Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC

South African Yearbook of International Affairs: 1997, PretoriaAuthor(s): Alexander JohnstonSource: Foreign Policy, No. 110, Special Edition: Frontiers of Knowledge (Spring, 1998), pp.188-189Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149295 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 12:57

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Foreign Policy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.96 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:57:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Global Newsstand

tarian, free market attitudes. Eastern Germans will probably remain dis- satisfied with any system that fails to care for their needs-universal and affordable childcare, reliable pensions, and full employment.

This conflict of values will likely plague unified Germany for years to come. Eastern German demands for more help from the state clash fun- damentally with the common western German belief that only a reduc- tion of state involvement will lead Germany out of its current doldrums. Will the upcoming September 1998 elections resolve the impasse? If the Party of Democratic Socialism-the successor to East Germany's com- munist party-were to make a strong showing and upset the current political balance, the conflict could grow even worse.

-Gebhard Schweigler

South African Yearbook of International Affairs

1997, Pretoria

The South African Yearbook of International Affairs provides comprehen- sive coverage of South Africa's burgeoning postapartheid foreign rela- tions. Published annually by the South African Institute of International Affairs (sAIIA), an independent research and policy think tank, it features brief analytical essays on a wide variety of South Africa's current foreign policy issues as well as useful statistical material.

A particularly important section in this edition is devoted to South Africa's multilateral relations. Greg Mills, director of SAIIA, writes on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Commonwealth. And essays by Garth Abraham, a law professor at the University of the Wit- watersrand, and Caroline de Pelet of SAIIA, cover regional institutions, most importantly the South African Development Community (SADC).

South Africa's emergence in multilateral institutions is marked by its presidency of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Develop- ment (UNCTAD) and the NAM; it will assume the latter role this Octo- ber, when it hosts the 12th NAM Summit in Durban. Mills points out that as chair, South Africa must bring coherence and focus to NAM, an organization "which is seen by many to be anachronistic... emasculat- ed by the end of the Cold War and, today, substantially irrelevant." In doing so, South Africa has the opportunity to become a key player in the evolution of more constructive multilateral relationships between

188 FOREIGN POLICY

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.96 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:57:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Global Newsstand

developed and developing countries. It has credibility with both groups; its principal challenge will be to retain that credibility under the strain of North-South tensions, while appearing as neither Western surrogate nor spokesperson for a fractious "victim coalition."

Similar contradictions prevail in regional relations. South Africa is finding it difficult to be a leader in SADC without exercising hegemony. As Abrahams and Pelet note, the country's relatively advanced economy is four times larger than that of all the other 11 member states' economies combined, and 20 times greater than that of the next largest (Zimbabwe). As South Africa gropes for its own foothold in the global economy, it must take care not to damage the interests of its weakest neighbors.

A common, underlying theme runs throughout all these essays. South Africa, like all emerging countries, finds it useful to emphasize the multi- lateral aspects of its foreign policy. But for South Africa, multilateralism carries fewer rewards today than in the 1970s and 1980s, when develop- ing countries possessed more international clout. This sobering fact and South Africa's unique place between North and South will demand some interesting balancing acts on the part of Cape Town's policymakers.

-Alexander Johnston

State, Government, and International Relations

Summer 1997, Tel Aviv

In the most recent edition of State, Government, and International Rela- tions, a scholarly annual published by Hebrew University and the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations in Jerusalem, histori- an Elie Podeh takes issue with the tendency among political scientists to base all studies of Israel on its role as an outsider in an Arab Middle East.

Podeh reminds readers that Israel has in fact played an important role in inter-Arab politics. He notes for example that Israel has served as a con- venient focus for Arab efforts to cultivate unity among themselves-most famously under former Egyptian president Gamal Abdal Nasser. And Israel has maintained an active part in preserving the region's delicate status quo: Tel Aviv's willingness to thwart Syrian threats to Jordan's territorial integri- ty during the September 1970 crisis is just one of many cases.

The Middle East peace process and end of the Cold War have caused a distinct shift in regional dynamics. Podeh observes that the once sharp

SPRING 1998 189

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.96 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:57:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions