Professor Richard Calland

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Professor Richard Calland
Political Analyst
Facilitator
Master of Ceremonies
Prof Richard Calland is Associate Professor in the
Public Law Department at the University of
Cape Town. He teaches constitutional and
human rights law, and some administrative law.
Professor Calland has for over twenty years been
working in the fields of democratic governance
and sustainable development in South Africa and
beyond. Based at the University of Cape Town
(UCT), where he is Associate Professor in Public
Law, he built and led its Democratic Governance & Rights Unit from 2007-2016.
He specializes in the law and practice of the right to access to information and
whistleblowing protection; in administrative justice; in public ethics; and in constitutional
design – largely derived from his work as programme manager of the Political Information
& Monitoring Service at Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) – the leading
democracy think tank in Africa – which he led from its inception in 1995 until 2003. In
2000, he founded the Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC), a law centre based in
Cape Town, which promotes the ‘right to know’, advising whistleblowers, advocating law
reform and taking test case litigation on access to information.
In 2006, Richard spent a month as a visiting lecturer in constitutional law at the law
department of Meiji University, Tokyo. Before coming to South Africa in 1994, Calland
practiced law at the London Bar (called in 1987 at Lincoln’s Inn). He holds an LLM from
the University of Cape Town, a Diploma in World Politics from the London School of
Economics and an BA(Hons) Law from the University of Durham.
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Professor Richard Calland
Professor Calland continues to play a role at IDASA as Acting Manager of the Economic
Governance Programme that was initiated in January 2007, and serves as part-time
Executive Director of ODAC. He is a member of the Transparency Task team of the
Institute for Public Dialogue at Columbia University, which is led by Professor Joseph
Stiglitz. Professor Calland has in recent years served as an expert consultant to the Carter
Center, the foundation led by former US President Jimmy Carter, advising on various
transparency projects in Bolivia, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Peru and Mali. In South Africa, Prof
Richard Calland writes a fortnightly political column for the Mail and Guardian
newspaper, ‘Contretemps’, and is a regular commentator in the media. In 2005, he spent
two terms at Cambridge University, as a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for
International Law.
In 2015, he was retained by the US Securities Exchange Commission as an expert witness
in its prosecution of Hitachi under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Richard is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership,
and has been a member of faculty on a series of strategic leadership programmes for,
amongst others, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, PWC, Nedbank,
Namdeb, Network Rail and Tata. He is also the co-director of the niche organisation, the
African Climate Finance Hub, supporting governments and multilateral organisations in
Africa on issues relating to access and use of climate finance.
Professor Calland is a retained adviser on governance and politics to Massmart/Walmart
and regularly gives political risk analysis to the clients of investment banks such as UBS and
Citi, and is a founding partner of The Paternoster Group: African Political Insight. In
2005, he spent two terms at Cambridge University, as a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht
Centre for International Law.
He is a regular commentator in the media and his political column has been carried in the
Mail & Guardian newspaper since 2001. Author of "Anatomy of South Africa" (2006)
and "The Zuma Years" (2013), Calland’s latest book on politics is "Make or Break: How
the next three years will shape South Africa’s next three decades."
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Professor Richard Calland
Publications
Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power? Zebra Press. October 2006.
Prizing Open the Profit Making World in Florini A. (ed). The Right to Know:
Transparency for an Open World. Columbia University Press: 2007.
Democracy in the Time of Mbeki: Idasa's Democracy Index. Co-editor (with Paul
Graham). IDASA. April 2005.
Whistleblowing Around the World: Law, Culture & Practice. Co-editor (with Guy
Dehn). Open Democracy Advice Centre & Public Concern at Work. April 2004.
The Right to Know, The Right to Live: Access to Information & Socio-economic Justice.
Co-editor (with Alison Tilley). Open Democracy Advice Centre. October 2002.
Thabo Mbeki's World: The Politics & Ideology of the South African President. Joint Coeditor
(with Sean Jacobs). University of Natal Press/Zed Books. September 2002.
Real Politics: The Wicked Issues with Sean Jacobs and Greg Power. British Council:
December 2001.
The First Five Years: A Review of South Africa's First Democratic Parliament. Editor.
IDASA: September 1999.
The Democracy Index with Robert Mattes: In the Balance? Debating the State of
Democracy in South Africa. Paul Graham & Alice Coetze (eds). IDASA. May 2002
Democratic Government: South African Style, 1994-99 in Election '99, Edited by
Andrew Reynolds, David Phillips/James Currey, Cape Town/London: August 1999
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Professor Richard Calland
State Ethics and Executive Accountability in Pulse: Passages in Democracy-Building:
Assessing South Africa's Transition Idasa, August 1998
Tough on Crime and Strong on Human Rights: The Challenge for all of us. With
Thabani Masuku. Law, Democracy & Development; UWC. June 2001
Parliament and the socio-economic imperative – what is the role of the national legislature
with Mandy Taylor, Law, Democracy & Development, vol. 1, Nov. 1997, Butterworths
in association with the Social Law Project & Community Law Centre at the University of
Western Cape.
The Zuma Years
The face of power in South Africa is rapidly changing – for better and
for worse. The years since Thabo Mbeki was swept aside by Jacob
Zuma’s ‘coalition of the wounded’ have been especially tumultuous,
with the rise and fall of populist politicians such as Julius Malema, the
terrible events at Marikana, and the embarrassing Guptagate scandal.
What lies behind these developments? How does the Zuma presidency
exercise its power? Who makes our foreign policy? What goes on in cabinet meetings?
What is the state of play in the Alliance – is the SACP really more powerful than before?
And, as the landscape shifts, what are the opposition’s prospects?
In The Zuma Years, Richard Calland attempts to answer these questions, and more, by
holding up a mirror to the new establishment; by exploring how people such as Malema,
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko have
risen so fast; by examining key drivers of transformation in South Africa, such as the
professions and the universities; and by training a spotlight on the toxic mix of money and
politics. The Zuma Years is a fly-on-the-wall, insider’s approach to the people who control
the power that affects us all. It takes you along the corridors of government and corporate
power, mixing solid research with vivid anecdote and interviews with key players. The
result is an accessible yet authoritative account of who runs South Africa, and how, today.
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Professor Richard Calland
Media
Cyril on the Front Foot
— YouTube
Zuma in the ropes
— YouTube
Book
Richard Calland
Professor Calland travels from Cape Town.
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