SOUTH AFRICA IN AFRICA: BOUND TO LEAD?

CHRIS ALDEN & GARTH LE PERE

HEGEMONY, LEADERSHIP AND EMERGING POWERS: SOME

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO SOUTH

AFRICA

Hegemonic stability: the existence of a dominant state has been a crucial feature of

the international systems that engage in long term cooperation.

• However critical theories argue that a consensual acceptance from weaker

states and their elites indeed is necessary along with an internilised ideology to

shape collectively based institutions. (Robert Cox).

• For structuralist such as Wallerstein the construction of elites expressed in

states in the international community. The gradual construction of state-based

hierarchies within the international system: states occupy a position either the

capitalist core, semi-periphery an periphery and as such exercise power within

the framework of well established regimes (financial, legal, military)

controlled by hegemons. In this sense, South Africa is an intermediary in the

semiperiphery (Africa) between industrialised and the resource rich periphery.

• Middle powers are an instrument of bigger countries to assure control over

less developed ones (instrumentalist approach). In this sense Transnational

elite affiliation is important.

• The development of regional hegemons is aimed at perpetuating the prevailing

distribution of power in the international system. Since international

cooperation (ideological) of elites demand the creation of regional principals

in order to rein sub-systemic scenarios.

• However, it is argued that failures in expressing regional leadership have

undermined the possibilities and attempts of South Africa to become a

regional hegemon.

WHY IS SOUTH AFRICA FALLING SHORT OF FULFILLING THE

REQUIREMENTS OF HEGEMONY, SPECIALLY WHEN IT APPEARS TO

MEET ALL CONVENTIONAL CONDITIONS FOR DOMINANCE OF THE

CONTINENT?

1. Economic figures overestimate the reach of SA’s influence. It doesn’t go

further of a small radius of states tied to SA since its foundation in 1910.

2. SA’s soft power (the link between material conditions for hegemony and the

ideational factors) or its big ideas (Development of regimes and institutions in

Africa) are seen with suspicion or hostility in some countries.

3. political instability is bolstered by economic hindrances: the concomitant

struggle for recognition by leaders and governments of the day in emerging

powers assumes a critical status,a nd domestic and international sources of

legitimacy are actively pursued. However, domestic support is always a key

part to sustain an hegemonic project.

SOUTH AFRICA’S LIMITS OF MATERIAL SOURCES OF HEGEMONY

The SA appeal for an ‘African renaissance’ lack of popular support (African

masses) and is only recognised by regional elites.

Factors to take into account:

1. The great investment of SA (South Africa) in other countries. However, it has

been mainly in southern African countries.

2. It is difficult to consolidate SA leadership due to economic hindrances and

0remaining political influential apartheid constituencies and groups.

LEADERSHIP, REGIME TYPE AND THE SEARCH FOR RECOGNITION

• It is the realm of ideas where South Africa holds selective to minimal

attraction on the continent.

• It has had mixed results in embedding a leadership across the continent that is

accepted as legitimate and authoritative.

• It has been perceived by other African countries that South Africa interest is

mainly the expansion of the Neoliberal agenda and the political and economic

domination of the continent without advancing on development projects.

DOMESTIC ORDER AND THE CHANGING ANC REGIME

• The fragile welfare bases, weak state protection for the poor, chronic levels of

unemployment, and social segmentation have provided the reasons for social

instability, violence and political confrontation.

• The apartheid legacies remain deeply embedded in the economy, political

forces and social structures. This has been exacerbated by the apparition of

new empowered black middle class that remains as the main beneficiaries of

the new order. Furthermore, the communicative linkages between societal

demands and governmental leaders remain centralised and weak.

• The de-racialisation of the dominant class (in political and economic fields)

has given certain stability to the government, avoiding therefore, a strong

opposition that may difficult the governance capacity. However, huge

concessions have to be negotiated in order to keep under control the necessary

consensus to govern. Such picture is reinforced by the internal ideological

divisions of the ANC.

INTERNATIONAL SOURCES OF RECOGNITION

The crisis in Zimbabwe has helped to shake the social pressure already existent in

South Africa, since hundred of displaced people from the neighbouring Zimbabwe

has been added to the slums in the most populous cities. In this context, thabo

Mbeki has played an important role (or anti-role) by supporting Mugabes

government as a legitimate one.

Such an action undermined the already hardly gained position of South Africa as

core representative of African’s interests in international organisations. The

relevance and status gave to South Africa is better explained through its

participation in the WTO, the G20+ group, and the requested South African

intervention in Rwanda by the UN secretary Boutros Ghali in the 1990s.

CONCLUSION

South Africa faces internal debates between a moralistic speech and the economic

means to develop a real authority over the promised social programmes of the

ANC. Certainly, the economic inequality, rising social pressures, and the

antagonism played by political elites that support authoritarian leaders in the

continent along with a predatory investment industry undermine the ability of the

state to become a benign middle power for Africa.

Moreover, the lack of partisanship cohesion and even internal divisions in the

ANC bolster a poor coherence in the executive power, which in turn is reflected in

a disproportionate social inequality and poor efficiency once important projects

need to be developed. To this entire picture, it is added the influx and

institutionalisation of the neoliberal agenda inside the state’s structure that leave

with reduced room of manoeuvre to political leaders, which consequently have to

engage in negotiations with core industrial sectors in order to assure fair rates of

political effectiveness. In the end, the foreign policy of South Africa is

characterised for several contradictions due to domestic segmentation and the

heritage of the apartheid regime.