Suchergebnisse

In seiner Analyse der Sicherheitslage und -politik Südafrikas nach der Apartheid geht der Autor über eine Diskussion miteinander interagierender Staaten im südlichen Afrika hinaus; er betrachtet die Region als integriertes Ganzes. Er argumentiert, dass - obschon Südafrika staatliche Strukturen und Eliten in der Region nach seinen Interessen manipuliert - das andauernde Leiden unter dem Apartheid-Regime die Region zusammengeschweißt und dass auf der ökonomischen Ebene die Migration von Arbeitskräften diesen Prozess beschleunigt habe. Bei der Betrachtung der gegenwärtigen Entwicklung der Region, die durch die Entwicklung einer transnationalen Solidarität und der Entstehung eines einheitlichen Wirtschaftsraumes charakterisiert sei (und die Unterscheidung zwischen nationaler und internationaler Politik obsolet mache), fragt er, ob die südafrikanische Dominanz schließlich überwunden werden könne und stellt Überlegungen an, welche kosmopolitischen Arrangements für das südliche Afrika angemessen sein könnten. (DÜI-Sbd)

In this wide-ranging interview, the historian Charles van Onselen discusses his recent book, Showdown at the Red Lion: The Life and Times of Jack McLoughlin, 1959–1910 against the backdrop of his previous work. He explores social formation and the consolidation of state-power in southern Africa through the empirical optic of social banditry and the role of individual outliers. The theoretical framing is drawn from historical sociology. The role of political authority across the Indian Ocean, particularly in Australia, is also considered, as is the rise of technology, the role of the Irish and the place of masculinity in the project of Empire building. The exchange also touches briefly on civil-military relations in contemporary Africa and on inter-disciplinarity in graduate studies.

The argument asserts that International Relations (IR) was (and remains) constructed to serve the interests of the knowledge courts of the north. In South Africa, the discipline is an 'alien species' because the imported idea of sovereignty not only disrupted natural patterns of regional migration, but the formation of the region's first state, the Union of South Africa, divided the country's people on the grounds of race. The coming of the Union followed upon both the Jameson Raid (1895/1896) and the Boer War (1899–1902) – the former was of interest to E.H. Carr in two instances but only as an attempt to explain events in the global north. The 'new' politics of southern Africa, which were based on sovereignty and the rise of Afrikaner Nationalism were ignored by Carr. The migration of IR to South Africa in the 1930s rested in an imperial frame, and the discipline helped create a European state in Africa. The author uses several autobiographical examples to suggest his own dissatisfaction with this condition by using Carr's notion of 'site-specificness'. The primacy of English in IR is critiqued because this language closes off perspectives of the international which are carried in other languages. The article concludes with a discussion of the way in which 'First People' are excluded by the deliberations around IR.

Summary

This article reviews a trilogy of memoirs written by diplomats who served South Africa's apartheid government. It explores the 'communication' versus 'representative' function of diplomacy and sets this in the context of a pariah state, as apartheid South Africa once was. It suggests that all diplomats who served under apartheid were complicit in that system. The article also looks towards the role that the idea of the international setting played in the formation of a southern African state system. This is viewed again the backdrop of Britain's fading empire. This explains how South African diplomacy was cast in the imperial mode. The porousness of southern Africa's borders is used to explain how diplomacy was used to reproduce states.