The extraordinary success of transnational anti-apartheid activists in generating great power sanctions against South Africa offers ample evidence that norms, independent of strategic and economic considerations, are an important factor in determining states' policies. The crucial role of a strengthened global norm of racial equality in motivating U.S. anti-apartheid sanctions illustrates the limitations of conventional international relations theories, which rely primarily on structural and material interest explanations, and supports theoretically derived constructivist claims. In particular, this case suggests that analysts should examine the role of global norms in defining states' interests, rather than viewing norms solely as external constraints on state behavior.

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Communications technology, many analysts proclaim, heralds a profoundly transformed new world where time and space take on new meanings. As a result, networks of non-state actors proliferate, altering the functions of international organizations and creating new pressures on states. Yet previous eras also witnessed social activists pursuing their agendas through and around national governments. Then as now, social forces and global norms impinged on states with vitality and independence. The experiences of abolitionists and anti-apartheid activists demonstrate how transnational social movements in two different centuries mobilized across national boundaries around issues of race — despite barriers of time, distance and culture. This comparison provides the basis for disaggregating types of non-state actors in world politics and for understanding better the links between social activism and global normative change.

An extraordinary outbreak of xenophobic violence in May 2008 shocked South Africa, but hostility toward newcomers has a long history. Democratization has channeled such discontent into a non-racial nationalism that specifically targets foreign Africans as a threat to prosperity. Finding suitable governmental and societal responses requires a better understanding of the complex legacies of segregation that underpin current immigration policies and practices. Unfortunately, conventional wisdoms of path dependency promote excessive fatalism and ignore how much South Africa is a typical settler state. A century ago, its policy makers shared innovative ideas with Australia and Canada, and these peers, which now openly wrestle with their own racist past, merit renewed attention. As unpalatable as the comparison might be to contemporary advocates of multiculturalism, rethinking restrictions in South Africa can also offer lessons for reconciling competing claims of indigeneity through multiple levels of representation and rights.

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