Jugglers, designated hitters and the lone ranger: Leadership autonomy and the effects of power and pressure on insulated leaders in Angola, Cuba, Namibia, South Africa and the United States, 1974--1988

This thesis examines the dynamics of international conflict by viewing state behavior in terms of contending pressures upon state decisionmakers---and on the manner and degree to which decisionmakers are insulated from these pressures. Different kinds of insulation shield state decisionmakers from pressure: the insulation defined by a state's power resources, geographic position and alliances; the state leadership's political insulation from the society over which it presides; and insulation within the leadership defined by the degree to which policy is made by a single, central, autonomous decisionmaker or involves bargaining among multiple players.; To show the effects of pressure and insulation, this study explores in detail the war and negotiations that gripped southwestern Africa from the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s. At issue were the independence of South African-ruled Namibia, the presence of large numbers of Cuban troops in neighboring Angola, the Cold War, and the question of white minority rule in southern Africa. The influence of pressure and insulation on decisionmaking are examined with reference to the leaders of four of the states and one of the liberation groups most relevant to the conflict: the white leadership of South Africa; the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) leadership of Angola; successive presidential administrations in the United States; Fidel Castro's Cuban regime; and the external leadership of the Southwest Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), which struggled for Namibian independence.; The study reveals that the degree and kind of insulation around decisionmakers---which can be seen as a component of state structure---influences the manner and extent to which they are affected by pressures and thus their behavior. Insulation is described as a form of power---perhaps it can be called "anti-power"---in that it helps define decisionmakers' ability to withstand or ignore pressures exerted by outsiders seeking to influence decisionmaking.