South Africa in the company of giants : the search for leadership in a transforming global order

Abstract

South Africa, the continental economic giant and self-appointed champion of African development, is at last finding its distinctive national voice. Emboldened by the invitation to join the BRICS grouping of major emerging economies, its membership of the G20 and a second term on the UN Security Council, Pretoria is beginning to capitalize on the decade of continental and global activism undertaken by Thabo Mbeki. Gone is the defensive posturing which characterized much of the African National Congress’s (ANC) post-apartheid foreign policy, replaced by an unashamed claim to African leadership. The result is that South Africa is exercising a stronger hand in continental affairs, ranging from a significant contribution to state-building in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan to an unprecedented assertiveness on Zimbabwe. Yet there are lingering doubts within the country, across Africa and among elements of the international community as to Pretoria’s ability to conduct a foreign policy commensurate with its new status. Indeed, already there are signs that playing a greater international role carries with it unanticipated costs, complications and challenges: for example, the acrimonious process which saw a South African candidate eventually win the chair of the African Union Commission, and the fraught domestic and continental reaction to the government’s position on Libyan intervention in 2011. In this regard, South Africa’s newly assertive foreign policy remains constrained by three factors: the unresolved issue of the South African identity; a host of domestic limitations linked to material capabilities and internal politics; and the divided continental reaction to South African leadership. These factors will continue to inhibit the ability of South Africa to translate its international ambitions and global recognition into a concrete set of foreign policy achievements.