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 SAs influence. It doesnt go further of a small radius of states tied to SA since its foundation in 1910. 2. SAs 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 AFRICAS 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 Africans 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 states 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.