Security versus Growth: The International Factor in South African Policy

A key feature of South Africa's political dynamics is the linkage between its domestic affairs and its international relations. South Africa's access to international markets for vital capital and technology is threatened by the nature of its domestic socioeconomic and political systems. In its efforts to maintain white rule, the South African government has, over the past 25 years, sought to deal with this threat by uncoupling its domestic affairs from its foreign economic relations. The methods utilized to attempt this have varied. Pretoria has altered its domestic sociopolitical arrangements in ways that it believed, and hoped, would make South Africa more acceptable internationally. It has fashioned its foreign policy so as to attempt to reduce the international consequences of its stigma of racial rule. It has sought to reduce its vital dependence on the international economic system through policies that would increase the autonomy of the South African economy. And, most recently, it has sought to diversify its foreign sources of capital and its trading partners toward countries whose governments and firms are likely to be less sensitive about South Africa's system of white supremacy.