South Africa and the Butterfly Effect - Some Potential Scenarios

by Ian van Vuuren

16 April 2015

The Wings are Fluttering Louder and Louder

In 1961 Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist, developed a model (illustrations of which visually resembled a butterfly) which eventually came to be known as the butterfly effect. Lorenz postulated that an apparently insignificant occurrence, such as a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, could hypothetically set in motion a chain of events that could cause tornadoes to occur in Texas a few days later.

Figure 1: The Butterfly Effect

So, as a metaphor, the butterfly effect signifies a series of seemingly small and unrelated events that collectively have an eventual  massive impact, whether in causing storms or impacting the economy, to name only two examples.

While scientifically it may be impossible to actually predict whether a butterfly in the Amazon will ultimately cause a tornado to touch down in Texas, the social impact of the butterfly-effect theory is without doubt in today’s super-connected and data-driven world. As an example - the Arab Spring was basically started by an unknown Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, who set himself on fire as protest against police brutality. His death was able to accomplish what huge military forces and decades of western influence had been unable to do: generate enough outrage to cause a rebellion. The rest, as they say, is history.

In essence the butterfly effect forms part of chaos theory. Chaos theory is the study of nonlinear dynamics, in which seemingly random events are actually predictable from simple deterministic equations.

In a scientific context, the word chaos has a rather different meaning than it does in its general usage as a state of confusion, lacking any order. Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules. 

Let us therefore bring the concept of chaos theory, and specifically the butterfly effect, closer to home in South Africa. Since the advent of democracy in 1994 much talk has been made of the so-called miracle state - the rainbow nation. However, as typified by recent events, not least of which the defacing of statues and the protestsagainst poor service delivery, there are many small “butterflies” whose wings have been progressively fluttering louder and louder.

Although the list is by no means exhaustive, only the following examples will suffice (these may also be termed Relevant Developments from a scenario framing perspective):

• Service delivery breakdown at local government level throughout virtually the entire country.
• Breakdown in law and order in ever increasing numbers, with an associated spiralling of an out-of-control criminal onslaught.
• Breakdown in the ability to deliver power by the state utility Escom.
• Present high levels of xenophobia with associated attacks against foreigners.
• Collapse in infrastructure and decay in especially rural areas.
• Continued high levels of unemployment after more than 20 years of democracy, at roughly 24% (official figure; unofficial figure is closer to 40%).
• A government who seems unwilling to transform the way it does business and to attract foreign investment – rather the contrary.
• Irresponsible statements by government officials and certain members of the opposition which have served to increase racial tensions.
• Recent attacks on and killings of trade union members.
• Increasing levels of corruption and nepotism within the public service, and increasingly poor service delivery.
• Unlimited, and apparently unstoppable, policy of (unqualified) cadre deployment at local government level, which means that service delivery is imploding.
• Attacks by senior government officials on media freedom and attempts to legislate tougher media control policies into being.
• An increasingly corrupt and powerless police force.
• An education system that is totally misaligned with the exigencies of the present and future economy.
• An economy that is increasingly performing poorly, with personal debt escalating out of control – roughly 50% of credit active South Africans are debt-stressed, meaning they are three months or longer in arrears with their debt repayments.
• The defacing of statues depicting inter alia the country’s colonial and apartheid past.
• The fact that roughly 3.3 million taxpayers carry a population of about 55 million, of which millions are foreigners.

By themselves each of these developments may not account for much, but collectively they may indeed be interpreted as the wings of many small butterflies flapping in the wind, creating the virtual tsunami of potential for unrest which could be set off with a simple incident – see Tunisia.

The important construct to take away from this is that linear projections of future outcomes, even in a controlled environment, remain risky. Many different factors impact the extent to which the country is following a course towards either destruction or proper democratic evolution. Many of these factors, or variables, are non-quantifiable. Many are non-linear. Others have many different possible outcomes.

As postulated in chaos theory, and elaborated upon with the butterfly effect, to a larger or lesser extent the collective outcome can, if not forecast to any great degree of accuracy, then at least be hypothetically aligned around a number of potential scenarios. This can be done, based not only on what is known at present regarding certain developments and their probable trajectories into the future, but also based on an analysis of similar happenings in societies in other parts of the world.

The Short Term South African Strategic Scenarios

Scenarios are descriptive narratives of plausible alternative projections of a specific part of the future. They are projections of a potential future. They are a combination of estimates about what could happen, not forecasts of what will happen. In our example we take a time frame of only six months to one year into the future. Most futurists would argue that this is too short a time period. However, in the South African case one could raise a very cogent argument that developments over the next twelve months are likely to set the stage for the longer term future of the country, present developments considered. The scenario development process is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The Scenario Development Process

A scenario framing exercise always starts by listing the Relevant Developments – this was done previously, and as indicated there, that list is by no means exhaustive.

The next step is to formulate the Key Question - what is it that we want to focus on/provide answers to? It must be a question that has no immediate apparent answer. For our purposes we framed it as follows:

What are the Twelve Month Strategic Scenarios for South Africa (and Associated Risk Implications)?

Next one identifies the Key Drivers. These are the main factors that influence the environment. The ones that seem to stand out are:

• Lack of jointness in decision-making and action. The Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) in South Africa, it could be argued, consists of just so many words. There exist PPP forums in many sectors, but by and large these have been reduced to talk-shops. Effects-based planning and implementation is lacking.
• Increasing resource scarcity – food, water, power.
• Continued lack of service delivery which is at odds with the expectations created by a naïve government as from 1994.
• Growing unemployment and poverty in real terms, with a virtual uncontrolled influx of foreigners exacerbating the problem.
• Continued social instability.
• Increase in organised crime of a networked nature.
• Increasing inter-racial tension.
• High levels of unemployment.
• A weak local currency.

The next step is to choose the Triggers - What could happen to shift the drivers – accidents/technology etc? Are there similar triggers? Are there consequential triggers?  Can we build up groups/clusters? These could be positive or negative. Following this approach we arrive at the following potential Triggers (once again the list is not exhaustive):

• Another Marikana.
• Increase in xenophobic attacks (possible as a result of irresponsible statements by politicians).
• Increase in defacing of statues (possibly as a result of irresponsible statements by politicians), and an associated white backlash.
• Assassination of a senior political figure.
• Complete service delivery collapse more or less at the same time, in a more or less homogeneous geographical entity.
• Shale gas revolution (or not).
• Increased foreign penetration of SA markets, e.g. from China.
• Total failure of National Development Plan implementation (or total success).

After listing these one then develops the Scenario Logics by considering the following:

• Are there any patterns?
• Can patterns be superimposed on drivers?
• How many possible stories emerge?
• What might be key characteristics?

At this juncture it is important to realise that a country operates as a number of systems. And that all these systems are fractal in nature, i.e. they comprise many subsystems. These systems span amongst others areas like the social environment, job creation, economy, national psyche, policy formulation, education, infrastructure, etc. An impact, positive or negative, on one subsystem will inevitably have a spillover effect onto other subsystems. This is why it is important to try and cover all potential story lines that may emerge, although in essence this is of course impossible. This is also the reason why it is important that any scenario planning exercise be undertaken in a group context to solicit as many different viewpoints on the same “story” as possible.

Based on this the Scenario Grid is developed. In our case we identified the following grid with associated probabilities.

Figure 3: Twelve Month Strategic Scenarios for South Africa

Explaining the Axes and Related Decision Implications

Degree of Integration: According to Söderbaum and Hettne, regionalisation refers to a complex process of forming regions “… that leads to patterns of cooperation, integration, complementarity and convergence within a particular cross-national geographical space.” A region can be more or less coherent, leading to the notion of “regionness”: a high degree of regionness and regional identity implies the capacity to act, or “actorness”, while a lower degree of regionness implies a greater impact on the region from the outside.

One could argue that the same applies to a country which has so many diverse racial, geographic and demographic characteristics as does South Africa. In this case the degree of integration, or then “actorness”, has four main ingredients:

•  A shared commitment to a set of overarching values;
• The domestic legitimisation of decision-making processes and priorities relating to policy;
• The ability to identify priorities, and formulate consistent and coherent policies; and
• The availability of and capacity to utilise policy instruments – diplomacy-/negotiation, economic tools, and security means.

A country like South Africa is not a natural phenomenon – it is a social construct, and therefore politically contestable, as is being illustrated by present events. A low degree of integration therefore means that the four ingredients as indicated above are largely missing, whereas a medium degree of integration means that they are largely present – note that there is no “high degree of integration” specified. It is this author’s opinion that such an option is not realistically feasible in the time span under consideration.

Levels of Service Delivery: This refers to the extent to which all citizens have access to running water, power, basic local government services of all kinds, and whether the infrastructure is maintained at least to present standards, if not upgraded. A low level indicates serious deficiencies in this regard with regular outages (sometimes for days if not weeks) and uncertainty about future delivery; poor response to requests for assistance; long lead times to respond, if at all. A medium level indicates that the norm is more or less on par with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, with outages only from time to time, and moderate levels of delivery. Once again it will be noted that there is no high level foreseen for the time period in question.

The four scenarios in question, with their decision implications in broad, are therefore the following:

• Armageddon. Low levels of service delivery, and low levels of integration. What is worrisome about this scenario is that it is given a relatively high probability of realising. If this scenario is activated, it will be South Africa’s first steps towards becoming a failed state.
• Just Another (...Third World Country). Medium levels of service delivery, and low levels of integration. One could perhaps argue that this is where the country finds itself at present.
• Hope (...For the Future). Medium levels of service delivery, and medium levels of integration. It is sad that this scenario, considering present developments in the country, is accorded the lowest probability of realising over the next twelve months.
• Continued Spiral (...Downwards). Low levels of service delivery, and medium levels of integration. The rationale behind this scenario is that, despite integration improving over the next twelve months, the systemic nature of the country’s problems are such that they will most likely not impact the already burgeoning levels of inefficiency in service delivery. For this to realise there anyhow needs to be a strong and visible political will to make it happen – something that is not visible at present.

Synopsis

These then are the foreseen scenarios for South Africa to answer the specific question posed at the beginning - What are the Twelve Month Strategic Scenarios for South Africa (and Associated Risk Implications)?

None of these should instill much confidence. Point is – scenario planning is exactly that. It is planning – strategising – to address an uncertain future based upon a number of probable (not possible) scenarios. If one accepts the integrity of the exercise and its outputs, the next step should then be to develop a strategy that is robust enough to cover all four plausible scenarios – not only one scenario. Obviously the intent should be to make the Hope scenario realise, but contingences should be developed for all. In parallel one should develop longer term scenarios and plans within which this shorter term exercise should fit, as no country can afford to plan only one year ahead. And no - budgeting, even for the medium term, is not strategising and planning....

As to the associated risk implications? Well, it should be clear that that all four scenarios carry a significant risk burden – some more so than others. At present South Africa is a powder keg ready to be set off by any one of the Triggers mentioned (there may be many more). What is needed now is strong political will and an urgent PPP initiative to quieten the increasing noise of butterfly wings flapping. This cannot be left to the private sector alone. Nor to government. No one party by itself has the capability to solve the problem. But if we fail, we fail collectively.

Jointness, now more than ever, is indeed the name of the game.

Ian van Vuuren

Ian is a seasoned strategist specialising in strategic management, leadership and risk, currently at a management consulting firm in South Africa – Corporate Decision Services (Pty) Ltd. Ian has, amongst others, twenty years of military intelligence, policy formulation and strategic planning experience, serving as Director Air Force Intelligence in South Africa, as well as a further sixteen years of experience in listed companies in South Africa and the Middle East. Part of this was spent within the banking industry, notably as the General Manager Risk Information at the SA Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC). He presently develops material for strategic planning interventions and training.

 Jointness is not simply cooperation. It encompasses a fusion of resources and minds around the pursuit of a common goal. It takes the best of whatever capability each organisation can offer for the achievement of specific operational goals. It involves inter alia planning together, identifying objectives together, and employing and tasking mission-specific resources. It is an approach to achieve synergy in a resource constrained environment - Pendall, D.

 Effects-based planning and implementation is a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or “effect” on the system, through the synergistic, multiplicative, and cumulative application of the full range of public and private capabilities at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.

 Van Nieuwkerk, Anthoni. Towards Peace and Security in Southern Africa. A critical analysis of the revised Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ on Politics,Defence and Security Co-operation (SIPO) of the Southern African Development Community. Friedrich Ebert Stieftung. Africa Peace and Security Series no 6. January 2012.