Review: Africa: African Crisis Areas and U.S. Foreign Policy
| Published date | 01 December 1986 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070208604100413 |
| Date | 01 December 1986 |
| Author | Timothy M. Shaw |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
/
AFRICA
893
suppression
that
are
most
visibly
oppressive
and
most
likely
to
gen-
erate
domestic
violence.
Increasingly,
Botha
has
come
to rely
on
his
re-structured
State
Security
Council
-
ssc,
one
of
the
four
streamlined
pivotal
cabinet
committees,
though
the
largest
in
terms
of
secretariat
personnel.
In
effect, Botha
and
his
ssc
have
become
a
'shadow
government'
within
the
whites-only elected
government.
Though
only
an advisory
organ,
the
ssc
is
the central
policy-making
unit
linking the
other
elements
of
the
security
establishment
which
includes
the
SADF,
the
intellligence
community, the
defence-related
intellectual
community,
the
arma-
ments
and
related industries,
and
the
SAP.
This
state
organ
is,
argu-
ably,
the
most
influential
in
the
central
government
structure,
yet
is
not
answerable
to
any
constituency
save
the
state
president.
This short
but
well-written
book
provides
for
a
much-needed
look
by
a
wider
audience
at
the
restructured
government
as
it
is
today
and
hints at
the
decision-making
process
behind
cabinet committee
doors
in
Pretoria.
Within
his
narrower
focus,
Grundy
provides
rigorous
evidence
for
seeing
the
current
Botha
government
not
as
reformist
but
as
managing
a
reorganized
decision-making
process
to
ensure
'the
efficacy
of
a
coercive
maintenance
of
order'
(p
5).
Robert
D'A.
Henderson/University
of
Western
Ontario
AFRICAN
CRISIS
AREAS
AND
U.S. FOREIGN
POLICY
Edited
by
Gerald
J.
Bender, James
S.
Coleman,
and
Richard
L.
Sklar
Berkeley
CA:
University
of
California
Press,
1985,
Xiv,
373pp,
US$9.95
This
welcome
set
of
nineteen
original
essays
on
United
States
policy
and
practice
towards
two
crucial
regions
-
Southern
Africa
and
the
Horn
-
and
two
central
allies
in
Africa
-
Zaire
and
Morocco
-
con-
stitutes
a
major and memorable
contribution:
major
because
of
the
stature
of
contributors
and
contributions,
and
memorable
because
it
is
the
last
book
of
one
of
its
co-editors, the
late Jim
Coleman.
In
fact,
the
volume
represents
something
of
a
Coleman Festschrift
because
it
includes
many
of
his
students
and
interests.
It
is
primarily
concerned
with
the
continuing
regionalist-globalist
divergence
in
United
States
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