South African foreign policy since 1965

Abstract

Abstract taken from "Aslib index to theses": vol 41, part 4, p. 1463:

This work attempts to explain the development of South African foreign policy from 1965 to 1990 by applying various theories of international state behaviour to two case studies: I) the development of South Africa's diplomatic 'outward movement' and Pretoria's decision to help force Ian Smith's government in Rhodesia to agree to majority rule; and 2) South Africa's decision finally to allow Namibian independence according to UN Security Council Resolution 435 ten years after first accepting it 'in principle'. These two cases are examined in light of different approaches to explaining international behaviour, so as both to explain the policy changes in question and to suggest the strengths and weaknesses of each theory

Chapter One briefly outlines four basic contending models of state behaviour drawn from the literature of international relations: I) realist theories of power and security imperatives; 2) materialist theories stressing economic incentives of profit and loss; 3) political-process and bureaucratic models which see state behaviour as the product of bargaining processes within a government or polity; and 4) cognitive and ideological approaches which emphasize the subjective relationships between national leaders and their environment

Chapter Two presents a brief history of South African-Rhodesian relations, and Chapter Three attempts to apply each of these four behavioural models to Pretoria's decision-making in the Rhodesian case. Chapters Four and Five, in turn, first relate the history of South Africa's Namibian policy and then examine it in light of these models. South Africa's foreign policy is depicted primarily as a complex inter-relationship between realist military security incentives and the ideological imperatives of apartheid racial theory. While in neither case study are materialist or political-process models found to be particularly useful