The role of interest groups in formulating South Africa's national interest : A foreign policy analysis 2015-2020

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to understand some of the reasons as to why interest groups have played a limited role in the formulation of South Africa’s national interest and in the foreign policy decision-making processes in South Africa more generally from 2015-2020. Interest groups are actors that are autonomous from government and they are supplementary to the mass public. Interest groups are linked to the government decision-making system through various forms of communication. It is through various forms of communication that interest groups are able to influence government decision-making because they do not have formal policy-making authority. Rather they depend on the authorities to translate their policy preferences into decisional outputs. It is therefore important that interest groups actively participate and influence the foreign policy decision- making process in order to ensure coherence and comprehensiveness in South Africa’s foreign policy generally and in the definition of South Africa’s national interest. The theory relevant for this study is constructivism. Constructivism expands the scope of International Relations by embracing non-state actors such as social communities, interest groups, and international organizations and it focuses on the role of actors (agents) in foreign policy formulation. This study analyses and examines existing Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature on the phenomenon of the national interest in the South African context in order to explore the extent to which certain interest groups have been neglected by government in formulating the country’s national interest. This study also explores explanations in the FPA literature to account for the elitist nature of South Africa’s foreign policy decision-making process. The existing literature does not speak to perceptions and lived experiences of interest groups and the reasons why they think that they have played only a limited role in the foreign policy formulation and interest setting agenda in South Africa. As a result, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of South African interest groups in order to explore why they think that they have played only a limited role in the interest setting agenda in South Africa. One of the objectives of this study was to explore some of the reasons that account for the marginalisation of interest groups in South Africa’s foreign policy decision-making process. This study found out that the centralisation of policy decision-making authority in the South African President and the Executive is one of the contributing factors to interest group marginalisation in South Africa’s foreign policy decision-making process. Section 83 (a) and 85 (2c) of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa gives authority to the President to formulate and implement government policy including foreign policy. Despite this constitutional limitation, representatives of interest groups that participated in this study believe that interest groups can add great value to the definition of South Africa’s national interest and foreign policy formulation generally because of their expertise and experience. Therefore, government should incorporate their perspectives when making foreign policy decisions.