Industrial decentralisation and regional policy in South Africa

The South African space economy has recently undergone a restructuring in terms of the formation of development regions which cross Bantustan borders, the creation of regional financial and administrative institutions, and the implementation of an extraordinarily expensive industrial decentralisation scheme. In this paper the authors both describe these changes and set out to explain them. It is argued that the state is currently embarked on a regional or federalist 'reform initiative'. Reform is taken to mean an authoritarian restructuring of the state on a less overtly racist basis. At present, for example, Regional Services Councils or revised forms of metropolitan government are being instituted. For the restructuring to be 'successful', however, coincident changes in the distribution of economic activity are necessary. As a result there is a critical relationship between the political - economic intentions of the state and regional economic policy.