Securitisation of HIV and AIDS in Southern African policy processes : an investigation of Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland, 2000-2008

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:This study aims to understand the processes and factors that explain the framing of HIV andAIDS policy in Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland. Africa remains the global epicentre ofthe HIV and AIDS epidemic with Southern Africa remaining the most affected region in theworld. The investigation centres on the HIV and AIDS policymaking discourses and dynamicsleading to the securitisation of the epidemic in the three countries. The central focus of the studycovers the timeframe of the leadership of President Mogae in Botswana, President Mbeki inSouth Africa and King Mswati III in Swaziland. This period is important as it characterises theHIV and AIDS epidemic being elevated onto the political agenda of the respective countries.This dissertation relies on two strands of theoretical literature namely, public policy theory andsecuritisation theory to help explain the framing of policy decision-making that leads to theprocess of securitisation of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the three countries.This study is a multiple case study within the qualitative research paradigm. This research isbased on three case studies: Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland. As far as data collection isconcerned, this study drew on primary sources of data, which consisted of documents obtainedduring the fieldwork from various stakeholders such as such as official government documents,as well as official documents from international and domestic HIV and AIDS organisations.Twenty semi-structured interviews were also conducted between 2007 and 2008 with variousstakeholders including government officials, representatives of domestic and international HIVand AIDS organisations operating in the respective countries, researchers from think tanks andacademics. In addition, eleven exploratory interviews were also conducted as part of thefieldwork process. Furthermore this study also relied on various secondary sources of data suchas scholarly articles and books, official documents and legislation and newspaper articles.The preliminary results collected and analysed in this study suggest that Botswana, South Africaand Swaziland have all demonstrated a degree of formal commitment to adopting internationalguidelines to combat the epidemic. The thesis shows that while all three countries may share theburden of the epidemic, each presents a different political, social and cultural identity with different institutional architects (both foreign and domestic) that determined the nature of theresponse policy to the epidemic.The study shows that each of the three case studies presents an example of differing degrees ofsecuritisation attempts: i) Botswana - successful securitisation; ii) South Africa - unsuccessfulsecuritisation; and iii) Swaziland - partial securitisation because different actors and audiencesare positioned at varying points along a spectrum of securitisation. This degree of securitisationcan be linked to the acceptance of international ideas and the prevailing global discourseregarding the HIV and AIDS epidemic and the openness to forming collaborative agreementsbetween state and non-state actors in each of the three countries.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University