Two decades of analytical, political, and personal writing — across a running column, books, commissioned reports, book chapters, and a documentary series. What follows is the published record of a practice that has always insisted on going beneath the surface of what is visible.
A running column on politics, power, and the structural conditions shaping South African and African public life. The Critical Take applies the analytical method to live developments — not commentary, not reaction, but structured reading of what is actually happening and why. The column originally ran in the Sowetan for six years and has been revived on Substack and LinkedIn Newsletter.
There is a crisis in our political moment. It is not a crisis of information. It is a crisis of analysis. This book makes the case that most of what circulates as political analysis is commentary. The gap between analysis and commentary has consequences. This book names that gap and closes it.
There is a crisis in our political moment. It is not a crisis of information. It is a crisis of analysis. This book makes the case that most of what circulates as political analysis is commentary. The gap between analysis and commentary has consequences. This book names that gap and closes it.
2026 Analyst, Not Commentator Subsoil Books
A book about the tension between agency and structural constraint. The book explores the question: Is the life you are living today the life of your choosing and what it would look like if you were to choose consciously? Told through personal testimony.
A book about the tension between agency and structural constraint. The book explores the question: Is the life you are living today the life of your choosing and what it would look like if you were to choose consciously? Told through personal testimony.
2026 Emerging from the Underground Subsoil Books
A memoir of reclamation. The story of identifying what had been taken, understanding how it was taken, and the deliberate process of taking it back.
A memoir of reclamation. The story of identifying what had been taken, understanding how it was taken, and the deliberate process of taking it back.
2021 How I Took Back My Power Tafelberg
A political analysis of the relationship between how we vote and whether those we elect remain accountable to us. Draws on South African and comparative African evidence.
A political analysis of the relationship between how we vote and whether those we elect remain accountable to us. Draws on South African and comparative African evidence.
2017 Electoral Systems and Accountability KMMR Publishing Lead author and researcher
An argument for what democracy makes possible and what prevents those possibilities from being realised.
An argument for what democracy makes possible and what prevents those possibilities from being realised.
2014 The Democratic Opportunity NR Research and Analysis
An interrogation of whether the social compact between the South African state and its citizens still holds, and what the conditions are for its renewal.
Whither the Social Compact
In: Seeking the Ethical Foundations of the South African Nation
MISTRA, 2018
An account of how South Africa extended the right to vote and what the institutional architecture that made that possible looked like from the inside.
Widening Access and Enabling Franchise
In: Institutionalising Democracy: The Story of the IEC 1993–2014
Electoral Commission of South Africa, 2015
An assessment of progress and regression on gender equality in South Africa outlining what has been achieved, what has been reversed, and what remains unfinished, commissioned by the Commission for Gender Equality.
Gains Made, Gains Lost
Commission for Gender Equality
A brief on the role of civil society in building the kind of social compact that makes development possible, and what it needs to play that role effectively, commissioned by the Kagiso Trust.
Empowering Civil Society for a Developmental Social Compact
Kagiso Trust
A public participation and citizenship education guide produced under the Open Society Foundation Democracy Fellowship, designed to equip citizens to engage meaningfully with democratic processes.
Active Citizenship and Democracy
Open Society Foundation South Africa
A five-part documentary series unpacking threats and risks to democratic legitimacy in South Africa. The series explores South Africa's constitutional democracy through various analytical lenses including political science, sociology, psychology, law, and economics.
All episodesFive books. Two chapters. Three reports. One column. One documentary series. One conviction.