Terence Corrigan
Terence Corrigan is the Project and Publications Manager at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), where he is in overall charge of bespoke work, and long-form publications. A native of KwaZulu-Natal, he holds a BA (Hons) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg), and an MPhil from the University of Free State. He has held various positions at the IRR, South African Institute of International Affairs, SBP (formerly the Small Business Project) and the Gauteng Legislature – as well as having taught English in Taiwan. He is a regular commentator in the South African media and his interests include African governance, land and agrarian issues, political culture and political thought, corporate governance, economic growth and business policy. Corrigan is a connoisseur of films, an amateur historian and a lover of the German language.
Articles By This Author
Liberalism: in search of an idea – Part 1
This is the first of a three-part series looking at the philosophy behind the concept of liberalism and the history that gave rise to it. The series is based on a section of my recently completed MPhil project. Michael Freeden, a British academic and expert on ideology, describes the origins of liberalism thus: “Liberalism began, broadly speaking, as a movement to release people from the social and political shackles that constrained and frequently exploited them.”
A cri de cœur that cannot quite articulate itself
While some politicians might opportunistically have attached themselves to the South African anti-apartheid struggle as a moral pantomime, Peter Hain was the real deal.
ANC faces sink-or-swim moment
The local government elections have been announced for 4 November, heralding a campaign season that will be keenly watched, and whose results will be anticipated.
Property rights in Africa’s cities: the new frontier of the urban transition
For Africa, the twenty first century promises a squarely urban future. At the turn of the new Millenium, according to the Africapolis database, just under a third of continent’s population lived in towns and cities; by 2025, this had risen to 57%; and by 2040, it is projected to reach 62%. Africa is adding tens of thousands of residents to its cities daily, each of them aspiring for the step-change in life chances that urbanisation has produced elsewhere – in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, and in Asia in the twentieth.
Putting service back in the public service
Individual governments come and go but the apparatus of state, the public service, typically remains. It is the essential tool that enables policies and programmes to be implemented; and it is a point sometimes not grasped in public commentary that South Africa needs not only an honest, innovative political class, but on competent administration to manage the state. The latter may in fact be more important.
Teaching history: will we be tortured by the past?
The proposed history curriculum will reserve an important place for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Concluding the final topic to be assigned to Grade 12 learners – Freedom and Democracy in South Africa: Coming to Terms with the Past – the TRC is billed as “a moment of reckoning”. Should the curriculum be implemented, this will probably constitute the final subject matter studied before learners write their exams.
Promise of a professional public service
The public service is a reality in our lives, but one that we often find opaque and incomprehensible.
Rural property rights: when the ‘baas’ mentality endures in a new form
“The handover of these title deeds on the eve of Human Rights Day,” President Ramaphosa said at a recent event conferring formal ownership on a community whose claim had taken three decades to process, “reminds us that achieving our freedom was about far more than rights on paper.”
Remembering Steven Gruzd: making the future better than the present was his vocation
In 2006, having just returned from a four-year stint in Taiwan and looking to get back on a career path, I’d accepted a part-time job helping out at the South African Institute of International Affairs on something called the African Peer Review Mechanism. I arrived at SAIIA’s Jan Smuts House one afternoon in mid February, introduced myself to the receptionist, and before she could reply, a voice came from an adjacent office, “Hey, over here”. I looked over to see a guy of about my age staring intently at a desktop computer, motioning from a desk cluttered with documents. That was Steve.
Southern Africa Liberation Day: tribute to a dark politics
In case you missed it – and I almost did – last Monday was Southern Africa Liberation Day. This is an annual commemoration observed by the Southern African Development Community since 2019.