South Africa

1. South Africa • Factors for and against democracy: • Moderate level of development • Highly unequal society • History of labor coercive practices

2. General backdrop: Apartheid • Established in 1948 with coming to power of National Party • Three parts: • Political: complete exclusion of non-whites from political process. • Economic: use of coercive means to keep wages of non-whites low. • Social: physical separation of races.

3. General backdrop: Apartheid • But, economic and social goals conflicted: the dependence of whites on non-white labor made segregation difficult.

4. General backdrop: Apartheid • Solution: Homelands policy. • But, this never really worked. Africans came to the cities anyway.

5. Timeline of African Response • 1912: Formation of ANC • 1950s: Initial response to apartheid • Freedom Charter (1955): non-racial democracy, mild socialism. • Sporadic peaceful protests. • State response: ban ANC, jail leaders • Why so easy to contain? Small urban population.

6. Timeline of African Response • 1960s: Quiet decade of economic growth • Urban African populations grew (and grew!) • Flourishing of civil society in African areas

7. Timeline of African Response • 1970s: • New organizations, political movements • Young people influenced by Black Consciousness • Civics • Trade Unions • Economic slowdown • Renewed protest: 1976 riots in Soweto, spread to rest of country. • Much harder for the state to contain.

8. Timeline of African Response • P.W. Botha liberalizes the unions in 1978: • The hope: this will moderate the conflict. • The reality: Unions (COSATU) initiate wave after wave of protest in early 80s. • United Democratic Front (UDF) forms, contributes to mass insurrection. • South Africa: “ungovernable” by 1986.

9. Timeline of African Response • Mid 1980s: Economic Crisis • Worker productivity down • Massive capital outflows • IMF cuts off loans • South African capitalists: Apartheid not worth it! Begin pressuring government to negotiate.

10. Negotiations and Love Songs • 1985: Secret meetings between apartheid leaders and ANC leaders • Other factors encouraging compromise: • US and UK switch, encourage negotiations. • Leadership change: Botha gives way to De Klerk, De Klerk legalizes ANC and releases Mandela.

11. Negotiations and Love Songs • 1990-1993: Hammering out a plan • ANC, NP: Very different notions of what “New” South Africa should look like • Dicey moments, but desire to avoid war kept both parties at the table. • Deal involved compromises for everyone • April 1994: Nelson Mandela elected

12. Conclusions • Structural factors mattered: • Greater development made protest easier. • Change in interests of economic elite key to initiation of negotiations. • However, political factors mattered also: • Economic interests changed because of political protests • Political leadership key at certain critical points.

13. Conclusions • Finally, international factors once again very important. Domestic politics cannot tell us the whole story.

14. Definition: Ethnic Group • Membership determined by descent or ancestry. Ethnic identity is ascriptive: something you are born with instead of something you choose. • Members of ethnic groups know and value membership in the group. It has meaning to them.

15. Definition: Ethnic Group • Group members share distinguishing cultural features. • The group has a shared history, which may be partially invented. • Most ethnic group has a homeland, or at least memories of one.

16. Factoids • Ethnic identities are quite prevalent. • Ethnic identities are only one of many different kinds of collective identities.

17. Factoids • Ethnic identities are distinguished from many other types of identity (esp. economic ones) in that they are less voluntary in nature. But even here, there’s ambiguity.

18. Classic Approaches to Ethnicity • Liberalism: • Ethnicity is “morally suspect” because it places groups above individuals. • For better or worse, modernization and economic development would dissolve ethnic ties, create “new” people unconnected to the old ways.

19. Classic Approaches to Ethnicity • Marxism: • Ethnicity is epiphenomenal, secondary to deeper forces (i.e. material interests). • Ethnic identifications = false consciousness. • Marxist revolution (Workers of the World Unite!) will end ethnic based thinking.

20. But the reality is . . . • Ethnicity is alive and well in all corners of the globe! • Developed countries: anti-immigrant parties in Europe, separatist movements in Spain and Canada, minority mobilizations in US.

21. But the reality is . . . • Former communist countries of Eastern Europe: many new ethnic mobilizations. • Developing countries: economic development fuels ethnic mobilization.

22. Primordialism • Ethnic identities are more fundamental than other types of identitity. Ethnicity is not subject to rational cost/benefit calculations. It belongs to the realm of emotion. • Ethnicity is immutable, unchangeable, fixed.

23. Primordialism • Ethnic mobilizations are motivated by expressive not instrumental needs. • Conflict based on ethnicity is inevitable, persistence is a given.

24. Instrumentalism • Ethnic identities are not more fundamental or powerful than other types of identity. • Ethnicity is fluid. Individuals have multiple identities, these identities shift according to context.

25. Instrumentalism • Mobilization is about getting something. People join ethnic movements when there is a pay-off to doing so. Furthermore, when it is useful to them, they may even invent new identities.

26. Instrumentalism • Mobilization is about getting something. People join ethnic movements when there is a pay-off to doing so. Furthermore, when it is useful to them, they may even invent new identities. • Ethnicity leads to conflict when someone has something to gain from going to war.

27. Instrumentalism • Persistence? As long as ethnicity is a useful way of organizing people, it will persist.

28. Critiques of each theory? • Primordialism: • Empirically, identities do appear to shift according to context. • If conflict is so inevitable, how do you explain long periods of peace?

29. Critiques of each theory? • Instrumentalism: • How do we explain the intensity and emotional quality of ethnic bonds? • Ethnic conflict may be instrumental for leaders, but it rarely is for followers. How do we explain their behavior?

30. What is civil conflict? • Examples: civil war, rebellions, insurrections, political revolutions, social revolutions, genocides. • Definition: sustained, serious actions that involves a large fraction of the population and pose a serious challenge to the peace of the country.

31. “State” versus “Society” • Society: basic social forces and groups, the population at large and how it is structured and organized. • State (review): the set of permanent institutions and structures of authority in a country.

32. “State” versus “Society” • What is the relationship between them? • State is a mirror that reflects society. Politics is a function of social forces alone. • State is not just background music: it exerts an independent effect out outcomes. We can’t just look at society to understand politics! Have to look at state too.

33. Society-Based “Bottom Up” • Misery breeds revolt: civil conflict is a function of the level of grievance in the population. • Variants: • Ethnic group hatreds • Extreme poverty and deprivation • Unfulfilled expectations

34. Political Entrepreneurs • Grievance alone is insufficient to produce war. Politicians provide the spark that converts grievance into action. • Motivations of politicians vary from idealism to personal gain.

35. Political Entrepreneurs • How? • Articulate existing grievances, sometimes even accentuating them. • May not be enough: collective action problems may prevent people with common grievances from acting together. Examples: free-rider problem, first-mover problem.

36. Political Entrepreneurs • How (continued) • Politicians help people overcome collective action problems: • Provide selective benefits to participation (to overcome free-riding problem) • Throw the first stones (to overcome first-mover problem)

37. State Centric “Top Down” • Grievances (even grievance organized by politicians) insufficient for explaining civil conflict. • State factors are key: are the state’s coercive organizations coherent and effective? If yes, grievances are never allowed to flower.

38. Strengths/Weaknesses • Bottom-up approach • Pros: explains why ordinary people might participate in conflict. • Cons: Can’t explain why grievances persist for long periods of time without producing conflict.

39. Strengths/Weaknesses • Political entrepreneurs approach: • Pros: Better at explaining timing. • Cons: Why do people follow politicians into war? When do politicians see war as a better option than working within institutions?

40. Strengths/Weaknesses • State centric approach • Pros: Can better explain incentives of political leaders. • Cons: State weakness is insufficient for explaining violence. Many weak states never experience civil conflict.