Substituting for the State: The Sovereignty Impacts of Diverse Citizens’ Off-grid Infrastructure Strategies in South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, citizens in both low- and high-income areas are increasingly providing their own services to mitigate the unreliability, unaffordability and inaccessibility of state services. This article examines diverse case studies across socio-economic and residential typologies to explore shifts in service provision responsibilities from the state to the citizen. Applying an interdisciplinary approach, this article considers the political impacts of these strategies, arguing that the ways in which citizens supplement and substitute for the state contests and (re)negotiates spaces of sovereignty. While urban studies overwhelmingly analyse these actions through the lens of informality, we argue that sovereignty (the supreme authority of a state to govern itself without external interference) offers a less binary analytical lens. State substitution is increasingly a daily act for many, not only in low-income settlements but also among elites. The article further examines state responses to citizen-led actions in supplementing or substituting services, demonstrating how they range from inaction to permissive negotiation and, rarely, repression. Thus, the political impact of service substitution requires deeper reflection, raising questions regarding the nature of the state and the social contract.

Article Summary

What happens when citizens stop waiting for the state to deliver basic services and start providing them themselves? Across South Africa, from informal settlements to wealthy suburbs, residents are taking matters into their own hands: hiring private security patrols, installing solar panels and boreholes, illegally tapping electricity, and creating makeshift sanitation systems. While urban studies typically frames such activities through the lens of “informality,” implicitly associating it with poverty and illegality, this research argues that these practices are fundamentally about renegotiating sovereignty: who has the ultimate authority to govern access to essential services? Drawing on case studies from Cape Town and Johannesburg, the researchers examined four diverse communities: Imizamo Yethu informal settlement (where vigilante “patrollers” have effectively replaced police), Westlake Village public housing (where residents supplement inadequate municipal services), wealthy Parkhurst suburb (where residents attempted collective off-grid energy provision), and affluent households across both cities installing private water systems.

Using qualitative methods including interviews, focus groups, infrastructure assessments, and analysis of documents over periods ranging from 2004 to 2023, the research reveals striking parallels across the socio-economic divide. Whether poor or wealthy, citizens share similar motivations: securing reliable access to services the state cannot or will not adequately provide. However, their strategies and the state’s responses differ dramatically. Low-income residents in informal settlements and public housing view their self-provisioning as temporary necessities while maintaining high expectations that the state should fulfill its constitutional obligations. They supplement services while simultaneously demanding better state provision, often through protests. In contrast, wealthy residents invest significant capital in permanent off-grid solutions, viewing the state as fundamentally incapable of effective governance and sometimes framing their actions as progressive environmental initiatives or democratic “power to the people” movements.

Perhaps most revealing are the state’s inconsistent responses to these parallel practices. The research identifies a spectrum from “looking away” (tacit tolerance through inaction) to “negotiating permissive space” (attempting to regulate without enforcement) to “frustration and judgment” (blaming citizens while failing to address systemic failures). Crucially, the state largely ignores or tacitly accepts wealthy residents’ illegal activities, like unregistered boreholes that deplete groundwater or off-grid systems that undermine municipal revenue for cross-subsidizing services to the poor, while explicitly criticizing and blaming low-income residents for “misusing” infrastructure when they adopt survival strategies like electricity tapping or makeshift sanitation. This pro-elite bias reveals how sovereignty is being renegotiated along class lines, with wealthy citizens more easily securing “permissive space” for their actions while the poor face moral judgment even as the state lacks capacity to enforce regulations on either group. The article argues that these everyday acts of self-provisioning fundamentally challenge state sovereignty and raise urgent questions about South Africa’s social contract: Is it moving toward a neo-liberal minimal state that abandons its constitutional responsibility to provide services equitably, thereby deepening inequality and splintering urbanism? Or can it aggregate services across socio-economic groups to prevent further fragmentation?

Key Points

• Citizens across South Africa’s entire socio-economic spectrum, from informal settlements to wealthy suburbs, are increasingly providing their own basic services (security, water, electricity, sanitation) due to state failure, effectively renegotiating who holds sovereign authority over essential urban services
• While motivations are similar (securing reliable services), strategies and state responses differ dramatically by class: low-income residents supplement services temporarily while demanding state action through protests, whereas wealthy residents invest in permanent off-grid solutions viewing the state as incapable
• The state exhibits stark pro-elite bias in its responses, largely ignoring wealthy residents’ illegal installations (unregistered boreholes, off-grid systems) that undermine municipal revenue and environmental sustainability, while explicitly blaming poor residents for “misusing” infrastructure when adopting survival strategies
• The concept of “sovereignty” offers a more useful analytical lens than “informality” for understanding these practices, revealing how power, legitimacy, and authority over service provision are constantly negotiated between citizens and state, creating “permissive spaces” where impunity is fragile and contested
• These practices raise fundamental questions about South Africa’s social contract and democratic future: whether the state will fulfill its constitutional obligations to provide equitable services or shrink toward neo-liberal minimalism, thereby deepening already extreme inequality and urban fragmentation

This study offers crucial insights for policymakers, urban scholars, development practitioners, and citizens grappling with questions of state capacity, service delivery, inequality, and the evolving social contract in cities across the Global South and beyond.

Recommended Citation

Anciano, F., Lemanski, C., Culwick Fatti, C., & Rubin, M. (2025). Substituting for the state: The sovereignty impacts of diverse citizens’ off-grid infrastructure strategies in South Africa. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.70001