Johannesburg — Paper Wars goes beyond being a valuable repository of freedom of information lore. It reflects upon the ‘multiple faces of information governance’ and indeed upon secrecy itself.

The volume presents new evidence and fresh thinking on this increasingly vital and global topic.-Prof Jonathan Klaaren, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

At the very start of South Africa’s constitutional democracy, openness and transparency had a special place. Reacting against the secrecy of apartheid, the veils would be lifted in a newly open society. And indeed South Africa’s access to information law – the Promotion of Access to Information Act, a direct result of the constitutional negotiations – is without parallel in the world.

But bureaucracies and their cultures don’t change easily. Habits of secrecy die hard and perhaps hardest where institutional capacity is low and organisational resources are scarce. Working against such obstacles, a few valiant organisations including the South African History Archive (SAHA) have been working to push back the entrenched modes of secrecy and instantiate the realm of open democracy. This book, edited by Kate Allan, tells and reflects upon that story.

Drawing on the experience of SAHA, the chapters of Paper Wars will be the place to start for any serious scholar or dedicated activist seeking to understand the experience and place of South Africa in the global diffusion of freedom of information regimes. Despite having the law on their side, this book details the difficulties the information activists and requesters have encountered as they have attempted to put South Africa’s constitutional right of access to information into practice. Containing essays and case studies, the volume will stand as the record of the initial implementation (or lack thereof) of South Africa’s right to know law.

Kate Allan is currently completing a masters degree at Harvard University. From 2005 to 2007 she was the coordinator of the Freedom of Information Programme at the South African History Archive (SAHA).

allAfrica.com Book Review

October 2009

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The Paper Wars: Access to Information in South Africa

by Kate Allen

Witwatersrand University Press, 304 pages

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- October 8, 2009

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Source: allafrica.com/stories/200910080630.html (accessed on 14.10.2009)