Mario Einaudi No. Center for 2-15 International Studies Africanizing Apartheid: Identity, Ideology, and State-Building in Post- Independence Africa Working Paper Series Jamie Miller April 2015 Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies www.einaudi.cornell.edu 170 Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853, t. 607 - 2 5 5 - 6370, f.607 - 4 - 5 0 0 0 To view past working papers and guidelines for submission, please visit the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies Working Paper Series webpage at: http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/initiatives/working.asp. For more information please contact Dr. Heike Michelsen, 170 Uris Hall, Tel: 607.255.8926,
[email protected]. AFRICANIZING APARTHEID: IDENTITY, IDEOLOGY, AND STATE-BUILDING IN POST-INDEPENDENCE AFRICA Jamie Miller, Cornell University Abstract Between 1968 and 1975, the leaders of white South Africa reached out to independent African leaders. Scholars have alternately seen these counterintuitive campaigns as driven by a quest for regional economic hegemony, divide-and-lure realpolitik, or a desire to ingratiate the regime with the West. This article instead argues that the South African government’s outreach was intended as a top-down recalibration of the ideology of Afrikaner nationalism, as the regime endeavored to detach its apartheid program from notions of colonialist racial supremacy, and instead reach across the color line and lay an equal claim to the power and protection of African nationalism. These diplomatic maneuverings, therefore, serve as a prism through which to understand important shifts in state identity, ideological renewal, and the adoption of new state-building models. About the Author Jamie Miller is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mario Einaudi Center at Cornell University.