This study argues that foreign intervention is not a concept that could lend itself to any theoretical inquiry. It is a norm that is applicable mainly in juridical inquiries and in systems theory. It is a norm in systems theory in that the system is made up of two important elements: (1) the distribution of resources; and (2) the norms of conduct that accompany the resources. As a systemic norm, the norm of nonintervention seeks to guarantee stability and predictability in the international system. It is a juridical norm in that it calls either for the indictment or vindication for the violation of sovereign sanctity. It produces a dichotomous debate (such as legal/illegal; right/wrong; etc.) that has none of the operational ingredients of a theory. If foreign intervention is a norm and not a theoretical concept, it means therefore that social scientists have yet to come up with a theory for the study of the pervasive phenomenon of foreign involvement in civil conflicts. Conceptual tools such as 'power theory,' and the psychoanalysis of perceptions/misperceptions have been used by social scientists to study the Vietnam, Nicaragua and other wars simply for lack of more specific conceptual tools. While these concepts have been successful in describing and in explaining these conflicts, they still in a sense remain broad conceptual tools. Explaining the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in terms of the power theory rationale of national security interest, or the U.S. involvement there in terms of the psychoanalysis of perceived Soviet expansionism only recreate a dichotomous, non-dialectic evaluation of "who's wrong/who's right" elements of the conflict. Crucial factors such as factionalization, escalation, and stalemate, remain unexplained and unaccounted for when these broad concepts are used to analyze such conflicts. It is for this reason that the present study tailors the concept of "Interventionary Alliance" in a manner that addresses both systemic as well as subsystemic properties, internal as well as external (f)actors; and provides explanations that account for the escalations and stalemates that are characteristic of the civil conflicts that proliferate our present international system.

During the Angolan War of 1975-6, whilst South African troops were actively engaged on the side of the Unita/FNLA alliance, news media in South Africa were prohibited from disclosing information about the country's role in the war. Under Section 118 of the Defence Amendment Act of 1967, no information about SA troop movements or plans could be published without the permission of the Minister of Defence or his nominees. This case study shows how the Government used the Defence Act to censor certain news while releasing other news which suited its political outlook and objectives. The study documents the history of the Defence Act and of the military-press liaison machinery which grew out of it. The introduction defines propaganda as a technique of ideological control designed to supplement the control of society by means of repression. The study sets in context the Government's propaganda strategy before, during and after the Angolan War, arguing that the structures of white domination, including the newspaper industry, are being drawn into the Government's scheme of total co-ordination to fight a total war.

Orientador: Omar Ribeiro Thomaz / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-22T05:15:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira_ArielRolim_M.pdf: 2189699 bytes, checksum: 933089fd3c1ecc008020db1de7a1c9bc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: O líder político Jonas Savimbi ocupou uma posição privilegiada de observação dos entrecruzamentos das linguagens segundo as quais se lutou a guerra em Angola. O nexo entre as esferas global e local do conflito, incluindo aí seus diferentes códigos de reportagem, pode ser apreendido a partir da análise das lideranças - entendidas aqui, não como indivíduos, mas como catalisadores de "comunidades imaginadas". Atento ao plano das estratégias dos agentes que, mesmo se relacionando a referências discursivas inconciliáveis e irredutíveis umas às outras, na prática, conformaram uma rede de inimizades produtiva - e aí surge uma dimensão completamente desvinculada dos modelos e discursos. A questão que coloco aqui é em que medida a noção de "inimigo" como categoria de alteridade no plano das relações práticas, entrevista nos discursos de Savimbi, pode nos ajudar a compreender o cenário de disparidades e a multiplicidade de formas de conflito que o caso angolano comporta. Volto-me aos códigos mobilizados por cada um dos contendores na significação da luta como condição para que, fugindo dos preceitos dos modelos a que cada um se reporta nesse processo, possamos ver a guerra como uma arena de interações onde os atores se comunicam ou, ao menos, se reconhecem (no duplo sentido do termo) para melhor lutar. Sigo a hipótese de que a guerra tenha sido uma rede prática de trocas violentas (jamais simétricas) não só de projéteis, mas também de nomes e códigos entre os contendores que iriam moldar de forma decisiva o imaginário nacional angolano - um país cujas fronteiras mais ou menos arbitrárias haviam sido herança direta do colonialismo português. Nesse sentido, cada umas das partes em disputa necessitavam criar um discurso nacional unificador - concorrente ao rival. Os beligerantes mantinham uma esfera de aliança tácita, mas não expressa, em torno da construção e manutenção da plausibilidade nacional / Abstract: The political leader Jonas Savimbi has occupied a privileged observing position of the language crossings according to which the war in Angola was fought. The nexus between global and local dimensions of this conflict (the different codes of report there included), can be apprehended from the analysis of the leaders - understood, here, not as individuals, but as catalyzers of "imagined communities". I focus on the plan of the agents' strategies that, even if in relation to irreconcilable references of discourse to one another, in practice, comprehend a productive net of enmity. Therefore a dimension completely detached from models rises. The question I pose here is: in which measure the notion of "enemy" as a category of alterity on the plan of practical relations - glimpsed in the speeches of Savimbi - can help us to understand the set of disparities and multiplicity of ways of conflict that the Angolan case bears? I turn myself to the codes mobilized by each of the contenders to ascribe meaning to the fight as a condition - escaping the tenets of the models to which each one reports in this process - for us to see the war as an arena of interaction where de actors communicate or, at least, acknowledge (in the double meaning of the term) themselves to better fight. I follow the hypothesis that the war has been a practical net of violent (and never symmetrical) exchange not only of bullets, but also of names and codes between contenders who would engrave the imagery of Angola in a decisive way - a country which its more or less arbitrary borders had been a direct heritage from the Portuguese colonialism. In this sense, each part in the dispute needed to create a rival national unifying discourse. The belligerents kept a level of tacit alliance, though not expressed, around the construction e maintenance of national plausibility / Mestrado / Antropologia Social / Mestre em Antropologia Social