Ending Apartheid in South Africa: Domestic, Regional and International Factors.

Both scholars and policymakers widely agree today that the end of apartheid in South Africa inthe first half of the 1990s can be seen as a result of a conjunction of important changes and developmentson the international, regional and national level. But the interplay and relative weight ofthese developments on the different levels has been highly disputed in the scholarly field. Thispaper demonstrate in an empirical analysis of political developments on the international, regionaland South African domestic levelâ??as displayed in a large set of event data coded frominternational newswires for the period from 1977 to 1994â??how these developments were interrelated.A VAR model suggests that domestic developments within South Africa account mostly forthe countries rather peaceful democratic transition in the early 1990s. However, internationalpressure shows a significantâ??if only minorâ??impact too. The case study therefore reveals distinctivelyhow historical political changes such as the abolishment of the racist apartheid systemin South Africa often depend on a conjunction of change promoting developments on differentpolitical levels. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]