South Africa and Southern African Policy Options

South Africa and Southern African Policy OptionsWhich Way Is South Africa Going? by Gwendolen M. Carter; Botswana; An African GrowthEconomy by Penelope Hartland-Thunberg; Development and Dependence in Lesotho, theEnclave of South Africa by Gabriele Winai Strom; Transkei's Half Loaf. Race Separatism inSouth Africa by Newell M. StultzReview by: Malcolm J. GrieveCanadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 15, No. 3(1981), pp. 561-566Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/484736 .

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South Africa and Southern African Policy Options*

Malcolm J. GRIEVE**

Politics is one thing and business is completely separate

Sally Gallagher South African Foreign Trade Organisation (The Times, 2 March 1981)

Not surprisingly, Ms. Gallaher's views on the dichotomy between business and

politics are not widely shared by contemporary analysts of southern Africa. On the contrary, it is quite common to look beyond the formalities of political independence to examine the political effects of the preponderance of the South African economy in the region. This mode of analysis has been formalised in an

explicitly political-economic framework which treats South Africa as a lynchpin around which revolve transnational as well as international relations of tension and co-operation.' Policy options in the region are predicated on the centrality of the South African political economy.

One need not accept the sub-system approach, however, in order to recognise the political constraints associated with the transformation of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (BLS) into economic satellites orbiting around a South African "core." The subordination of the domestic and foreign policies of these ex-British

protectorates was for a long time one of the "givens" in the fluid political environment of independent Black Africa. This apparent fixture in southern Africa is now being challenged. The liberation of Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe from white rule has changed the pattern of relations in southern Africa, presenting new possibilities and inspiring new options for countering South African hegemony. These regional influences, coupled with putative shifts in Nationalist policy in South Africa, have attracted the attention of those looking for change in southern Africa. Most observers have focused on the links between economics and politics.

*Gwendolen M. CARTER, Which Way is South Africa Going? Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1980, 162 p.; Penelope HARTLAND-THUNBERG, Botswana; An African Growth Economy. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978, 151 p.; Gabriele Winai STROM, Development and Dependence in Lesotho, the Enclave of South Africa. Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1978, 186 p. + map; Newell M. STULTZ, Transkei's Half Loaf. Race Separatism in South Africa. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979, 183 p. **Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University. Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1. Larry W. Bowman, "The subordinate state system of Southern Africa," International Studies Quarterly, 12 (September 1968): 231-61.

561



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The South African political economy has long acted as a "conditioning situation" for neighbouring states. Economics of necessity or convenience have

perpetuated South African recruiting for migrant labour in adjacent regions; such links have been reinforced by infrastructural ties such as the sale of hydroelectric power by Mozambique to South Africa. South African economic might has

tempered the international revolutionary ardour of Mozambique, in much the same way as it has constrained the policy options open to the BLS states. South African domestic business and southern African economics are closely related. South African policy in the past has been to maintain a reserve pool of unemployed black labour within its boundaries while importing migrant workers for mine and farmwork. The policy of separate development, an expression of Nationalist political power and ideology, is thus of profound economic impor- tance for the entire region. Not only does the economic growth of the South African regional dynamo depend upon the success of separate development in maintaining stability and low cost labour inputs, but the economies of neighbouring states are also directly affected by the demands of the dominant economy for human and physical resources. Markets for finished and semi-finished products are also most readily available in South Africa.

Given the intertwining of business and politics in southern Africa, it is appropriate to assess literature from the fields of politics, economics and political economy by the same yardstick: how usefully does the particular study shed light on the network of economic constraints and options for policy-making in the region?

Hartland-Thunberg's analysis of economic growth in Botswana is somewhat apolitical in that the limits imposed by South African influence on its leaders' policy options are largely neglected. In this context the substitution of sources of investment capital and markets external to the region is treated as a constructive measure rather than examined critically as a possible shifting of dependency under continuing structural distortions in the economy. Growth rates of 10 per cent between 1971 and 1976 are reported, but with the caveat that data collection is extremely unreliable. This notwithstanding, Hartland-Thunberg is prepared to refer to Botswana's economic performance as a:

miracle ... wrought by an aggressive development program based on foreign investment in mineral extraction (p. 6).

This sets the tone for the discussion throughout the book.

The lessons we are intended to draw from Hartland-Thunberg's brief narrative (only 81 pages of text with 70 pages of addenda) may be summarised in three points. First of these is that some options are indeed available to even those states which face severe geographical, historical and economic constraints. Second, astute and purposeful leadership is the key ingredient to constructive and redistributive public policy. A third lesson, delivered almost as a pedagogical slap on the wrist, is that the abuse which radical critics have been heaping upon external aid and investment for development is misplaced.



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"External" for the BLS states is understood to mean non-South African, and lessening of dependence on South Africa is a "basic motivating force behind Botswana's push for economic development" (p. 7). Despite adopting its own national currency in 1975, reducing the concentration of trade by marketing beef in Europe and seeking alternate routes for exports (a task facilitated by the independence of Zimbabwe), migrant labour remains a major supporter of Botswana's cash economy. Development surely entails some autonomy rather than simply diversification of trading partners. The ease with which the author reconciles this ultimate form of structural economic dependence with optimism engendered mainly by aggregate indicators of growth is unsettling.

With regard to the admittedly thorny problem of "good leadership," one might wish to examine closely Hartland-Thunberg's concluding remarks. She asserts that the government has been "fortunate" not to harbour resentment against the former colonial power and thus to gain:

practical advantages ... by the major role that talented European expatriates have played and are playing in Botswana's self-help exercise (p. 81).

Two points should be made here. First, to define "talented and devoted leaders" in terms of receptivity to foreign nelp is to group such African leaders as Houphouet-Boigny and Bokassa with Khama. This is hardly a helpful categorisation! Second, a neglected link in the argument concerning receptivity to European assistance is the historical experience and contemporary threat of South African designs to ensure continued racial and economic hegemony. In light of this nearby threat, the Protectorate leaders must have viewed the casual hand of British colonialism in a more sympathetic light.

Finally, on the question of availability of options under dependence one might point to a tendency throughout the book to blur identified or hypothetical options with actual practice which falls short of desired goals. The author's optimism is the result of a normative-empirical disjuncture rather than an illustration of success in policy-making with scarce resources.

In contrast to the monographic nature of Hartland-Thunberg, Strom's case study of dependence and development in Lesotho seeks explicitly to marry economics and politics in a radical analysis of political economy. Predictions distilled from the theoretical and empirical literature of dependency are tested against the policies of the Lesotho government. Options vis-a-vis external economies are classed as either transformationalist or accommodationalist. This typology may be too broad. One might question, for example, the equivalence in the alacrity and sincerity with which Malawi and Mozambique are pursuing a transformation strategy by gradually withdrawing from the South African migrant labour system. But there is less controversy as to the accommodation of elite interests in Lesotho to the migrant labour system. The general dependence of the Lesotho regime leads Strom to make some highly unequivocal comments on Lesotho:



564 Canadian Journal of African Studies

the Jonathan regime was established by foreign intervention and is main- tained through violent repression (p. 145).

Strom illustrates the extractive nature of the Lesotho system with examples of how state institutions have co-operated with external forces in South Africa and

beyond to compensate for the lack of domestic support (p. 143). Although hampered by extremely close economic, geographical, financial and legal ties with the Republic, the Lesotho state has managed to pursue its own, short term interests

by seeking investment from transnational corporations as far afield as Taiwan and Japan, and by diversifying aid donors.

The difference between Lesotho and Botswana efforts to diversify sources of aid and investment stems from a hard-to-define quality of the responsiveness of leadership to popular needs-even though neither state may be able to satisfy them. The Lesotho political-administrative elite, as characterised by Strom, possesses an extractive nature; that of Botswana, according to Hartland- Thunberg, has a benign developmental attitude.

It is beyond the ambit of this brief review to comment on the accuracy and implications of these characterisations. One might note, however, that Strom is more ambitious in casting her analysis within a broad dependency framework in which the domestic effects of regional political links are made explicit, and are used in part to account for the extent and nature of involvement of the state and its controlling elites in economic processes. Hartland-Thunberg's assertions about leadership are largely untestable because they are not made in the context of an explicit model of the state in Botswana. One may, of course, still agree intuitively with the assertion that Botswana is searching for new transformationalist policy options.2

Comparisons between Lesotho and Transkei in terms of geography and economic constraints on development are easier to make than distinctions between leadership styles and power. This ease of comparison has been exploited both by official South African spokesmen for separate development, proclaiming the right of Transkei to international recognition, and by critics of the homelands scheme, who emphasise its implications for urban blacks through entrenchment of migrant status. Those interested in rehearsing the logical arguments for and against a sovereign Transkei will find Newell Stult's Transkei's Half Loaf an absorbing exercise. His analysis is as guarded as it is detailed. In his preface, Stultz declares that his purpose is "to think again about separatism as a means of reducing race conflict in southern Africa" (p. xiii). In fact the book is mainly a careful reconstruction of the political history of Transkei since 1975. Only in the latter part of the book does the analysis turn to the more interesting regional implications in "The Meaning of Transkei Independence." Stultz asks rhetorically:

2. Dr. Quett Masire (Seretse Khama's successor) has continued to try to loosen dependence on South Africa. One thinks of his attempt to gain European support for "collective self-reliance" in the shape of an economic community of southern African states (The Times, 1 November 1980).



South Africa and Southern African Policy Options 565

Can we not conceive of Transkei independence as merely a first step toward an eventual federation of black states of southern Africa? (p. 135).

The answer to this question, in the best traditions of value-free social science, would be affirmative. But to conceive is not to believe! There is too much hypothetical argument in the book, too much in the way of blow-by-blow responses to the convoluted meandering? of the South African Department of Information and Nationalist rhetoric. Too little analysis is devoted to the economic implications for South Africa of some of the patently ludicrous aspects of separate development and apartheid business practices. Surely these will have more effect upon the white electorate than the vision of hypothetically non-racial states, in reality best seen as archipelagoes in a sea of South African territory. To dwell too long on the petty legalities of the fragmented and disinherited labour reserves which comprise the homelands is to concede the logic of pass laws and migrant labour and to divert attention from black consciousness and regional economics. Stultz suggests that the alternatives to revolutionary change are partition, decolonization, power-sharing or stalemate. Comparative analysis of the behaviour of enclave economies suggests that for the greater part of the population of southern Africa, these "alternatives" will amount to much the same thing. Only the political administrative elites see the benefit of peaceful accommodation to the established political economy.

It is refreshing to emerge from Stultz' heavily qualified narrative on comparative politics to Gwen Carter's more eclectic assessment in Which Way is South Africa Going? From regional politics to administrative elites, Carter's study of the disparate influences on South Africa's political economy and various policy options is both stimulating and broad ranging. The merging of politics and business is reflected in insightful (if at times impressionistic) comment.

Of particular interest in Carter's overview is the discussion of the role of the state and politics in the South African economy. Government policy is in evidence not only in racial-economic areas, but also in general questions affecting patterns of economic development. The state in South Africa has proved itself a powerful tool for the advancement of Afrikaner interests while "political deci- sions and government-controlled bodies have long molded the direction of South Africa's economic development" (p. 8). A combination of the political-administrative strength of the state and the resources of minerals and labour recruited through the (state-policed) migrant worker and apartheid systems has served to bolster dominant groups. An understanding of this combination of domestic factors is a useful introduction to cogent analysis of the regional effects of South African economic strength and political configurations.

Carter does not attempt an extended, rigorous examination of relationships among states in southern Africa. Her chapter on "Internal and External Security," however, offers perspectives on the economic travails and political behaviour of the front line states in recent years. Because it increasingly sees these states as a threat, South Africa has accelerated its defence program (again



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through a parastatal corporation, ARMSCOR). Few would quarrel with Carter's conclusion that South Africa's shift toward virtual independence in defence capabilities has further shielded it from external military incursion. More speculative perhaps, especially in light of current United States policy toward the region, is her postulation that non-military, international economic pressures may become significant due to intransigence over Namibian independence. As Carter suggests (p. 146), black pressure for change is the most obvious threat to the South African regime, but such pressure is more likely to be dissipated by than reinforced by reliance on reluctant international economic action. Potential economic action for political ends in southern Africa by "a ring of potentially interrelated states" (p. 127) around South Africa is undermined by their economic and structural links with the Republic.

Is political proximity or economic independence the most powerful predicator of action against separate development in South Africa? The works reviewed do not answer this question definitively. The authors do show in various ways the need for a close analysis of the state structures in the region to trace the pressures for enhanced economic autonomy. For the foreseeable future though, it is "business and politics as usual," with some options available to alert and responsive leadership for transforming the existing relationships of dependency.



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South Africa and Southern African Policy Options