Filling the GAPP

Filling the Gapp is a podcast about politics and government in South Africa in the world. 

South Africa is no longer the poster child of democratic change. More and more it is cast along with other ‘failed states’. Are these judgements fair or correct? 

We aim to go deeper than cliches. Who are the people in government departments and municipalities? What do they believe in? Why do they do what they do?How are they organised? Filling the GAPP gets behind the headlines to profile the people and institutions at work in health departments, in school administrations, in the offices of Presidents and the meetings of cabinets. We aim to tell the story of government as it really is. 

Dr Ivor Chipkin hosts this deep dive into the reasons that South Africa’s government has evolved into what it is today – and potentially how to rebuild it. Chipkin is the founder of the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) at Wits University, and today runs South Africa’s first global think tank on government, GAPP. He was the key author of Betrayal of the Promise Report on State Capture, a seminal 2017 expose of corruption and the anti-constitutional rule of the Jacob Zuma administration.

He has a Phd from Ecole Normale Superieure, France, was an Oppenheimer Fellow at Oxford, and is author of two books. He is one of the leading scholars on government; thinking about government; and thinking about government policy.