Rationale: Nobody can escape the influence and impact of political and institutional transformation in South African society. Thus, there is a need to understand how transformation works and how to manage the changes that it brings about. By understanding and managing political and institutional transformation correctly, a stable society can, to a large extent, be created. If addressed and managed incorrectly, it may lead to decay and instability. Therefore, a need for knowledge and insight, as well as to identify problems, to review good and bad practices and to determine the influence of political and institutional transformation in society, exists.

Aim: Due to the fact that political and institutional transformation is manifest in all spheres of life, including the environment, the aim of this focus area is to:

• Understand, interpret and assess the dynamics and outcomes, and the programmes, policies and arrangements of changing political and institutional environments.
• Gain knowledge of the context and essence of transformation and the impact thereof on institutional cultures, structures and functioning, on society as a whole, as well as on the environment.
• To identify, contextualise and analyse transformational problems, e.g. institutionally based power decisions.
• Understand the context of political and institutional change and the interpretation of events through historical/comparative/ analytical research.
• To enhance research on the implementation of government policies and programmes.
• To analyse and evaluate transformational criteria and principals associated with good/bad governance.
• To identify and develop values associated with good governance, human rights and liberal democracy.
• To gain knowledge on political and institutional management skills in terms of public financial management and human resource management that needs to be effective and efficient.
• To gain insight into the manifestation of political and institutional transformation in rural/urban communities and to monitor the implementation of policies and projects which focus on the communities’ needs.

Scope of inquiry: Research on political and institutional transformation covers a broad spectrum of disciplines in different faculties at the University of the Free State. Faculties include the Humanities, Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Economic and Management Sciences. Therefore, research will interdisciplinary by including the following disciplines and academic departments: Political Science, History, Curriculum Studies, Higher Education Studies, Accounting, Agriculture, Communication, Public Management, Private Sector Management, Economics, Industrial Psychology, Sociology, Psychology, Social Work and Constitutional Law.

The different research domains include:

• The church and societal transformation (the challenges of transformation and persity; disintegration of the social fabric; the influence of transformation on the relationship between the church and the state/communities/individuals).
• Civil society (the nature, role and influence of institutions such as Trade unions, NGOs and CBOs in assisting transformation and in rebuilding society; initiatives towards globalisation-from-below).
• Higher education (institutional culture; universities as models of persity; successfully accommodating a persified higher education student corps; the transformation of the UFS into a truly South African and African university).
• School education (the role of school governing bodies; transformation of curricula; bureaucracy and policy making; persity in an integrated system of education; ideological, social and cultural discrepancies between communities’ values and the values of formal education; the political and ideological functions of education).
• Transformation, persity and the workplace (culture and human resource development and management; persity arrangements; labour disputes and conflict; skills development, recruitment and retention).
• Environmental considerations (spatial and organisational complexities; population displacement; land reform, redistribution and restitution; environmental racism; environmental problems and human/culture persity; institutional impediments in environmental management and development).
• Political and institutional environments (the essence, character, processes and problems surrounding institutional transformation; political communication and management in transforming societies; co-operative government; improvement of intergovernmental and inter-institutional relations).
• Strategic planning for political and institutional transformation (scenario development and risk assessment; skills in terms of planning, problem solving and leadership for political and institutional change management).
• Transformation and policy implementation through different state departments (education, housing, sport and recreation, foreign affairs, agriculture, transport, health, constitutional development).
• The judiciary (its role in a transformational and perse context; composition, training and sensitisation; jurisprudential approaches).
• The family (impact of transformation on the functioning, structure and composition; family values; appreciation of persity and promotion of tolerance).
• Social welfare services (root causes of social problems in perse and transformed societies; social welfare delivery to perse societies; social welfare rights and social security in a transformational and perse context; social developmental approaches).

Examples of research projects:

• The effectiveness and implementation of Performance Management Systems as applied by Provincial and Local Government. 
• The democratic electoral system and the influence on local government elections in the Free State.
• Corruption and political transformation with the emphasis on corrupt practices in the social welfare department of the Eastern Cape.
• The relationship between traditional leaders and democratically elected leaders.