the creation of a coalition ready to support consociational reform, probably composed of elements from the Nationalist Party, Afrikaans and English business, the civil service, the military, "Colored" and "Asian" leaders, "urban middle-class Blacks, traditional Black leaders, and externally, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom." (p. 23) The government, Huntington wrote, may want to "divide and rule" Black groups, using "fragmentation among Black groups and the rivalry among Black leaders...to enlist some measure of Black support for the reform process." (p. 24)

Altogether, Huntington concluded, by "conducting the proper mixture of reform, reassurance and repression, sliding two steps forward and dodging one step backward, where necessary playing on fear and employing deception," would-be South African reformers could eventually bring "into existence a new system of political institutions and thus give renewed life to their country." (p. 24)

How much fundamental change would these new political institutions involve? Focusing on process rather than result, Huntington dodged the issue; but he acknowledged that Geisel's "decompression" in the mid-'70s did not lead to real democratization in Brazil (p. 16). Brazilians, incidentally, tend to be harsher on Geisel, under whom the Brazilian military continued its dictatorial control behind a thin facade of indirect elections.(3)

In 1986, Huntington returned to South Africa during Harvard's summer break. No doubt he was gratified to discover how much influence his earlier paper had had. According to a South African political scientist, the "profound manner in which Huntington's address to the Political Science Association of South Africa prescribed or reflected state strategy is clear in the light of subsequent events." (4) Huntington's reform strategy quite definitely informed the South African government's efforts. His 1981 paper helped provide the intellectual justification for, and is cited extensively in, proposals for the 1984 constitution, cornerstone of State President P.W. Botha's so-called reforms. (5)

In fact, the whole "reform" effort seems to be broadly following Huntington's proposals for change from the top. "Asians" and "Colored" have been offered limited political rights in the national parliament; Blacks are offered still more limited participation in the bantustans and in township councils; and whites continue to control the central government and the military. At the same time, power is increasingly concentrated in the executive, giving Botha virtually dictatorial powers--for both "reform" and repression, as has become abundantly clear during the last two years' intermittent State of Emergency. Behind a facade of new elections, real power has devolved to a shadowy set of appointed council and to the military-dominated National Security Management System. (6) Outside white-dominated political channels, the government has sought to prevent any mobilization by South Africans seeking more fundamental change; at least 30,000 people, including some 10,000 children, have been detained, and more than 2500 people have been killed. According to another South African political scientist, key South African idealogues found the 'Brazilian option' appealing "...because it endows the security establishment with the omniscient capacity to know in advance what is in the best interests of society (capitalism and reform, not revolution and socialism), gives it the power to implement reforms without the constraints of public scrutiny, and leaves all the major institutions of democractic government apparently intact for all the world's foreign investors to see." (7)

Change has certainly been inconsistent and incremental, and its spokesmen have certainly not revealed where is the process is heading--just as Huntington advised. Even the two-steps-forward, one-back sugestion has been followed: influx control laws were declared abolished, but Blacks' rights to move freely around the country are still controlled by legal fictions, including "citizenship" in bantustans and housing codes which block Blacks from living in "white" cities. Forced removals have broken up Black communities offering resistance to government policies--a perfect example of preventing opposition from mobilizing. Similarly, mass detentions, a constant troop presence on township streets, and a certain degree of dishonesty in the government's rhetoric--all these might be seen to flow logically from Huntington's 1981 proposals. The only thing missing, in fact, is a charismatic leader; but Botha has tried his best, and has certainly sought to expand his base. He now gains many more votes than he once did from English-speaking whites.

What could be more gratifiying than to see one's theories become the basis for sweeping changes in the real world?

Apparently quite a lot. Five years after his 1981 visit to South Africa, Huntington concluded that the government had not followed his prescriptions after all. (8) Rather than moving swiftly to impose piecemeal, limited reforms, he found, the South African government has moved slowly, raising expectations it did not meet and allowing debate to occur along with revolutionary violence. The government appeared to respond to pressure, thus appearing vulnerable. It failed to maintain the security Huntington viewed as so crucial to implementing limited reform; and it alienated large sections of the business community from its reform coalition. As a result, Huntington says, the situation has completely changed. Today, even if the government "followed my recommendations on strategy," it could not "conceivably carry out a policy of unilateral reform from above." (p.20)

Moving too slowly to implement reforms, and failing to contain the mobilized opposition on the right and left, Huntington writes, the South African government has lost control. Now, he says, the society is highly politicized; the government's authority is severely weakened; and it is no longer clear that the government wants reform at all. As Huntington says, quite accurately, since April 1986 "the government has given top priority to re-establishing its control, to eliminating violence, and to suppressing what it views as challenges to its authority." (p. 20-21) The danger, he says, is that it will abandon interest in reform--evidently placing South Africa back under threat of a revolutionary overthrow, which was what originally aroused Huntington's concern.

But there is another option, Huntington says--an option at which he hinted in his earlier work, although he modestly declines to say I told you so. (9) Now, he suggests, instead of seeking government-initiated change, would-be reformers should look to negotiations between major groups in South African society. Pointing to Venezuela and Malaysia as examples, Huntington suggests that arrangements negotiated between leaders can enforce stability, and limit in advance any social or economic restructuring in a post-transformation regime (p. 22-23).

For South Africa, Huntington sees two major obstacles to such a negotiated national accord. First, the government is neither collapsing nor withdrawing, and shows no sign of wishing to "voluntarily negotiate its own demise." While the government is weakened, it remains far more powerful than any Black groups, "which have very few resources to induce the government to negotiate seriously." Secondly, he does not see adequate "organizational coherence on both sides." In particular, he does not believe that even African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, were he freed from the prison where he has spent the last 25 years, could "deliver the Black community." (19) Thus, at the national level, he sees no one willing to negotiate for whites, and no one who could negotiate for Blacks. Even if negotiations happened, he fears that neither group would trust the other to "deliver the goods" (p.22).

So what's left? Huntington offers "a small ray of hope" in the form of local or regional negotiations, along the lines of the Natal Indaba. There, he says, white officials and businessmen on one side, and Kwazulu bantustan chief minister Gatsha Buthelezi on the other, are managing to talk to each other. This, he suggests, provides an example for other local negotiations, a pattern that "could gradually build up from below and lead to national negotiations and more fundamental change at the national level." (p. 22)

Huntington is not the only person who thinks such negotiations could forestall revolution or continued civil war. Dr. Dennis Worrall--main architect of the previously-mentioned proposals for the 1984 constitution, which followed Huntington's philosophy so closely--dramatically resigned from the ruling Nationalist Party early this year. Like Huntington, Worrall criticizes the pace of government-imposed reform, and calls for more concerted efforts at indaba-type negotiations. While no one knows quite where Worrall is heading, it's certain he is backed by a "reform constituency" looking very much like the coalition Huntington first suggested in 1981--including elements of big business and "enlightened" politicians.

Unlike Worrall, Huntington admits he is "not in any way an expert on South Africa" (p. 19), so perhaps he will allow some questions of his new agenda. The Natal Indaba, as he knows, does not represent most residents of Natal; in fact, none of the negotiators were elected by anyone. Buthelezi was appointed to his post by the Pretoria government and receives "a not-ungenerous salary from the South African state." (11) The original idea for a Kwazulu-Natal indaba came from the South African Sugar Association, seeking to protect its sugar estates from falling under the communal land tenure that prevails on the Kwazulu bantustan. It was seconded by the Buthelezi Commission, which hoped to separate political planning "from popular participation, and placed decision-making in consensus sessions between leaders representing various constituencies." (12)

The United Democract Front (UDF), an umbrella coalition including most anti-apartheid groups in South Africa, refused to participate in the Indaba, just as it refused to participate in elections for the triracial parliament. So did the Azanian People's Organization (APACO), a smaller anti-apartheid group, and the Congressof South African Trad Unions (COSATU), the largestnonracial labor federation. Undoubtedly, theirresponse was colored by dislike for Buthelezi,whose strong-armed followers are notorious forbrutal attacks on Black opponents. (13) The ANC,being illegal under the current regime, was notinvited, but it is as vehemently opposed to theprocess as the UDF, COSATU or AZAPO. The mainparticipants in these 'negotiations' have beenwhite businessmen, some academics, Natalofficials, and bantustan governmentrepresentatives--hardly a representative group.