South African foreign policy: Getting critical?

Abstract

This article examines the theory and practice of the ‘new’ South Africa’s foreign policy by drawing on the emerging Critical Security Studies (CSS) literature. It explores how the African National Congress has attempted to achieve its foreign policy objectives of wealth creation and security in an era of accelerating globalisation, how analysts have thought about this process, and the extent to which a CSS perspective can contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the difficulties involved in such processes. The final section discusses a number of salient foreign policy issues in relation to the domestic context, the Southern African region, the African continent, and the world beyond Africa.