‘Integration’ or ‘Selective Incorporation’? The Modes of Governance in Informal Trading Policy in the Inner City of Johannesburg

This article explores the modes of governance in informal trading policy in the inner city of
Johannesburg. It highlights the different and contradictory empirical models of informal trading management
which result from the interaction of multiple and plural local actors on the ground and the different strategies
employed by informal traders in engaging the state. The article argues that Johannesburg municipal authorities
exert a contradictory double agenda instead of governing the complexity of informality. The result is asymmetric
governance functional to a neoliberalisation of the urban policies which produces a selective incorporation of
informal traders from above and from below.