Eliminating social grants to force self-reliance among the unemployed.

Maintaining the status quo to avoid political conflict

Expanding

social grants to reduce poverty while risking long-term fiscal sustainability.

Prioritising only economic growth without redistributive policies.

Strategic calculations of rational actors

Unstructured problem-solving

Interest group bargaining

Established routines rather than deliberate optimization

Abandoning education reform to focus only on industrialisation

Relying solely on foreign aid to fund poverty alleviation programmes

Investing heavily in education and skills development despite short-term

budgetary pressures

Privatizing all education to reduce state expenditure

South Africa experienced rapid industrialisation

The state chose neoliberal economic

policies after 1994

Foreign investors strictly enforced nationalisation

There was immediate wealth redistribution after 1994

A small, powerful group of elites regardless of democratic processes

Institutional rules alone

A wide array of interest groups

Random events and actors

Policies emerge only through historical accidents

Actors act randomly without clear objectives

Actors seek to maximize their utility based on preferences

Power is concentrated in a small elite

The contradiction of First World and Third World components existing side by side

Homogeneous economic development

The elimination of inequality in South Africa

A purely agricultural economy