Event

Speaker: Stuart Kaufman, University of Delaware.

Title: "The End of Apartheid: Rethinking South Africa's 'Peaceful Transition'"

Abstract.  This paper investigates what made South Africa’s negotiated transition to majority rule politically possible—that is, how the leaders of the National Party and of the ANC garnered support for their shifts in policy in 1989-90 from violent confrontation to negotiated compromise.  Among whites, key factors included the decline in fears of the global Communist threat, the collapse of the racist symbolic politics that had propelled apartheid policy, trust for F.W. de Klerk, and clever framing of the National Party’s message in a 1992 referendum campaign.  Among blacks, negotiations were easily accepted by a public opinion that was notably more moderate than were ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela, and that also had a substantial amount of trust in de Klerk.  However, both de Klerk and Mandela failed to get all of their followers to accept restraint; the result was a civil war that killed over 10,000 people while the negotiations were underway.

Lunch will be served.