Recent Changes in Regional Policy in South Africa¶
John Pickles (1988). Recent Changes in Regional Policy in South Africa. Geography, Vol. 73, No. 3 (June 1988). Geographical Association.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | policy analysis |
| Period studied | 1948–1987 |
| Regions | South Africa, Homelands, Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal (PWV), Eastern Cape/Ciskei |
| Themes | bantustans removals influx, manufacturing industrial policy, labour markets wages, demography urbanisation, business and state, politics ideology elections |
| Citation key | pickles1988 |
Argument¶
Pickles argues that after the 1979 Riekert Commission, South African regional policy shifted from the formal political regions of Verwoerdian apartheid (homelands, border industries) to functionally integrated development regions. These regions link urban and industrial nodes with rural homeland labour-market areas. The Riekert aim was to make labour more mobile and the labour market more efficient. Influx control would be replaced by economic restraints on urbanisation, and new incentives would steer industry to decentralised points. Pickles reads this as a restructuring of apartheid, not its end: the new spatial units could underpin future power-sharing arrangements while safeguarding apartheid social relations. The argument is made by describing policy documents, the incentive scheme and the 1985-86 reforms.
Evidence and method¶
Government commission and policy documents (Riekert Report 1979, the White Paper response, Good Hope Plan 1981, SECOSAF incentive manual 1982/85, 1985 President's Council report on urbanisation). Press and news-digest accounts of the 1986 pass-law repeal. Secondary literature, including Wellings and Black (1986) for decentralisation statistics, Hindson (1985) and Hirsch (1986).
Place in the debates¶
- Is the post-1979 reform a genuine dismantling of apartheid or a restructuring of it? (see Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining). Restructuring: a 'facelift' for petty apartheid and a reworking of grand apartheid that keeps its core social relations.
- Labour-market control and apartheid spatial planning (radical/neo-Marxist reading, e.g. Legassick and Wolpe) (see Homelands, separate development, decentralisation and removals). Draws on the 'surplus reserve army' framing and treats regional policy as serving the labour-supply and accumulation needs of capital and the state.
Findings¶
-
The Riekert Commission's core purpose was to raise labour mobility and labour-market efficiency. (p. 4)
the fundamental intent behind Riekert was to enhance the geographic mobility of labour and hence the effectiveness of the labour market
-
Riekert and the government kept influx control and debated only the mechanism, accepting the social-cost argument over faster growth. (p. 3)
the question to which both the Commission and the government had to find an answer was not whether there should be influx control, but what the right mechanism for influx control would be in South Africa's circumstances
-
Reform created a split between urban 'insiders' with better security and rural people who were further disadvantaged. (p. 4)
But as greater security was to be extended to this group, control on labour movement from the rural areas was to be tightened and rural blacks in the homelands or on white farms were to be further disadvantaged.
-
The Border Industries policy was a response to the collapse of homeland agriculture, creating commuters as a buffer against urbanisation. (p. 3)
to create an intermediate group of migrant workers- the officially designed cross-border commuters- as a spatially organised buffer to further urbanisation of black workers
-
Earlier decentralisation efforts failed on the government's own admission, prompting the 1982 strategy and eight development regions. (p. 4)
Previous efforts to decentralise industry had failed even by government accounts
-
The share of manufacturing located in decentralised areas rose after the new incentives. (p. 5)
In 1978 the proportion of manufacturing industry located in decentralised areas was 12.9 per cent. By 1984 this had increased to 19.3 per cent
-
Policy moved from political regions to functionally integrated labour-market regions. (p. 6)
from formal political regions as the basis for Verwoerdian apartheid to the recent incorporation of functionally interrelated regions
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The 1986 pass-law repeal was announced, but mobility remained conditional on housing and jobs. (p. 7)
On 18th April 1986, President Botha announced that the Pass Laws would be rescinded
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Influx control gave way to economic restraints on urbanisation (citing Hindson). (p. 7)
this shift in policy entails the replacement of influx controls by economic restraints on urbanisation
-
The development regions might serve as a basis for federal power-sharing that preserves apartheid's basic structures. (p. 7)
as a means of moving away from the province/homeland form of territorial organisation while safeguarding the basic structures of apartheid social relations
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Legislation Affecting the Utilization of Manpower (Riekert Report), 1979 | commission or official report | 1979 | Establishes the Commission's findings on labour market failures and its recommendations on influx control and labour mobility, which anchor the argument about policy change. |
| White Paper on the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Legislation Affecting the Utilization of Manpower, 1979 | commission or official report | 1979 | Shows the government accepted the Riekert conclusions and retained influx control, changing only the mechanism. |
| SECOSAF: The Promotion of Industrial Development as an Element of a Coordinated Regional Development Strategy for Southern Africa: Manual on the Implementation of the Regional Development Incentives Introduced on 1st April 1982 (Board for the Decentralization of Industry, 1982; revised 1985) | commission or official report | 1982, revised 1985 | Source for the eight (later nine) development regions, the four types of industrial development area, the three criteria and the incentive ranges in Table 1. |
| A Regional Development Strategy for Southern Africa (Good Hope Plan), 1981 | commission or official report | 1981 | Quoted to show the conception of development regions as functionally integrated areas spanning homelands and independent states. |
| White Paper on Urbanization: Report of the President's Council, 1985 | commission or official report | 1985 | Used to show official recognition of urban-homeland functional interrelationship and the call to replace influx control with 'orderly urbanisation'. |
| Native (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act Section 10 amendments (1952, 1955, 1957) and 1978 Section 10 business and property rights | legislation gazette | 1952-1978 | Defines the Section 10 'insider' rights that Riekert proposed to extend, as background to the insider/outsider distinction. |
| Physical Planning Act, 1967 (section 2) and the 1986 White Paper and parliamentary reform measures repealing 34 laws and proclamations on influx control | legislation gazette | 1967, 1986 | Cited for controls on metropolitan (PWV) industrial growth and for the 1986 repeal of influx control laws and Pass Laws. |
| Facts on File, 25 April 1986 and 11 July 1986 | newspapers periodicals | April-July 1986 | Reference for Botha's April 1986 announcement and Parliament's June 1986 passage of the reform measures ending the Pass Laws. |
| South African Digest, 18 September 1987, 'National Council Bill: Black South Africans to get vote' | newspapers periodicals | 1987 | Cited for the plan to elect black councillors to a National Statutory Council, nine from the development regions. |
| Wellings and Black (1986) data on the share of manufacturing in decentralised areas | secondary literature compilation | 1978-1984 | Supplies the only quantitative evidence that incentives are shifting industrial location (12.9% in 1978 to 19.3% in 1984). |
| Hirsch (1986) on investment incentives and decentralisation in the Ciskei | secondary literature compilation | 1980s | Cited for the claim that incentives are attracting foreign capital to the regions despite an unfavourable investment climate. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Descriptive and interpretive reading of official policy documents (Riekert Report, White Papers, Good Hope Plan, SECOSAF incentive manual) and legislation, tracing shifts from Verwoerdian apartheid to functional development regions; the one empirical test is a single secondary statistic on industrial location.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| The Riekert Commission's core aim was to raise the geographic mobility of labour and the efficiency of the labour market, while retaining influx control. (p. 235) | Riekert Report paras 4.204 and 6.4, the 1979 White Paper and van der Merwe's commentary, read qualitatively. | Partial data |
| Regional policy has shifted from formal political regions (the homelands) to functionally integrated development regions combining rural labour reservoirs with urban/industrial nodes. (p. 236) | Good Hope Plan, SECOSAF manual and the 1985 President's Council report, interpreted by the author. | Partial data |
| The proportion of manufacturing located in decentralised areas rose from 12.9% in 1978 to 19.3% in 1984, indicating that incentives are altering location decisions. (p. 236) | Wellings and Black (1986), a secondary source, with no independent data or causal test. | Partial data |
| Decentralisation incentives may be drawing foreign capital and labour-intensive industries, and disinvesting firms may be restructuring through local affiliates; the author concedes this is unconfirmed. (p. 237) | Hirsch (1986) and unspecified 'evidence' about IBM and Pepsi-Cola; no systematic data presented. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The 1986 abolition of the Pass Laws replaced influx control with economic restraints on urbanisation (housing and employment availability). (p. 238) | Botha's announcement, the White Paper and the 1986 legislation as reported in Facts on File, plus Hindson (1985). | Partial data |
The author's caveats¶
Author says government claims about the homelands 'should be treated circumspectly' and that the extent to which local affiliates use the decentralisation incentives 'has yet to be determined'; evidence on foreign investment and labour-intensive shifts is described as only a possibility or 'some evidence'.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument rests on official policy texts and one secondary statistic, with no data on actual outcomes such as employment, investment or migration flows by development region. Establishment-level data on firms receiving incentives, census and labour force figures by region, and Board for the Decentralization of Industry records would test whether the policy changed spatial patterns. These sources existed at the time (Population Census 1980, Industrial Census, decentralisation board statistics) but were not used. Evidence on implementation of the Pass Laws repeal, such as prosecutions and urbanisation rates, is also missing.
Replicability: Data described but not public.