Introduction: The ANC state, more dysfunctional than developmental? / Politics -- The state of the African National Congress / Taking to the streets: has developmental local government failed in South Africa? / 'Things fall apart, can the centre hold?' The state of coalition politics in the Cape Metropolitan Council / Municipal elections 2006: protests, independent candidates and cross-border municipalities / A silent revolution: South African voters, 1994-2006 / Local government budgets and development: a tale of two towns / Economy -- Disability and welfare in South Africa's era of unemployment and AIDS / The ANC, black economic empowerment and state-owned enterprises: a recycling of history? / Technological choices in South Africa: ecology, democracy and development / Old victories, new struggles: the state of the National Union of Mineworkers / Rainbow, renaissance, tribes and townships: tourism and heritage in South Africa since 1994 / The promise and the practice of transformation in South Africa's health system / Public hospitals in South Africa: stressed institutions, disempowered management / Society -- 'Some of us know nothing except military skills': South Africa's former guerrilla combatants / The state of South Africa's prisons / 'Truck and trailer': rugby and transformation in South Africa / Violence against women in South Africa / Kingdom deferred? The churches in South Africa, 1994-2006 / Improving learner achievement in schools: applications of national assessments in South Africa / South Africa in Africa -- South Africa in Africa: trends and forecasts in a changing African political economy / South Africa in the DRC: renaissance or neo-imperialism? / The Zimbabwean community in South Africa