Globalization and diversification: Two cases in southern Africa

With most of its eggs in the diamond basket, diversification is vital for Botswana. Globalization, as the re-location of production processes, is a potential answer to the problem, at the cost of the exploitation of workers in new, low-grade manufacturing activities and their non-unionization. At the Selebi-Phikwe Regional Development Project jobs were made and lost, and skills creation and capital investment were low, because of the state's incapacity to control the disorderly capitalism attracted there. In contrast, car assembly in Gaborone in the 1990s represented the productive and developmental face of globalization. Significant diversification quickly resulted. But governmental capacity to control and manipulate the process was again inadequate, especially in its underestimation of South Africa's determined opposition. The Hyundai and Volvo corporations re-located out of Botswana as smoothly as they had arrived, leaving little more than a hole in the ground.