Prof Philip Frankel

As a result of his internationally published work, Professor Frankel is regarded as a global expert on military and organizational sociology with specialist capacity in the areas of behavior, development, transformation and risk management.

He has researched, facilitated, managed and implemented major programs for both the private and private sectors that have assisted with democratic development and consolidation (leading up to the and after the 1994 transition), with public policy making, and, since 2003, the alignment of the South African mining industry with the political circumstances of a post-apartheid environment.

His work has embraced local government restructuring, economic development, BEE, the organizational transformation of the South African armed forces, emergent entrepreneurial development for SMME’s, public opinion analysis, mass data-base analysis, integrated community development and corporate reconfiguration.

Since 2000, he has also worked on risk and social development policy with government regulators of the gambling industry (the National Gambling Board and the South African Lottery, as well as behaviour-based safety and sustainable development policy for the major South African mining houses.

He has a particular interest in youth development and the political sociology of children. He has authored major works on risk-taking among youth in the gambling industry (for the Department of Trade and Industry) and has worked on the issue of xenophobic attitudes among South Africa adolescents for the Department of Arts and Culture. He has also conducted two studies on the impact of National Lottery grants on social development.

From 2000 Professor Frankel became involved in the field of genocide studies. He subsequently worked for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation-Commission in Rwanda and thereafter did research for the International Criminal Tribunal established to investigate crimes against humanity in the 1977 Rwandan genocide.

He has written three books on the relationship between the South African military, democratic transition and the relationship between the armed forces in the process of democratic consolidation.

In 2012 Professor Frankel began research into labour trafficking in the South African mining industry. This led to a wider interest in human trafficking which resulted in the first (and only) book on the subject in South Africa.

Part-Time Lecturer in Politics
BA, BA(Hons), MA in International Relation (Wits) /
MA, PhD in Political Sociology & Behaviour (Princeton University)

Professor Frankel is a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg where he obtained his Master of Arts in International Relations (Cum Laude) in 1974.

He then proceeded to Princeton University (New Jersey, United States of America) where he obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy, specializing in Political Sociology & Behaviour, in 1982.

Prior to going to Princeton he was a Junior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was a Teaching Assistant at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. He returned to South Africa in 1977 and re-joined the staff of the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand as a Lecturer.

He was appointed Senior Lecturer in 1982, Acting Head of the Department for 1987, Associate Professor in 2001 and was Head of Department in 2007. He served on the Executive Committee of the School of Social Sciences, was a member of the Faculty Board of the School of Humanities, and on other university committees. He was reappointed Head of Department in 2005.

In 2008 he resigned from the University to establish his own consultancy company, the Agency for Social Reconstruction. He remains the Executive Director of ASR which specializes in research, facilitation and project management in the general field of social and organizational transformation.

In 2018 he returned to the academic environment as Head of Department of Political Science at St. Augustine’s College in Johannesburg.
Professor Frankel is a South African citizen born in Johannesburg, He is married and has one daughter.

He currently resides in Johannesburg and is Director of the Agency for Social Reconstruction, a South African development consultancy.