The Front Line States, Regional Interstate Relations, and Institution Building in Southern Africa

Abstract

Underlying this process of regional aggregation has been the need to manage the asymmetries in power relationships between them and South Africa. Exercised historically through an elaborate set of interlocking economic relations, South Africa’s dominance in the 1980s assumed an aggressive posture through political and military intervention within the region. This chapter suggests that regional collaboration and the concomitant process of institution building by the FLS and SADCC are partial mechanisms for problem-solving and self-maintenance. Throughout the 1980s, three major goals dominated the FLS’ perceptions of security: regime stability; black majority rule; and creation of regional economic institutions to reduce their dependence on South Africa. Pretoria’s two-pronged onslaught in Angola coincided with the impasse in the efforts to reach a Namibian settlement. Pretoria’s efforts to use the Nkomati Accord as the key to reducing its international isolation was shattered by the domestic opposition that followed.