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Dealing with dual destabilisation in Southern Africa: Foreign policy in Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, 1975-1989.

Date

1993

Authors

Swatuk, Larry Anthony.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Dalhousie University

Abstract

Description

Extant studies of the foreign policies of Southern African states have been dominated by opposing realist and dependency modes of analysis. As a result, virtually all studies of Southern Africa give at best only partial accounts of the cause(s) and effect(s) of "destabilisation" in the region. With the end of the Cold War and the imminent demise of apartheid, however, it is time to reevaluate approaches and reinterprets events in this troubled region.
This thesis critically examines the foreign policies of three of the smallest states in the region--Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland--over the 1975-89 period, a period most closely associated with South Africa's strategy of "regional destabilisation". BLS have long been regarded as "hostages" to apartheid with little scope for independent foreign policy-making. Realist analysis attributes this to a lack of power, particularly in relation to the "regional hegemon", South Africa. The dependency school, meanwhile, links this to the underdeveloped nature of their economies and the comprador nature of their elites. In this case, South Africa is viewed as a "sub-imperial power" or "outpost of monopoly capitalism". While each of these interpretations provides insight into the dilemmas facing all social formations in the region, they are unnecessarily opposed and over-simplified. In contrast, my political economy approach seeks to interrelate, rather than separate, notions of state and class, structure and choice. It is shown that BLS policy-makers have actively and imaginatively pursued status quo-oriented foreign policies which have, for the most part, successfully minimised the negative effects of South African destabilisation. However, I conclude that this status quo approach will prove inadequate in meeting the fundamental post-Cold War challenge posed by the extension to the region of a new international division of labour and power.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1993.

Keywords

History, African., Political Science, International Law and Relations.

Citation