The SA-EU trade, development and co-operation agreement : democratising South Africa's trade policy

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:This thesis examines the democratisation of South Africa's foreign tradepolicy, by evaluating the negotiations surrounding the establishment of a freetrade area between South Africa and the European Union (EU). Democracyhere is defined as a form of government that rests on three componentsnamely, public participation in and public debate over policy formulation and agoverning elite that is responsive to the needs of the majority of thepopulation.The thesis firstly outlines the process of negotiation itself, looking at thedevelopments that shaped the years of talks. It examines the nature of thefinal agreement, called the Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement(TDCA). It focuses on the Co-operation Agreements that were concluded,South Africa's partial accession to the Lomé Convention and the details of thefree trade agreement. It finds that although the negotiations took very long tocomplete and the EU proved to be a tough negotiator, there are a number ofopportunities for South Africans in the TDCA.In the second section the internal process in developing a South Africannegotiating mandate is examined. This is done to conclude whether or notSouth Africa's foreign trade policy is being formulated in a democraticmanner. However, first of all the question why the democratisation of foreigntrade policy formulation is important is addressed. Two possible theories areadvanced. Firstly, globalisation has forced countries to lure foreign directinvestment (FDI) as a matter of urgency. Seeing as FDI is mostly tied up withwestern nations that prefer democracies, states are opting to democratise.The focus is to a large extent on satisfying international actors. Oralternatively, the very survival of the nascent democracy today depends onthe consultative nature of domestic economic and international economicpolicy formulation. This is not a question of choice with an external focus, butrather a matter of urgency with purely an internal focus.Four actors in foreign policy formulation, namely parliament, government, thebureaucracy and civil society, are examined in order to understand whetherthey had access to the process and whether these institutions themselveshave been democratised since 1994. The thesis finds that the process was toa large extent democratic in nature.However, the thesis also finds that no matter how democratic policyformulation is in South Africa, the options for policy are limited by a number ofinternational elements. These include globalisation, regional trading blocs likethe European Union, and international organisations like the World TradeOrganisation.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University