Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T19:37:47.573Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Southern Africa: Co-operation and Conflict in an International Sub-System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Most attempts to explain the slowness and perversity of change in Southern Africa are deficient because not enough attention is paid to regional interactions. This review suggests that it is time to correct the over-concentration on the national or global relations of this international sub-system by the adoption of an intermediate level of analysis. We cannot understand the coexistence of confrontation and co-operation in Southern Africa without an examination of the patterns of dependence and interdependence among its black- and white-ruled states. The adoption of a regional approach here is particularly promising and suggestive as it indicates the need to revise the established conceptual framework for the study of subordinate state systems.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Page 633 note 1 Barratt, John, ‘South Africa: intra-regional and international relations’, South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg, 01 1973, especially pp. 19.Google Scholar

Page 633 note 2 Shaw, Timothy M., ‘Southern Africa: dependence, interdependence and independence in a regional sub-system’, Annual Social Science Conference of the East African Universities, Dar es Salaam, 12 1973.Google Scholar

Page 634 note 1 Louw, M. H. H., ‘Political Science and South Africa’, in New Nation (Johannesburg), V, 9, 04 1972, p. 7.Google Scholar

Page 634 note 2 See the plea by Shula Marks for a new, conceptual framework in her review article, ‘Liberalism, Social Realities, and South African History’, in Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies (Leicester), X, 3, 11 1972, p. 245.Google Scholar

Page 634 note 3 Trapido, Stanley, ‘South Africa and the Historians’, in African Affairs (London), LXXI, 285, 10 1972, p. 448.Google Scholar

Page 636 note 1 Cf. Shaw, Timothy M., ‘Linkage Politics and Subordinate State Systems: the case of Southern Africa’, Canadian Political Science Association, Montreal, 06 1972.Google Scholar

Page 637 note 1 On trans-national links between the liberation movements, the O.A.U. and its members, the U.N. system, and a variety of national support and interest groups in the West, see Stokke, Olav and Widstrand, Carl (eds.), Southern Africa: the UN- OAU Conference, Oslo, 9–14 April 1973 (Uppsala, 1973), Vols. I and II.Google Scholar

Page 637 note 2 For definitions of these alternative international orders, see McDougal, Myres S. et al. , Studies in World Public Order (New Haven, 1960), pp. XI and XVIII.Google Scholar

Page 637 note 3 For a suggestive comparison between the conflict-diversion and Creation capacity of these two types of regional organisation, see Nyc, Joseph S., Peace in Parts: integration and conflict in regional organisation (Boston, 1971), especially pp. 175–99.Google Scholar

Page 638 note 1 Munger, Edwin S., Bechuanaland: pan-African outpost or Bantu homeland? (London, 1965);Google ScholarHalpern, Jack, South Africa's Hostages: Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland (London, 1965);Google Scholar and Stevens, Richard P., Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland: the former High Commission Territories in Southern Africa (London, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 638 note 2 Henderson, Willie, ‘Independent Botswana: a reappraisal of foreign policy options’, inAfrican Affairs, LXII, 290, 01 1974, pp. 3749.Google Scholar

Page 639 note 1 See Selwyn, Percy, ‘Core and Periphery: a study of industrial development in the small countries of Southern Africa’, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, Discussion Paper No. 36, 11 1973.Google Scholar

Page 639 note 2 On the rôle of multi-national corporations in the region, see Shamuyarira, Nathan M., ‘Inter-Penetration of the Southern African State System’, Ninth Congress of the International Political Science Association, Montreal, 08 1973.Google Scholar

Page 642 note 1 This comment is not mitigated by a more stimulating, but nevertheless deficient collection by Rhoodie, Nic J. on South African Dialogue (Johannesburg, 1972),Google Scholar whose insights are essentially parochial.

Page 642 note 2 See the review article by Jeeves, Alan, ‘African Protest in Southern Africa’, in International Journal (Toronto), XVIII, 3, Summer 1973, pp. 555–24.Google Scholar

Page 642 note 3 See a review article on the politics of violence in Africa, which includes reference to Edward Feit's work, by Spence, J. E., ‘Plus ça change…’, in Government and Opposition (London), VII, 4, Autumn 1972, pp. 529–45.Google Scholar

Page 643 note 1 The books reviewed here and the drafting of this article both pre-date the April 1974 coup in Portugal. This metropolitan political change has profound implications for the region, and serves to support the sub-systemic approach advocated here. Such an extra-regional event has implications for the pattern of relationships throughout Southern Africa.

Page 643 note 2 Cf. Spence, J. E., Republic under Pressure: a study of South African foreign policy (London, 1965);Google ScholarAustin, Dennis, Britain and South Africa (London, 1966);Google Scholar and Vandenbosch, Amry, South Africa and the World: the foreign policy of apartheid (Lexington, 1970).Google Scholar

Page 646 note 1 See Russett, Bruce M., International Regions and the International System: a study in political ecology (Chicago, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 646 note 2 For a plea to a return to the analysis of the production and distribution of collective goods in the process of integration, see Mytelka, Lynn K., ‘The Salience of Gains in Third- World Integrative Systems’, in World Politics (Princeton), XXV, 2, 01 1973, pp. 236–50.Google Scholar

Page 646 note 3 For an analysis of the region by economic geographers, see Green, L. P. and Fair, T. J. D., Development in Africa: a study in regional analysis with special reference to Southern Africa (Johannesburg, 1962).Google Scholar

Page 647 note 1 See Emmanuel, Arghiri, ‘White Settler Colonialism and the Myth of Investment Imperialism’, in New Left Review (London), 73, may 06 1972, pp. 3557;Google ScholarGood, Kenneth, ‘South African Settler Colonialism: a present-daysummation’, in East Africa Journal (Nairobi), IX, II, 11 1972, pp. 413;Google Scholar and Denoon, Donald et al. , Southern Africa Since 1800 (London, 1972), especially pp. 105–7.Google Scholar

Page 647 note 2 Arrighi, Giovanni and Saul, John S., Essays on the Political Economy of Africa (New York, 1973), pp. 4950.Google Scholar

Page 648 note 1 See Rupert, Anton, ‘International Business Partnership — the multi-national concept’, in South Africa International (Johannesburg), I, 2, 10 1970, p. 52.Google Scholar

Page 648 note 2 See X Ray: current affairs in Southern Africa (London), IV, 6, 03 1974, p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 648 note 3 See Hyam, Ronald, The Failure of South African Expansion 1909–1939 (New York, 1972);Google Scholar and also Richard P. Stevens, ‘The History of the Anglo-South African Conflict over the Proposed Incorporation of the High Commission Territories’, in Pothoim and Dale, op. cit. pp. 97–109.

Page 648 note 4 See Landell-Mils, P. M., ‘The 1969 Southern African Customs Union Agreement’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), IX, 2, 08 1971, pp. 263–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 650 note 1 On the trend towards inter-State inequality in Africa, see Shaw, Timothy M., ‘The Development of International Systems in Africa’, Third International Congress of Africanists, Addis Ababa, 12 1973, especially pp. 2634.Google Scholar

Page 650 note 2 Mawazo (Kampala), III, 2, 12 1971, pp. 316;Google Scholar see also Preiss, David C., ‘The Bridge and the Laager: South Africa's relations with Africa, with specific reference to Malawi’, South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg, 09 1973.Google Scholar

Page 651 note 1 Weisfelder, Richard F., Defining National Purpose in Lesotho (Athens, Ohio, 1969).Google Scholar

Page 651 note 2 Weisfelder, Richard F., The Basotho Monarchy: a spent force or a cynamk political factor? (Athens, Ohio, 1972), especially p. 40.Google Scholar

Page 651 note 3 Dale, Richard, Botswana and its Southern Neighbor: the patterns of linkage and the options in statecraft (Athens, Ohio, 1970).Google Scholar

Page 651 note 4 Bowman, Larry W., South Africa's Outward Strategy: a foreign policy dilemma for the United States (Athens, Ohio, 1971).Google Scholar

Page 652 note 1 van den Berghe, Pierre L., South Africa: a study in conflict (Middletown, Connecticut, 1965), p. 263.Google Scholar

Page 652 note 2 Also see Pothoim's, Christian P. review article, ‘After Many a Summer? The possibilities of Political Change in South Africa’, in World Politics, XXIV, 4, 07 1972, pp. 613–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 653 note 1 First, Ruth, Steele, Jonathan, and Gurney, Christabel, The South African Connection: Western investment in apartheid (London, 1972).Google Scholar The logic of Afrikaner nationalism suggests the irrelevance of economic disengagement for the future of politics in the region.

Page 654 note 1 Bowman, Larry W., ‘The Subordinate State System of Southern Africa’, in Inlernational Studies Quarterly (Beverly Hills), XII, 3, 09 1968, pp. 232.Google Scholar

Page 655 note 1 Cf. Canton, Louis J. and Spiegel, Steven L., The International Politics of Regions: a comparative approach (Englewood Cliffs, 1970), p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 655 note 2 See Shaw, Timothy M., ‘The Military Situation and the Future of Race Relations in Southern Africa’, in Mazrui, Ali A. and Patel, Hasu H. (eds.), Africa in World Affairs: the next thirty years (New York, 1973), pp. 3761.Google Scholar