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Foreign Consultants, Racial Segregation and Dissent: J. L. Sadie and 1960s Southern Rhodesia

Abstract

Focusing on Johannes L. Sadie, a South African economist hired to investigate the economic options of Southern Rhodesia at the time of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), this chapter examines the historical, ideological, pedagogical, and international influences of the intersection between economic discourse and racial ideology. Using the example of the Sadie recommendations, this chapter examines how the changing political context informed the state’s approach to the economy. A reading of the context in which Sadie was hired to justify Rhodesia’s UDI and provide legitimacy to its economic policies sheds light onto the Ian Smith regime’s approach to an alternative post-imperial (but not post-settler) state and economy, but it also speaks of the ways in which economic discourse can be deployed for political purposes by authoritarian regimes.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowedgments

I wish to thank the following people who helped shape what the paper has become. All of my respondents who are all intellectual giants that shaped the Zimbabwe economic history terrain. The two anonymous reviewers for their critical and very helpful feedback. Professor Ian Phimister who generously shared some important reading material from his own personal library and shared his experiences and time generously. He also invited me to present the paper at the International Studies Group’s Stanley Trapedo seminar series where I received critical feedback. I also thank Johan Fourie of Stellenbosch for sharing some material on Prof Sadie as well. Finally, thank you to Gerardo Serra and Federico D’Onoforio who invited me to think about these issues and invited me to contribute to the issues about the work of economists under authoritarian rule. Of course, all errors remain my own.

Citation

Nyamunda, T. (2020), "Foreign Consultants, Racial Segregation and Dissent: J. L. Sadie and 1960s Southern Rhodesia", Fiorito, L., Scheall, S. and Suprinyak, C.E. (Ed.) Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Economists and Authoritarian Regimes in the 20th Century (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 38B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 95-110. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542020000038B006

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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