South African foreign policy, 1994 to the present - ASC Research Seminar - Second in a series of three on ‘Africa in the world’

Tom Lodge is professor of political studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He has published numerous books and articles on South African liberation politics and on the South African condition since 1994. His most recent book is Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki (2002).

This presentation will focus on South Africa’s relationship with Africa although it addresses other aspects of foreign policy insofar as they are illuminating in helping us to understand South African initiatives in Africa. It will consider what has emerged as the consensual position among academic foreign-policy commentators that an early phase in which foreign policy was largely shaped by ‘idealist’ human-rights perspectives has become modified by a more pragmatic and indeed narrow definition of national interest as well as a growing commitment to multilateral approaches to African issues and problems. It will examine Zimbabwe as a case study to test the validity of such an argument.