Rethinking SADC: A mixed actor approach to collective policymaking on external relations

Introduction

There is a growing scholarship that has dismissed a depiction of the African continent as lacking in agency in International Relations (Bischoff, Aning & Acharya, 2016; Chipaike & Bischoff, 2018; Chipaike & Knowledge, 2018). An examination of African agency in two selected states, Angola and Ghana, has Chipaike and Bischoff note that “Africa is a heterogeneous space with different states and non-state actors". With reference to the participation of non-state actors, they point out the differences in the existing capacities driving (foreign policy) agency in the above two. more or less democratic African states. Studies reflecting African agency in policymaking usually focus on the elite, their institutions, or on local and external factors shaping collective foreign policy on external relations (Adibe, 2001; lyob, 2001; Khadiagala & Lyons, 2001). In addressing security, a bulk of these studies reveal policymaking as state-centred (Khadiagala, 2012; Bischoff, 2014; Van Nieuwkerk, 2014). Compelling as these studies may be, there is a need to deepen the analysis about Africa’s agency. It is an agency that is to be seen as dynamic and one that goes beyond the traditional linearity inherent in the study of international relations (IR); one that talks to composite or collective agency where both state and non-state actors play their respective parts in crafting external relations. A collective policy on regional security are the norms towards member states as put together by states and/or non-state actors that cover various issue areas, including gender. The notion of security here transcends conventional state-military conceptualisation to encompass the broader non-military security dimension in areas of food security, HIV/AIDS, gender and climate change. In Southern Africa, policymaking on regional security concerns is more complex or intertwined than normally presented.

The evolution of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) security architecture is not only limited to inter-state policies/interactions as portrayed in mainstream analyses. SADC’s history of policymaking towards achieving liberation and end minority rule can be traced to the mixed actor interactions involving state and non-state actors of the mid-1970s, to formal rules-based processes beginning in the 1980s and consolidated from the 1990s onwards.

Acharya (2013: 466) has pointed out that norms have “multiple sources and contexts". The OAU’s liberatory ideals as they diffused into Southern Africa’s

SADC—Non-state actors and region building 211

collective policy were raised in the informal talks of the Mulungushi club of the early 1970s and carried forward by Africa’s two prominent heads of state, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere (ISS, 1999; Vale & Matlosa, 1995: 53; CCR, 2013: 36; Bischoff, 2014: 61). Over time, the two leaders were joined by Botswana’s Sir Seretse Khama to establish the informal interstate grouping of the Frontline States (FLS) (Bischoff, 2014: 61). Countries such as Angola and Mozambique became members in the late 1970s after attaining independence. Bischoff (2014: 61) notes that “the FLS was driven by the good relationship among its founding leaders ... in opposition to an apartheid South Africa”. Here the coming together of Heads of State that sought to bring to an end minority rale across Southern Africa, and South Africa’s apartheid system, signifies African agency.

Importantly, both state and non-state actors formulated the policies emerging from the interactions of the FLS to achieve regional security. It points to an important, composite form of African agency in the international relations of the time. Historically in inter-governmental deliberations, anti-colonisation sentiments were not only championed formally and informally, but also saw the inclusion of policymaking representatives of non-state national liberation straggle movements (ISS, 1999). The coming together of state and non-state actors point to their ability to work together to address regional security issues.

Khadiagala and Lyons (2001: 3) have pointed out that foreign policymaking is a prerogative of the state elite that has reinforced the dominance of presidents and prime ministers. While this observation may not altogether be dismissed, processes and interactions from the colonial to the post-colonial era also do reveal a mixed actor approach involving state and non-state representatives seeking to address regional security issues. For example, South Africa’s two main national liberation movements, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), participated in the OAU’s policymaking spaces at a continental level to push for the end of the racist policy and rale of apartheid South Africa. Indicative also is the example where a non-state actor representative such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela used his first international trip after his release from prison in February 1990 to address the OAU. According to Maloka, Mandela used this inter-governmental policymaking arena to request, through the OAU’s ad hoc committee and through the Secretary-General of the OAU, financial assistance to re-vamp the ANC’s legal structures (2017: 292). This then is to add to Chipaike and Bischoff’s point (2018) that African agency strengthens when state and non-state actors combine on (democratic) foreign policy positions. In our case, African agency is enhanced where non-state actors and an Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO) combine to make policy which the IGO implements in the conduct of its external relations with member states.

The interface of state and non-state regionalism within inter-governmental policymaking to formulate or diffuse norms in Southern Africa is traceable to the era of decolonisation (Khadiagala, 2012). Given the significance of decolonising the region against a background of wider continental norms, building alliances between non-state actors and governments became an important strategy to end colonialism and push for the development of the newly independent but weak states.

A mixed actor approach to policymaking involving non-state actors is evident in some academic discourses. Maloka (2017: 300) notes the participation of South Africa’s business sector played a role in the development of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) policy—the Millennium Africa Recovery Plan (MAP) —as well as in pushing for its integration into the OAU/AU policy framework. These included the NEP AD Business Group, South Africa’s parastatals and financial institutions such as Eskom, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), Transnet, the Industrial Development Cooperation (IDC) and Telkom. At the initiative of South Africa, there was the establishment of a private sector-led African Renaissance Fund put in place to push for continental infrastructural development (Maloka, 2017: 300). At the same time, in inter-governmental policymaking spaces, exclusive non-state practices persist. For instance, while private business actors were invited to participate in the development of the NEP AD policy document, civil society actors noted their exclusion, labelling the process as elite-driven. The neo-liberal linear market approach adopted by most of Africa’s regional and sub-regional bodies in their policy documents have tended to prioritise private business. Yet, a closer examination points to mixed actor processes of IGOs and multiple non-state actors in addressing both economic and non-economic security issues.

There exists a strong link between policies initiated at a national level and those evolving at a continental level. For example, the NEPAD policy of2001 was crafted outside OAU processes by South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki’s presidency, in consultation with countries such as Nigeria and Algeria. The NEPAD then found its way into the echelon structures of the AU (Maloka, 2017: 296-297). The diffusion of norms emerging from localised contexts into regional or global policy frameworks point to Africa’s agency in its international relations (Bischoff, Aning & Acharya, 2016). The integration of the NEPAD policy met with resistance and was viewed with great suspicion by other African member state countries, however. Maloka noted:

the unveiling of the MAP by Mbeki was viewed with suspicion by some actors, with a rumour circulating that some member states were creating a parallel continental body. The fear was allayed, partially when the plan was adopted as a programme of the OAU. The integration of NEPAD into the AU was ... a painfill and divisive process due to competing interpretations.

(Maloka, 2017:297)

Article 22 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union points to the importance of collaborative efforts between civil society and governments in the AU’s processes, and those to do with démocratisation efforts. Representatives from civil society organisations with a gender bias have been invited to participate in policy formulation as it relates to gender. For instance, the AU recognised Southern African-based NGO, Gender Links, for championing women’s rights at

SADC—Non-state actors and region building 213 the continental level within and outside its structures. In 2011, another Southern African NGO, Ditshwanelo, participated as an expert resource in the establishment of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR), the working group on Indigenous Populations, and the working group of Experts on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The involvement of non-state actors within inter-governmental policymaking points to their ability to work with the state in a variety of fields and issue areas, all to address Africa’s security issues. While challenges remain, the interface of state and non-state regionalism and its outcome—a collective policy—is illustrative of proven African agency in addressing collective insecurities.

This chapter intends to contribute to the academic discourse advancing the notion of African agency in international relations; one between state and non-state actors that is effective as it is composite (Bischoff, Aning & Acharya, 2016; Chipaike & Bischoff, 2018; Chipaike & Knowledge, 2018). What is explored is how the SADC’s policymaking attempts have evolved from the colonial, to the post-colonial era, and how continental liberatory ideals help signify a collective policy which finds expression in the external relations of the SADC, not least within its own region. What is argued is that the SADC is an inter-governmental body with a collective policy on external relations whose policymaking processes regarding wider notions of security, notably on gender, have involved a mixed actor approach.