Larry A. Swatuk - Bridging the Rift: The New South Africa in Africa

, Larry A. Swatuk and David R. Black

, Stephen Gelb

, Peter Vale

, Larry A. Swatuk and Abillah H. Omari

, Robert Davies

, Larry A. Swatuk

, Joshua B. Mugyenyi and Larry A. Swatuk

, Julius E. Nyangoro

, Cyril K. Daddieh

, John Inegbedion

, David R. Black and Larry A. Swatuk

Despite more than a decade of piecemeal sanctions and economic stagnation and crisis (Gelb 1991; Swatuk and Shaw 1991), South Africa retains the most powerful, industrialized and diversified economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the post-decolonization phase of African history, most African states and international organizations attempted, with varying but often high degrees of resolve, to isolate South Africa and minimize their economic interaction with the apartheid state. Nevertheless, historical linkages and the continuing strength of South African political and capital interests ensured the persistence of significant economic interchange, regardless of political obstacles.

Today, as South Africans work out their post-apartheid future and as the old political and economic barriers with therest of the continent crumble, there are increasing social, political and economic interactions between the hobbled leviathan of the South and its continental neighbours, near and far. What repercussions will follow from this process? To what extent will it enhance prospects for political and economic development in the rest of the continent, and to what extent may it further constrain them? Who will be the main agents and beneficiaries of this expansion of South African-African interchange, and who will be its casualties? And what security consequences, broadly conceived, will result?

This chapter serves to introduce these and related issues, principally by highlighting ideas presented in the chapters which follow. We begin, however, with a contextual discussion of alternative scenarios and working hypotheses, in which we briefly consider the implications of change in South Africa for its region and continent, and lay out the approach and organization of this collection. We then tum to a summary of the chapters, organized around four major themes: (i) South Africas political economy and its place in the international division of labour; (ii) prospects for Southern African regional security cooperation; (iii) prospects for Southern African regional cooperation on economic and environmental issues; and (iv) prospects for South African-African continental cooperation, focusing on EastAfrican and West African cases.

The implications of a new, post-apartheid South Africa for the political economies of the Southern African region and of African countries beyond it are attracting increasing analytical attention. Simplifying considerably, one can identify two main alternative approaches within this literature. On the one hand, there are optimistic (usually more orthodox) analysts who envision the new South Africa as a regional engine of growth, generating trade and investment which will spill over (or trickle down) into African political economies and create new hope for much of the continent (e.g., African Development Bank 1994). On the other hand, there are sceptical(usually more critical) analysts who view the prospect of a post-apartheid regional and capitalist superpower with trepidation or even alarm. They anticipate prospects for the region to be more of the same at best, increasing domination and exploitation at the hands of a South Africa unchecked by international opprobrium at worst (e.g., Anglin 1991). A number of analysts have advanced and explored both of these alternative scenarios for the future, and various gradations in between.