Download - LSE Theses Online - London School of Economics and ...

legislature, nor from the parliamentary opposition, but from within the governingtripartite alliance. Perceptions of state power varied depending on the issue at stake.State power appeared less unassailable on matters closer to home, and which poseda threat to the unity of the ANC and the tripartite alliance, prompting foreign policydecision-making that shied away from conflict and the potential use of force.Further afield, the South African government under Mbeki, gave full vent to itsAfricanist and anti-imperialist impulses, even going as far as to agree to despatch aconsignment of arms to Haiti, and to recognise Western Sahara, potentiallyhastening the break-up of a fellow-African state, Morocco.One of the central contentions of this thesis is that benign, or ideological asopposed to material perceptions of threat to the nation entertained by the AfricanNational Congress as South Africa’s governing party, as well as its various leaders,particularly Thabo Mbeki, prevented the ANC from acting in more expansive wayswith respect to enlarging South Africa’s international engagement, and also militatedagainst the country’s selection of aggressive means for the pursuit of itsinternational goals. This was a function of two processes: the centralisation of keydecision-making capacities in the office of the President; and, the mountinguncertainty over the legitimating power of the ANC in South African society.On the one hand, decision-making power was progressively centralised underThabo Mbeki, particularly in the Presidency. On the other, the ANC’s legitimatingpower – the ability to justify significant policy decisions - came increasingly intoquestion, and, indeed declined, as its economic policies fell foul of traditional alliesand constituencies. The latter had therefore to be periodically assured that the ANCremained a natural ideological and political partner. Foreign policy was used for thispurpose.Classical realism predicts that as national power increases, a state will expand itsinternational engagements. South African foreign policy complied with thisprediction, but not in the manner predicted by realist theory, as it limited aggressiveprojections of national power. Compared to Mbeki’s first term, during which heassembled the instruments of state power after the formative Mandela years, hissecond term was more decisive in terms of allocating resources to foreign policy.285