Introduction: Understanding South Africa’s Multilateralism

Abstract

South Africa’s multi-racial democratic elections in 1994 marked a major turning point in both the country’s domestic politics and its role in international affairs. Internationally, the new South Africa emerged from its apartheid wilderness and was welcomed into a wide variety of multilateral forums. In turn, the new government committed itself to upholding the principles of multilateralism and to playing an active role within these institutions. Ten years on, the contributors to this volume participated in a series of workshops to reflect upon South Africa’s involvement in, and contribution to, multilateral forums. This involved engaging with both the general literature on the concept of multilateralism within the discipline of International Relations and the more specific literature analysing South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy. By providing a detailed analysis of how post-apartheid South Africa has participated in multilateral diplomacy in a variety of institutional settings we hope this volume can contribute to the broader debates about multilateralism in International Relations. Similarly, and in good dialectical fashion, we hope that readers primarily interested in understanding the new South Africa’s foreign policy can benefit from an engagement with the general literature exploring the concept of multilateralism.