The June 2026 edition of the New South Institute’s newsletter is out today. It gathers a quarter of work that speaks to the moment South Africa finds itself in, as the Public Service Amendment Act (PSAA) moves from legislation into implementation, and as broader questions about migration, foreign policy, urban development, and the global order continue to shape public debate.
The full newsletter can be downloaded from the NSI website. Readers who want future editions delivered directly to their inbox can subscribe through the form on our homepage, and past editions are archived under the newsletter tab.

What’s in this edition

Much of the quarter’s work has revolved around the PSAA and what its implementation will require. The Government in Numbers series expanded with a second report by Professor Albert Wöcke on talent management in the provincial departments of health, drawing on Persal data from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. NSI researchers also took the reform debate into a range of public forums: Yoliswa Makhasi joined a webinar on the professionalisation of the public service, Ivor Chipkin discussed the PSAA on Power FM and on the OTT Talks podcast, and the Institute co-hosted a seminar with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the University of Pretoria bringing together academics, practitioners, and the Chairperson of the Public Service Commission. To mark Africa Public Service Day, the NSI convened an online discussion on public service reform across the continent with speakers from Afrobarometer and the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis.

The edition also carries a substantial body of work on migration governance. Alan Hirsch, Head of the MIGRA Programme, published commentaries in the Sunday Times and The Conversation Africa, and appeared twice on TRT World, arguing that responses to anti-foreigner sentiment require stronger institutions, better migration governance, and political leadership, not scapegoating. Mandira Bagwandeen and Aaliyah Vayez contributed a Daily Maverick piece connecting the current debate to South Africa’s pan-African commitments.

Beyond public service reform and migration, the newsletter features new work on elite politics and protest by Ivor Chipkin and Jelena Vidojević, published in the Journal of Southern African Studies and picked up widely in international media; a new working paper by Elizabeth Soer revisiting the anti-apartheid struggle as part of a broader project of world-making; further contributions to the South-South Dialogues programme, including the latest instalment of the “Missing Voices” series and reflections on the rise of the “civilisation-state” idea; and research by Andries du Toit and Andrew Charman on urban settlements on traditional authority land, presented at a national workshop convened by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory.

The edition also marks the launch of the NSI’s 2025/26 Annual Report on Africa Day, and includes a save-the-date for the NSI’s international conference on Civil Service Reform and Democracy, to be held in Johannesburg in September.

Download the full June 2026 newsletter for the research, working papers, interviews, articles, and events featured in this edition. Subscribe on our homepage to receive future editions directly, and browse previous editions under the newsletter tab.