Klotz - Norms Reconstituting Interest

Norms reconstituting interests:
global racial equality and U.S.

sanctions against South Africa
Audie Klotz
Transnational anti-apartheid activists' extraordinary success in generating

great power sanctions against South Africa offers ample evidence that norms,
independent of material considerations, are an important factor in determining
states' policies. Despite a wide range of strategic and economic interests,
almost every international organization and state, including the United
Nations (UN), the Commonwealth, the European Community, the Nordic
states, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, adopted
cultural, economic, and military sanctions against South Africa by the mid-
1980s.1
Apartheid, a domestic system of political, economic, and social discrimina-
tion based on racial categorization, garnered South Africa unparalleled pariah
status as this broad array of global actors implemented sanctions in support of
racial equality. Norms, such as racial equality, are shared (social) understand-
ings of standards for behavior. Thus, a norm of racial equality defines
discrimination based upon racial categories (as evident in racist language,
personal actions, and/or social policies) as bad and individual equality (lack of
discrimination) as good. (By describing racism in such simplified terms, I do not
intend to imply that norms always present clear dichotomous alternatives.)
Consequently, support for South Africa sustains its racist apartheid system;
opposition to South Africa signifies support for racial equality.
For extensive discussions and detailed comments I thank Paul D'Anieri, Locksley Edmondson,
Lori Gronich, Anita Isaacs, Peter Katzenstein, Cecelia Lynch, John Odell, Judith Reppy, Chris
Reus-Smit, Cherie Steele, and Alex Wendt. I gratefully acknowledge financial support for research
and writing from the following institutions: the National Science Foundation's graduate fellowship
program, the Social Science Research Council's MacArthur Program on International Peace and
Security, and the University of Southern California's visiting scholar program at its Center for
International Studies.
1. For the most comprehensive overview of sanctions against South Africa, see Deon
Geldenhuys, Outcast States: A Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990).
International Organization 49, 3, Summer 1995, pp. 451-78

© 1995 by The IO Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
452 International Organization
A plausible explanation for these extraordinary sanctions is a strengthened

global norm of racial equality: people around the world cared about racial
discrimination generally, and South Africa in particular, more than ever
before. Yet this explanation goes beyond conventional theoretical perspectives
that both dismiss a fundamental role for global norms and assume the
importance of U.S. hegemonic leadership. For example, U.S. policymakers
were followers, not the leaders, in arguing that sanctions against South Africa
would aid in eliminating that country's institutionalized racial discrimination.
But because agreement on what behavior should be does not ensure compli-
ance, we need to understand why people in general and U.S. policymakers in
particular came to care about internal South African race relations, why they
felt compelled to do something about it, and how this ethical concern related to
prevailing strategic and economic interests. Thus, this article analyzes one
process by which the discourse of "ought" becomes the "is" of behavior.
Since international relations theories generally ignore or underemphasize
norms, analyzing sanctions against South Africa offers an avenue for improving
understanding of norms in both theory and practice. Specifically, because the
United States has been a major power with substantial strategic and economic
interests in southern Africa, this case should easily confirm the structural
materialist (neorealist) perspective. For example, for decades those concerned
about U.S. global strategic interests emphasized crucial mineral deposits and
vulnerable sea lanes; many also stressed the importance of maintaining a
market economy in South Africa to counter the spread of socialist-oriented
governments in the southern African region. In addition, U.S.-based multina-
tional corporations had significant involvement in the South African economy.2
But if the United States were acting simply on strategic or economic
considerations, it would not have cared about domestic racial discrimination in
South Africa and would have continued its postwar policy of adamantly
rejecting sanctions, even in the face of growing international pressures.
Thus, in the absence of material structural change—indeed, the mid-1980s
were a peak period of U.S. concern over the Soviet challenge—conventional
structural realism cannot explain the shift to anti-apartheid sanctions in
1985-86. There is no structural material reason why the United States should
adopt a policy that inhibits its interests in the region and reduces support for its
powerful regional ally. Furthermore, explanations based on balancing against
interests in "black" Africa presume a racially defined characterization of actors
and interests—which goes beyond the theoretical assumptions of material
power and capabilities. In addition, U.S. sanctions policy is difficult to explain
even within the regimes perspective, which acknowledges a role for norms
through systemic constraints. Despite unanimous global recognition of a norm
2. See, variously, William Minter, King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the
Burdened History of Southern Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1986); Study Commission on U.S.
Policy Toward Southern Africa, South Africa: Time Running Out (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1981); and Christopher Coker, The United States and South Africa 1968-1985: Constructive
Engagement and Its Critics (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1986).
Norms 453
of racial equality through UN resolutions as early as 1960, regime constraint

remained weak on the apartheid issue. The United States exercised its veto
power in the Security Council, and domestic demands for sanctions lagged
behind long-standing international pressures. Rather than establishing global
norms and leading policy shifts, as predicted by both realism and regime
theories, U.S. sanctions responded to global anti-apartheid pressures.
Questions arise, therefore, about how global anti-apartheid activists over-
came the prevailing indifference among U.S. policymakers—and the general
public—to racial segregation in South Africa and how this new concern for
racial equality could alter consistent strategic and economic support for South
Africa. In contrast to conventional theories, I argue that successful transna-
tional anti-apartheid advocates' demands for sanctions demonstrate the crucial
role of a global norm of racial equality in reconstituting U.S. interests. What is
most remarkable about domestic demands for racial equality and sanctions
against apartheid is that previously uninfluential arguments for nonracial
democracy became fundamental components of the definition of U.S. national
interests in the mid-1980s.
This constitutive—rather than solely constraining—relationship between
norms and interests is best understood through a constructivist theory of
international politics. Building upon this empirical analysis, I suggest that we
should conceive of state interest formation as a global, rather than an insulated
domestic, process. I am not arguing, however, that this is the only role for
norms or that states always have clearly defined interests. Only if we analyze
this underemphasized constitutive role will we be able to distinguish among
various types of and roles for norms, as well as ascertain conditions under
which norms reconstitute interests. I return to these issues in the conclusion.
Through an overview of international demands for anti-apartheid sanctions
and a summary of U.S. postwar policy, the following section argues that U.S.
sanctions against South Africa are an anomaly for conventional realist and
regime explanations of international politics and outlines an alternative
constructivist perspective. The subsequent empirical sections explain the
transnational anti-apartheid movement's success in making apartheid a na-
tional political issue within the context of a discourse of racial equality and the
subsequent redefinition of U.S. interests that framed policy debates. Majority
rule in South Africa shifted from a peripheral to a primary concern and
policymakers adopted sanctions to support racial equality. In conclusion, I
explore some of the implications of this case for developing a more empirically
oriented constructivist theory.
Theoretical perspectives on U.S. policy toward South Africa
U.S. adoption of anti-apartheid sanctions is surprising given historical continu-

ity in its support for South Africa. Prior to the mid-1980s, policymaking toward
Africa generally remained insulated from UN and domestic pressures as the
United States pursued its strategic and economic interests. Access to minerals
and markets seemed assured under conservative South African governments
since white-minority rule guaranteed an alliance against communist expansion
in the region. Thus U.S. policy prior to the mid-1980s confirms a structural
realist perspective. Increasing support for racial equality, however, disrupted
the easy correspondence between strategic and economic interests, opening an
unprecedented debate over non-racial democracy and U.S. interests in the
region. These debates, and the subsequent adoption of sanctions, illustrate the
constructivist claim that national interests are intersubjective, rather than
derived objectively from the distribution of material capabilities.
Structural realism and postwar U.S. policy

Global demands for racial equality and for the elimination of South Africa's
apartheid system emerged early in the postwar period. Demands for anti-
apartheid sanctions first emerged during the 1950s and gained momentum in
subsequent years.3 Notably, in 1960 the UN General Assembly passed
Resolution 1598 unanimously (with only Portugal abstaining), starting a
pattern of universal international condemnation of apartheid and rejection of
South Africa's domestic jurisdiction defense. The General Assembly subse-
quently passed a series of voluntary sanctions against South Africa, over the
objections of Western powers. But as early as 1960, the debate over sanctions
shifted to the Security Council since only its resolutions could require
mandatory action (as stipulated in chapter 7 of the UN Charter). The Security
Council, designed to focus specifically on issues of peace and security, included
apartheid on its agenda beginning with Resolution 134 in 1960, but permanent
member vetoes blocked mandatory sanctions.4 Despite this stalemate over
sanctions, innumerable General Assembly and Security Council resolutions
since 1960 continued unanimously to condemn apartheid and reaffirm a norm
of racial equality.
The United States joined in this condemnation of apartheid, despite the
persistence of its own domestic racial segregation. U.S. voting in the UN thus
acknowledged and reinforced a global norm of racial equality even while it
resisted concrete multilateral actions against South Africa. Generally following
3. For an overview of the early international debates over apartheid, see Richard E. Bissell,
Apartheid and International Organizations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1977); as well as the debate
summaries and resolutions in United Nations (UN), Department of Information, Yearbook of the
United Nations (New York: Columbia University Press/United Nations, 1946-88). Hereafter, these
annuals will be cited by title and year.
4. The 1977 arms embargo is the one notable mandatory UN sanction against South Africa. It
targeted South Africa's aggressive regional military role, defined as a "threat to international peace
and security," and violations of Security Council sanctions against Rhodesia. It was not adopted in
response to apartheid, as evident in Western permanent members' concurrent rejection of
mandatory economic sanctions. For details of these debates and resolutions see UN, Yearbook of
the United Nations, 1977.
Norms 455
Britain's lead, the United States consistently vetoed proposals for mandatory
Security Council sanctions from the early 1960s through the late 1980s. When
U.S. relations with South Africa were discussed at all, that country was viewed
as a bulwark against communist influence in resource-rich and capitalist
southern Africa. U.S. policymakers generally considered South Africa's ruling
whites, who shared their concern about communist expansion, as natural allies
for maintaining stability within South Africa (and hence within the entire
region).5 Thus U.S. policymakers dismissed both sanctions and majority rule as
antithetical to U.S. strategic and economic interests.
This ranking of minerals and markets over democracy was even more
apparent during the debates over whether to comply with UN sanctions against
Rhodesia. Initially, the United States supported multilateral sanctions to
protest the Unilateral Declaration of Independence announced by (Southern)
Rhodesia's white minority government on 11 November 1965. Only after years
of political pressures to define access to strategic minerals as a vital U.S.
national interest did Congress pass the Byrd amendment in 1971, exempting
chrome, ferrochrome, and nickel from sanctions restrictions. In other words,
before strategic mineral arguments became politically salient, the United
States had adopted sanctions in support of a norm of racial equality (which was
being explicitly flaunted by the white minority Rhodesian regime).6 Concerns
about communism, defined in terms of strategic resources and market
economies, clearly took priority over concerns about racial equality and
democracy.
Prior to the mid-1980s, therefore, material interests—even when they
conflicted with an explicit commitment to racial equality and democracy-
motivated U.S. policy toward South Africa and the region. This historical
record confirms policy predictions derived from structural realist theory, as
illustrated in Figure I.7 Consequently, U.S. policy in the 1980s should have
remained an easy case for structural material explanations. Indeed, the
5. The most explicit statement of this position is National Security Study Memorandum 39,
prepared for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. For details see Mohamed A. El-Khawas and
Barry Cohen, eds., National Security Study Memorandum 39: The Kissinger Study of Southern Africa
(Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1976). However, similar arguments dominated policy as early as
the Truman administration. See Thomas Borstelmann, Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle: The United
States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). For an
overview of the South African government's view, see James Barber and John Barratt, South
Africa's Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security 1945-1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990).
6. For details of the shift in U.S. policy toward Rhodesia, see Anthony Lake, The Tar Baby
Option: American Policy Toward Southern Rhodesia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).
7. Analyses of policies toward South Africa are rarely explicitly theoretically informed but
generally conform to either a traditional realist perspective or a domestic politics perspective. A
noteworthy exception is Gerald J. Bender, James S. Coleman, and Richard L. Sklar, eds., African
Crisis Areas and U.S. Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), which emphasizes the
importance of bipolarity and superpower intervention in southern African conflicts. For an
elaboration on the theoretical tenets and critiques of a structural realist approach, see Robert O.
Keohane, ed., Neo-realism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
THEORY
Systemic States' interests Policies

distribution of
military (and
economic)
capabilities
APPLICATION
Hegemonic power Minerals (and Support for

in southern Africa markets) conservative South
w African
governments
FIGURE l. Structural realism and U.S. postwar policy
popularity of the conservative Reagan administration further bolsters the

plausibility of statist assumptions about the autonomy of executive decision
makers.8 Yet while material U.S. interests in southern Africa did not diminish
prior to 1986—indeed the Reagan administration argued that they increased
because of Cuban involvement in Angola—U.S. policy did change. A basic
structural realist perspective cannot explain the shift to sanctions because the
anti-apartheid movement, demanding that U.S. foreign policy promote racial
equality in South Africa, succeeded despite the persistence of these strategic
and economic interests.
Regime theory and domestic politics

Because conventional structural materialist theories view norms as the
powerless product of interests, they offer little analytical leverage in this
empirical case where concern for racial equality preempted material interests.
Regime theorists, however, have taken norms more seriously than realists as a
source of global policy coordination and thus should offer an explanation of
multilateral and U.S. sanctions. The politics of racial equality, however, do not
fit with the expectations of regime theorists; the United States did not respond
to multilateral coercion or incentives.
8. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker's own characterization of
policymaking in the early 1980s confirms both an assumption of executive autonomy and the
priority given to strategic concerns, confirming the applicability of a statist approach as
characterized by Stephen D. Krasner in Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments
and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978). For elaboration, see
Crocker's autobiography, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1992).
Norms 457
A hegemonic regime perspective, which shares the basic realist emphasis on

the distribution of material capabilities, grants norms limited constraining
effect through international institutions.9 In this view, the emergence of a
global norm of racial equality and the enforcement of compliance would result
from a prior U.S. commitment, presumably the result of the domestic civil
rights movement of the 1960s. But as with structural materialist explanations
generally, emphasis on hegemony cannot explain the lack of U.S. leadership in
the sanctions movement, even though U.S. participation in unanimous interna-
tional condemnation of apartheid in the UN lent a hegemon's power to
strengthening a global norm of racial equality in the 1950s and early 1960s. The
history of international demands for racial equality points to the importance of
nonhegemonic states and nonstate actors (including the Abolitionists in the
1800s, Japan in the interwar period, and since 1945, newly independent African
states and the transnational anti-apartheid movement) long before the civil
rights movement's success in the United States. From this historical perspec-
tive, we see U.S. civil rights as part of a global movement toward racial equality,
rather than solely an isolated domestic agenda. For example, the U.S. civil
rights movement benefited from UN consensus on racial equality, and some
activists even called for UN consideration of U.S. discrimination.10 The realist
variant of regime theory, therefore, cannot explain the politics of racial equality
generally or U.S. sanctions against South Africa in particular.
Moving away from the realist emphasis on coercive capabilities, the
neoliberal variant of regime theory explains compliance with norms primarily
in terms of cost-benefit analysis: reciprocity prevails and norms become
institutionalized because such arrangements provide substantial benefits,
which may outweigh the opportunity costs of not acting immediately based on
short-term interests.11 In this view, a global norm of racial equality could have
an impact on or constrain U.S. policy through an organization such as the UN.
However, since the United States successfully blocked demands for mandatory
9. See Stephen D. Krasner, Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Joseph Grieco, Cooperation Among Nations:
Europe, America and Non-tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990); and
some (but not all) contributions to Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1983).
10. For elaboration, see Borstelmann, Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle. For historical overviews of
the origins and evolution of demands for racial equality, see David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human
Progress (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); R. J. M. Blackett, Building an Antislavery Wall:
Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830-1860 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1983); Paul Gordon Lauren, Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial
Discrimination (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988); and Vincent Harding, There Is a River: The Black
Struggle for Freedom in America (New York: Vintage, 1981). Explaining the origins of this norm of
racial equality is beyond the scope of this article.
11. See Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political
Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984); and Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Coopera-
tion Under Anarchy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). Martin's evaluation of these
claims suggests significant support for the importance of institutions. See Lisa L. Martin, Coercive
Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1992).
multilateral sanctions in the Security Council—even during the 1980s while

Congress was passing domestic sanctions legislation—little evidence suggests
that international institutions altered cost-benefit calculations of U.S. policy-
makers.12 Furthermore, the United States is not a member of the Common-
wealth, which emerged as the primary arena for multilateral sanctions. Thus
neither variant of regime theory explains U.S. policy, despite acknowledgment
of a potential role for a norm of racial equality.
Yet regime theory does offer suggestions for linking global norms and
domestic politics. By stressing long-term interests, for example, this perspective
suggests that even in the absence of a hegemon and its coercive power, great
powers may be willing to bear costs for abiding by norms under certain
conditions. Furthermore, neoliberal theory suggests that domestic politics—
rather than solely the distribution of material capabilities—may be an
important determinant of these long-term interests. But since regime theory
makes no claims to explain domestic politics, the question remains how
international norms are related to domestic politics.13 One reason such a
supplementary theory remains elusive is that "domestic factors" is a residual
category comprising everything that interstate interaction cannot explain.
However, even if regime theorists did provide a specific supplementary
theory, a domestic politics explanation remains insufficient for explaining U.S.
sanctions. Although Congress initiated the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid
Act of 1986, which survived the veto of a profoundly popular President, to
characterize this societal mobilization against apartheid as domestic overlooks
the global nature of the anti-apartheid movement. Domestic activists were
connected to a transnational social movement that protested apartheid and
promoted sanctions in almost every international organization and state. By
itself a domestic politics explanation leaves open a number of questions,
including why foreign policy toward South Africa became such a salient
domestic political issue and why U.S. sanctions were part of a universal
response to global anti-apartheid activists.14 Figure 2 illustrates these differ-
ences between the domestic focus of regime theory and the transnational
nature of the U.S. sanctions case. What needs to be explained, therefore, is the
transnational process by which global activists' demands for racial equality
12. External constraint may, however, have limited overt support for the South African regime,
even in the early postwar period when the norm of racial equality was emerging and material
interests were strong. See Borstelmann, Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle, chap. 4.
13. See Robert O. Keohane, "International Institutions: Two Approaches," International
Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Westview,
1989), pp. 159-79; and Andrew Moravcsik, "Negotiating the Single European Act," in Robert O.
Keohane and Stanley Hoffmann, eds., The New European Community: Decisionmaking and
Institutional Change (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), pp. 41-84.
14. The broad range and coordinated nature of international reactions to South African
apartheid are more than coincidental; for a defense of this claim, see Audie Klotz, Protesting
Prejudice: Apartheid and the Politics of Norms in International Relations (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, forthcoming).
Norms 459
REGIME THEORY

distribution of
military and
economic
capabilities
t
Supplementary
t
Regimes
theory of domestic
politics
U.S. POLICY, MID-1980S
Hegemonic power Democracy = Sanctions

in southern Africa precondition for
minerals (and
markets)
Global norm of Transnational anti- United Nations

racial equality apartheid activists
FIGURE 2. Domestic versus transnational explanations
were transmitted into effective domestic demands for sanctions against

apartheid.
Constructivism and national interests

By tracing the demands for global racial equality and sanctions against South
Africa within the United States, the following analysis demonstrates how
transnational anti-apartheid activists generated pressures in Congress for a
policy overtly and substantively in support of racial equality in South Africa.
Because of its tolerance for white-minority rule, the U.S. administration proved
incapable of deflecting these congressional demands, resulting in passage of
the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and the override of President
Reagan's veto. By the mid-1980s, the discourse of racial equality framed
discussion of policy toward South Africa, both motivating congressional
demands for sanctions and constraining the executive's power in formulating

foreign policy. Focusing in this way on transnational transmission mechanisms
and connecting congressional sanctions policy with a global norm opens
domestic political processes directly to systemic influences and demonstrates a
broader role for norms, including substantive effects on states' definitions of
their interests.15
This case study illustrates empirically one of the fundamental theoretical
claims of a constructivist theory of international relations: norms are constitu-
tive components of both the international system and states' interests.16 Norms
are not simply an ethical alternative to or constraint on self-interest. Rather, in
the constructivist view, system-level norms play an explanatory role. The
shifting importance of contending global norms offers a theoretical explanation
of interest (re)formation. Thus international actors—even great powers such as
the United States—inherently are socially constructed; that is, prevailing global
norms, such as racial equality, partially define their interests. U.S. domestic
politics, for example, changed as global racial equality became increasingly
accepted during the 1960s. This broader social transformation provided a new
context for evaluating U.S. interests in South Africa and the region.
Yet primarily because of the paradigmatic characterization of international
relations theories as a division between the realists and the idealists, this
constitutive role of norms remains insufficiently analyzed. In addition, even
most empirically oriented constructivist discussions focus on the transforma-
tion from the medieval to modern state system, rather than on policy
explanation.17 Differing views of interest formation, therefore, are crucial for
comparing and contrasting theoretical claims about norms.18 Regimes are part
15. For elaboration on why this transnational emphasis goes beyond conventional notions of
sovereignty and levels of analysis, see Emanuel Adler and Peter M. Haas, "Conclusion: Epistemic
Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program," International
Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 367-90.
16. See especially the following works by Friedrich Kratochwil, "Of Systems, Boundaries, and
Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System," World Politics 38 (October
1986), pp. 27-52; "On the Notion of 'Interest' in International Relations," International
Organization 36 (Winter 1982), pp. 1-30; "The Force of Prescriptions," International Organization
38 (Autumn 1984), pp. 685-708; and Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and
Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989). See also Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It," International
Organization 46 (Spring 1992), pp. 391^25; and Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, World of Our Making:
Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1989). Wendt and Onuf label this perspective constructivist based on the structuration
theory of sociologist Anthony Giddens, the main tenet of which is that structures and agents
reconstruct each other in a dynamic process of iteration. For elaboration on and critiques of
Giddens's theory, see David Held and John B. Thompson, eds., Social Theory of Modern Societies:
Anthony Giddens and His Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
17. See, for example, John Gerard Ruggie, "Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing
Modernity in International Relations," International Organization 47 (Winter 1993), pp. 139-74.
18. Despite frequently being characterized as articulating a rival research paradigm, constructiv-
ists accept many of the substantive aspects of the regimes research agenda. For examples of
similarities among institutionalist approaches, see Oran Young, International Cooperation (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989); and contributions in James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto
Czempiel, eds., Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge:
Norms 461
REGIME THEORY

distribution of
military and
economic
capabilities
\
t
Supplementary
\ Regimes
'
theory of domestic
politics
CONSTRUCTIVISM

distribution of
material
capabilities
\
>
, \ f
Constitutive norms Domestic discourse Regimes
and institutions
FIGURE 3. Contrasting theories of norms and interests
of the external environment in which actors pursue their interests; norms,

therefore, do not alter actors' fundamental definitions of their interests or
preference rankings.19 In contrast, for constructivists, state interests are
determined in part by system-level norms that define interests. Global norms
are one form of a more pervasive—constitutive rather than coercive—
component of the international system. Figure 3 illustrates these theoretical
differences between regime theory and constructivism.
International norms, for a constructivist, do not, strictly speaking, determine
behavior since they constitute identities and interests and define a range of
Cambridge University Press, 1992). On the paradigmatic dichotomy between institutional

approaches see Keohane, "International Institutions"; and Adler and Haas, "Conclusion:
Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflectivist Research Program."
19. See, for example, the emphasis on ideas as "road maps" in Judith Goldstein and Robert O.
Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework," in Judith Goldstein and Robert
O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 3-30.
legitimate policy options. The legitimation of certain goals and means,

therefore, constrains choices even though it cannot predict more than a range
of possible choices. This lack of determinism is not, however, substantially
different from any of the claims of structural theories; the more narrowly these
external constraints limit the range of policy choice, the closer such constraint
resembles determinative motivational cause. If structural constraints narrow
the range of choice to fight or die (the basic structural realist argument), then
claiming that structures cause fighting seems reasonable. Thus a norm of racial
equality defines a range of acceptable policies.
The following analysis of changes in U.S. policy toward South Africa
demonstrates that global norms can affect the reconstitution of interests
directly through transnational processes, without interstate interaction or
multilateral coercion. A global norm of racial equality redefined U.S. interests
through transnational mobilization, rather than through intergovernmental
bargaining or shifts in structural material conditions. Subsequently, state action
based on these new or revised interests strengthened norms and institutions (as
in the conventional regimes approach). The resulting sanctions policy in turn
strengthened the norm of racial equality both in international institutions and
within South Africa itself. This case study offers empirical evidence of the
constructivist claim that norms can reconstitute interests and suggests condi-
tions under which that claim may hold in other cases.
Global norms and the transnational origins of domestic

demands for sanctions
The transnational anti-apartheid movement's success in mobilizing support for

sanctions against South Africa was predicated on uniting concern over the twin
issues of U.S. race relations and apartheid. Activists achieved this goal by both
framing the apartheid issue in the context of the prevailing civil rights discourse
of equality and increasing their institutional access to decision-making power.
The result was the increased salience of their argument that U.S. interests were
best served by actively promoting racial equality and democracy in South
Africa. By 1984, racial equality could no longer simply be ignored or sacrificed
to preserve stability and profits in South Africa and the region. Apartheid and
foreign policy became the focus of intense national debate.
Transnational origins of the anti-apartheid movement

The unprecedented salience of the apartheid issue in U.S. domestic politics
in the mid-1980s resulted principally from African-Americans' participation in
both formulating and implementing anti-apartheid protest. For adherents of
Pan-Africanism—historically the core of African-American activism on Afri-
can issues—the juxtaposed issues of U.S. and South African race relations
Norms 463
logically connected as two aspects of political mobilization for global racial

equality. One consequence of the long-standing interactions between African-
American and African political leaders was the extent to which each group's
views on African issues, especially apartheid, shared a common Pan-African
intellectual heritage.20 Continuing and regenerated personal ties maintained
these commonalities.
Independence for many former African colonies, beginning with Ghana in
1957, was one crucial factor in a resurgent African-American interest in
African affairs.21 The 1960 Sharpeville killings in South Africa revitalized
African-American attention on the southern region of the continent. As early
as 1962, the civil rights spokesman Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and South
African Chief Albert Luthuli (then president of the African National Con-
gress) issued a joint statement calling for the imposition of international
sanctions against South Africa.22 By the early 1960s, African-American interest
in South African affairs manifested itself in increasingly organized demands for
sanctions, explicitly linking civil rights, the international image of the United
States, and its interests in Africa.23
Through the more race-conscious civil rights and Black Power movements of
the 1960s, African-Americans articulated a stronger vision of transnational
interests in African affairs, one reminiscent of earlier Pan-Africanism.24 As
their own movements radicalized, African-Americans' interest focused increas-
ingly on liberation movements, primarily those in the southern African region.
African-American radicalization coincided with similar radicalization in these
liberation movements which, since the early 1960s, had launched military
actions against colonial and apartheid rule. By the end of the 1960s, African-
American activists and politicians had committed themselves to pursuing their
interest in African affairs. One of the most visible signs was Representative
Charles Diggs assuming the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee
20. On the historical roots of Pan-Africanism, see Colin Legum, Pan-Africanism: A Short
Political Guide (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1962). Unless otherwise noted, the following
discussion of the relationship between Pan-African ideology and African-American political
activism derives from Bernard Makhosezwe Magubane, The Ties That Bind: African-American
Consciousness of Africa (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987); Locksley Edmondson, "Black
America as a Mobilizing Diaspora: Some International Implications," in Gabriel Shaffer, ed.,
Modem Diasporas in International Politics (New York: St. Martin's, 1986), pp. 164—211; and Philip
V. White, "The Black American Constituency for Southern Africa, 1940-1980," in Alfred O. Hero,
Jr., and John Barratt, eds., The American People and South Africa: Publics, Elites, and Policymaking
Processes (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1981), pp. 83-102.
21. Activism had been inhibited during the McCarthy era. For details, see Hollis R. Lynch, Black
American Radicals and the Liberation of Africa: The Council on African Affairs 1937-1955 (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, 1978); and Martin Staniland,
American Intellectuals and African Nationalists, 1955-1970 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1991).
22. Magubane, The Ties that Bind, p. 216.
23. For details, see White, "The Black American Constituency for Southern Africa, 1940-1980,"
p. 87.
24. See Edmondson, "Black America as a Mobilizing Diaspora," pp. 183 and 185.
on Africa in 1969. Diggs was also a founding member, and first chair, of the
Congressional Black Caucus, which was established in 1971.
In a less institutionalized setting, two African-American workers initiated a
protest movement against the Polaroid Corporation. They demanded an end to
sales of photographic equipment that was being used by the South African
government to implement its controversial pass-law system, which required
nonwhites to carry documentation regulating their work, residence, and
internal travel.25 Protests against Polaroid focused public attention on the
divestment dimension of the apartheid controversy, foreshadowing subsequent
debates over corporate involvement in South Africa. In reaction to the
arguments over the ethical responsibilities of corporations such as Polaroid,
African-American Rev. Leon Sullivan, himself a corporate board member,
devised the Sullivan Principles as corporate guidelines for enhancing the living
and working conditions of their black South African employees. Criticizing
these principles and the philosophy behind them, advocates of divestment, on
the other hand, saw such ameliorative measures as drastically insufficient; they
argued for complete corporate withdrawal as well as government (and
international) enforcement of economic disengagement.
Two tracks within the anti-apartheid debate thus emerged out of the
Polaroid controversy: corporate responsibility and U.S. government policy.
Pursuing both of these dimensions, grass-roots protests spread. Debates over
apartheid began to reach the national political level for the first time; indeed,
Africa policy had never before been a focus of national politics, with the brief
exception of the Kennedy presidential campaign. During the 1976 presidential
campaign, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter emphasized the need to
increase the role of African-Americans both in foreign policy generally and
policy toward Africa in particular. The subsequent role of civil rights activist
Andrew Young, as permanent representative to the UN, in formulating the
Carter administration's South Africa policy blurred the previous distinction
between external pressure on government policy and participation in policymak-
ing itself.
Nevertheless, Carter's appointment of Young did not forestall continued
pressure, from both African-Americans and other activists, for a stronger U.S.
response to South African racial policies. African leaders as well as African-
Americans indeed were disappointed in the lack of substance in Young's South
Africa policy, notably his lack of support for sanctions.26 Until the 1980s, the
liberal economic argument that increasing investments in South Africa gradu-
ally would eliminate apartheid segregation still prevailed among most policy-
makers—even among many committed advocates of racial equality, including
25. For details of the Polaroid controversy and its consequences, see White, "The Black
American Constituency for Southern Africa, 1940-1980," pp. 89-90.
26. For a discussion of Young's role, see Henry F. Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: U.S.
Foreign Policy Toward Africa Since 1960 (New York: William Morrow, 1982), pp. 153-60.
Norms 465
Young. Sanctions advocates, therefore, needed to undermine the liberal

reform argument; they succeeded with a national interest argument.
Anti-apartheid sanctions as a national issue

By the late 1970s, liberal arguments of economic reform lost ground to
increasingly organized advocates of sanctions. In 1977, the lobbying group
TransAfrica was established under the aegis of the Congressional Black
Caucus and with additional support from civil rights groups. Initially Rhodesia
was TransAfrica's focus, but in the anti-apartheid movement's perspective,
Rhodesian white minority rule was not a separate issue from South African
white minority rule. With a mandate to lobby the government on African and
Caribbean issues, the organization garnered support from elected officials,
specialists on Africa, religious leaders, and other observers of African affairs in
its efforts to force action on the South Africa issue. Not surprisingly, since the
organization's head, Randall Robinson, was a former assistant to Representa-
tive Diggs, the House Subcommittee on Africa became the focal point for
pressure, although during the Carter presidency Robinson also had direct
access to important State Department and administration figures.27
TransAfrica's establishment manifested the increased effectiveness and
visibility of African-American activism on southern African issues. TransAfri-
ca's alliance with the Congressional Black Caucus signified a shift toward
electoral politics, in addition to activists' previous efforts to protest and to
influence the executive directly. While the targets of protest widened, the
societal base for activism also expanded. In addition to its domestic activism,
TransAfrica maintained direct contacts with the transnational anti-apartheid
movement and was given official observer status by the Organization of African
Unity.28 Furthermore, the alliance behind TransAfrica marked the incorpora-
tion of transnational Pan-Africanism into the more politically mainstream
integrationist perspective, linking domestic issues of black freedom to African
ones.29 Advocates of sanctions, including Robinson, now argued that long-term
U.S. interests were best served by allying with the black South African
majority.30
In response to dramatically escalating conflict within South Africa in the
latter half of 1984, TransAfrica played a critical role in expanding public
awareness of, and organizing protest about, apartheid. Allied grassroots groups
throughout the country also contributed to the dispersion of pressure beyond
the federal level down to corporations, state and local governments, and
investment groups (including universities, pension funds, and other private
27. For details on Robinson and TransAfrica, see ibid., pp. 123-26.
28. Ibid., p. 125.
29. Edmondson, "Black America as a Mobilizing Diaspora," pp. 194-95.
30. See, for example, Randall Robinson, "The Reagan Administration and Southern Africa,"
TransAfrica Forum 1 (Summer 1982), pp. 3-6.
investors). Although these various groups had histories of protesting for

divestment, they were no longer acting on their own. Protests became more
coordinated and consequently began to receive greater publicity. TransAfrica
in particular received widespread national publicity when its director and a
small group of activists began taking their protests against apartheid directly to
the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. Quickly arrested and then
released, these protesters, under the aegis of their newly formed Free South
Africa Movement, coordinated a continualflowof pickets outside the embassy
in the ensuing months. National visibility spread as demonstrations increas-
ingly included prominent personalities (such as the music star Stevie Wonder
and former President Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy) as well as congressional
members (including Republican Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut).
Sympathizers across the country began similar protests at other South African
consulate facilities.
Numerous voices, within both society and government, contributed to linking
apartheid to support for (or at least tolerance of) racism at home. In 1984 Jesse
Jackson, an African-American civil-rights activist, brought the issue of apart-
heid into his presidential campaign, provoking his more centrist opponents to
address the topic in their pronouncements.31 For apartheid to have gained
national attention, this linkage needed to be articulated in terms that appealed
to more-mainstream politicians than had the prior Pan-African conceptualiza-
tions, which appealed to African-Americans and left-oriented activists. Indeed,
a widely shared public belief in racial equality underpinned increasing support
for sanctions.32
Much of the political salience of the arguments proffered by sanctions
proponents rested upon their ability to draw an explicit connection between
U.S. racial issues and the institutionalized racism of South Africa. They
articulated a duty to act against South Africa based upon ideals of democracy
and justice—principles often cited by conservative Republicans. For example,
advocates of racial equality argued that foreign investment, whether or not it
was supported by government incentives, implicated corporations in the
perpetuation of the apartheid system. As Roger Wilkins so succinctly put it,
sanctions proponents argued that "Americans are getting rich from the
semi-slave labor of black South Africans and our government is encouraging
them to continue doing that."33 Activists advocated a twofold response:
corporate economic withdrawal and restrictions on relations with the South
African government.
31. For more on Jackson's role, see Edmondson, "Black America as a Mobilizing Diaspora," p.
192; Magubane, The Ties that Bind, p. 224; Anthony Sampson, Black and Gold: Tycoons,
Revolutionaries, and Apartheid (New York: Pantheon, 1987), p. 166; and Pauline Baker, The United
States and South Africa: The Reagan Years (New York: Ford Foundation, 1989), p. 30.
32. Public opinion research confirms that broad-based support for racial equality preceded
demands for congressional action. See Kevin A. Hill, "The Domestic Sources of Foreign
Policymaking: Congressional Voting and American Mass Attitudes Toward South Africa,"
International Studies Quarterly 37 (June 1993), pp. 195-214.
33. Roger Wilkins, "Demonstrating Our Opposition," Africa Report 30 (May-June 1985), p. 31.
Norms 467
Advocacy of sanctions and divestment had become two concurrent dimen-

sions of a political perspective that identified implicit and explicit support for
white-minority rule by both corporations and the U.S. government as detrimen-
tal to black South Africans as well as U.S. influence in the world. Democracy,
proponents argued, took precedence over cold war strategic relations and
profits. By 1984, transnational pressures had succeeded in putting apartheid on
the national agenda; the pro-sanctions policy perspective reached the highest
ranking policymakers. After years of debate and mobilization, advocates of
racial equality successfully linked apartheid and domestic race relations. But
with a U.S. administration adamantly opposed to sanctions, Congress became
the focal point for national debate and ultimately the vehicle for policy change.
Racial equality and definitions of national interests
The discourse of domestic race relations became extraordinarily important in

changing public—and congressional—thinking about policy toward South
Africa. Following the successful politicization of the apartheid issue in terms of
justice and democracy, politicians (with a few notable exceptions) had become
sensitized to the potentially damaging political linkage between tolerance for
apartheid and tolerance of racism at home. By late 1984, even those senators
and representatives who had not previously been committed advocates of racial
equality recognized the importance of publicly rejecting apartheid and support-
ing sanctions. A split between moderate and conservative Republicans over
racial equality resulted not only in rejection of the Reagan administration's
policy of "constructive engagement" but also in a fundamental redefinition of
U.S. interests, which gave priority to nonracial democracy. Furthermore,
passage of congressional sanctions legislation both institutionalized this policy
change and added momentum to the global sanctions movement.
Rejecting constructive engagement

The increasing importance of a norm of racial equality within foreign policy
debates enabled opponents of the traditional U.S. policy to challenge the
fundamental assumption that national interests were best served by supporting
(or tolerating) white-minority rule in South Africa. Distancing themselves from
the appearance of tolerating racism led congressional representatives to
advocate domestic South African reform. Because the Reagan administration
policy of constructive engagement appeared to tolerate white-minority rule, it
became the focal point for domestic and congressional criticism.
Designed in 1981 by Chester Crocker, Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs, constructive engagement advocated "quiet diplomacy"
based on three fundamental premises: the United States could contribute to
evolutionary change in South Africa; some degree of outside intervention was
necessary to promote "positive" movement in this direction; and influence
could be exerted best by rewarding significant reforms made by the white-

minority government. Crocker rejected sanctions as punitive and counterpro-
ductive. Particularly concerned with Soviet influence in the region, he consid-
ered Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola, linked to South African withdrawal
from Namibia, far more important than apartheid.34
Despite strong continuities across administrations, two significant differ-
ences distinguished constructive engagement from previous Republican ap-
proaches: Crocker believed that the white-minority South African government
was a reforming autocracy (and hence subject to influence) and that support for
the government's efforts at reform should be public. In contrast, Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger's policy in the 1970s presumed that the white South
African government would not reform in response to external pressures
(indeed it presumed that the South African government would continue to
maintain internal stability indefinitely) and considered public dissociation from
that government as essential for minimizing the political costs of U.S.
cooperation with it in pursuit of U.S. national interests in the region.35
The policy of constructive engagement also differed from the liberal
economic view of reform, which was predominant in the Carter administration,
because it did not assume that evolutionary political reform would result
inevitably from increased economic development.36 Thus Crocker aimed to
avoid not only the sharp rhetoric and high visibility of the Carter administration
but also the secret support given to South Africa under the Nixon administra-
tion. In promulgating a policy of constructive engagement, Crocker empha-
sized limitations on any U.S. attempt to influence change within South Africa.
Such attempts, he argued, should be directed primarily at the white govern-
ment, which could be swayed only if a friendly relationship were established.
Constructive engagement thus reiterated the historical equation of strategic
and economic interests that primarily valued stability in the region.
Despite his recognition of the need for some kind of domestic South African
reform, Crocker's policy left the Reagan administration particularly vulnerable
to international and domestic criticism as it moved to strengthen previously
severed ties with the South African government. To many observers, construc-
tive engagement blatantly supported white-minority rule. Even increased
military cooperation was documented in leaked secret policy documents in
1981.37 This impression was further strengthened by President Reagan's
34. Crocker originally proposed constructive engagement in Chester Crocker, "South Africa:
Strategy for Change," Foreign Affairs 59 (Winter 1980/81), pp. 323-51. See also Crocker, High Noon
in Southern Africa; Baker, The United States and South Africa; and Coker, The United States and
South Africa, 1968-1985.
35. For a detailed explanation of Kissinger's policy see El-Khawas and Cohen, National Security
Study Memorandum 39.
36. For a critique of the liberal view of the relationship between economic change and apartheid
reform, see Stanley B. Greenberg, "Economic Growth and Political Change: The South African
Case," Journal of Modem African Studies 19 (December 1981), pp. 667-704.
37. These policy documents were published in a special edition of TransAfrica News Report,
August 1981 and are reprinted in Baker, The United States and South Africa, Appendix A, pp.
105-112.
Norms 469
apparent personal sympathy for whites in South Africa (a view reinforced by his
support from conservatives, especially in the South). Some also questioned
Crocker's personal sympathies, since his wife was Rhodesian-born and they
owned stock in companies operating in South Africa. Senator Jesse Helms, in
contrast, had attempted to block Crocker's nomination for fear that he was
overly sympathetic to the black African perspective.38
The Reagan administration's reputation for supporting white-minority rule
was becoming entrenched. At a 21 March 1985 press conference (held in
response to recent deaths of black South Africans), President Reagan
answered a question about whether the administration would alter its policy in
response to the continuing wave of South African government violence against
blacks by declaring, "I think to put it that way—that they were simply killed and
that the violence was coming totally from the law and order side ignores the fact
that there was rioting going on . . . it is significant that some of those enforcing
the law and using the guns were also black policemen."39 A strongly worded
response by Democratic Congressman William Gray (Congressional Black
Caucus member and author of sanctions legislation) indicated a growing
discontent with Reagan's insensitivity: "At best, I would describe [Reagan's]
statements as symbolic of the worst kind of ignorance and insensitivity by
anybody that I've ever seen in all my years in public office. At worst, I would
have to say that they were racist.... [His comment] basically shows that the
President sees [apartheid] only as a black-white issue, and he's on the side of
white folks. And I think that's tragic, because it's not a black-white issue. It's an
issue of justice versus injustice."40 In response to increasing criticism that his
administration supported white rule in South Africa, President Reagan finally
made a speech denouncing apartheid on 10 December 1985 (International
Human Rights Day). He nevertheless justified the progress made through
constructive engagement. Particularly disturbing to his critics were Reagan's
misleading assertions about South African support during the two world wars;
in fact, members of Afrikaner-dominated South African government (in power
since 1948) had previously been imprisoned as Nazi sympathizers. Even
Crocker acknowledged the damage from Reagan's insensitivity.41
Characterizing support for South Africa as support for racism held serious
political ramifications, which became increasingly evident in the schism
developing between the Reagan administration and Congress. For the first four
years, Crocker had been given the benefit of the doubt by most Republicans
(although other opponents continued to criticize him for overlooking the issue
of black political rights). This grace period, however, came to an end by late
38. For details of opposition to his nomination, see Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa.
39. For the full text of Reagan's comments, see U.S. Department of State, Office of the
Historian, "Remarks by President Reagan at a News Conference, March 21,1985," doc. 158, in The
United States and South Africa: U.S. Public Statements and Related Documents, 1977-1985
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1985), p. 307.
40. Congressman William H. Gray III, interviewed by Paula Hirschoff, Africa Report 30
(May-June 1985), p. 50.
41. See Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa, pp. 81 and 231.
1984 when both regional southern African and internal South African violence
sharply increased.42 The political linkage between domestic and international
racial issues was the instigation for this conservative reevaluation. Congres-
sional representatives who previously were uninterested in the details of
foreign policies toward African countries no longer gave the administration
free rein as their own concern for their domestic (electoral) image increased.
Particularly discontented were moderate Republicans who, in response to the
increasingly prevalent impression of Reagan as insensitive to racial concerns,
decided to voice their opposition openly. These former Reagan supporters
became crucial in creating bipartisan support for sanctions legislation.
But unlike activists with histories of interest in South African affairs, these
moderates were influenced by a number of domestic political contingencies
that led them to reconsider national interests in, and policy toward, South
Africa. In part concerned by the electoral dimension of domestic racial issues,
centrist Republicans hoped to gain increased support from middle-class blacks
in their broader efforts to create a new style of Republican party that would
appeal to younger and southern constituents.43 Given the broad, rather than
constituency-specific, nature of the support for sanctions, these moderate
Republicans hoped to limit damage to their overall national agenda by
distancing themselves from Reagan's policy of constructive engagement.44
Particularly surprising was the adoption of a specific foreign policy issue—
whether or not to adopt sanctions against South Africa—in a midterm election
year. This new Republican concern had immediate and concrete effects on the
sanctions debate.
The political salience of public support for racial equality led these moderate
Republicans to promote anti-apartheid sanctions. In a much publicized letter
to South African Ambassador Fourie in December 1984, a group of these
moderates expressed their concern about increasing violence in South Africa,
going so far as to warn that they would consider supporting partial sanctions if
substantial change were not quickly forthcoming. In explaining his motivations
for a move that circumvented the policy of his party's leader, Republican
Senator Robert Walker of Pennsylvania described the thinking behind his
drafting of that letter:
The letter grew out of discussions among several of us over several months.
I found myself increasingly anxious to publicly express opposition to apart-
heid, and as I discussed it with my closest colleagues, I found that they too
42. Two (Nkomati and Lusaka) regional accords between South Africa and its neighbors, which
Crocker had held up as successes of constructive engagement, fell into disarray as South Africa
adopted a more aggressive regional military strategy. For details of these accords and South
Africa's broader regional policies see Barber and Barratt, South Africa's Foreign Policy.
43. Baker, The United States and South Africa, p. 36.
44. Congressional representatives were responding to broad national debates, rather than
simple concern for their own reelection. Using public opinion data and voting records, Hill argues
that there is "no evidence of direct constituency transmission of South Africa attitudes to their
representatives." See Hill, "The Domestic Sources of Foreign Policymaking," p. 210.
Norms 471
felt the time had come to have conservatives voice their repugnance regard-
ing that policy of official segregation. We also were disturbed to see all con-
servatives lumped together as supporters of, or at least acquiescing to,
apartheid. We decided to take steps to break this stereotype by taking a
public step to show our disapproval. We set out to define ourselves as a
group of conservatives who were clearly anti-apartheid. This, we felt, would
send a signal to the South African government that it cannot count on all
conservatives to "look the other way." We hoped this move would change
the tenor of the debate not only in this country, but in South Africa as
well.45
Other leading Republicans expressed similar views. Thus, moderate Republi-
cans had come to agree with anti-apartheid activists that failure to respond to
South Africa's apartheid policies meant condoning racism. In the political
climate of the mid-1980s only the most conservative Republicans were deaf to
such accusations.
As a result of increasing Republican support, bipartisan consensus on partial
sanctions—as the policy that could most clearly and quickly demonstrate
rejection of apartheid—subsequently emerged during 1985 in open opposition
to the administration policy of constructive engagement. Supporting—or
refusing to criticize—South Africa had become politically unacceptable for all
but the most conservative. The Reagan administration's failure to carry
moderate Republicans created unusual dissension over the broad definition of
U.S. interests in southern Africa. Which specific policy would replace Reagan
policy, however, depended on subsequent debates over the importance of
nonracial democracy for U.S. interests in the region.
Debating democracy
Declining congressional support demonstrated that Reagan, unlike previous
Presidents, could no longer rely on orthodox assumptions that white-minority
rule would protect U.S. strategic and economic interests in South Africa.
Promoting stability in the region, advocates of racial equality argued, meant
promoting substantial South African internal political reforms, specifically
democracy in the form of majority rule. Anti-apartheid sanctions represented
the most effective means of both pressuring the white-minority government for
reforms and signaling support for opponents of white rule. Support for
sanctions, in other words, was equated with support for racial equality.
As moderate Republicans joined long-standing opponents of apartheid in
articulating the view that absence of South African reform actually promoted
the spread of revolutionary ideas, they opened a broader debate over the
nature of U.S. interests in the region. This new phase of debate over sanctions
centered predominantly around differing analyses of reform. Since traditional
45. Robert S. Walker, "A Conservative Viewpoint Against Apartheid," Africa Report 30
(May-June 1985), p. 55.
conservatives viewed controlling the spread of communism as the sole concern

for U.S. policy, they viewed domestic reforms as inevitably destabilizing; black
dissent was seen as instigated by communist activists trained abroad rather
than as a legitimate response to apartheid. In contrast, opponents of apartheid
had always given greater credence to internal dissent. Most noteworthy in the
1980s, however, was that moderate Republicans increasingly recognized the
legitimacy of black South African demands for majority rule.
Although in no way giving up their concern over the spread of communism,
these Republicans did, nevertheless, reject the formerly held narrow focus on
strategic interests. Without an emphasis on democracy, that view had blinded
them to the serious implications of growing unrest in South Africa. Their
assessment of the nature of the threat to U.S. interests had changed now that
Republicans acknowledged racial equality. As Senator Walker, a leading
Republican sanctions advocate, observed:
It hardly needs to be mentioned that South Africa plays a critical role
through its opposition to communist expansion in sub-Saharan Africa. This
has turned South Africa into a case where too many conservatives have
turned a blind eye toward apartheid in the name of being pro-Western and
anti-communist. . . . The option is a dismantling of apartheid that moves
South Africa toward human rights guarantees while preserving pro-Western
government. In short, apartheid is eating away at the stability of South Af-
rica. There is a danger that if it continues, the oppressed may seek libera-
tion through violence and/or Marxism. We then could lose the very ally we
regard as so vital. Better that we should help show the way toward reform.46
In other words, apartheid undermined South Africa's stability and conse-
quently its value to the United States. Seeing their own calls for partial
sanctions as a warning to a "friend" rather than a threat to an "enemy," they
hoped to encourage gradual reform to forestall a more violent revolution.
Demands for democracy based on racial equality, therefore, were no longer
dismissed as communism in disguise but rather became a prerequisite to
retaining access to minerals and markets.
But since Chester Crocker's political analysis of both a communist threat and
a need for reform paralleled that of moderate Republicans, his inflexibility
toward their requests for policy modifications remains surprising. Two factors
are particularly important in explaining this intractability: in response to
pressures from more conservative Reaganites, Crocker was attempting to stifle
demands for more severe actions toward the ruling white South African
government and, in order to attain a settlement on Namibia—the policy area
which most concerned him—he wanted a cooperative relationship with the
South African government.47 On the latter issue, Crocker differed considerably
46. Walker, "A Conservative Viewpoint Against Apartheid," pp. 54-55.

47. See Baker, The United States and South Africa, pp. 16 and 41; Minter, King Solomon's Mines
Revisited, pp. 310-12; and Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa.
Norms 473
with both moderate Republicans (who were more concerned with South
African reform) and right-wing Republicans (who wanted a stronger reaction
to the presence of Cuban troops in the region), leaving him open to attacks
from all sides, not just from inveterate anti-apartheid activists. On balance,
Crocker's emphasis on regional strategic interests, especially Cuban troops in
Angola, outweighed his moderate support for democratization.
In addition, Crocker's preference for moderate reformers of apartheid led
him to minimize the importance of both black South African actors who
supported faster change, such as the African National Congress (ANC), and
the degree of violence inherent in the system of apartheid. Sharing the
conservative view that the violence of internal conflict resulted from critics of
the white government, Crocker concluded that support for government-
initiated reform could control that violence. In sharp contrast, critics of that
fundamentally conservative perspective emphasized the role of the government
in creating and perpetuating violence. In their view, therefore, not only did
support for the South African government guarantee continued violence but
also slower reform ensured longer suffering. Consequently, they viewed
stronger pressure on the South African government to implement immediate
and drastic change as the necessary and appropriate U.S. response. These
diverging views of the relationship between violence and reform fueled the
vociferous sanctions debates of the 1980s and perpetuated the perception that
the U.S. administration supported the white-minority regime.
With its emphasis on negotiations over Namibia rather than the elimination
of apartheid, the administration proved incapable of reaching a compromise
with moderate Republicans. Following their December 1984 letter to the South
African ambassador, a number of Republicans joined in sponsoring sanctions
legislation in both the Senate and House of Representatives. In 1985, the
House passed sanctions legislation by a vote of 295 to 127, due in part to the
support of fifty-six Republicans. Republican Senators Roth of Delaware and
McConnell of Kentucky introduced legislation in the Senate, where Reagan
supporters Robert Dole and Richard Lugar became key actors in an attempt to
find a suitable compromise between Congress and the administration. Broker-
ing an agreement to forestall restrictions on investments in South Africa, they
convinced President Reagan to abide by a much-reduced package of restric-
tions on governmental loans, exports of computers to the South African
military and police, exports of nuclear-related technologies, and the import of
South African-made arms. The executive order also encouraged corporations
to follow a code of conduct similar to the Sullivan Principles. Furthermore, it
established an advisory committee to provide additional recommendations in
the future.48
48. U.S. Department of State, "Prohibiting Trade and Certain Other Transactions Involving
South Africa," Executive Order 12532, 9 September 1985, in United States and South Africa, doc.
176, pp. 365-68.
This temporary compromise, however, failed to placate critics either within

the Republican party or among other congressional members, who renewed
proposals for sanctions legislation in the next session. As the administration
sought to change the image but not the substance of its policy, internal and
regional violence continued to increase, with international criticism flaring as
South Africa launched raids on neighboring countries in May 1986. At the
same time, the Commonwealth's Eminent Persons Group further substanti-
ated impressions of South African President P. W. Botha as intransigent when
it released its report calling for international sanctions.49
Ironically, Republican brokering for an executive order actually increased
criticism of the administration, as Reagan and his advisers were drawn into
debates over which types of sanctions should be implemented; whether
sanctions should be adopted was no longer a question. Openly breaking with
the conservatives within their party in October 1986 (just before midterm
elections), moderate Republicans had clearly decided that some sanctions
were better than none when they joined Democrats to override the President's
veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA) by overwhelming
margins (313 to 83 in the House and 78 to 21 in the Senate).50
The major provisions of the CAAA, which went beyond the previous
executive order, comprised restrictions on new investments, as well as ex-
panded restrictions on government loans, imports from South Africa (including
gold coins), trade assistance, tourism promotion, and elimination of double
taxation agreements. Furthermore, the act made mandatory a code of conduct
(based upon the much-vaunted Sullivan Principles) for U.S. corporations
operating in South Africa. Additional "positive" measures including educa-
tional aid and legal assistance were included, as was the possibility of further
sanctions after a followup report from the President within twelve months. The
CAAA also established conditions for the removal of these sanctions, including
the release of political prisoners, lifting of the state of emergency, lifting bans
on political activity, repealing the Group Areas Act and Population Registra-
tion Act, and entering into "good faith" negotiations with representatives of
the black majority.
Accepting the need for democratic reform in South Africa did not necessar-
ily mean that policy simply followed the demands of committed advocates of
racial equality. Despite bipartisan agreement on the CAAA, substantial
differences remained over which types of sanctions should be included in the
act, as evident in the potpourri of measures finally written into the legislation.
One of the most contentious aspects of the sanctions debates was over the
utility of the Sullivan Principles (or similar codes of conduct). Republicans
placed substantially more faith in the ability of U.S. firms to influence political
49. For details, see The Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons, Mission to South Africa
(London: Penguin, 1986).
50. The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986: PL 99-440 U.S. Statutes at Large 100 (1986),
pp. 1086-116.
Norms 475
reform. While acknowledging that suchfirmsmay contribute to improved living

conditions for a small percentage of South African workers, skeptics more
fundamentally questioned the capability of these firms to have substantial
political influence, particularly as these corporations had not demonstrated any
previous interest in influencing the political direction of the South African
government. Even harsher critics viewed corporations as benefiting from
government repression and therefore saw no reason for them even to try to
influence reform.
In addition, committed advocates of racial equality viewed sanctions as an
additional means of encouraging the South African government to recognize
black opposition groups, particularly the ANC. Such expectations can be seen
not only in official pronouncements of groups like the Free South Africa
Movement and TransAfrica but also in the nature of conditions that were
appended to the CAAA. Indeed for many, Nelson Mandela's imprisonment
came to symbolize these demands. Nevertheless, many congressional members
remained unwilling to grant the ANC such status, frequently promoting
alternatives such as Zulu Chief Gatsha Buthelezi.51 The vagaries of policy
toward South Africa thus reflected continuing debates over the perception of
South African activists as terrorists versus freedom fighters.52
Incorporating a norm of racial equality into the definition of U.S. interests,
therefore, altered the range of legitimate policy choices but did not determine a
particular policy outcome. Liberal economic arguments that increased U.S.
investment would encourage South African reform were considerably discred-
ited (compared with their former dominance) and strategic arguments were
subordinated to and modified by a commitment to democratization. At end, the
United States adopted sanctions to signal, internationally and domestically, its
support for racial equality through majority rule.
Strengthening a global norm of racial equality

Passage of sanctions legislation did not automatically guarantee long-term
support for racial equality. In practice, however, congressional action did
strengthen the U.S. commitment to racial equality, both within its policymaking
process and globally. It will remain problematic to test the degree to which this
new perspective supporting racial equality became embedded domestically,
because the apartheid issue lost its salience in light of South African President
F. W. de Klerk's domestic reforms beginning in 1990. However, U.S. policy
under the Bush administration and South African reforms both offer additional
51. For a discussion of how black South African groups perceived U.S. aid, see Lynda M.
Clarizio, United States Policy Toward South Africa (New York: Lawyer's Committee for Human
Rights, 1989), pp. 40 and 66.
52. On U.S. characterization of the ANC as a terrorist organization, see Thomas J. Redden, Jr.,
"The U.S. Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986: Anti-Apartheid or Anti-African National
Congress?" African Affairs 87 (October 1988), pp. 595-605.
reasons to view the shift in fundamental policy assumptions as part of a broader

process of diffusing and embedding a norm of racial equality.
Most immediately, Secretary of State George Shultz's 1987 advisory report
evaluating enforcement of the specific provisions of the sanctions package
recommended policies that reinforced the direction established by the CAAA:
distancing from the white regime, strengthening ties with black opposition,
cooperating on international sanctions, and increasing assistance to neighbor-
ing states. No longer treating the ANC as a terrorist organization to be
shunned, the administration increased efforts to improve ties, including a
meeting between Shultz and ANC President Oliver Tambo in 1987. In
addition, the new direction of U.S. policy toward South Africa continued into
the Bush administration, which abided by congressional conditions for lifting
sanctions even after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 (and after both
Britain and the European Community announced their intention to lift their
sanctions). Only after President de Klerk's reforms in 1991 did the Bush
administration announce that, in its interpretation of the law, South Africa had
fulfilled all the conditions for lifting sanctions.53 Thus by institutionalizing a
new tenet of policy—that majority rule in South Africa must be encouraged—
passage of the CAAA inaugurated a period of more consistent U.S. opposition
to white-minority rule in South Africa.
U.S. sanctions policies also had broader implications, both for the global
momentum toward sanctions in the mid-1980s and for the reform efforts within
South Africa. Shortly after the passage of the CAAA in 1986, the transnational
anti-apartheid movement succeeded in persuading members of the Common-
wealth to institute substantive economic sanctions. The European Community,
as well as such crucial trading partners as Japan, also adopted restrictions,
following the U.S. lead.54 Particularly noteworthy in these sanctions packages
was a relatively consistent list of conditions for South African reform, the same
conditions articulated in the CAAA. It is this very list of conditions for reforms
that de Klerk followed when repealing the legal pillars of apartheid and
opening up the political process in South Africa. De Klerk did not, however,
grant blacks the right to vote, nor was this explicitly a condition for lifting
sanctions (though in retrospect many anti-apartheid protesters might wish it
had been). Moreover, de Klerk explicitly defended his reforms on the basis that
apartheid restrictions were "evidently unjust, in conflict with the Christian
values to which we profess to aspire, contrary to internationally acceptable
norms and a certain recipe for revolt, revolution and civil war."55
53. New York Times, 11 July 1991, p. A l .

54. See Geldenhuys, Outcast States; Lauren, Power and Prejudice; Commonwealth Secretariat,
The Commonwealth at the Summit: Communiques of the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meetings, 1944-1986 (London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 1987); and Martin Holland, The
European Community and South Africa (London: Pinter, 1988).
55. New York Times, 3 May 1991, p. A l l . For a more detailed discussion of the role of
international sanctions in South African reforms, see Klotz, Protesting Prejudice, chap. 9.
Norms 477
Thus U.S. anti-apartheid sanctions were one important component of an

extraordinarily successful transnational drive for the enforcement of a global
norm of racial equality. Indeed, the shift in policy toward South Africa
presaged new directions in post-cold war policy. In the absence of an
overarching anticommunist framework, the relationship among the strategic,
economic, and ideological components of U.S. interests has become increas-
ingly contested. The ranking of democracy as a prerequisite to minerals and
markets, first evident in the new policy toward South Africa in the 1980s,
persists in the 1990s. In addition, TransAfrica and the Congressional Black
Caucus retained the increased influence for African-Americans in policymak-
ing institutions, as evident in their role in pressuring the Clinton administration
on its Haiti policy. In order to promote democracy and market economies, the
United States now adopts economic sanctions regularly.
Theoretical implications
U.S. debates over minerals, markets, and democracy in South Africa demon-
strate the inherently social nature of national interests. As a global norm of
racial equality became increasingly accepted in domestic U.S. politics, advo-
cates of democracy for South Africa successfully linked issues of civil rights and
apartheid through the discourse of equality and national interests. Conse-
quently, even moderate Republicans in Congress recognized the social costs of
abrogating this norm of racial equality, both for their own party's domestic
interests and for U.S. global interests, resulting in a significant shift in U.S.
foreign policy. By altering U.S. policy, furthermore, transnational anti-
apartheid activists redirected this great power's influence toward supporting
global enforcement of a norm of racial equality, both among South Africa's
trading partners and within South Africa itself. National interests, therefore,
are socially constructed in a global process of norm diffusion.
Constructivist theory claims that states are socially constructed, yet we have
few comparative studies that offer an empirical basis for improving our
understanding of the ways in which processes of social construction operate.
This case study suggests directions for further empirical research into interest
formation. Comparing anti-apartheid activists' experiences in the United
States with those in Britain, for example, indicates that the context of the U.S.
civil rights discourse, as well as the institutional differences between the
congressional and parliamentary political systems, explain this transnational
social movement's success in the former and frustration in the latter.56 These
contrasting experiences suggest that the permeability of preexisting discursive
frameworks and institutions to transnational influences is a plausible direction
56. For a detailed analysis of the failure of the anti-apartheid movement in Britain, see Klotz,
Protesting Prejudice, chap. 7.
for formulating hypotheses about interest change. Comparative studies of

foreign policymaking and additional analyses of transnational social move-
ments will increase our understanding of this global process of interest
formation.
Constructivist theory also claims that agents and structures reconstitute each
other in an iterative process but thus far has retained the traditional
assumption of states as units. While a focus on transnational diffusion
processes rejects the traditional assumption of state autonomy, a more
complete understanding of social construction requires individual-level analy-
sis of agency. Individuals, for a wide range of reasons, may conform with norms
even if they are not personally committed to those ideals. The Reagan
administration, for example, adopted sanctions through an executive order in
1985 despite numerous other indications that as individuals they lacked a
strong commitment to racial equality. While the presumption of self-interested
motivation can be modified to accommodate the social costs that produced this
policy change, further studies into the relationship between discourse and
individual motivations would be required for a fuller understanding of the
conditions under which discourse changes individual attitudes; that is, when
norms have their strongest effects.
Constructivist theory argues that global norms are part of the explanation for
the definition of state and individual interests. The result is a reformulated
research agenda that illuminates the independent role of norms in determining
actors' identities and interests.

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Norms reconstituting interests:

global racial equality and U.S.

Transnational anti-apartheid activists' extraordinary success in generating

International Organization 49, 3, Summer 1995, pp. 451-78

A plausible explanation for these extraordinary sanctions is a strengthened

of racial equality through UN resolutions as early as 1960, regime constraint

Theoretical perspectives on U.S. policy toward South Africa

U.S. adoption of anti-apartheid sanctions is surprising given historical continu-

Structural realism and postwar U.S. policy

Systemic States' interests Policies

Hegemonic power Minerals (and Support for

FIGURE l. Structural realism and U.S. postwar policy

popularity of the conservative Reagan administration further bolsters the

Regime theory and domestic politics

A hegemonic regime perspective, which shares the basic realist emphasis on

multilateral sanctions in the Security Council—even during the 1980s while

Systemic States' interests Policies

U.S. POLICY, MID-1980S

Hegemonic power Democracy = Sanctions

Global norm of Transnational anti- United Nations

FIGURE 2. Domestic versus transnational explanations

were transmitted into effective domestic demands for sanctions against

Constructivism and national interests

demands for sanctions and constraining the executive's power in formulating

Systemic States' interests Policies

Systemic States' interests Policies

FIGURE 3. Contrasting theories of norms and interests

of the external environment in which actors pursue their interests; norms,

Cambridge University Press, 1992). On the paradigmatic dichotomy between institutional

legitimate policy options. The legitimation of certain goals and means,

Global norms and the transnational origins of domestic

The transnational anti-apartheid movement's success in mobilizing support for

Transnational origins of the anti-apartheid movement

logically connected as two aspects of political mobilization for global racial

Young. Sanctions advocates, therefore, needed to undermine the liberal

Anti-apartheid sanctions as a national issue

investors). Although these various groups had histories of protesting for

Advocacy of sanctions and divestment had become two concurrent dimen-

Racial equality and definitions of national interests

The discourse of domestic race relations became extraordinarily important in

Rejecting constructive engagement

could be exerted best by rewarding significant reforms made by the white-

conservatives viewed controlling the spread of communism as the sole concern

46. Walker, "A Conservative Viewpoint Against Apartheid," pp. 54-55.

This temporary compromise, however, failed to placate critics either within

reform. While acknowledging that suchfirmsmay contribute to improved living

Strengthening a global norm of racial equality

reasons to view the shift in fundamental policy assumptions as part of a broader

53. New York Times, 11 July 1991, p. A l .

Thus U.S. anti-apartheid sanctions were one important component of an

for formulating hypotheses about interest change. Comparative studies of

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