interviews from key personnel within the DMR (i.e.   Regional Manager Mpumalanga), including the Department of Water Affairs (DWA)   (i.e. Chief Director: Legal Services) was ineffective. For St   Lucia…Unfortunately, several attempts in 2016 to get interviews from key   personnel such as the Secretariat Regional Mining Development and Environmental Committee   (RMDEC) KwaZulu-Natal, Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs   (COGTA), KwaZulu-Natal   Wildlife, Naledi   Development Consulting (the Fuleni mining consultants) and the Chief Executive Officer from   Hluhluwe-iMfolozi game reserve – proved fruitless.

Despite the above challengers, the   findings are not limited but quite telling in government and the mining   industry not responding to my interview request.

 (1) Please,   check the manuscript carefully to fix writing typos (e.g. "... to ensure   that the health ..." at page 1, line 40).

Done

Please, undergo another round of editing as some paragraphs are   somehow hard to follow

Done – editing done   to reduce sentences that seem long. Editing has been done for the entire   paper.

I think that the evidence-based discussion suffers from a main   limitation, which concerns the one-side position of interviewed persons with   respect to the role of mining companies. I acknowledge the impossibility for   the author(s) to handle this issue, as government-related individuals did not   participate to the study. The author(s) should, at least, discuss explicitly   this drawback (even in a footnote or endnote) as the interview-based   discussion proposed in the paper does not present views from both sides, and   this limits a lot the reliability of the analysis.

As above this   limitation has been discussed under section 2.1.

Would the author(s) specify how individuals were originally identified   for the interviews? Were they randomly sorted from a broader set of   mining-involved people, or chosen according to some other specific reason? I   am sorry to bother the author(s) on such issues, but the paper presents, in   my opinion, a strong "political" view on the topic investigated.   This is not a problem itself, but the absence of opinions expressed by the   pro-mining and institutional/government sides reduces the scientific ground   of the paper.

How individuals were   identified have been added to section 2.1 under participants.

It would be nice to include some empirical evidence in the paper. I am   not asking for statistics or econometrics. I would suggest to include (and   discuss, of course) some plots and/or tables giving the reader information on   the contribution of the mining industry to the economy. For example, figures   on employment, GDP, etc. In addition, it would be nice to have a map showing   the geographic distribution of mining spots in the region. Would it be possible   to exploit statistical sources to discuss links between the mining industry   and local communities' poverty/employment dynamics?

Although I do not   agree with adding the contribution of the mining industry to the economy as   that is not the focus of the paper, I have included a table 1 indicating the   contribution of the South African mining sector to direct jobs compared to   other sectors, including a figure 1 showing the contribution of the mining sector to the South African   GDP compared to other sectors.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to show the   geographic distribution of mining spots in the region as such maps do not   exist and mining geographic locations have not been recorded.

It is also not possible at this stage to exploit statistical sources to discuss links between the mining   industry and local communities' poverty/employment dynamics as these do not   exist since these have been under researched areas. Inferences are made for   mining employment but with the latter concrete figures unavailable.