South Africa in the Changing World Order: Power, Finance and Society

What is the relationship between changes in world order and the organisation of finance in South Africa? And how do we understand these changes theoretically? To answer this question I employ Fernand Braudel's historical method of the study of material civilization—the constraints and possibilities on which the social world is based at any given point in time. This method provides an instructive and original explanation of societies, political power, economic modes of production, and the place that capitalism occupies historically and spatially within these contexts.;My dissertation argues that patterns of both continuity and change in the world order are perceptible in South Africa as the country finds itself at the heart of historic shifts in world-economies. Change is observable at the boundaries of world-economies as arrangements in power, trade and investment shift to new political economic centres. South Africa is a zone historically linked to world-economies and reveals these movements. At the same time, global structures ensure continuity, through the power of neoliberal ideology and policies, the international financial institutions set up under American hegemony, the power of the global financial markets, and the enduring power of societal groups with links to transnational capitalism. This interplay between continuity and discontinuity are apparent in national contexts. The goal of this thesis is to study these different dimensions of change and continuity through an exploration of the edges where politics, economy, society, and state meet in post-apartheid South Africa. Looking at these `edges' provides us with evidence and insight about the robustness of capitalism in South Africa and its structural links to world order, or in other words, about its continuity or discontinuity. Investigation of these changes is achieved through applying Braudel's theoretical building blocks of multiple time frames, `world-economy' and the `set of sets,' concepts that unveils the multiplicity and complexity of social orders. Finally, I propose a reengagement with Braudel's thoughts and methods. Braudel's relevance lies in the potential of his theoretical framework to widen and thicken a rather compressed understanding of international political economy.