Southern Africa: Co-operation and Conflict in an International Sub-System

Abstract

Most attempts to explain the slowness and perversity of change in Southern Africa are deficient because not enough attention is paid to regional interactions. This review suggests that it is time to correct the over-concentration on the national or global relations of this international sub-system by the adoption of an intermediate level of analysis. We cannot understand the coexistence of confrontation and co-operation in Southern Africa without an examination of the patterns of dependence and interdependence among its black- and white-ruled states. The adoption of a regional approach here is particularly promising and suggestive as it indicates the need to revise the established conceptual framework for the study of subordinate state systems.