1. History
South Africa's economic performance in the 1980s and the early 1990s was severely hampered by a poor political environment and the deteriorating terms of trade. ... The second principal factor to hasten economic decline in the 1980s was the political environment. Four decades of apartheid racial policies had heightened conflict between the white government and the disenfranchised majority, as well as between business and labour, as avenues for political expression were sought. ... By 1986 most countries had imposed trade and financial sanctions as a result of the slow rate of genuine po...
During the 1990s, literature on the international political economy was dominated by the idea of globalization. ... Whether or not such developments are good or bad is a topic of ongoing political debate. ... Similarly, the nineteenth century proved to be an era of increased international commerce, triggered by the industrial revolution but, in the 1930s, this economic expansion was reversed as political turmoil created the Great Depression. ... In being able to choose how much liberalization to allow, governments are responding to a variety of factors and politics. ... From a political perspe...