Boo"RetI~ws 81
There are differential rights, expectations, access to education, training and employment, stablS,
independence and power, between men and women. This aspect, a focus of the book, is seen as
constituting a central contradiction and difficulty in development. The authors illustrate that family
decisions, and, crucially, women's roles in the family and in production, are of great relevance to the
success or failure of development policies at a national, as well as at a local, level. Therefore it is vital
for planners and others to understand the basis for individual decision making and day to day activities
with the family, and the constraints and influences on them.
One paper (by Oppong) also examines men's importance in the family, as fathers and in relation to
child spacing. These issues are as often neglected as are women's contributions to the economy through
their family roles and informal production.
The book is aimed at a wide readership, including planners, politicians, social researchers,
demographers, and practitioners in many aspects of development Some of the studies are fairly
teclmical, and between them include a substantial amount of hard data, as well as detailed discussion and
analysis. The whole cannot be called an easy read, but it contains a wealth of well-researched material
that rewards perseverance. It should prove a valuable resource book for development workers and
planners in general.
Reviewed by Helen Jackson, lecturer, School of Social Work, Harare.
South Africa: A New US Policy for the 199Os, Kevin Danaher, Institute for Food and Development
Policy, San Francisco, 1988 (69pp, US$6.(0).
Kevin Danaher's short book is a model of crisp policy writing. It should be prescribed reading for
everyone studying Southern Africa, whether or not they agree with him. It begins by quoting Martin
Luther King in 1965, "the shame of the United States is that it is objectively an ally of this monstrous
[South African] government in its grim war with its own black people" (pI). Danaher surveys the twenty
years subsequent to this statement and concludes that "the United States remains the single most
important protector of South Africa's apartheid regime" (pI). He continues "US policymakers were
forced into a 'straddle' regarding apartheid: denouncing white minority rule while doing little to
interfere with the support given to apartheid by major US corporations and security agencies of the US
government" (p2).
Danaher argues that US policy toward South Africa was "accumulationist: safeguarding US
corporate access to South Africa's human and natural resources in order to accumulate capital" (P3). In
due course, "while verbal criticism of Pretoria's violence was designed to placate critics of apartheid,
continued ties to white minority interests were designed to please corporate and national security
interests" (p2f). However, five years into the Reagan administration, "public pressure forced the White
House to declare limited sanctions" (P7).
In Danaher's view, the central defect of the Reagan policy on South Africa was an obsession with
East-West competition. Ina secret memorandum Chester Crocker stressed that "the top US priority is
to stop Soviet encroachment in Africa" (pB). Danaher believes the chief threat to stability in the.region
is South Africa, not Moscow. ''The permissiveness of constructive engagement allowed Pretoria to
create havoc throughout the region" (1'9). Danaher quotes Robert Mugabe: ''Those who judge Africa
in terms of East and West do us a grave disservice and they display deep ignorance" (Pll).
On taking office, Chester Crocker knew little of Africa except the 'white' minority, on which he
had published. "Crocker and his Rhodesian wife also owned thousands of dollars of stock in South
African gold mines" (1'9). Crocker said to Danaher in 1980, "All Reagan knows about Southern Africa
is that he's on the side of the whites" (Pl0). But Danaher asserts that "Pretoria was a liability, not an
82 Book Revi4ws
asset, for US policy in the region..lt was South Africa's role [in Angola] that united African
goveriunents in denOlDlcing US intervention while supporting Cuba.l and Soviet intervention" (P12).
Danaher observes that "Pretoria's strength is negative. It has the power to destroy but it does not
have the power to build" (P13). When South Africans erupted in protest in 1984-6, the US anti-apartheid
movement won a victory by f<>Icing the Comprehensive Anti Apartheid Act on Reagan in place ofbis
executive order which was "designed to have as little irnp&ct as possible" (P19).
Danaher sees a contradiction: "most members of Congress seek a difficult goal: they would like to
see apartheid eliminated without destroying capitalism. But. ..apartheid and capitalism developed
together in organic unity. This is not to say that capitalism cannot survive in South Africa without
apartheid" (P22). "There is a fimdamental dispute over the def"mition of democracy" (P23). Most US
pol.icymakers would be satisfied by the vote for all in South Africa; "but millions of South Africans are
demanding that the transition to democratic rule include a redistribution of control overproperty" (P23).
Danaherproceeds into theory, andstresses: "it is notthe United States asa nation that owns property
in South Africa" (P25). The ties between the two countries "are conducted by a relatively small group
of mainly older, rich, white males, representing a tiny percentage of each national population" (p.25).
But "the elite alliances are not limited to the rich "(P26). Poor black vigilantes are part of the elite
alliance, for example. In Danaher's analysis, sanctions and disinvestment are not interruptions in
relations between countries but between the elites. They should be judged not by whether they create
unemployment or hurt the South African economy, but ''by the extent to which they drive a wedge
between South Africa's rulers and their supporters in the outside world. A white minority of 15 per cent
cannot rule for long without powerful external allies" (P27). Reagan did not want sanctions, but
"escalating outrage against apartheid created popular pressure in the United States strong enough to
force a reluctant President Reagan to impose punitive measures against Pretoria" (p32). 'The lesson is
that "the people can change US policy even with an unsympathetic president in the WhiteHouse" (p43).
Danaher's policy for the future is less convincing than his analysis of the past. He believes that
"Washington policymakers retain the strategic objectives of keeping South Africa nonsocialist and
within the Western sphere of influence, but they are gradually realising that the white minority regime
is not the best partner for achieving these goals" (P35). Is the last part of this argument not wishful
thinking?
A new US policy for South Africa, in Danaher's opinion, should (:36):
"(I) help strengthen links between workers and peasants in South Africa and their allies in the
outside world; and
(2) weaken the international alliance of proapartheid forces by breaking links between South
African elites and their inter-national supporters".
Part two is plausible. The idea, in part one, that either President Bush, or Governor Dukakis if
he had won the presidency, would be remotely likely to want to strengthen links between workers and
peasants in South Africa and their allies, is fanciful.
Danaher wants the US to force Pretoria to end state violence; to feed the starving; to end aggression
against neighbours; to repeal the state of emergency and establish equal justice for all; release Nelson
Mandela and other political prisoners; pennit free political expression; set a timetable for elimination
of apartheid laws; and negotiate with the opposition (p31). Danaher sees Washington achieving this by
truly comprehensive economic sanctions; by support for mandatory UN sanctions; by weakening the
South African military; and by planning for a naval blockade (P39). Quite simply, the United States is
most unlikely to do these things in the next five years.
Danaher asserts that ''repression can postpone but not prevent a transition to majority rule" (P39).
He goes on to say "A relatively non-violent transition to democracy in South Africa willonly be possible
ifthe major powers exert pressure on Pretoria to compromise" (p4O). Here he is onf"mner ground: a1arg~
----------------------~ BookRrn.- 83
war in Southern Africa would suit neilher super-power, and for that reason m eventual negoIialion is
likely to be forced on Pretoria. Yet no one should underestimate lhe lenglh of time for which Pretoria
can delay transition, nor the ability of Soulh Africa's elites to use the gold to buy Illies abroad.
Consider Danaher's conclusion:
"A foreign policy for lhe futurl.\ must seek to be a majority policy: strenglhening US ties to workers
and peasants, not the generals, politicians and big businessmen who are the main beneficilries of
US policy. Abandoning a foreign policy lhat hitches the US star to elite groups around the world
will require a domestic restructuring of the Pentagon, the CIA, transnational corporations and the
olherpowerfulinstitutions that have locked us into a foreign policy lhatfavoursminorityru1e"(p49).
H Danaher knows how to restructure lhe Pentagon, the CIA and lhe largest business corporations
in the world so lhat United States ties to Soulh African workers and peasants are strengthened, he has
not told us. Never1heless, his hyperbole is not entirely intolerable, given the clarity of his earlier text,
and given lhe strong likelihood lhat lhere will be some mechanism, orchestrated by bolh lIuperJlOwen,
whel"eby apartheid is eventually ended.
Reviewed by Renfrew Christie, University of Cape Town, Cape Town.
Multinational Joint Ventures in Developing Countrles,Paul W Beamish, Routledge, London, 1988
(145pp, £27,50hbk).
Investment by multinational corporations (MNC) in 'less developed countries' has often been seen as
a primary means of bringing capital, technology md technical skills into these countries. The effects
of such investments, proponents argue, is to support government import substitution policies and to
create employment (advantages for the host country) and as a means of obtaining lICCClIltIo foreign
markets (advantage to MNC). Critics of multinational corporation investment show how their power
(based on size, number of countries they opezate in, and weallh - some MNCs have mnual turnovers
greater lhan national incomes of the developing countries lhey operate in) allows 1hem to ovmide the
sovereignty of governments, and to distort their social and economic policies. In the end. of course, the
aim of the MNC is to increase its profitability.
1be questions of capital development, technological advance and industrialisation are of comse
fundamentally important. For economic and social development to occur - forpeop1e's incomes, living
standards and social wellbeing to improve - national wea1lh must increase md national productive
capacity must grow. But it must be seriously questioned whe1her the sacrifices in national sovereignty,
in particular of economic policy_setting by true representatives of national interests, are worlh making
for lhe minor gains lhat accrue from multinationals. Surely more important are serious efforts to tap
and direct national sources of capital and to mobilise and motivate national initiative and a-eativity.
This book by Paul Beamish does not, in fact, contribute much to a progressive discussion of
strategies for economic development in the 'Jess developed countries'. Looking as it does, in a rather
dry and academic, and occasionally turgid way, at equity joint ventures between Americmor European
multinationals and private companies in LOCI, it is based on a presupposition 1hat such joint ventureS
"speed up international development". Joint ventures involving direct participation of goverJl111elltsof
LDCs are not considered, a fact which makes lhe book not very relevant in Africa. 1bough there is m
interesting section on the experiences surrounding joint venture exploration wilh China between 1919
and 1986, it is certainly of 11lOIe relevance to executives of MNCs lhinking about setting up such
structures and relationships, than for policy setters or malysts in the Third World.
Ofcourse, if in Zimbabwe the trade h'ba"alisation now underway, andthe long awaitedandlltill
'expected shortly' investment code, so direct, the book might become re1evmt bele, but only in