Theoretical Framework
Schoeman’s (2007) definition of hegemony: leadership that “follows its own enlightened self-interest” with positive spin offs for others. The European Consortium for Political Research defines a regional power as follows: "A state belonging to a geographically defined region, dominating this region in economic and military terms, able to exercise hegemonic influence in the region and considerable influence on the world scale, willing to make use of power resources and recognized or even accepted as the regional leader by its neighbours (Rhetoric Review. 14:2. (Spring), 438-440). One of the lesser emerging schools of thought I wish to analyse in this paper is that of James Buchanan’s public choice theory, which assesses political behaviour on the basis of self-interest. In drawing on this school of thought, I believe enhancing the study of rhetoric can be achieved by including the analysis of the motivations for rhetorical behaviour.
As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.” The wishful thinking it displaced presumes that participants in the political sphere aspire to promote the common good. In the conventional “public interest” view, public officials are portrayed as benevolent “public servants” who faithfully carry out the “will of the people.” In tending to the public’s business, voters, politicians, and policymakers are supposed somehow to rise above their own parochial concerns.
The implication of using the prism of public choice for rhetoric is the dimension of motivation for which we are able to draw intentionality in an assessment of rhetorical objectives.
South Africa’s bid for continental leadership derives legitimacy from the claims to the rhetoric of intention and legacy as opposed to institutional structure, which characterises the country’s interaction with the rest of the continent.
This paper will seek to understand how institutional arrangements are rhetorically legitimised on the basis of the common good, with a view to discerning the ability of those socially constructed institutions to retain legitimacy through rhetoric.
The explanatory power of public choice as a method of understanding political objectives, will be used to implement a rhetorical analysis of the means (rhetoric practices) by which those objectives are attained.
Using public choice as a basis for explanatory means to understand political motivations does not necessitate an absolute acceptance of its volatility in all and every instance. Indeed existing theories in international relations will be drawn upon, including those that contradict the premises of the public choice school.
The crucial element is that the individual, or rhetoritician, is understood both on the basis of content and context, the latter which includes but is not reserved to personal gains including power, prestige, status and financial reward. The interconnectedness of various interests which serve to pressure rhetoric towards a particular will be examined alongside the precise rhetorical devices employed. This paper will use the trajectory of the public choice theory of international relations, an infant school, but nonetheless for which one an inter-disciplinary case can be made with rhetoric.
Literature Review
Includes Marx, Burke (use of rhetoric to resolve conflicts by identifying shared characteristics and interests in symbols), White (language is socially constructed), Salmon (evocative nature of kin terminology), Aristotle, Bitzer (the rhetorical situation), MS Feldman, K Skoldberg, RN Brown (rhetorical approach to narrative analysis), Freeden (ideologies and political theories)
Methodology
The identification of specific semiotic strategies employed by the South African foreign policy documents to accomplish specific persuasive goals.
Data Gathering and Analysis
Sources will include ministry's official documents, parliamentary reports, intelligence, press reports, presidential speeches and formal statements presented at conferences such as that of the UN and AU etc.
Whether in the Marxian conception or through the assumption that neo-liberalism is both descriptively and normatively critical to understanding international affairs, economics matters (for a Marxian conception, see Chandler, 2000 for a liberal defense of economics as a starting point in analysis see Buchannan, 1976).
Economic diplomacy matters to Southern Africa because the rules of the game shape domestic economic policy in important ways, and in an increasingly multi-polar world international economic negotiations are growing in importance across a number of fronts (Sidiropoulos, 2009). In Africa, trade has come to dominant relations in an unprecedented fashion, with the continent outperforming the west in many indicators of investment returns, particularly during the recent financial crisis (CNBC, 2009)
The country’s ability to play a leadership role on the continent is tied deeply to the logos of economic realities. Interest in Africa in recent years is driven by the economic commodity boom and the recognition of an increasing market of consumers with increasing buying power. Egypt and Nigeria have adapted to the rapid trade interest in Africa that has emerged, changing the rules of what traits were considered necessary for African leadership. Their economies contain the population and growth potential and Western demand to warrant an increasingly prominent role. All in all, the continent’s economics, alongside consumer demand, market share and resources have gained importance in the public sphere (McKinsey report, 2010), adding a new dimension to the role Africa is deemed to play in the global economy.
These may shape domestic and regional economic policies in ways that could be inimical to pursuing sustainable outcomes. Therefore it is necessary to ensure regional interests are articulated and understood by the South African government. (http://www.saiia.org.za/economic-diplomacy-overview/economic-diplomacy-overview/index.html, 2010). Understanding the new regional realities and facing possible exclusion from the potential club of BRIC nations for a time, South Africa turned to multilateral instructions and the rhetoric of ideology to assert its importance. Understanding that despite the (possibly temporary) economic boom, Africa and the developing world remain at the receiving end of an unjust international environment if multilateral institutions were not upheld as a means by which South Africa could assert itself and the moral authority it seeks to present.
In a changing environment in which economics matters in the global context, given the reality of global trade interconnectedness (Gilpin, 2000), South Africa is, however, seeking to advance its relevance primarily by driving economic participation:
Just as Pericles commemorated the dead for the sake of the state’s survival in his funeral oration, so do modern states commemorate the dead as a means of preserving power (Palmer, 2005). South Africa’s draws on the fallen struggle heroes to consolidate its legitimacy. In the case of Lesotho referred to at the outset of this paper, President Zuma refers to some of South Africa’s “bravest and brightest cadres” falling “at the hands of the apartheid security forces”.
South African foreign policy may be a struggle between the parochial and the universal when considering competing domestic interests (Sidropolous, 2009). As the country battles its own domestic problems of high unemployment and inequality, it understands its road to success through Africa, particularly in the consolidation of trade relations. The country’s own potential for economic success and growth lie on a road that “leads through Africa” (Fabricus, 2010). In an article published in the Sunday Argus, Fabricus quotes the latest research from business leaders, academic and consultants, under the headline, ‘SA ‘could quickly double its GDP’ with assertive action in Africa’. Yet South Africa’s pursuit of trade relations must occurs in the rhetoric of the country as a matter of development in Africa as we shall see. Pure trade as a matter of self-interest cannot be laid bare, but must be clouded in a legitimacy that arises from the shared understanding of solidarity that permeates rhetorical acts between African states.
Considering Plato’s notion in the Giorgias, in which the telos of rhetoric is concerned with justice, we can view South African foreign policy as leading the country in a long and not yet complete liberation against economic manifestations of a past imperialism. For this South Africa clouds its ambitions for trade not simply in the language of development, but the legitimacy of just development and Africa’s ability to develop to the point where it is able to take its rightful place in the world. The idea that the language of development must include the developmental state – and that it is the South Africa state, established by South Africa’s “oldest liberation movement” which has the power to lead development. (http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2010/jzum0825.htm).
In the case of China, the affirmation of new developing trade ties allow for a more equitable world and South Africa receives China favorably as a partner towards this end. The implication is that the world as present is not equitable, though the explicit contention against the West is not asserted, but certainly understood by developing world audiences. During President Zuma’s address to the Chinese, he underscores the importance of considering in the broader history of the world that development not a matter of upliftment for the developing world, but rather an effort for these regions to reclaim their rightful place in the world. The language suggests liberation from a context that is thus implicitly unjust and thus to imbue rhetorical language with a telos of justice, the commemorations of Pericles are never far off.
Consequently, South African foreign policy affirms struggle and the battle against suppression, undertaking the rhetorical act of drawing on the memory of oppression. Modern political theory in the neo-Marxian, often termed neo-colonialism, asserts that economic and trade structures in the modern world economy maintain a Western hegemony, even against the backdrop of political liberation and trade (Smith, 2003).
To this end, President Zuma and the South African government do not refrain from citing that growth must not occur in a vacuum, but under the auspicious of multilateral institutions to ensure economic development is not simply exploitation. Without these institutions, upon whom South Africa depends for a large degree of influence, the absence of legitimate leadership in the world environment becomes a reality which allows for the most powerful single actors (read the United States) to form blocks and dominate the international system.
Essentially, South Africa’s ideological creation serves an us versus them approach that underscores north-south tension and serves the function of highlighting the need for multilateral institutions, which South Africa implies it is able to lead by the virtue of the logos of historical experience. This paper will assess the domestic interests concerned in the establishment of multilateral leadership, notably as regards the ability of South Africa to “punch above its weight” in the sense that the government uses multilateral institutions to achieve the influence it could not if it relied on purely economic measurements (total share of global and continental trade and GDP, for example).
In a changing political environment, it posits that on the grounds of its liberation sacrifices (ethos), the logos of growth must not cloud the purely monetary ends of development, for that could invite new challenges to Africa. In the midst of doing as much pathos is evoked, most forcefully in the fashion of Pericles commemorating the dead, to assert South Africa holds a commercial and historical importance, the latter of which is based on pathos, the former on ethos.
The two speeches constituting Salazar’s description of Mandela’s “Rhetorical Moment” forms the basis of South Africa’s engagement with the continent as a matter of ethos. In my paper it is thus a basis for understanding South Africa’s post-Mbeki foreign policy, given the integral importance of the rhetorical moment to the legitimation of South African leadership on the continent. Noted theoretician Kenneth Burke advocates that humans use rhetoric to resolve conflicts by identifying shared characteristics and interests in symbols. In his conception of the human nature, identification is either to identify themselves or to identify another individual with a particular group (Burke, 1969). For South Africa, this identification occurs most frequently in the context of the African union and SADC appealing to the rhetorical moment.
The relationship between interests and motivations in Buchannan’s behavioural economic sense will serve as an aid to assessing the rhetorical strategies of speakers. In this context, the basis for a cross-disciplinary integration of political economy and political communication will seek to provide a more coherent and rich explanation and conclusion on South Africa’s rhetoric for continental leadership.
