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South Africa's first democratic constitution was enacted in December 1993 after a four-year process of negotiation. The inaugural election followed in April 1994, after which the Government of National Unity took power for an interim term of five years. These events bear witness to a process that was not predicted by many observers. According to one observer, "neither history nor analysis could have predicted a negotiated outcome to the internal conflict in South Africa."' In fact, in history there is no precedent for successful negotiations allowing a poor majority to take over from or even to share power with a rich minority; this has only happened through revolution or postcolonial replacement. However, there is a general consensus in the literature that South Africa has managed a "negotiated transition," a "negotiated revolution," or a "transition through transaction" in which a total state collapse was avoided.2 One of the major theoretical perspectives that has been employed to explain the negotiated settlement has been a bargaining or institutional-choice perspective.3 This perspective focuses on bargaining and strategic interactions between the parties in the transition and their active choice of institutions through "pacts."4 The central questions that the institutional approach asks are: What kinds of actors participate in the transition and what roles do they play? When do various transitions begin? How are they initiated? When do parties in the process choose to negotiate?
This article is an attempt to contribute to an understanding of how nonviolent action has worked in the transformation process, and thereby shed some new light on the contribution of nonviolent action to the negotiated transition. Nonviolent political struggle is not usually associated with South Africa.5 However, recent research by Bond and Bond6 and Bond and Bennett7 has shown that nonviolent action is used worldwide. For example, "trouble spots" like the Middle East have witnessed the Palestinian intifada in which nonviolent direct action was widely used.8 In the South African case, the African National Congress (ANC) has employed nonviolent action such as strikes and blockades throughout the transition process.9 The approach taken in this essay shares some characteristics of the institutional-choice approach. First, I focus on the major intrastate groups in the transition process: the ANC, the South African government led by the National Party...