Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: This presentation explores the ways in which music, together with cultural forms such as poetry, theatre, and dance, was used to garner international support for the struggle against apartheid. From the mid-1970s exiled political groups, particularly the African National Congress (ANC), came increasingly to recognize the value of culture in promoting the struggle abroad. 1974 saw the establishment of the Mayibuye Cultural Ensemble, a London-based grouping that was to achieve considerable success in Europe. Mayibuye was an agitprop group whose performances consisted of an awareness-raising narrative about apartheid interwoven with poetry readings and rousing renditions of freedom songs. In the late 1970s, as increasing pressure forced many of Mayibuye’s performers into more direct political work, another group was in the budding stages of development closer to home. The Amandla Cultural Ensemble originated amongst ANC exiles based largely in military training camps in southern Africa, and became a popular ambassador for the movement across Africa, Europe, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. It offered large-scale, increasingly professionalized performances incorporating jazz, theatre, and dance. Its performances were intended not only to raise international awareness about apartheid, but also – perhaps more importantly – to present an alternative vision of a future, more inclusive South African culture. Drawing on original archival material, photographs, and documentary footage, this presentation explores developing conceptions of the value of cultural work amongst South African political exiles in the 1970s and 80s, and the ways in which culture was actively recruited to promote the anti-apartheid struggle abroad.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The United States has a longstanding policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorist organizations. It does not, however, always adhere to this stated policy. During the Reagan Administration, for example, the U.S. not only met with members of the African National Congress (ANC), but it also removed the ban on negotiating with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). These actions outraged South Africa and Israel, respectively. Similarly, President Bill Clinton angered the British government by granting a visa to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. This presents an important puzzle: Why would the U.S. make concessions to a terrorist organization, especially one that is in conflict with its close ally? This project asks two specific research questions: First, what explains the shift between a strategy of isolating nationalist terrorist groups to a strategy of engaging them? Second, under what conditions will engagement succeed in integrating these groups into a political system? The significance of this study is that it will determine if NTOs will forgo violence and enter the political system and what role the U.S. can play in facilitating that transition.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Scholars of democracy are necessarily concerned with the factors that either contribute to or limit its sustainability. The regular turnover of power is often identified as one such factor (Huntington 1991). If those in power will submit to the electorate and cede the state to challengers, then it is reasonable to claim that the democratic “rules of the game” are firmly entrenched. A lack of political turnover, therefore, is widely considered pathological. It is argued that democracy without turnover is at best fragile and untested; at worst, it is not really democracy at all. If political turnover is impossible or unlikely, then every challenge to the government represents a challenge to the democracy (Suttner 2004). Without turnover, democracy is assumed to be a short-lived state of affairs.

Botswana and South Africa seem anomalous in this regard. In neither country has the ruling party ever lost an election; Botswana’s BDP has governed since independence in 1966, while the ANC in South Africa has won every election since the end of apartheid in 1994, increasing its vote share each time. Yet both countries conduct regular, free and fair elections that are contested by multiple political parties. This fact, in addition to their relative stability and prosperity, make it difficult to declare their democracy insufficient in terms of turnover alone.

I argue that the turnover test forces democracy into a false polarity. I argue with Carothers (2002) that there is no reason to see oppressive dictatorship and multi-party democracy as mutually exclusive end states toward which all political systems necessarily tend. As Carothers suggests, it is entirely possible that states will reach equilibrium somewhere between these extremes. Looking at Botswana and South Africa as case studies, we need not assume that they are poised to fall in one direction or the other. Given the possibility of alternative equilibria, we must assess the extent to which the interests of the people are represented by politicians and expressed in policy, irrespective of turnover.

I evaluate the quality of democracy in Botswana and South Africa in two ways. First, I analyze the performance of both governments from an institutional perspective; second, I use data from the Afrobarometer surveys to assess the attitudes toward democracy expressed by citizens of each country. Both suggest that these governments are responsive to the needs of their citizens despite the lack of turnover.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper addresses the puzzle that underlies South Africa’s dominant political party, the ANC. Unlike most (earlier) political parties in the West, the ANC took power under conditions of universal suffrage and also at a time when the state had scarce resources to meet the demands of a needy and vocal electorate. Yet, during its first decade of electoral competition and governance, the ANC expanded its voter support over successive elections and has not lost ground to other South African political parties. How has it accomplished such a feat in light of its scarce resources when facing a universally enfranchised electorate?
To analyze the South African case, I begin with eighteen variables that I have identified from the political party scholarship that authors have argued contribute to the evolution of political party systems and to the changing fortunes of political parties in multi-party democracies in other regions. I find in the South Africa case I can collapse these eighteen variables into five variables to explain the puzzle and also to determine which variables from the general literature “travels” to the South African case and what variables the South African case requires that are not found in the literature.
My substantive finding is that the five variables coalesce with the effect of making opposition parties appear irrelevant. This, in turn, causes voters who are disaffected from the governing party not to vote, rather than to vote for an opposition party. Additionally, as opposition parties are seen to be irrelevant, many new parties spring up as would-be-leaders become frustrated with the perceived ineffectual leadership of the existing parties. This phenomenon splits the opposition and gives the dominant ANC more power relative to many small parties.