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Indicator South Africa: Winter 1998, DurbanAuthor(s): Alexander JohnstonSource: Foreign Policy, No. 113 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 123-124Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149243 .

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Global Newsstand

politics, legal analysis, institutional decision making and social inter- action." In other words, international lawyers will be sparring over these questions for some time to come.

-Scott Worden Harvard Law School

Indicator South Africa Winter 1998, Durban

The concept of an African renaissance challenges the view of Africa that Afropessimists have propagated for decades-a destitute conti- nent mired in corruption and violence. Many believe South African deputy executive president Thabo Mbeki will adopt the renaissance as the overarching theme of the presidency he seems certain to assume next May. Contributors to the latest issue of Indicator South Africa, a quarterly survey of key social, economic, and political issues published by the University of Natal, take a critical look at both the idea of an African renaissance and South Africa's role in it.

Editor Ted Leggett, of the University of Natal, points out that pro- ponents of the renaissance have very different ideas about what it should entail. Some argue that continent-wide initiatives to build institutions for peacekeeping and conflict resolution must undergird any real renaissance. For others, trade integration and a retooled eco- nomic relationship between Africa and the developed world must take first priority. Another school of thought suggests Africa's future lies in the success or failure of democratization. Still others suggest that, above all, Africa must rediscover a sense of African self-worth in order for economic and political reforms to succeed.

Mark Malan, of the independent Institute of Security Studies, finds little sign of renaissance-inspired thinking in South Africa's peacekeeping policies. Although South Africa finally seems willing to assume peacekeeping responsibilities, Malan argues, it has yet to follow through with real continental leadership. Dissecting a recent government report on peacekeeping, Malan finds too many "well- worn truisms" about the need to address "root causes" of conflict and too few of the specific military commitments and streamlined proce- dures necessary to ensure the kinds of swift responses to emerging crises so scandalously absent at the time of the Rwandan genocide.

WINTER 1998-99 123

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Examining South Africa's current bilateral trade negotiations with the European Union (EU), Lynnaia Main and Caroline Skinner, both of the University of Natal, observe that hard-headed bilateral exchanges on technical matters of market access and trade liberalization have taken precedence over any renaissance-inspired thinking. More than 20 rounds into the talks, negotiators hope to finalize an agreement this year, despite hitches such as asymmetrical liberalization schedules, the exclusion of certain agricultural exports, and special protocols for sensitive business sectors. Still, negotiators have tried to shield weaker regional economies from the possible fallout of a bilateral deal between the continent's largest economy and one of its largest markets. South Africa rejected the EU's initial offer at least partly on these grounds.

Main and Skinner suggest South Africa may see itself in a dual role: driven by national interests to seek the best bilateral trade deal possible yet compelled by more abstract ambition to represent Africa and, indeed, the South as a whole. But as the case studies in this issue suggest, both the African renaissance and South Africa's commit- ment to leading it remain in an embryonic state.

-Alexander Johnston Professor of Politics University of Natal

Internmational Politics Winter 1998, Norfolk

Most writing on refugees in the 1990s has shared a common theme: a search for a viable international refugee regime in a field fraught with tumult and transition. Despite a wide range of coordination efforts, the world's responses to complex humanitarian emergencies and unprece- dented numbers of refugees remain frustratingly ad hoc.

Refugee policy analysts find an apt forum for discussion in the jour- nal International Politics. The successor to Coexistence, a political quar- terly steeped in the ideological divides of the Cold War, International Politics was launched in 1996 by publisher Kluwer Law International as a new "journal of transnational and global problems." In this edition, an article on multilateral intervention and another on the asylum processes of individual states offer sound contributions to the debate on current refugee policies.

124 FOREIGN POLICY

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