JCH 2017 Volume 42 Issue 1

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Browsing JCH 2017 Volume 42 Issue 1 by Subject "Democracy"

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    The long walk to economic freedom after apartheid, and the road ahead
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2017) Fourie, Johan
    As South Africa moves further away from the political transition of 1994, the economic history of the post-apartheid era is coming up for debate. The optimism generated by the ANC’s early successes must now, after more than two decades of democracy, be tempered by its conspicuous failures. Over the last eight years in particular, the material welfare of South Africans have declined across large parts of the income distribution and the most damage was done to the poorest. Not all is lost though. African growth, technological innovation and private-sector participation in public sector services offer credible opportunities for accelerated development, but will only be effective if policy-makers are cognizant of the political realities. Well-directed and cheap policy interventions, like family planning, early-childhood education, free Wi-Fi in urban centres, and work visas and citizenship to highly-qualified foreigners can have dramatic and long-term effects. Policies, such as a youth subsidy, free tertiary education and charter schools would be more expensive – and more difficult, politically – but they would clear some bottlenecks in the labour and education sectors. Unfortunately though, the long walk to economic freedom for many will continue along a road full of potholes.
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    The United States of America's post-1990 foreign policy towards West Africa: the case study of Ghana
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2017) Shai, K. B.; Molapo, R. R.; Sodi, T.
    This explorative study uses Ghana as a test case to critique the post-Cold War foreign policy of the United States of America (hereafter referred to as the US) towards West Africa. It does this by contemporaneously locating the US relationship with Ghana within a historical and regional context. History is crucial in this regard, because the past provides a sound basis for understanding the present and the future. To add, in International Politics, theory holds sway and history is used as a laboratory. In this article, the researchers propose Afrocentricity as an alternative theoretical paradigm crucial in understanding US foreign policy towards Africa in general. As shall be seen, such a paradigm remains critical in highlighting the peculiarity of the US relationship with Ghana. It is envisaged that a deeper understanding of the US foreign policy towards Ghana is achievable when its analysis and interpretation is located within a broader regional (West Africa) and continental (Africa) context. The two central questions that are grappled with in this article are: (i) Why does the US view Ghana as an indispensable political ally in West Africa? (ii) To what extent did Barack Obama’s presidency alter the US’s foreign policy towards Ghana, West Africa and Africa? To realise the purpose of this study, the researchers rely methodologically on interdisciplinary critical discourse and conversations in their widest form. The critical analysis for this article concludes that the agenda for democratic consolidation and access to oil resources feature as the key drivers of the US foreign policy towards Ghana and West Africa at large. While the US’s role in the democratisation of Ghana and other African states is observable, it can be argued that this principle has been merely used as a tool for international morality to justify American imperialism. Oil in West Africa’s Ghana is important for the US, both as an economic resource and a strategic energy source during wartime periods. Overall, the “differential” foreign policy towards individual African states is also a significant observation, which dispels the myth of a universal US foreign policy framework.