Negotiation and Violence: The ANC, War Termination, and South African Democracy

• In Event: Democracy and Foreign Policy

Abstract

Civil wars and internal conflicts tend to be brutally destructive to societies, economic infrastructure, and political systems. Theories of insurgency and revolutionary war emphasize protraction, the erosion of political will, and the subversion of the populace – tactics which, if successful, almost guarantee the collapse of state institutions and a period of brutal internecine violence as the new regime attempts to assert control and authority. Theories of counterinsurgency fall on a spectrum between “population-centric” efforts (designed to sustain and bolster state and society) and brutal suppression of opposition. The latter end of the spectrum, obviously, also leads to violence against rebels, against their supporters, and against any suspected enemies of the state. In South Africa, an armed struggle was waged for more than thirty years between the African National Congress (ANC) and a South African apartheid system based on systematically depriving non-whites of political and economic rights and participation. The ANC sought the complete overthrow of that system, and the National Party was willing to go to extraordinary legal and extra-legal lengths to maintain its dominant (minority) position in the state and the region. Yet the conclusion to the conflict was a negotiated settlement, an election, and the peaceful transition of power to a new multi-racial democratic government. This paper will examine the reasons for that outcome, focusing on the origins of the ANC, its consistent policy objectives throughout the conflict, its adaptation in the face of local, regional, and international political and economic change, and its judicious use of both violent and non-violent instruments of power in the anti-apartheid struggle. It will conclude with a comparison of other protracted struggles in the 21st century, and some tentative judgments about the likelihood of successful negotiations in other cases.

Author

• Timothy D. Hoyt, Naval War College