Consistency and inconsistencies in South African foreign policy

South Africa's foreign policy, conducted in an ad hoc and haphazard fashion under President Nelson Mandela, has been consolidated under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. This article first outlines five consistent policy themes: Africa and Africanist; democracy and respect for human rights; a holistic understanding of security; a pacific approach to conflict resolution; and multilateralism. The article then identifies and attempts to explain a number of significant inconsistencies in relation to these themes, including Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' on Zimbabwe; his denialist position on HIV/AIDS; South Africa's controversial arms procurement programme; and its domestic xenophobia. Some of these inconsistencies have undermined the country's international credibility and at times overhshadowed its considerable achievements.     

Negotiating Femininity: Women and representation in emergency employment in Peru

This article analyses the contradictory nature of the 'new space' created by women working in emergency employment programmes in Peru. It focuses on the different forms of opposition towards this new space and illustrates the mechanisms women have used in order to negotiate their place within it. The article briefly outlines the role played by the Peruvian state in legitimating this new space for women and argues that with the representations women make of themselves, of other workers, and of their workplace, these employees take strategic steps in forging new femininities. Empirical evidence is used to show how women simultaneously identify difference and commonality with their fellow female workers. In theoretical terms, the implications of these processes are examined in the context of the reproduction and subversion of stereotypes and the contestation of dominant gendered ideologies in Peru. The article examines how the reproduction and subversion of stereotypes involves the manipulation of binary categories of 'good' and 'bad' women. It argues that strategic representations, in everyday contexts, are vital to the renegotiation of femininities. It introduces the notions of 'strategic representations' and 'contradictory spaces' to examine some of the debates concerning the role of 'survival strategies' in gender and development analysis.     

Intelligence bound: the South African constitution and intelligence services

This article explores the functions and impact of the South African constitution in relation to the country's intelligence services. The constitution has proved to be a powerful instrument for transforming, controlling and constraining the services, safeguarding human rights and contributing to the management of political conflicts and crises. Yet the constitution's relevance for the intelligence community is also contested and contradictory. Paradoxically, the executive, parliament and the intelligence services believe that it is legitimate for the services to deviate from constitutional provisions because their mandate to identify and counter threats to national security is intended to protect the constitution. The article contributes to filling a gap in the literature on security sector reform, which is concerned with democratic governance but ignores the role of a constitution in regulating the security organizations and determining the nature of their governance arrangements. Intelligence agencies around the world have special powers that permit them to operate with a high level of secrecy and acquire confidential information through the use of intrusive measures. Politicians and intelligence officers can abuse these powers to manipulate the political process, infringe the rights of citizens and subvert democracy. While a constitution cannot eliminate these risks, it can establish an overarching vision, a set of principles and rules and a range of mechanisms for promoting intelligence transformation and adherence to democratic norms.     

“Moral Panic” or Pejorative Labelling? Rethinking the Mazengarb Inquiry into Underage Sex in the Hutt Valley in 1954

This article re‐examines the interpretation of widespread concern over significant underage sex in the Hutt Valley, Wellington, which resulted in a government inquiry in 1954. It challenges the typical “moral panic” interpretive lens concerning the inquiry, arguing that the term obscures more than it reveals. The term focuses on reaction to the Hutt Valley affair but fails to address sufficiently the causative question of why such concern existed in the first place. The “moral panic” framing of the Hutt Valley incidents has failed to give adequate recognize that the developments were early indicators of increasing societal shifts that threatened long‐held public views on sexuality; that manifest, societal, sexuality values changes in the next two decades showed that concerned people of 1954 were right within the framework of their worldview to have such concern; and that the so‐called “moral panic” concern of 1954 already existed prior to the Hutt Valley disclosures.     

Between a Hard Rock and Shifting Sands: Churches and the Issue of Homosexuality in New Zealand, 1960–86

This article explores the attitude of New Zealand churches to homosexuality from the 1960s to the 1980s and their varied stances regarding homosexual law reform in 1985–86. In the early 1960s church and society were in lockstep in publicly supporting traditional sexual morality. Major and wider attitudinal change in the later 1960s and into the 1970s led to changing attitudes in relation to homosexuality. At this time churches in New Zealand were weakening in numbers and in influence. One response was to embrace societal causes; another was to react against societal change. Marked “liberal” and “conservative” polarization led to a collapse of the “theological middle.” New Zealand churches were divided over homosexual law reform in 1985. Conservative Christians looked to biblical texts while liberal Christians focused on wider issues in society. The conservative Christian defeat in the decrimialization struggle was a defeat on a broader front.