Social movements and the democratisation of South African foreign policy

By: Heidi Hudson

The Mandela era (1994-1999) was characterised by a strong moral orientation, but implementing such a policy proved difficult in the face of traditional notions of state sovereignty and opposition against interference. Increasingly, economic imperatives driven by the globalisation project began to override the moral dimension. Ambiguities regarding South Africa’s position on, amongst other things, HIV/AIDS and the war in Iraq and its ‘quiet’ diplomacy in Zimbabwe have exposed the fault lines in South Africa’s foreign policy with respect to the balance between a normative (human rights-driven) and a realist (interest-driven) approach to global politics.

In theory the interests of domestic constituencies - such as parliament, political parties, civil society groups and business - impact significantly on foreign policy-making. However, even in established democracies, foreign policy-making is notoriously undemocratic and elitist in nature. In post-apartheid South Africa parliament is struggling to maintain its watchdog role and business and think tanks have little to show in terms of impact on foreign policy-making. Any attempt at fostering a democratic foreign policy therefore has to overcome deep-rooted bias towards the intrusion of public opinion in foreign policy-making. In the face of such opposition pressure groups often respond in a pragmatist way. Practice thus shows that idea and interest should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.

It is morally indefensible that governments see citizens’ value only in terms of how they can block internationally negotiated positions and not as a rights-based expression of the national will. In the post-Cold War era, the foreign policy agenda includes issues on which members of the public may hold strong views opposing the ‘wisdom’ of government’s position. For instance, by promoting input on Zimbabwe, the South African government may be better able to frame a credible stance on the humanitarian crisis and justify the controversial policy of ‘quiet’ diplomacy. By giving citizen groups some degree of sovereignty, domestic support for certain controversial policy decisions may be generated without coercion. In that sense citizen participation could become a crucial resource for states in the pursuit of goals at the regional and international level.

There are indeed limits to what domestic groups can achieve in foreign policy-making. The test is that those who wish to be heard should be able to influence government policy without fear of being branded as unpatriotic or racist. Not everybody is interested in foreign policy, but opportunities for participation must exist for foreign policy to be truly democratic.

Intense domestic interaction with foreign policy issues took place mainly during the time of the Government of National Unity and Mandela’s administration. A good example is the involvement of civil society in the White Paper on South African Participation in Peace Missions and the Discussion Paper on Foreign Policy (1996). A further instance was the role of civil society in getting the government to support the South African Campaign to Ban Landmines. After 1994, the number of independent civil society groups monitoring parliament increased dramatically. Despite that, many commentators have lamented the fact that the vanguard role of civil society has been replaced by a ‘post-liberation depression’. Many of the old social movements like the civics and the United Democratic Front were absorbed into the post-apartheid government. With that NGOs have also become more technocratic due to the demands of the donor community. Neighbourhood associations have all but disappeared. So, after the initial honeymoon period their influence gradually waned due to government establishing its own research capacity in specific issue areas and also because the emphasis shifted from policy development to policy implementation and service delivery.

However, the decline stabilised and social organisation is now showing an upward curve with many more mechanisms for influencing policy, e.g. through the media, the courts and the constitution. This became particularly evident during the Mbeki presidency. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) vehemently contested the government’s Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy; the Landless People’s Movement (some 100,000 strong) challenged government’s slow pace of land redistribution and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) tackled government’s inadequate response to HIV/AIDS. Other groups, such as the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, the Concerned Citizens Group), and the Anti-Eviction Campaign all focused on issues relating to poor service delivery. In addition movements driving so-called social exclusionary concerns have also come into existence. These cover issues such as xenophobia and identity-related concerns, as seen in the Gay and Lesbian Equality Project. In 2002, a coalition of networks, the Social Movements Indaba, used the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to draw attention to the link between neo-liberalism and local manifestations.

‘New’ social movements consisting of multiple organisations and networks exist within civil society with the aim of changing one or more aspects of the overarching socio-political and economic system. What makes them important players in the democratisation of foreign policy is the fact that those social movements have been able to mobilise transnationally, connecting the local to the global. For example, Jubilee South Africa was established as a local office of a global movement. The TAC is another case in point, whose activism straddles local, national and global arenas.

Treatment Action Campaign
The negative publicity surrounding President Mbeki’s dissident view on HIV/AIDS has launched HIV/AIDS as a foreign policy issue. The world has witnessed high-profile legal actions of the TAC against the exorbitant costs of Pfizer’s brand-name medications and the legal battle to force the government to distribute anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines to people with HIV/AIDS. Government has on occasion accused TAC activists of being unpatriotic, anti-African, and a front for the drug companies and white liberal interests. The most recent incident of exclusion took place at the UN General Assembly’s special session on Aids. The TAC and the Aids Law Project were not allowed to attend for fear of them vilifying President Mbeki.

The politics of HIV/AIDS has helped to counter anti-democratic tendencies in post-apartheid South Africa. The most important reason for the TAC’s success lies in the kind of relationship they have with the government, using an incrementalist and pragmatic combination of conflict and cooperation by means of which fundamental reform of the system is won – providing a service to people so they know where to access ARVs and how to use them, but also monitoring the ‘roll out’ of ARVs which means conflict with the government at times. The TAC example thus confirms that the relationship between state and civil society is one of symbiosis or mutual dependence, whatever the degree of conflict between them. TAC’s strategy of using the rights and rules of constitutional democracy has the potential of promoting a model for citizens to collectively seek equality, but the model remains of limited application and single-issue-driven.

Labour movement
Since 1994 there has been a marked decline in the influence of COSATU within the tripartite alliance. With the ANC taking over the seat of formal power and increasingly adopting a more orthodox economic policy, the labour movement has learnt to adapt. It has responded through heightened pragmatism – passing resolutions in support of the alliance in general and the ANC in particular, while still making the ‘right’ ideological noises. The movement has little choice but to stay within the alliance and try to wring concessions from the ANC to counterbalance the interests of big business.

Since 1994, the labour movement’s leftist position has been compromised on numerous occasions. For instance, at the 1999 Seattle talks COSATU decided to side with government and call for the reform of the WTO rather than its abolishment. At the 2002 WSSD trade union officials objected to the anti-government stance of many NGOs and subsequently hosted a meeting of less militant organisations as a result of a deal struck with the ANC. In exchange for inclusivity in policy making, COSATU agreed not to continue with strikes against privatisation.

In 2003, COSATU entered the field of sub-regional foreign policy by openly criticising the Zimbabwean government and the Swazi monarchy for suppressing the rights of labour movements. The movement started interacting with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, partly as a surrogate for the shrinking space for contestation on the domestic front. Government uses a ‘carrot and stick’ strategy to control unionists who become too critical, while a patronage system rewards ‘good’ behaviour. For instance, during the 2001 general strike by COSATU, government placed advertisements in all major newspapers painting a picture of COSATU as spoilers, not caring about workers losing wages. Yet trade unionists such as Shilowa and others were rewarded with high posts in government. COSATU’s support for the disgraced Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president, has also been a useful lever to wring more concessions from government on bread and butter issues. Only recently in a meeting between Mbeki and the presidential trade union working group quotas on cheap Chinese imports threatening the clothing, textile and footwear sector were announced – a major victory for labour.

One should not romanticise the influence of social movements on the foreign policy-making process. The value of their contribution lies in how the pressure from below collectively challenges elite views and sets the agenda for public debate. Social movements thus contest the constitutionally grounded view of government that it has been democratically elected by an overwhelming majority and therefore has the right to make policy unhindered by societal demands. Ideally the public contestation helps government to refine its policy, and ultimately to balance idea and interest as multiple positions are filtered through to government. The acid test for South Africa lies in creating an environment in which both government and society become responsive to dialogue and are able to act responsibly. Together they must jealously guard the fragile democracy in the making.

Select reading

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