Country survey XII: South Africa

This article examines the relationship between defence expenditure and econ omic performance in South Africa, both prior to and after that country's fi rst fully democratic election in 1994. Prior to 1994 defence expenditure de cisions were largely dominated by non-economic factors; since then defence spending has declined in reaction to, inter alia, the need to address a num ber of socio-economic inequities. After 1975 in particular, military industrialisation in South Africa placed a disproportionately high burden on the country's industrial resources and natural economic and technical capabilities. However, although this sugges ts that the opportunity cost of domestic arms production has been fairly hi gh, the country's poor economic and development performance since the mid-1 970s is a function of underlying structural deficiencies and institutional constraints rather than the consequence of inordinately high defence spendi ng levels.