Regional integration in post‐apartheid Southern Africa: the case of renegotiating the Southern African customs union

Border Crossings: Small Enterpreneurs and Cross‐border Trade between South Africa and Mozambique

“…Increasing attention is being paid by policymakers to cross-border relationships between Mozambique and South Africa. These have made their way into concrete proposals in the form of spatial development initiatives (SDIs) (de Beer et al 1998;Driver & Barros 1999; for critical analyses see Harrison & Todes 1996;Mitchell 1998;Rogerson 1998a;Rogerson 2000) and the development of an, as yet to be ratified, free trade agreement between SADC countries (Carim 1997;Gibb 1997Gibb , 1998Mayer & Thomas 1997;Bertelsmann 1998;Jenkins;Van Rooyen 1998). Increasingly discussions of these initiatives are littered with the language of`borderlands' ± where borders change from`barriers' to`bridges', allowing and facilitating the formation of cross-border economic development strategies (de Beer et al 1998;Mpumalanga Report 1999).…”

Anatomy Of The Southern African Customs Union: Structure And Revenue Volatility

“…In the literature, the case of SACU has been interpreted by two polar schools of thought with no scope for convergence. One school of thought -the dependency school -has regarded SACU with suspicion, describing it as part of a sub-regional system that emerged under colonialism and was, as a consequence, characterised by relations of economic domination and subordination (see Gibb, 1997). This school maintains that South Africa has derived substantial benefits from its access to cheap resources in the BLNS countries and that the country has undertaken a deliberate stance to develop strong ties of dependence to itself in the BLNS countries (Davies, 1990).…”

“…The interdependence school, on the other hand, has perceived SACU as an effectively functioning trading bloc, which is beneficial to all participating parties. This school cites the revenue sharing principle of collections in the SACU CRP as a successfully implemented policy for compensating the trade diverting costs imposed on the BLNS countries (see Matthews, 1983;Gibb, 1997). Matthews (1983) maintains that SACU has survived many years because the arrangement, on the balance, is beneficial to all parties.…”

South Africa's economic relations with Africa: hegemony and its discontents

“…Containing all the contradictions of history and economic dominance, SACU provides the most conspicuous example of how South Africa has acted as a ' malevolent' hegemonic power in the past, and how it is reshaping its conduct towards that of a 'benign ' hegemon in the region. The history of SACU, and South Africa's contentious role in it, is extensively documented elsewhere (see Gibb 1997;Lee 2003 ;McCarthy 1998), and therefore will not be discussed in this article. Suffice to point out that independence for Namibia in 1989 (followed by formal membership of SACU in 1990), and the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, created the basis not only for the revision of the SACU Agreements of 1910 and 1969, but also for deeper engagement between South Africa and its SACU counterparts, which was absent during the apartheid era.…”