Creating Opportunities or Bowing to Pressure? Implementing TRIPS in Post-Apartheid South Africa.

This paper explores the South African state's responses to various transnational opportunities and pressures in the first decade of democracy. The transformation of the international trade regime corresponded in time with South Africa's transition from apartheid and provides an interesting lens through which to investigate the ways in which transnational transformations are reflected in domestic restructuring. In this case the focus will be on the changing place of intellectual property and how it is reflected in the policies, practices and resources of two different branches of the South African state, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Health. The paper concludes that the outcomes reflected in the interaction of these branches of the state flow from a complex interaction of different attempts to both take advantage of new opportunities as well as attempts to avoid real and percieved pressures resulting from the transnational transformation of the trade regime. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]