South Africa's Post Apartheid Foreign Policy

From Reconciliation to Revival?

Chris Alden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781136055447
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The book presents and analyses South African foreign policy, from the onset of the democratic transition of Nelson Mandela in 1994 to the contemporary period. The focus of the study is on the question of South African leadership in the context of this transition.

Chapter 1



Mandela and the Foreign Policy of Transition

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On assuming power following the elections of April 1994, the ANC faced the formidable task of translating the gains of liberation diplomacy into a pragmatic and principled foreign policy. It also had to stamp its own philosophical imprimatur on foreign policy and refashion in its own image the institutional architecture inherited from successive apartheid regimes.

During Nationalist Party rule from 1948 to 1994, and particularly after 1976, South Africa was treated as a pariah state by the international community. The general opprobrium incurred because of apartheid policies and practices had a profound impact on the way South Africa was viewed internationally, and the manner in which it responded to external censure and sanctions. Apartheid governments adopted defensive, reactionary and combative strategies in order to offset the impact of isolation and punitive measures. According to a practitioner during the apartheid years, ‘policy formulation was therefore limited to a handful of individuals who constituted a special kind of elite. For all practical purposes, Parliament played no role in foreign policy and the role of Cabinet tended to be limited to acquiescence or approval’.¹ Under President P. W. Botha’s leadership from 1978-89, institutions such as the State Security Council were established as autonomous elements of the Foreign Ministry, countering what was perceived as a ‘total onslaught’ against the country.² This ‘militarisation’ of foreign policy meant that the full power of South Africa’s armed forces was deployed in the region to contain an ostensible communist threat and to weed out ANC guerrilla bases and training camps. The impact of political and economic sanctions was compounded by the ANC’s policy of deepening South Africa’s isolation by carrying to the world the UN declaration that ‘apartheid was a crime against humanity’.

For the ANC, the struggle for an apartheid-free South Africa was a struggle for fundamental human rights. It was no coincidence, therefore, that once the ANC was in power, human rights became an important leitmotif in its foreign policy. In addition, the new government’s approach was informed by a desire to make Africa – and southern Africa in particular – the primary theatre of South African activism, to promote regional development and to participate constructively in multilateral institutions. A broad approach of ‘universality’ was adopted, which represented the new government’s intention to pursue a diplomacy of active internationalism. However, this new approach was bound by certain ideological inclinations and preferences inherited from its guerrilla past. The government as a result found itself in the invidious position of maintaining links with old friends and supporters of the ANC with dubious human-rights records, including the Indonesian New Order regime, the Nigerian military, Algeria, Libya and Cuba.³ Attempts at reconciling the promotion of human rights with the practical concerns of restructuring the state occupied the bulk of Mandela’s tenure in office. This task was further complicated by the unexpected complexities that accompanied the transformation of South Africa’s foreign-affairs bureaucracy.

Constructing a new foreign policy

Mandela’s declaration on the eve of the 1994 elections that ‘human rights will be the light that guides our foreign policy’ set the tone for the shape and conduct of South African diplomacy in the aftermath of apartheid.⁴ By incorporating the experiences of the anti-apartheid struggle into the conduct of foreign policy, the ANC leader sought to imbue the practice of international affairs with an orientation towards the promotion of civil liberties and democratisation. Moreover, in keeping with the solidarity politics of the past, which had bound together liberation movements from East Timor to the Western Sahara, the new government maintained an openness towards the concerns of non-state actors, as well as a willingness to engage them.

Within this framework, special recognition was given to southern Africa, where South Africa had held economic sway for well over a century. South African involvement in the regional economy, whether as a provider or a recipient of migrant labour, transport services, hydropower or trade, has historically been significant both to South Africa and to other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.⁵ Secondly, there was a strongly held belief that South Africa could not remain ‘an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty’, and that only through concerted regional development would some of the region’s deep-seated problems (unfettered migration and undocumented trade, civil war and social disintegration, the traffic in illegal arms, contraband and drugs) be addressed.⁶ Finally, the ANC and South African business community believed that greater involvement by South Africa in regional trade, sectoral cooperation projects and the joint development of regional resources and infrastructure could help to promote growth and development in both South Africa and the region.⁷

Active internationalism, primarily through multilateral institutions, was another feature of post-apartheid foreign policy. The government sought to reinvigorate these institutions with reference to South Africa’s own unique political transition and the concomitant moral authority that came with unprecedented measures such as the unilateral dismantling of its nuclear programme. In particular, African-based institutions, such as the OAU, and organisations with a ‘South’ orientation, such as the NAM, were seen to be the proper setting for the promulgation of a reformist agenda that reflected South African interest in democratic practice and development.

These themes were outlined in a number of influential articles and documents produced by the ANC prior to the elections. Once in power, the government launched a consultative process which sought to engage civil society through a series of public meetings and the circulation of a discussion document. While the exercise elicited substantive responses from a range of actors, from independent foreign-policy think-tanks to anti-land mine campaigners, it never resulted in a government White Paper on foreign policy, as had been initially conceived. Despite this, it clearly played an important part in raising awareness of future directions for post-apartheid foreign policy, as well as beginning the slow process of legitimising the country’s institutions for foreign policymaking.

Transforming the instruments of foreign policy

As in all other areas of public policy, the incoming government was confronted with the daunting challenge of reconstructing the institutions charged with foreign relations.⁸ In its apartheid incarnation, the official business of the DFA had been directed almost exclusively at attempts to ward off international sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Unofficially, the DFA was involved in government sanctions-busting, military interventions in neighbouring countries and other activities that contravened international law.⁹ With exceptions such as Malawi and Côte d’Ivoire, relations with the rest of Africa were uniformly hostile, and attention was focused above all on maintaining favour with Europe and the US. The ‘independent homelands’ of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei (the TBVC states) had foreign-affairs departments and diplomatic representatives of their own, recognised only by South Africa?¹⁰

The DFA’s role as the new custodian of foreign policy has been mired in controversy and disagreement within the Department. Achieving representative racial and gender balances has been a particular source of acrimony and tension since 1994. By 2000 while most of South Africa’s career diplomats were black the total (non-politically appointed) staff complement of missions abroad remained skewed: 40% were black and 60% white. Moreover, the world views of the mandarins and practitioners representing the old and new orders were antithetical.¹¹ A common assessment was that South Africa’s foreign policymakers are divided between ‘internationalist’ and ‘neo-mercantilist’ camps. Officials representing the previous government belonged to the latter group, which ‘consistent with the logic of neo-realism, emphasise[s] the importance of trade and self-interest over all else’. The ‘internationalists’ were mainly those who returned from long years in exile with an orientation towards ‘a demonstrably greater degree of solidarity with the collective problems of the developing world’.¹² The department was also perceived to suffer from a lack of assertive leadership, incapable of decisive policy and organisational transformation as well as managing the culture-clash between seasoned but suspect ‘old order’ bureaucrats and inspired but inexperienced liberation cadres.

On the basis of its history and evolution, the DFA emerges as a weak and ineffective bureaucratic player, lacking clarity of purpose and a long-term strategic perspective. Its internal divisions and inertia, together with competition from other actors, conspired (in most instances) to make it peripheral to the shaping and influencing of policy during the Mandela years. Although attempts were made to develop conceptual coherence, strategic direction and operational codes,¹³ cleavages of race, gender, style and ideology persisted. While the skills and abilities of incoming ANC diplomats were generally high, with experienced personnel primarily deployed in the multilateral sector and occupying senior posts abroad, those with lesser abilities increasingly took refuge in patronage. The TBVC ‘diplomats’, whose retention in the civil service was part of the compromise struck during inter-party negotiations at the World Trade Centre outside Johannesburg, presented another dilemma for the foreign-policy bureaucracy as they were singularly ill-suited to their positions, but were protected by the new labour laws. The DFA therefore found itself suffering from important institutional shortcomings, including technical incompetence, a poverty of resources and the lack of a domestic constituency to act as an advocate of its concerns.¹⁴

In the process of exorcising nearly four decades of ‘the diplomacy of isolation’, the ANC seriously underestimated the scope and complexity of institutional restructuring and of managing the country’s foreign policymaking machinery. South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy soon fell victim to the perennial conundrum in foreign policymaking: the lack of a coordinated vision. Critics believed that South Africa’s ‘foreign relations could be said to be lacking the necessary broad orientation and strategic purpose’.¹⁵ The main problem for South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign relations was the emergence of multiple actors shaping, determining and implementing policy. This might not be surprising in an era of global financial markets, regional economic blocs, international trade linkages, and new forms of multilateral governance. While the DFA was the putative primary locus of expertise and implementation, it often found itself at odds with, if not in diametrical opposition to, a range of other actors – including the president, deputy president and various ministries – with claims upon the foreign-policy process. This multiplicity of actors encouraged accusations of incoherence, inconstancy and opaqueness in policy formulation.¹⁶

Meanwhile, the critical voices of civil society have merely added to the cacophony. This is understandable in view of the widening scope of international relations and the blurring of the traditional lines between domestic and foreign affairs – what has been called ‘complex interdependence’¹⁷ – where foreign policy now includes issues as diverse as investment, migration, energy, inflation, food security, human rights and the environment. Government leaders therefore ‘find it increasingly difficult to set priorities, avoid contradictory targets, and maintain a sense of national interest and direction. Since the alternatives are more numerous and less clear-cut, the task of choosing becomes more complex’.¹⁸

Mandela’s towering personality and international stature meant that he dominated every major foreign-policy decision, overshadowing the DFA, the cabinet and parliament. Mandela’s international renown was such that ‘it has meant South Africa’s image (and its foreign policy) tends largely to be equated with the president’s profile. As a result, policy has often followed his public statements, rather than the other way around’.¹⁹ It is widely acknowledged that it was through his leadership that South Africa managed a successful and peaceful transition.²⁰ Although operating in his shadow, Thabo Mbeki, his deputy president and heir apparent, was the prime architect in reconfiguring South Africa’s relations with the US, Europe, the South and Africa.²¹ An experienced diplomat in his own right, during his long years in exile he emerged as the ANC’s chief international spokesman and has retained his distinctly internationalist outlook.

Tensions and strained relations between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the DFA were acute. Since 1994, the DTI has emerged as the chief steward of South Africa’s bilateral and multilateral trade diplomacy. Encouraging investment and foreign trade, in particular gaining preferential access to developed countries’ markets, has become an important instrument in South Africa’s economic development, export diversification and industrialisation strategy. The successes of the DTI in, for example, complex negotiations on a free-trade agreement with the European Union (EU) only fuelled personal as well as institutional antagonisms between the two departments. As security matters and arms sales have become an increasingly critical feature of South Africa’s foreign relations, so the Department of Defence (DoD) has become a more prominent and contentious actor. It has often taken the lead on security-related matters, where the DFA has been relegated to a supporting role. Arms sales are regulated by a four-tier system, including the cabinet-level National Conventional Arms Control Committee. The DFA is partially responsible for providing the decision-making process with the necessary analysis and information, for instance on a recipient country’s human-rights record, but the department has often been marginalised by the DoD’s profit imperative and pressure to maintain the country’s share of the global arms market.²²

Parliament’s primary role in foreign policymaking is to give the public an opportunity to express its views, and to act as a watchdog in the public interest. Despite having 266 members out of 400 in the National Assembly, ANC parliamentarians have often complained about their limited role in the substance of policy. Under Raymond Suttner, chair of the multiparty parliamentary portfolio committee on foreign affairs, parliament was active on selected issues such as diplomatic recognition for China and the arms trade, which at times came close to outright crit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Glossary
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Mandela and the Foreign Policy of Transition
• Chapter 2 Mbeki and the Foreign Policy of Consolidation
• Chapter 3 South Africa, SADC and the Great Lakes: the Challenge of Conflict
• Chapter 4 South Africa, Africa and the South: Leadership and Revival
• Conclusion South Africa and the Future
• Notes
• About the authors