South Africa's Reluctant Transition

Abstract

South Africa's Reluctant Transition Steven Friedman (bio) Steven Friedman Steven Friedman is director of the Centre for Policy Studies, an independent political and social research organization in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has published several monographs and essays on the South African transition and the strategy of the National Party, and is currently engaged in a detailed study of the South African negotiations. Notes 1. Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, et al., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 2. Dankwart Rustow offers an account of democracy's origins more appropriate to South African conditions—because he sees democracy as a "second-best" solution to severe conflicts. But Rustow's thesis is not necessarily a comfort to South African democrats: his chief precondition is a "sense of community quietly taken for granted" by the contending elites. Whether this exists in South Africa is debatable. See Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model," Comparative Politics 2 (April 1970): 337-63. 3. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 4. Benyamin Neuberger, National Self-Determination in Post-Colonial Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1986). 5. See African National Congress, Negotiations: A Strategic Perspective (as adopted by the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, 25 November 1992). 6. See SA Barometer, 9 October 1992, which reproduces the Record of Understanding in full. 7. Yossi Shain and Juan Linz, "The Role of Interim Governments," Journal of Democracy 3 (January 1992): 73-89. [End Page 69] Copyright © 1993 National Endowment for Democracy and the Johns Hopkins University Press