This book critically examines the challenges, successes, and failures of the post-1994 South African state against the humane values enshrined in its constitution: nonracial democracy and respect for all generations of human rights—civil, political, social, economic, resources and the environment and gender and communication. The book sheds light on the difficulties faced by the State when trying to bring together a diverse society comprised of traditional South African, Western-based and ""other"" African (immigrant) cultures into a cohesive nation with a common South African identity.

The views of the essays may not be entirely consistent and the issues they raise may be contentious. This merely affirms the truism that the State is a contested terrain. The aim of this book is to deepen the search for an understanding of the theory of the State as it applies to a transforming society such as ours and to trudge the dividing line between theory and practice so they can feed into each other in a progressive spiral towards the desired end-state.