The Impact of Sanctions on South Africa and Its Periphery

Abstract

The debate concerning whether the West should impose sanctions against the Republic of South Africa has been mostly political in nature. Moreover, much of the discussion has concerned the morality of sanctions; less, especially by advocates of sanctions, has dealt with the effectiveness of proposed measures. The economics literature has been particularly sparse, and most detailed analyses are inaccessible other than to professional economists. 1 This paper attempts to fill the gap. The discussion is non-mathematical, although the propositions put forth can be derived from formal models.2 The arguments are generally straightforward and intuitive, though, so that the absence of technical details obscures little. In particular, this paper will seek to outline which sorts of sanctions will be most effective in achieving the dismantling of the economic (and possibly political) aspects of apartheid, and which are likely to harm southern Africa's black population least.3 The analysis suggests two central points. First, effective sanctions may exist that do not greatly hurt poor South African blacks. Second, effective sanctions must be accompanied by a generous policy of infrastructural aid to South Africa's neighbors if these countries are to remain stable. The next section briefly describes current sanctions, while the following section outlines salient features of the southern African economies. The paper then discusses the impact of specific trade and investment sanctions. The final section summarizes desirable sanction strategies, considers the apartheid government's ability to shift the consequences of such measures, and presents a positive strategy for developing the rest of southern Africa that will be useful even in the absence of effective sanctions.