Author: Janis Van Der Westhuizen.

By analyzing how intermediation processes, state strategies and the structure of the international political economy interact, this study analyses how state elites in Malaysia and South Africa attempt to minimize the socially disruptive effects of globalization. Drawing on the competition state model, the case is made for societal corporatism in South Africa and patron-client rentierism in Malaysia as vital intermediation processes, whereby the cross-pressures generated by international expectations and domestic demands are managed, thereby facilitating the transformation towards the competition state model in ethnically deeply divided societies.