Civil society and democracy in post-apartheid South Africa

Since the transition to democracy, the South African government’s response to the crisis of AIDS has been subject to much public debate and controversy. Of particular interest are the events surrounding the government’s initial decision to delay the implementation of an HIV-medications rollout program in South Africa. It was during this period that the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) established itself as a prominent AIDS activist organisation, and successfully pressured the government to reform its litigious HIV treatment policy. In this study the TAC’s ‘success’ is selected as a case and examined from the following thematic departures: - A discussion of the theoretical strengths of a popular-democratic perspective of civil society. - An overview of AIDS discourse, activism, and expertification. - The strategies used by the TAC to enable the participation of its membership (and HIV-positive patients) in key AIDS issues. - And, the political capacity for the continuation of AIDS-related participation in a ‘post-TAC’ society. This book is addressed to students, academics and researchers in the social sciences that are interested in the political and social affairs of HIV/AIDS.