The book is about the politics of developmental state-making in post-apartheid South Africa. Specifically, the focus is on tracing and providing well considered political and ideological explanations for some of the most salient obstacles confronting the South African transition. The central argument is that until the intellectual and ideological template underpinning the transition is fundamentally overhauled, South Africa is unlikely to fulfil Mandela s promises of ending poverty, employment creation and equality for all. What is more, the politics and policy framework that springs from this template is essentially counter developmental and only serves to reproduce the power relations and structural arrangements they are meant to overcome.