‘Ungovernable’ institutions: Why South Africa and Pakistan struggle while Singapore is success story

In the ongoing quest to understand South Africa's political and economic stagnation, it may be helpful to look at other postcolonial states that have travelled further along the path of independence. This may help clarify the stagnation question that citizens, politicians and economists are grappling with.

Much of the analysis of postcolonial Africa and Asia has identified poor leadership, authoritarianism and misguided economic policies as determinants of stagnation. These factors do matter. But they do not fully explain why some new independent states collapsed into dysfunction while others achieved growth. The deeper question is how institutions are built, sustained or destroyed.

South Africa's stagnation is not the complete absence of growth or democracy, but the inability to convert political freedom and economic potential into sustainable and inclusive growth manifesting in quality of life for the majority.

The World Bank calls this an incomplete transition. In its 30 years of democracy review report, the South African Presidency concluded that the economy was performing below its full potential, unemployment was high, poverty levels were persistent in pockets of broader society and inequality levels were stubbornly high and racially biased.

As we read in the World Bank's Africa's Pulse report, these challenges continue to trouble most of the countries on the continent.

I have encountered this in my economic governance capacity building work in government and through my affiliations with local and Asian universities. There is common concern about deteriorating statecraft and the weakening of institutions.

In that connection, this essay is framed as a comparative reflection. It situates Pakistan alongside Ghana, Malaysia and Singapore, then turns to former Pakistani civil servant and now academic Ishrat Husain's book, Governing the Ungovernable. It is a detailed case study of institutional decline.

A former governor of the central bank of Pakistan and long-time government advisor on public sector reform, Husain offers an authoritative framework against which we can understand the performance of other post-colonial states. I use this framework to mirror South Africa, showing how elite capture, institutional weakness and cycles of reversal explain its present stagnation.

I chose Pakistan because its story of “ungovernable” institutions is similar to that of South Africa, compared to Singapore, whose success story is determined by the performance of its institutions.

Husain identified ungovernability as a key determinant of Pakistan's stagnation. By ungovernability he does not mean complete disorder (although there is too much political instability in Pakistan). He uses the term to describe a state where institutions exist but fail.

Pakistan, he writes, developed, a well entrenched system in which political, bureaucratic, business and professional elites collaborate in extracting rents at the expense of the larger society.

Every major crisis could be traced back to this governance deficit. Need we add, in many post-colonial states in Africa and Asia, institutions are either still being formed or they do not exist.

Institutions that should deliver services instead serve rent-seeking. Tax authorities, utilities and the police used their discretion for private gain. Elites blocked reforms because they benefited from dysfunction. Even when reforms began, they were quickly undone.

Ungovernable thus means institutions exist in name but not in substance.

Husain identifies coalitions that benefit from weakness and resist reform.

Law and order is bound to suffer when police officials are appointed… rather than professional competence.

Together, these groups made Pakistan ungovernable in practice.

Husain points to several interlocking causes: the vacuum after the death of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first governor-general (1947-48), repeated military dominance, weak dynastic parties, corruption across key sectors, cycles of reform and reversal, entrenched patronage networks, and a systemic governance deficit undermining taxation, energy, law and service delivery.

South Africa's political and economic stagnation can be defined as a prolonged period in which the state struggles to generate growth, reduce inequality and renew governance capacity, despite the presence of democratic institutions and economic potential. This challenges the theory of South African exceptionalism, as we witness the same trend of political and economic elites whose decisions result in the capture of institutions and the destruction of public value.

In South Africa, the role of economic and political elites is central to understanding institutional fragility. The Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (2018-2022) revealed how networks of political leaders, senior bureaucrats and business elites colluded to systematically weaken public institutions for private gain.

State-owned enterprises such as Eskom, Transnet and South African Airways were targeted through corrupt procurement, inflated contracts and political patronage, undermining their ability to deliver services and support economic development. The commission showed that elite capture distorted the functioning of key accountability institutions including the National Prosecuting Authority and law enforcement agencies, which were compromised to shield powerful individuals from scrutiny.

These practices eroded public trust, drained fiscal resources and entrenched political stagnation. Testimonies from the ongoing commission led by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga are echoing stories told at the Zondo Commission, and now, like in Pakistan, showing the “ungovernability” of the criminal justice system.

Like in Pakistan, the police and the National Prosecuting Authority are politicised and weakened. The army, once a regional force, has declined under shrinking budgets and skills shortages. Immigration is compromised by incoherent policy, corruption at the Home Affairs department and porous borders. Local government is the weakest link, condemned by poor leadership, incompetence and failing services.

Therefore, in the South African case, ungovernability or institutional weakness cannot be explained solely by colonial legacies or structural constraints, although they do matter because the apartheid regime was corrupt. Ungovernability has been actively produced and perpetuated by elites who hollowed out institutions designed to safeguard democracy and development. They became machines of rent-seeking instead of agents of national development. They subverted the will of the people for the will of the elites who undermine accountability.

As in Pakistan, the institutions exist but fail. They are captured by elites. Reforms begin but rarely last. Why?

The comparison is instructive. Ghana fell into coups. Malaysia survived but with uneven governance. Pakistan allowed patronage to corrode its foundations. South Africa shows the same symptoms: revenue shortfalls, energy collapse, transport paralysis, policing failures, weakened defence, porous borders and failing municipalities.

Singapore deliberately built strong institutions and prospered.

Husain warns against “sweeping reforms that collapse at each election cycle”. Instead, he calls for “selective, sequenced and incremental reforms that enjoy broad consensus”. The implication for South Africa is clear.

Political settlements must be reset so that institutions serve citizens rather than factions. Core institutions must be restored: courts, revenue authorities, utilities, police and prosecutors. Coalitions must be built around national goals of security, growth and fairness.

Comparative lessons are instructive. Singapore shows the rewards of disciplined governance, while Malaysia illustrates the limits of partial reform. Above all, renewal will take decades, as decay did .

From Pakistan's partition in 1947 to Ghana's independence in 1957, from the separation of Malaysia and Singapore in 1965 to South Africa's democratic transition in 1994, post-colonial states have combined early promise with the test of institution-building. Some passed, others faltered.

Husain's book shows that ungovernability is not chaos but the hollowing out of institutions until they exist only on paper. South Africa mirrors this reality.

The case of Pakistan also defies the idea that cultural or religious homogeneity guarantees cohesion and growth. Despite greater uniformity than many of its neighbours, Pakistan has struggled to sustain unity and development. Cohesion and growth, as Husain's analysis confirms, are not products of identity but of politics. They depend on the presence of a developmental elite able to mobilise all productive forces in society, on effective institutions that secure delivery and accountability, and on coalitions that bring legitimacy to the national project while managing contradictions. Without these, even homogeneous nations fragment.

For South Africa, the lesson is clear. The future will not be saved by appeals to “organisational renewal” that leading political parties speak about, cultural unity or new slogans about reforms. It will be built through the deliberate reconstruction of institutions, the cultivation of developmental leadership and the forging of coalitions that sustain legitimacy across political cycles. And it requires stronger instruments of accountability and consequence management.

Only through such long and patient work can the country move from being ungovernable in practice to governable in fact.

Busani Ngcaweni is Director: Center for Public Policy and African Studies & Visiting Professor, China Foreign Affairs University, University of Johannesburg.

This article was first published on The Conversation.

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