| Employing a “systems” analysis approach, this dissertation seeks to fill a critical gap in the study of congressional committees in the United States: The lack of a comprehensive examination of the role of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in shaping United States foreign policy towards South Africa: The major research questions of the study are: (1) In what types of political, economic, social, and cultural environments did the debate on United States foreign policy towards South Africa emerge between 1981 and 1982? (2) What were the positions of the competing factions that lobbied the Subcommittee on the South African issues, and how can they be characterized? (3) What shaped the roles played by the Subcommittee in transforming inputs into the outputs? (4) What were the outputs of the transformational processes, and how can they be characterized?; The research methodology employed for, this research is a Case Study approach.; The theoretical framework used and tested in the present study is David Easton's “framework for political analysis”. Easton purports a systems analysis framework, which allows the researcher to conceive public policy as a response of a political system to forces brought to bear upon it from the environment. Two types of data were collected for this study: primary and secondary data. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in order to solicit various perspectives on the African Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In addition to these interviews, the relevant Congressional Records on proceedings of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee were also used as primary data sources. Furthermore, secondary data collected from books, journal, newspaper and magazine articles that have dealt with congressional committees' work from 1981–1992, were consulted. By conducting a diligent, protracted and in-depth investigation of the systems environment, it became obvious that the mood of the nation in the 1980s and early 1990s played a major role in the passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. The study revealed that the African Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee became the focal point for the debate on United States Foreign policy towards South Africa.; The reforms that took place in South Africa under Frederick W. de Klerk's administration—the freeing of Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders, the repeal of the 1986 state of emergency regulation, the unbanning of political parties in South Africa following de Klerk's speech to parliament on February 2, 1990, the repeal of the Population Registration Act and Group Areas Act in June 1990, and the negotiations that took place between the former South African government and black South African leaders were positive steps toward the achievement of a race-neutral, democratic South Africa. These were the direct result of the work of the Subcommittee on African Affairs in helping to get Congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, as they were part of the conditions that the South African government had to meet to warrant the lifting of sanctions placed on it by Section 311 of the legislation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
