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A publication of ihe African Studies Program of The Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies
No. 22 • December 28, 1983 The Process of Decision-Making in Contemporary South Africa
by Robert I. Rotberg
Before 1980, especially during the 12-year prime min In Vorster's day, some of the departments (not the istership of Balthazar Johannes Vorster, the South cabinet as a collectivity) were given (or demanded) African government's decision-making process was command of the grand overarching policy initiatives less than methodical. Although rigid in personality of the state. The Bantu Administration Department and an unquestioned, authoritarian leader, Vorster (which later became Plural Relations and Develop believed in a decentralized style of management. ment, and then Cooperation and Development) was Cabinet ministers conformed to the overall policies charged with devising and overseeing the transforma that were set by Vorster and a small oligarchy. But tion of the Bantustans into quasi-autonomous home ,--- •Jithin that conformity to an overall plan, the min lands. The Information Department had its various t,_ .dters were encouraged to run their departments with forms of outreach and propaganda peddling, some little interference from the prime minister. Such clandestine and. some not, and was almost immune autonomy stimulated political competition among de from interference by Foreign Affairs. Finance operated partments. Often ministries were kept ignorant of largely on its own. So did Sport and other ministries, what others were doing or planning. Collective re except when fundamental decisions had to be sponsibility was difficult to impose. In practice, there reached. At that point, either Vorster alone or Vorster were no instruments, other than personal appeals to and several cabinet and/ or nongovernmental col the prime minister, to limit this competition or to leagues arrived at decisions on the basis of informa coordinate the different, sometimes crosscutting, tion provided (depending on the issue) by single or governmental activities. competing departments, or by the state's security Vorster, like Hendrik F. Verwoerd before him, may apparatus. have welcomed such rivalries. But .it is more likely General Hendrik van den Bergh was Vorster's that the absence of coordination and the untidy ad closest confidant and a devoted adviser from the days ministrative style were carried over from earlier times, of their internment at Koffiefontein in World War II. when the meshing of the initiatives of one or more de Van den Bergh, a security policeman, fashioned the partments may have been less critical to the function secret Republican Intelligence group out of the Securi ing of the state. ty Police, which he headed, when Vorster was minis For Vorster and his predecessors, informal methods ter of justice under Prime Minister Verwoerd in the by and large produced sufficient results. Furthermore, early 1960s. Republican Intelligence was created at a a decentralized state mechanism accentuated the per time when the African National Congress, the Pan sonal power of the prime minister, backed as he Africanist Congress, and the Communist Party had all would have been by personal alliances, party preroga been driven underground and were challenging the tives, and largely unchallenged control over the dis state with violence. There was an external threat, too, tribution of patronage and preferment. In a regiment for the outside world was becoming more and more ed society with common political goals, represented hostile. Thus, van den Bergh organized the Repub by an unadventuresome party caucus and held togeth lican Intelligence to gather information at home and er by the imposition of discipline from the Broeder- abroad, to engage where necessary in espionage, and ( - '-lond and an allied church, the government functioned to strengthen the hand of those, like Vorster, who .;aturally as an assemblage of personalized and well were determined to outwit local and foreign rivals . demarcated satrapies. In 1969, the still clandestine Republican Intelligence
Editor : Helen Kitchen, Director of African Studies • Production/Circulation: Shei lah Mclean • CSIS Africa Notes, Suite 400, 1800 K Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20006 • Telephone (202) 887-0219 • ISSN 0736-9506 2 became the nucleus of the new Bureau of State better and more comprehe'nsive information to aid the Security (BOSS), a department of state. BOSS at making of rational choices, provide a means of orga tempted with some success to usurp the prime func nizing that information, and offer a framework for tions of the security police and military intelligence. deciding which among the many questions should be As security adviser to Vorster, van den Bergh had given priority attention. If these various elements were great organizational strengths to add to those which effectively meshed, then the coordination of the im derived from their long friendship. He made much of plementation of the ultimate decisions would, it was these advantages, but he won few friends among the thought, be made both more systematic and more police or the military (especially the latter, whose logical than before. minister throughout this period was Pieter Willem Both a) . Total Onslaught and Total Strategy . BOSS doubled in size during its first 10 years and An alternative apparatus already existed. Following a van den Bergh exercised more informal power than set of recommendations made by Justice Potgieter in most South Africans realized. Along with Cornelius .. 1972, the Security, Intelligence, and State Security (Connie) Mulder, wh'o served at various time~ as Cou~cil Act was passed in the same year. But the minister of information, of interior, ,_ and of plural rela State Security Council (SSC) provided for in the act tions, he helped plan and irriplemEmt a policy of · remained .only one of 20 cabinet committees until reaching out to Africans, of trading with them, of 1979. Vorster paid these committees little attention, bribing.. or compromising foreigners of all kinds, of their meetings were irregular and infrequent, their working effectively with Israel, and (paradoxically) of agendas were uncirculated, and no minutes were kept. reforming South Africa's overseas image while simul Nor were minutes kept of cabinet meetings. taneously countering dissent at home. Van den Bergh When P.W. Botha became prime minister in 1978, opposed the military on the efficacy of what would he needed (not least for political reasons) to assert now be called dest
a fit subject-for concerted state study, analy~fs, and secretary-general of the newly renamed Office· of the policy guidance. Prime Minister, organizes the cabinet's affairs and There is a further consideration which may directly sees that its decisions are implemented. Iii this role, or indirectly have brought not only Botha but a range he is at the center of a carefully spun web which en of other Afrikaner power-wielders to a recognition that compasses the committees that staff the _cabinet com some new method was necessary if apartheid were to mittees, the permanent secretariat, and 'the interde continue to protect the volk in a changing and partmental committees (which also offer questions, troubled world. Apartheid had begun to lose its inter and sometimes answers, to the cabinet committees). nal legitimacy-what some have called its hegemonic Roux is also charged with the task of prodding and character and appeal. (See Hermann Giliomee, Par coordinating the implementation of cabinet decisions ting of the Ways: South African Politics 1976-1982, by departments and parastatal bodies. Cape Town: David Philip, 1982.) If so, or if the This analysis, and the time (longer than in Vorster's rethinking of the validity (as well as the efficacy) of day) devoted to the deliberations of the cabinet, im radical discrimination and separate development by plies an accretion, not a diminution, of cabinet-level some Afrikaners (verligte ones, if that concept is power. In one sense this is correct, for the prime helpful) had focused the prime minister's ideas, that minister has shifted certain kinds of decisions from his line of analysis had also entered the military mind. own (or from Vorster-like) shoulders to the collectivity The new ethic was one of survival through moderniza of the cabinet. He spends time in cabinet meetings tion, but not by challenging the very foundations of constructing a consensus, something which no prev Afrikaner power. What Botha and officers alike chose ious South African prime minister since Jan Chris as a means of countering the apartheid state's loss of tiaan Smuts ever sought to do. In 1982 and 1983, the hegemony was an instrumental formalism-a rational cabinet met at great length to thrash out the details ized pragmatism of which the chosen instrument, of the new constitutional legislation. Because there naturally, was a new administrative structure and an were major cleavages within the cabinet, with oppos important shift in the locus of decision-making power ing points of view being represented by the most from old-line bureaucrats to a cadre largely composed powerful members of that body, the proposals of the of militarily-trained technocrats. cabinet committees and their principals were subject to the kinds of cabinet-level review which nowadays The New Cabinet Structure are reserved for controversies and events that are
I Botha announced his sweeping administrative reforms extraordinary. '-- , in 1979. Although it has taken until 1983 for the full The serious issues on which there is substantive dis intent of these changes to be realized, South Africa's cussion are nevertheless few, and the most important method of operation and its ability to accomplish its do not under the present system necessarily come business have been transformed by the shift from 20 before the cabinet at all. Furthermore, because of the to 4 cabinet committees, the primacy given formally new committee system, and the seniority and influ and informally to the refurbished sse, the concomi ence of the ministers who chair the various commit tant expansion of the Office of the Prime Minister and tees, decisions made by the committees are by and the creation of a cabinet secretariat, the distribution large merely ratified by the cabinet, simply noted, or of agendas and the keeping of minutes, the punctil never discussed. (The future of Namibia is an example iousness with which the paper flow is regulated, and of a subject that is rarely discussed.) The less senior the role which the military now plays in the entire ministers say little, and certainly do not speak on process. matters outside their own portfolios. The amount of The Westminster model presumes the sovereignty of time devoted to cabinet meetings is therefore largely a parliament, with a cabinet and a prime minister re reflection of the increasing complexity of government sponsible to and acting on behalf of parliament. Nom business, the emergence of far-reaching and time inally, South Africa's new arrangements adhered to consuming issues such as the new constitution, and such democratic principles, but their practice deviates (above all) a new emphasis on tactics, on the mer markedly from them.· As it has developed, the system chandising of policies, and on devising methods of as reshaped under Botha bypasses the cabinet and handling the increasingly acrimonious and acid at parliament to a degree which is new even for South tacks on the government in parliament by parties of Africa, Infogate included. The untidiness of the past the right and left. has been replaced, certainly formally, by a new ac countability and tightened organizational flows. But if this process serves South Africa well, it does so by The Three Other Committees elevating the goals of bureaucratic achievement and Although the State Security Council has functioned in policy coordination above those of meaningful political its new manner since September 1979, the three other participation and the development of a national committees of the cabinet have only in the last year consensus. begun to be fully operational. Whereas the SSC has a South Africa's cabinet now meets every Tuesday secretariat of 45, not counting its subordinate working during the parliamentary session from mid-morning committees, these other cabinet committees have until well into the afternoon. There are agendas, and small (five-man) secretariats, including some part-time minutes are kept. Dr. J.P. Roux, who has the title of members whose other work is performed directly for CSIS Africa Notes, December 28, 1983 4 the Office of the Prime Minister. In addition to staff support supplied to each by a The three committees are Financial and Economic small secretariat, each of th" three lesser cabinet Affairs, Social Affairs, and .Constitutional Affairs. committees is served by a subordinate working group Minister of Finance Owen Horwood presides over the convened and managed by th~ head of the committee first; Minister of Cooperation and Development Pieter secretariat and composed of high-level civil servants Koornhof runs the second; and Minister of Constitu from the ministries concerned and, usually, a repre tional Development and Planning J. Christiaan Heunis sentative or two from the SSC. Nearly all of the deci has been in charge of the third. sions of the committees are prefigured by the working Financial and Economic Affairs has a remarkable groups. The working groups raise issues, provide degree of autonomy, its decisions being regarded answers, and order the writing of the option papers (probably erroneously) as largely technical and non that form the staple of the committee decision-making political. Its secretariat is staffed by and draws upon process. Ministers do give directions through the sec the most financially and economically sophisticated retariats to these groups, but a crucial level of analy talent in the Office of the Prime Minister, in the sis and debate takes place intensely in these groups. Reserve Bank, and in the Department of Finance. This intermediate process doubtless limits the ulti The Social Affairs Committee has limited legitima mate range of options presented to the ministerial cy, largely because Koornhof is perceived as having committees. It is in the working groups that interde lost initiative and influence within the cabinet and partmental rivalries become apparent, and compro within the ruling circles of the party. Many, if not all, mises are struck. Notable, too, is the presence on of the issues which would be presumed to be "social" each of the working groups of representatives of the (i.e. those having an impact upon or altering the cir military and the police. In the formulation of legisla cumstances and welfare of Africans, Coloureds, and tion (the postponed Orderly Movement and Settlement Asians) are dealt with almost exclusively in the Con of Persons Bill comes immediately to mind), security stitutional Committee, over which Heunis presides considerations (in the case of the aforementioned bill, with a firm hand. Koornhof sits on that committee, as the concern with combating urban terrorism) had an does the prime minister, Minister of Defense Malan, influence which was visible and pervasive. During the Minister of Police Louis le Grange, and Minister of Vorster years, van den Bergh was personally regarded Justice H.J. (Kobie) Coetsee. Major decisions concern with suspicion by members of the cabinet, which ing the tricameral parliament to be established when limited his influence over legislation. But P.W. Botha the new constitution comes into force, the President's has arranged his new decision-making machinery so Council, legislation to change the status of black ur that how individual items of legislation conform or do ban dwellers, and influx control-in general, the shape not conform to the concept of a "total strategy" and pace of reform-have been made by this becomes a regular refrain. Overall, the SSC and the committee. other three committees are but a part of what Botha These committees meet fortnightly throughout the and the military have conceived of as a National parliamentary session and sporadically (unlike the Security Management System, for the defense of the SSC) throughout the rest of the year. Their meeting Republic. dates are staggered so that ministers can regularly at tend the meetings of more than a single committee. The State Security Council None of these activities conflicts with the convening At the heart of the management system, and central every Monday of the SSC, and some meet before the to all of P.W. Botha's plans for himself, his govern cabinet convenes on Tuesdays. Since agendas are cir ment, and his country, is the State Security Council. culated beforehand, ministers other than those who - The prime minister chairs its meetings. He is joined are the official members of each of the committees by the statutory members: Malan, Coetsee, le Grange, are theoretically free to attend those meetings which and Roelof (Pik) Botha, minister of foreign affairs. In interest or involve their own departments. Sometimes addition, Koornhof was invited to attend in 1979 and they do, but for the most part less senior ministers at remains a member; so does Minister of Finance Owen tend only those committees to which they are specif Horwood. But the most influential minister after the ically invited. prime minister is Heunis, who chairs the meetings if Senior ministers are members of two or three com the prime minister is absent. Other regular members mittees (and sometimes also have seats on the SSC). are the directors-general of Foreign Affairs and The result is obvious: decisions of the cabinet are Justice, the head of the police, the chief of the made by a subset of the total cabinet, either individ Defense Force, the director of the National Intelli ually or together in the various cabinet committees, gence Service (NIS), and Dr. Roux, a total of 14. often with a full discussion only in the committees, if From time to time other individuals are invited to ad there. One caveat is that the prime minister cannot dress or meet with the SSC. The SSC takes its deci and does not attend all of the committee meetings. sions by consensus, but the forming of a consensus Important decisions are obviously discussed with him usually follows the lead of the prime minister, Heunis, before they reach the committee stage, and monitored and Malan. by one or more officials from his office. Decisions in What is immediately apparent is the number of min all nonsecurity areas are probably also discussed be isters who are not members of the SSC. Furthermore, forehand with Heunis. the notion of cabinet responsibility and their own posi- CSIS Africa Notes, December 28, 1983 5 tions as ministers is devalued within the government · good manager of paper flow on behalf of a prime min by the presence in the innermost decision-making ister who appreciates meticulous, precise manage councils of the state of nonelected officials, three of ment, good staffing, and appropriate follow-through. whom are responsible for implementing "total The prime minister insists on fully researched options strategy." The composition of the SSe, as much as before decisions can be contemplated. However, the the prime minister's command of it, narrows the extent to which ••fully researched" means objective government's legislative focus and also must preordain analysis cannot be ascertained. In any case, sloppy the kinds of subjects which are addressed, as well as thinking is less often tolerated under the National the approach to each. Additionally, given its size, Security Management System than it was before status, and direction, the concerns and the conclu Botha came to power. sions of the sse must inevitably influence, inhibit, The military mind has thus clearly imposed itself on and overshadow the three other cabinet committees the workings of the South African government, but as well as the entire functioning of the Botha that mind appears to be primarily technocratic and government. functional and not (as yet) given to Latin American Even if its subject matter and membership did not type designs on the transformation or capture of the give the sse a preeminent status in the government, state. Those kinds of prescriptive possibilities have it would still be able to achieve significant leverage by doubtless occurred to some officers now serving at the virtue of its size, organization, and bureaucratic re heart of the bureaucratic endeavor, particularly if they sources. Lieutenant General Andries Jacobus van have viewed inefficiency and (perish the thought) chi Deventer, the secretary of the sse, commands the canery in the ranks of civilian government. But the "working committee" (which corresponds to the managerial revolution is still a servant of a more "working groups" of the other cabinet committees) of cautious, politically-led reorientation of South Africa's the sse, which itself is composed (as far as one can style of governance. find out) primarily of officials from the military and The SSe effectively makes decisions and influences police, Justice, and Foreign Affairs. But van Deventer many which are not directly its own. As its name im also has a staff, which serves him, and which is nine plies, all security (military and police) questions are times the size of the largest of the staffs servicing the brought to it, and it follows from the South African other cabinet committees. doctrine of total onslaught and total strategy that Van Deventer monitors everything that goes on at almost every aspect of modern government in South the cabinet and subcabinet level. He sits as a member Africa can be construed to have security implications. of the working groups of the three other cabinet com Moreover, and much more basic to an understanding mittees and shares with Brigadier John Huyser, a re of who runs South Africa today, and how it may con tired intelligence officer, the responsibility for vetting tinue to run, the sse has become the court of virtual and channeling all policy papers destined for subcabi ly final resort for a broad range of national issues. net or cabinet consideration. They perform this latter The future of Namibia, for example, is hardly a task as the directors of the permanent cabinet secre matter of solely parochial concern. It is linked to a tariat. Seventy percent of the membership of the sec bundle of domestic and external political issues, ques retariat is drawn from the military. Twenty percent tions involving intricate negotiations with the West comes from the NIS, and 10 percent from the Depart and with Angola, tactics for counterrevolutionary ac ment of Foreign Affairs. Van Deventer's deputy is tion within the territory and across its borders, eco General G.J.F. van Rensburg. nomic and financial concerns, social matters, and so Below the secretariat, and also subordinate to the on. How South Africa resolves the problem of Na working groups and the wqrking committee, are 15 in mibia will have a direct impact on the entire future terdepartmental committees. Organizationally, they security, economic well-being, and political survival of emanate from and report to the sse, and are the white South Africa itself. Yet, if the fate of Namibia originators of nearly all policy recommendations. The were ever an issue discussed by the representatives of membership of the interdepartmental committees con the (white) electorate of South Africa, that day is sists principally of heads of departments and of their past. Strategy and tactics on Namibia are decided senior deputies, legal advisers, and so on. A represen upon in the sse whenever those decisions have not tative of the Defense Force sits on each committee already been preempted by a military action of some and reports to van Deventer. Foreign Affairs is repre kind. Did the military decide to undo Dirk Mudge, sented only on four of the interdepartmental commit leader of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, before or tees; other ministries are represented on no more than after a decision was taken in the SSe? Was the deci and usually less than that number. sion to back Peter Kalangula of the National Demo Van Deventer, now 53, was chief of staff of the fi cratic Party made in Namibia by the military com nance division of the Defense Force before 1979. He mand, or by the SSe? The SSe probably has autho worked closely with the prime minister when Botha rized the overall direction of preemptive strikes into was minister of defense under Vorster, and regards Angola, leaving the chain of military command to himself as the person chosen because of this long work out the precise details. It regulates the flow of association to bring a military-style order to a hitherto supplies to Jonas Savimbi's UNITA. It has sanctioned uncoordinated government. Van Deventer thinks of the cease-fire talks with Angola. It decides how and himself as a careful planner, as a facilitator, as a when to respond to Western initiatives. Moreover, eSIS Africa Notes, December 28, 1983 .-; ,_-.; 6
each decision of this kind began, whether implicitly or not one that Koornhof wanted, but security considera actually, as an option to be presented to the sse. tions had prevailed. They may yet do so with regard The positions on which the options were based started to other aspects of Koornhofs urban reform program. as military, or sometimes foreign affairs, initiatives. The range of possibilities presented to the SSC need Who ·Governs? not emerge from the deliberations of the working The formal mechanism of deCision-making in South committee in especially broad forms. The influence of Africa gives the SSe a primary role arid the three "doves," including the foreign minister and his direc other cabinet committees important, but (except for tor-general, is limited by the preponderance of the Finance and Economics Committee) lesser ones. "hawks" at all levels of this new decision-making ap Because the SSe and the other committees are sub paratus. Observers are certain, for example, that Pik ject to direct and indirect influence by well-entrenched Botha and his department have relatively little influ civil servants, and since so many of those civil ser ence in today's decision-making arena; from a struc- - vants are in fact seconded military officers, it is evi tural viewpoint, personalities aside, it is understand dent that the real levers of formal power in South able why he and his department should ·feel so power Africa are no longer controlled exclusively, or as less beside the juggernaut of the technocratic, military much as they were, or even as much as the South machine. African public may think they are, by elected repre If the Department of Foreign Affairs has relatively sentatives of the (white) people. Indeed, the-National little clout within the sse, obviously th'Ose depart Security Management System has superseded the cab ments which are not represented ori the sse, and are inet, the party, and the eiectorate in many areas. A not consulted (even in the cabinet), can have less im s(lving grace, if that is the word, is that the prime pact on decisions. Minister of National Education rn'lnister is in ultimate control, assisted by at least one Gerrit Viljoen, who has previously seriled as the other elected party member and the chain of military administrator-general of Namibia, presumably is a command. Furthermore, complete military dominance Namibian expert. But he is not on the SSC and for of the decision-making machinery is tempered by the mally seldom learns about or is asked to advise on nonmilitary burea4crats' awareness of their weakened the day-to-day running of the -territory··he once admin position, a suspicion of military designs, and the istered by fiat. Foreign Affairs no longer has a direct natural infighting that occurs when one institution has say about Namibia's internal governance either. The been invaded by another. new administrator-general and his principal civilian Even as the authority of the cabinet has become in deputy report to the Office of the Prime Minister, creasingly titular, the National Party has also under while the commanding general in Namibia has his gone a dramatic loss of power. There still are par military chain of command which eventually leads to liamentary study committees on virtually all subjects, the sse. but the power of their chairmen (back-bench members Whether to raid Maseru, support the MNR in Mo of the National Party) to hold ministers to account zambique (see "The MNR" by Colin Legum, CSIS has diminished. Where the caucus retains much of its Africa Notes No. 16, July 15, 1983), give aid to Zim power is not on particular decisions but on the very babwean dissidents, and try to purchase long-range broad reach of national policy. The prime minister reconnaissance aircraft are obviously decisions within must still take heed of the risk of revolt among his the ultimate purview of the SSC. In the case of the back-benchers on issues such as the constitutional December 1982 raid into the Lesotho capital of reform. But he can ignore them on Namibia, on "de Maseru, for example, the Defense Force seems to stabilization," on trade unions, and so on. And while have had prior approval in principle from the sse, neither Botha nor the military bureaucrats can ignore but the cabinet was not informed beforehand. More the back-benchers on issues of constituency concern, over, the Defense Force appears to have chosen the such as borehole drilling and perimeter defense, those precise date and method in accord with general rather are more matters of politics than decision-making. than specific instructions. ' Beyond the party caucus are the provincial con The SSe involves itself in a much broader range of gresses-historically the inner core and the strength decisions, too. It is interested in land transfers such as of the National Party. The prime minister used the the 1982 attempt to cede the KaNgwane part of Kwa provincial machinery skillfully in 1982 when he sought Zulu and part of Ingwavumaland to Swaziland. It has the congresses' necessary consent for the updated ver a say about the overall policy regarding trade unions, sion of his constitutional plan, but he does not seek detentions without trial, the shape of the new Defense their advice on security matters or Namibia. There Force legislation (including the issue of conscientious also are provincial legislatures and officials, but their objection), the character of social legislation (particu influence on national or party policy has been larly that giving further prerogatives to Africans), and diminished under Botha. the broadening of educational opportunities. In the The role in the decision-making process of commis case of the Orderly Movement and Settlement of Per sions of inquiry, composed of experts, of presumed ad sons bill, representatives of the military staff of the judicators (e.g., judges), or of a cross section of the SSC joined forces with civil servants from Koornhofs power elite, has varied. Since the formation of com own department to defeat his reform endeavors in the missions is used throughout the world to defer or per constitutional committee. The bill that emerged was manently postpone decisions, it comes as no surprise CSIS Africa Notes, December 28, 1983 7 that official South Africa has found it expedient.from and corporate cronies. Representatives of some kinds time to time to give intractable problems to supposed of institutions used contacts to reach Vorster himself, ly impartial commissions in the hope that the very to obtain either favorable decisions or other forms of calling of a commission will make the ·problem go help at one or more levels of government. From im away or that the passage of time will make recom pressionistic evidence, it appears that Vorster mendations electorally or internationally palatable. gathered most of his ideas, information, and insights Some commissions have studied a problem and, from from his tight-knit circles of friends. Most of those the government's view, exceeded their mandate by friends were from the private sector, and Vorster was proposing solutions too radical for the prime minister, never loath to bypass official channels (the Mulder the party, the civil service, or all three. Other com gate scandal makes this point perfectly evident). missions, mostly those attempting to solve problems Vorster's staff work was rudimentary and his col in areas where the government knows it must ad leagues and his party caucus rarely knew precisely vance, but cannot think how, have, because· of a s·uffi how or why key decisions were made. ciently broad and influential membership, a decisive Today this process is supposed to be different. But and well-connected chairman, or both, altered the is it? Botha has a new set of friends and is not known · perceptions of the government itself. · for his golf. But he is close to Malan and other mili Some of the academically-led commissions can be tary officers. He relies on the advice of Heunis and expected to develop their own sources of information Vice-President Alwyn Schlebusch. He frequently talks and analysis .. Normally,· that function is performed by to industrialists. a seconded bureaucracy. Insofar as those seconded In crises, Malan and Heunis rush to Botha's side as staffs will now be drawn, even partially, from the sse van den Bergh went to Vorster's. Ad hoc decisions are and the military, an additional lever will be added to still made on or recorded on the backs of envelopes. the influence of the Defense Force on South African Someone in high places, for example, decided to back decision-making. the 1981 attempt to overthrow the government of the Do the departments (ministries) themselves still Seychelles. The SSC, it is understood, did not know matter? Clearly, no matter how well the SSC and the about it, although sections of the military and the NIS other committees coordinate, prod, and push, the were aware of the preparations that were revealed in machinery of implementation remains in the depart court. The now-aborted Swaziland land swap seems to ments. The departments have admittedly lost a share have been initiated in the upper reaches of the De of the available overall finances, which, in any institu partment of Foreign Affairs and never to have been tional power struggle, go to the favored and the swift, subjected to full SSC or cabinet scrutiny. Responses especially if the favored and the swift are guiding the to key American or Angolan diplomatic communica ship of state. The SSC, through its mostly military tions are probably required too urgently to be left to representatives, can learn what is happening and why, percolate through each of the levels of the sse. If a and can certainly poke and extoll the departments swift response were needed in the wake of, say, the through the interdepartmental committees-but the death of a neighboring monarch or the ouster of a drafting of legislation is still done in departments. neighboring head of state, it would be equally difficult South African bureaucrats are especially adept at to formulate policy through the SSC. Overall, South dragging their feet and working to rule; they know Africa still lacks what U.S. Assistant Secretary for and make the regulations, too. Thus, the cooperation African Affairs Chester Crocker once described (in of the departments is necessary before decisions can South Africa's Defense Posture: Coping with Vulner be implemented. ability, CSIS Washington Paper No. 84, 1981) as a What has been described thus far is the formal pro capacity for sophisticated threat assessment and polit cess used in South Africa to arrive at decisions. The ical analysis. process is intended to be methodical and systematic, No modern executive is fully accountable. No mat and intolerant of shortcuts. Intentionally painstaking, ter how punctilious the procedures and ironclad the it can only be implemented by an enlarged coor rules have become, it is hardly plausible that Botha dinating bureaucracy. And it takes time, especially if acts only when he has proper briefing books and full policy directives and actual legislation are to reflect analyses. A volatile person, he naturally responds to new kinds and degrees of staff attention. decisive moments, even if to do so may mean bending This is a system which could prepare for crises and his own strictures about the need for "research." emergencies, but could only rarely cope with them in Moreover, decisions made by ad hoc methods by an instantaneous fashion. It may be a system more ef Botha, or by Malan, by the chief of the Defense Force ficient than the informal one employed in Vorster's (e.g., the Maseru raid), or even by Major-General day, but it is cumbersome. Therefore, a description Charles Lloyd in Namibia/ Angola, are ones more im and analysis of the formal decision-making capacity portant and more injurious than those that usually and machinery of the South African state can only filter up through the sse and the other committees. partially answer the crucial question: Is the new In noting the distinction between formal and infor machinery actually employed when those who rule mal modes of decision-making and the different kinds South Africa make the decisions that count? of decisions that are made in both spheres, it should Vorster and van den Bergh made the important de also be apparent that the membrane between formal cisions in their time. Vorster also had golfing friends and informal is permeable. The informal impinges CSIS Africa Notes, December 28, 1983 8 upon and influences the formal. The formal validates Botha's belief in its abilities and its clear-sightedness and covers up for the informal. Prime ministers are and because he ascended to the top without a range known to come to cabinet (and now SSC) meetings of other powerful national connections. with their own plans, or plans devised after talking to Kenneth W. Grundy argues (in his monograph, The all manner of outsiders from different parts of the Rise of the South African Security Establishment, private sector. Johannesburg: South African Institute of International Decisions that are unfortunate for South Africa, de Affairs, 1983) that the SSC is a check on the Defense fined in this context merely as those (e.g., the death Force. The SSC reinforces the principle of civilian of Steve Biko) which generate unfavorable publicity, supremacy over the military and of the paramountcy need not have been made through the formal chan of politicians in decision-making. But Grundy's conclu nels. If a preemptive strike on a neighboring nation in sion, given what we know of the expectations and furiates the West, that is one kind of decision where close governmental involvement of the military, is an agreement in principle, made initially at high levels wildly optimistic. Individuals from the Defense Force (if not through the stated channels), may become a are at the core of the formal and informal dimensions counterproductive act if the scale, the timing, or the of all South African policymaking. The influence of side effects of the strike conform insufficiently to the the military is increasing, even if South Africa is still original policy directive. And the military leadership a long way from becoming a jackboot state in the may have an agenda different (as it does in Namibia) Latin American sense. There are important counter from those of most, if not all, civilian politicians. The vailing tendencies: the inertia of a bloated entire regional destabilization policy may fit under this bureaucracy (including the parastatals) will tend to rubric. block the conversion of South Africa to Prussian-style But where South Africa suffers most (even under government. Yet, Botha shares the military's vision of the National Security Management System) is when a fortress South Africa, tactically reformed, but middle-level officials react traditionally or exceed in strategically sound if not hegemonic. The soldiers are structions. Or, possibly, they obey the letter of out his chosen instrument and he is theirs. dated or ill-conceived instructions from their superiors. The death of Saul Mkhize, defending his land in the The New Constitution southeastern Transvaal, is an example of a general The formal system, as described, is eminently adapt decision (to continue removals), followed by a high able to the strong executive presidency to be estab level decision (one presumes) to move against the par lished under the new constitution approved by the ticular Driefontein Black Spot and to ignore African white voters on November 2. What works in a nom protests, followed by the maladroit implementation of inal parliamentary democracy will work even more ef orders by low-ranking bureaucrats. It is unlikely that ficiently within the overall framework of the new con any management system, no matter how efficient, can stitution. Indeed, one supposes that the SSC would rapidly alter the reflexes of rank-and-file officials. become even more central to the functioning of the Moreover, given the structure of South Africa, it is new arrangement, serving (as in a sense it now does) probably unreasonable to expect the National Security as the secretariat of the presidential system. If so, the Management System to think through the conse other three committees of the cabinet may become quences at the implementational level of all varieties less important, even as the cabinet, the parliament of decisions that flow from a policy framework (in this (now to be tricameral), and the party caucus lose case apartheid) with so many givens, precedents, and whatever residual powers each still retains. One can shibboleths. Botha does not intend his new military foresee a greater centralization of power under the manned system to transform South Africa. He merely new system. The military will run the SSC, involve wants the tactical (not the strategic) posture of his ad itself more and more in affairs of state, and certainly ministration to be coherent and coordinated. not lessen its institutional influence on the future Individuals influence decision-makers informally. So shape of South Africa. do institutions. Botha's government is much less in fluenced by or intertwined with the Broederbond than was Vorster's. The Dutch Reformed Church has de Robert I. Rotberg, a frequent visitor to southern clined in its immediate influence on the leaders of the Africa, is Professor of Political Science and present government, and also nationally. The Afri History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. kaans-speaking business community has access to His many writings on southern Africa include Namibia: Political and Economic Prospects, ed. Botha and his government. The police have a say. (Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company, 1983); The Departments of Foreign Affairs and of Coopera Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern tion and Development have less influence than before. Africa (Harvard University Press, 1980); Black The old-line bureaucracy battles against change, and Heart: Gore-Browne and the Politics of Multiracial does manage to slow Botha's pursuit of reform. But, Zambia (University of California Press, 1978); and aside from the party and the ~~.!Jinet, it is obviously The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa (Harvard the military which is the leading decision-making in University Press, 1965). stitution in today's South Africa, both because of
CSIS Africa Notes, December 28, 1983