Jacob Zuma Research Articles

Who can stop the rot?

It is fitting that the first article in this issue of South African Crime Quarterly (SACQ) speaks to the South African Police Service’s tackling of commercial crime. It is increasingly clear that corporate–political collusion poses a serious threat to South Africa’s democratic gains. In recent months journalists have started to pick through a trove of emails released in June, known as the #GuptaLeaks. In the process they have connected the dots between tens of thousands of exchanges among the notorious Gupta business family, management of parastatals, governmentministers and allies of President Jacob Zuma, including his son Duduzane. The emails paint a terrifying picture of state capture and abuse.

The unwinding of South Africa’s foreign policy

South African President Jacob Zuma's corrupt personalisation of foreign policy, systematic government mismanagement and rising xenophobia are marginalising South Africa in continental and international affairs. Restoring South Africa to its leadership standing will be a major priority for his successor and the next government.

The End of the ANC Era: An Analysis of Corruption and Inequality in South Africa

ANC would always rule in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC), which has been governing the country since the end of apartheid in 1994, received the worst results ever recorded. The ANC with president Jacob Zuma received 54 percent of the votes, which is a considerable decrease from 62 percent in 2011. This election was a clear sign that the ANC is in trouble towards the 2019 elections. The party seriously needs to rethink its strategies and investigates why the votes are decreasing. Given South Africa being a key player in global governance and in particular a strong leader among the African countries, it is significant to understand this political turmoil, as it may influence the political directions of other countries in that area. With reviews of relevant literature, therefore, this paper analyzes the current political situation in South Africa, focusing on corruption and inequality. The paper suggests connections between corruption, Jacob Zuma, and the potential end of the ANC era. The issues of inequality describes more the difficult situation that South Africans are facing and can be connected to the desire for change. It would be interesting to further analyze whether South Africa would be ready for a multiparty democracy with a peaceful transition of power after the national elections in 2019.

Transformation and the Emergence of Entrepreneurship in the context of Education and Social Policy in South Africa

The paper looks at the important issues of entrepreneurship and the emergence of entrepreneurs in the Republic of South Africa, in the context of education and social policy. The authors argue that this necessary emergence through, the processes of transformation is too slow and is at the cross roads, after nearly 23 years of democracy, post 1994. In similar vein, the paper in its introduction indicates that higher education funds must be targeted. The paper does not delve into the history and definitions of entrepreneurship and of entrepreneurs. It further argues that, the next president’s priority needs to be job creation in terms of sustained social policy imperatives. This has failed miserably under the current President Jacob Zuma and the democratic government of the country. It also discusses the concept of incubators which can create thousands of jobs for the beleaguered South African Economy. It situates the subject matter from the perspective that the Chief Justice of South Africa criticizes businesses and, states that transformation is too slow. On the other hand the paper argues that the bargaining councils and trade union movement in South Africa fail small businesses and, the narrative explores very briefly the issue of rigid business practices that do not inspire workers. It further argues that, the technical college system is broken and stymies the important emergence of entrepreneurship. In articulating the discussion in this paper, the authors cogently argue that, the trade unions of South Africa, has cozied up to government and, in so doing have trampled upon the rights of workers. Tied to these aspects is the reality that South Africa’s startups fail to gain traction. Amidst other issues the authors further argue that, universities must meet labour needs and play an important role in developing the modalities for entrepreneurship in terms of producing entrepreneurs.  It finally argues that entrepreneurial success goes beyond political sentiment and asks the vexing question as to why our neighbours Botswana can create so many new entrepreneurs.   Key Words: Jobs, Universities, Labour, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurs, Startups, Political, Technical Education, Practices, Inspire, Transformation, Incubators, Job Creation

Textual Textiles: Gender and Political Parodies in the Work of Lawrence Lemaoana

Lawrence Lemaoana is a male artist working with cloth and embroidery, using feminist tactics to interrogate contemporary masculinities. In his exhibition, Fortune Telling in Black, White and Red (2008), he humorously employs floral printed cloth “cutouts” of a dancing Jacob Zuma in such a way as to subvert what he considers an outdated construct of masculinity personified by Zuma and ratified within a patriarchally inclined South Africa. He also uses the historically complex Kanga cloth to create parodies of newspaper headlines and posters. The pithy statements in these works question the propagandistic role of the media in supporting certain mechanisms of power and gender politics in South Africa. The 2008 exhibition coincided with Thabo Mbeki’s recall and the beginning of Zuma’s rise to power, which made it particularly relevant at the time. In the light of recent developments surrounding the controversial status of Zuma, it is contended that the critique of both politics and hegemonic masculinity in these artworks might be more pertinent now than when they were originally exhibited. In this article, it is revealed that Lemaoana’s parodies might function as an insightful commentary on the current political state of South Africa and the sense of masculine entitlement that underpins South African men in positions of power.

Land Reform in the Republic of South Africa: Social Justice or Populism?

Abstract In the paper land reform in South African political discourse will be investigated, especially the process of its politicization. How the topic of land reform is used by political forces, especially the ruling party; the African National Congress and current President Jacob Zuma. Does the Republic of South Africa take a populist turn on land reform or is it some kind of social justice after the suppression of the apartheid era and decades before? The political disputes and decisions will be analysed in confrontations with the fundamentals and values of a democratic state as a guarantee of property rights, private ownership and free market principles (dilemma of the problem of willing buyer - willing seller). It will be necessary to present the historical background of land problem in the RSA. The problem will be investigated in connection with the socio-economic situation of the RSA. The study will also tackle the problem of social and economic inequality from the perspective of politics. In the paper, a mix of primary and secondary research methods of data collection and analysing will be used. Theoretical framework will be based on assumptions of political discourse and the paradigm of “classic” land reform.

Daughters of the revolution: legal narrativity in S v Zuma

While the social and political significance of President Jacob Zuma’s trial for rape in 2006 has been well-explored, its legal relevance has largely been passed over. Yet, the trial is important both for how it lays bare the mundane, naturalised operations of the law applicable to rape – and simultaneously illustrates how this regime of truth was called into question. A number of authors have already pointed to the rape myths, or discursive practices, relied upon to reach the final decision in S v Zuma. Yet, the mere fact of these myths’ existence is insufficient to ensure their success. Taking the trial as its example, and drawing on theories of legal narrativity, this article investigates how the structure and sequencing of witness testimony, coupled with the development of the complainant’s character in very particular ways, shaped judicial evaluations of plausibility. Close attention to how ‘the rape victim’ is actively constituted in and through the law points to the disciplinary and normalising effects of rape trials. Attention to legal story-telling as a discursive practice, especially in contexts where events seem ambiguous and open to interpretation, is as important as law reform to improving the experiences of rape complainants in court and allowing for the transformation of dominant discourses about rape.

The media, civil society and democracy in South Africa: State of the Nation Address 2015

ABSTRACTThis article reports on an investigation into the events surrounding the State of the Nation Address in 2015 (SONA2015), during which opposition party members interrupted proceedings to raise questions about the controversial R208-million security upgrade to South African President Jacob Zuma's personal homestead, Nkandla, in KwaZulu-Natal, using public funds. The event raised issues about the constitutionality of the use of police in the National Assembly; the use of cell phone blocking devices; and the fact that television broadcasters were not allowed to broadcast the events as they happened. The investigation drew on a quantitative content analysis of print media coverage of SONA2015, as well as qualitative interviews with members of the Right2Know (R2 K) campaign in Cape Town and Durban. It explored their activities to “take back Parliament” and calling for a “people's Parliament”. At the core of the investigation was the role of civil society in the media-politics nexus with regard to strengthening democracy and democratic participation in South Africa, through an exploration of the case study.

Extending resemiotisation: time, space and body in discursive representation

ABSTRACTThe present article offers a critical appraisal of resemiotisation through the investigation of a controversial comment made by South African president, Jacob Zuma. The comment (that Jacob Zuma took a shower to minimise his risk of contracting HIV/AIDS) was made during a rape trial in 2006. Over a period of eight years, this comment has been continually recontextualised into different modes, and has served different functions. This article investigates newspaper reports, cartoons and YouTube clips which were collected from 2006 to 2014. All of these texts refer to the “Shower comment” in linguistic, visual or multimodal ways. Drawing on a multimodal analysis, focussing specifically on modes of representation, the article critically discusses the notions of mode, time and space in connection to resemiotisation. I argue that a Bakhtinian account of time, space and body allows for a non-binary view of semiotic phenomena that will lead to a deeper theoretical understanding of semiotic transformations in all their complexity.

The fall of an African president: How and why did the ANC unseat Thabo Mbeki?

The entry of the ANC into the arena of democratic politics provoked a dilemma for the party leadership that is familiar to political parties in a new democracy: how, if at all, should the party reform its internal organization to compete in a new electoral environment? This article draws on interviews with senior members of the ANC to develop a theory that describes how the ‘modernization’ of the ANC under President Thabo Mbeki led to his electoral defeat at the party's national conference in 2007. It contends that the process of modernization reduced systematically the role of the party's activist base in the policy-making process, creating a motive to replace the President, but left intact the role of activists in the selection of the party's leadership, which in turn provided an opportunity to replace the President at the party's national conference. The President's opponents exploited ruthlessly this opportunity by enlarging and mobilizing the party membership, using a clientelistic appeal for support, to deliver a resounding victory for their champion, Jacob Zuma. This type of clientelistic competition, which has become routine inside the ANC, undermined the democratic legitimacy of the party and its capacity to govern in the public interest.

‘Past History Has Not Been Forgotten’: The ANC/ZAPU Alliance – the Second Phase, 1978–1980

The apparent camaraderie displayed by Presidents Jacob Zuma and Robert Mugabe, and President Thabo Mbeki’s ‘tilt’ towards Mugabe in electoral controversies in Zimbabwe, have created the impression among many in South Africa that the African National Congress (ANC) and Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) were allies in the struggle against apartheid. The history of the ANC/Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) alliance has been neglected. This article focuses on the almost unknown second phase of the alliance in 1978–80 and its consequences. The history of ZAPU, which lost the struggle for power in Zimbabwe in 1980, has been largely erased, while the ANC has no reason to celebrate an alliance which bedevilled its relationship with independent Zimbabwe for many years. This article reconstructs the story of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) participation with the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) in Zimbabwe in the year or so before the Lancaster House talks in 1979. It then examines the consequences of the alliance for the relationship with ZANU during the 1980s. The second half of the article looks, largely from an ANC perspective, at what was seen by participants as the negative influence of ZIPRA training methods, as transmitted to MK members in ZIPRA camps in Zambia, and by MK veterans of the Zimbabwe war in the Angolan camps, on the political culture of MK. It discusses the allegedly apolitical and anti-intellectual impact of the toyi-toyi, and of songs or chants, such as ‘kill the Boer, kill the farmer’, which were seen as in conflict with the non-racial ethos of the ANC. The article looks finally at the continuing relevance of this anti-intellectual culture, and of Zimbabwean models, in South Africa today.

Crouching tigers, leaping lions? Developmental leadership lesson for South Africa from China and Malaysia

Developmental leadership contributes to socio-economic development in developing states. China has, for example, set itself an ambitious power development, production and distribution agenda, whereas Malaysia’s Big Fast Results Methodology is contributing to its economic development. Both these states offer some lessons for South Africa as Southern Africa’s strongest economy. In fact, South African President Jacob Zuma’s Operation Phakisa and its focus on, inter alia, the oceans or blue economy is directly taken from Malaysia’s Big Fast Results Methodology. Moreover, South Africa has consolidated its relations, especially in the power sector with China, which is expanding its nuclear power sector at a very fast pace. Against the aforesaid, the article intends to analyse the relatively new concept, developmental leadership, in the context of declared developmental states; and using two case studies (electricity and oceans governance) for illustrative purposes to determine the applicability, impact and lessons from the Chinese and Malaysian models for South Africa as a developmental state.

The doors of learning ...

As I write this, our universities are in crisis - a crisis that has been coming since last year when the first protests about fees started. These prompted a zero fee increase for 2016, which has crippled most of our institutions of higher learning, already struggling with falling government funding. Between 1994 and 2014, the number of students in public universities more than doubled. During the same period the proportion of black students at universities increased from 52% to 81% of the student population. However, as an open letter from 1 200 university academics to president Jacob Zuma and higher education minister Blade Nzimande in August this year (2016) says, this increase in student numbers has not been matched by adequate funding. In fact, every year has seen a decrease in real terms of government funding to public universities. The letter goes on to say that 'our public universities can in fact barely be called public, with national government subsidies to university budgets falling from an already low 49% in 2000 to 40% in 2012'. At the same time, employment of full-time staff has not matched increases in student numbers, potentially decreasing the quality of teaching and adding to the administrative burden on full-time academic staff. The situation in our medical schools is arguably even worse, with frozen posts in the public hospitals that provide much of our medical teaching.

World will lack 18 million health workers by 2030 without adequate investment, warns UN.

A United Nations commission has called for urgent global investment to create new health sector jobs and prevent a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030. It said that these health workers will be needed mainly in low and lower middle income countries to meet population needs, achieve universal health coverage, and spur economic growth. Without adequate investment, it warned, “inequalities will rise, and social cohesion will be adversely, even catastrophically, affected.” The Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth is chaired by the French president, Francois Hollande, and the South African president, Jacob Zuma. It submitted a report, including 10 recommendations for action, to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at …

Apartheid, 1948–1994 by Saul Dubow; Inside South Africa’s Foreign Policy: Diplomacy in Africa from Smuts to Mbeki by John Siko

Reviewed by: Roel van der Velde (), School of Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, UKAs the fourth African National Congress (ANC) leader to become the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma once boasted that the party which had defeated racial segregation would rule the country until Jesus comes.[1] Twenty years on, the once exemplary democracy sees its very institutions crumbling under cronyism and corruption. Even before his 2016 Speech of the Nation was heckled by opposition, Zuma found himself grappling with disgruntled voters, racial tensions, and a largely self-inflicted economic crisis.[2] To fully understand present-day South African politics requires an understanding of the country's past. Two books published on South African political history in 2014 can help us gain just that.The first study is by Professor Saul Dubow of Queen Mary University of London, who has written extensively about his native country. His latest book focuses on the ideology and practice of apartheid and the way they were understood and resisted. The other book, by diplomat-scholar John Siko, focuses on political networks involved in South African foreign policy formulation. It examines the extent to which formerly disenfranchised groups have overcome the system of apartheid. Siko finished his research while working at the US embassy in Cape Town. Together, the books offer a comprehensive view of political mobilization under apartheid and its democratic successor.Building ideologies, resisting powerDubow has written a reintegrated history of the many sides of apartheid, woven from budding from below and an analysis of apartheid state power (ix). His study in state ideology and the social counter-movements resisting its implementation covers the span from the 1948 Malan government to the election of majority government in 1994. Throughout this period, an ideological conflict was fought between and among generations of government officials, social movements, and affected populations.Interaction constitutes the central theme of Dubow's book: the initiatives and exchanges of government and various societal actors. Dubow reintroduces contingency and historicity to the dusty narratives of apartheid and resistance. He synthesizes old and new scholarship on a host of political, biographical, and cultural dimensions and has a keen eye for diversities of gender, race, and language. This often leads him to revise the actual importance of events that would enter resistance lore. To give but one example, the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 was neither the worst example of callous government policies at that time, the author maintains, nor was the ANC's subsequent choice for armed resistance as inevitable or uniformly shared as later contended.Dubow's elaborate rebuttal of rise-and-fall histories of apartheid describes the socio-economic, ideological, and spatial dimensions that combined to assure the surprising longevity of that system. From a winning 1948 electoral slogan and then ambivalent administrative segregation, apartheid became a robust ideology of Afrikaner Christian-nationalism that secured the dream of the 1961 republic, free from British tutelage. Separate development would become an article of faith, but its success had not been inevitable, nor was it secure. Accordingly, the eight loosely chronological chapters have the same move-and-countermove character.Retracing the idea of apartheid from its colonial-era components to its 1960s hubris and traversal in the late 1980s shows the many turns in racist policy. Constantly evolving militant and military movements combined with ever-changing economic and international contexts to upset the governmental fiction of segregated and contented tribal nations. Even so, divisive measures and forced relocations hit populations unevenly, and resistance to them was not unified or wholly black. …

Offline: A prescription for prosperity

Health is bad for you. That's what many economists believe. A man called William Baumol may be largely to blame. In the 1960s, he invented the notion of a “cost disease” in modern societies. It was a powerful metaphor, one that has shaped the prejudices of many a Minister of Finance ever since. His central idea sounds convincing. Some industries are good at increasing their productivity. As a result, they earn more money to invest in the wages of their employees. These sectors of the economy deserve our praise. There are other sectors where increasing productivity is harder. An orchestra, for example (playing faster isn't going to help much). Or ballet (dancing frenetically may subvert the aesthetics of the choreography). Or among health professionals. In areas that depend on human beings interacting with one another, as medicine does, productivity gains are hard to achieve. But the salaries of those working in these productivity-poor sectors rise anyway. Why? Because, thanks to increases in salaries in productivity-enriching sectors, salaries also increase in productivity-poor sectors to keep pace with the rising expectations of employees. If wages stayed low in productivity-poor sectors, musicians, ballet dancers, and doctors might well abandon their calling and become traders in Goldman Sachs. The result of the Baumol effect is a disaster for society. The costs of a concert, ballet, or health service increase even though productivity stays stubbornly the same. What else could this be but a malignant “cost disease” on our collective welfare. But what if Professor Baumol got his sums wrong? In an as yet unpublished World Bank paper led by Jean-Louis Arcand (Director of the Centre for Finance and Development at the Graduate Institute in Geneva), Baumol's hypothesis is challenged. Contrary to a half-century of consensus among economists, investing in health—and specifically health employment—is good, not only for health but also for the economy. Arcand took a more global view than Baumol, who studied only nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Including low-income and middle-income countries in Arcand's calculations makes a profound difference. Investing in the health workforce is not a “cost disease” at all. On the contrary, investing in health workers improves the growth rate of economies. The effects of higher health employment are significantly greater than even the financial sector can achieve. This result is a discovery of Nobelesque proportions. What is the point of this excursion into the minutiae of economic theory? Last week, Presidents François Hollande and Jacob Zuma launched the final report of their High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth at the UN General Assembly in New York. The purpose of the Commission was to examine the economic case for investing in the health workforce. The result was an affirmation of the value of the health sector to wider society. Expanding the number of health workers, and transforming their education at the same time, has the potential to accelerate health equity and inclusive economic growth. Employing these additional health workers in national programmes to deliver universal health coverage can be a trigger for economic revival. It sounds easy, but of course it is not. Many countries are facing, in whole or in part, extreme fragility—humanitarian catastrophe, conflict, post-conflict, or natural disasters. In these settings the economy is likely to be devastated. Investing in more doctors, nurses, midwives, or community-based health workers will be no magic solution. Added to which, health workers don't stay still. They often migrate. How does one encourage a doctor to stay and work in a difficult setting when moving country might be a far more attractive prospect? Gender equality, social protection, technology, financing, and better governance will also be critical determinants of success. The Expert Group to the Commission (which I chaired) recommended a “5-year action plan (2016–21) for an expanded, transformed, interdependent, and sustainable health workforce to accelerate inclusive economic growth and to ensure healthy lives, wellbeing, equity, and economic security for all”. Hollande and Zuma went further, demanding an even faster response. Despite challenges, the Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth might be one of the most compelling opportunities in a generation to encourage Presidents and Prime Ministers, and perhaps most importantly their Ministers of Finance, to take health a great deal more seriously. The High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth was co-convened by the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, and the OECD The High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth was co-convened by the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, and the OECD

South African academics warn of universities on the brink

Over 1,200 sign open letter to President Jacob Zuma warning universities are at a tipping point.

How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming Crisis, R.W. Johnson

Reviewed by: How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming Crisis by R. W. Johnson Damien Ejigiri Johnson, R. W. 2015. HOW LONG WILL SOUTH AFRICA SURVIVE? THE LOOMING CRISIS. London: Hurst & Company. 266 pp. With visionary South African president Nelson Mandela at the helm of his country’s affairs, every citizen saw a rosy picture and a bright future. Since his death, burial, and departure from the political landscape, there have been negative feelings. Therefore, R. W. Johnson’s book and its subtheme, How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming Crisis, are not accidental. The author, an emeritus fellow of Magdalen College at University of Oxford, was supposed to be the only South African Rhodes scholar who returned to the country after the fall of the apartheid regime; one wonders if there was a survey on that. The publication being reviewed is one of a dozen or more books and many scholarly articles and popular articles that Johnson has authored. Since South African president Jacob Zuma once sat in his classroom, he writes that “it feels strange for me to be writing about South Africa in the era of Jacob Zuma” (p. ix). Yet he goes on to complete his book, in which Zuma plays a central role. In his estimation, Zuma “never expected to be president” (p. ix). He goes on to give a brief anecdote of Zuma’s biography: that he migrated “to Durban from a bone-poor rural background (his mother a domestic, his father a policeman, who died young)” (p. ix). Describing Zuma’s relationship with the African National Congress (ANC), he sees him as being full of a bounce and life, and says it was natural that he joined the ANC out of enthusiasm: “Albert Luthuli, a Zulu chief, was its leader and, for Zuma, with his rural Zulu background, that mattered a lot” (p. x). Johnson recalls an early Mandela rally on Commercial Street in Durban in the early 1960s, when, as a result of a whisper in Mandela’s ear, [End Page 105] Mandela bolted from the platform and “the meeting broke up in disorder as the police arrived in force to close the meeting down” (pp. x–xi). This book, apart from the fact that it is divided into ten main chapters, provides a list of abbreviations and acronyms, a preface, copious notes, and a useful subject index. Johnson discusses such topical themes as KwaZulu-Natal, the world of Jacob Zuma (chapter two); the ANC under Zuma (chapter three); the new class structure (chapter five); culture wars (chapter six); state repression of economic activity (chapter seven); the view from the International Monetary Fund (chapter eight); the BRICS countries as an alternative model (chapter nine); and what he calls the impossibility of autarchy (chapter ten). In the final chapter, where autarchy is handsomely discussed, the Zimbabwe is invoked in variety of subheadings, including “The Zimbabwean Example” (pp. 223–24); “Why South Africa Can’t Be like Zimbabwe” (pp. 224–28); and “Going for the Mugabe Option” (pp. 230–32). In the final chapter, Johnson’s references to Zimbabwe lead to a question: why could South Africa not be like Zimbabwe? Johnson answers that if South Africa were to follow Mugabe’s example, it would have to undertake drastic land reform, which the ANC leaders are not ready to authorize; and that turning to a Mugabe option or “direction on its own would soon find itself [South Africa] trying to implement a wholly impossible and, indeed, ruinous set of policies” (pp. 233–34). It is, however, not that South Africa—like Zimbabwe—did not implement policies that were similar to Mugabe’s policies in Zimbabwe, including the fact that the “ANC has on its own embraced a series of policies (expropriation without compensation, the 50 per cent seizure of commercial farmland, the NHI, forced demographic representivity in the workforce, etc.) which are already far down the road—and the ANC official policy is now for a much more radical ‘second transition’” (p. 234). Surely, this book is worth perusal by Africanists and general readers, especially those who want to know about post-Mandela South Africa. Damien Ejigiri Southern University and A & M...

“Then You Are a Man, My Son”

This essay examines a hypothetical supplement to Rudyard Kipling's famous poem “If—” scripted by the judge during the Jacob Zuma rape trial in 2006. It places this into conversation with State of Peril: Race and Rape in South African Literature (2012) and argues for the importance of interrogating specters of colonial patriarchy in South Africa's contemporary post–“rainbow nation” epoch. During the trial, Zuma invoked in his defense a certain masculine ideal of Zuluness, and the judge's invocation of Kipling similarly points to the ways in which nodes of masculinity and power in contemporary South Africa are deeply haunted by a colonial and apartheid-era past. On account of a history of brutal racism, various patriarchies have been at odds in this country, but they continue to work together in mutually constitutive ways, at the expense of black women, and with an even greater cost to queer black women.

The African Renaissance versus the South African Renaissance?

When Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president on 10 May 1994, South Africa enjoyed an unprecedented global standing. Much of the international community, particularly Western states, saw the new South Africa as well equipped to play a dynamic and dominant role on the continent; promoting conflict resolution, economic development, and acting as a standard-bearer for democracy and human rights.Yet, throughout the presidencies of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, South Africa has failed to deliver on this early promise. Its continental primacy has been circumscribed by its own reluctance to lead, combined with widespread African hostility to its economic expansion, antipathy towards its democratic ideals and scepticism about its suitability as Africa’s global representative. With an onerous domestic agenda, as it continues to tackle the profound socio-economic legacies of apartheid, and with its military power also on the wane, South Africa must now adapt to an emerging multipolarity on the continent. This transition – which may produce a new concert of African powers working in constructive collaboration or lead to fragmentation, discord and gridlock – is likely to determine Africa’s prospects for decades to come.This Adelphi book squarely challenges the received wisdom that South Africa is a dominant power in Africa. It explores the country’s complex and difficult relationship with the rest of the continent in the post-apartheid era and examines the ways in which the country has struggled to translate its economic, military and diplomatic weight into tangible foreign policy successes and enduring influence on the ground. The conclusions of this book will be valuable to academics, policymakers, journalists, and business leaders seeking to understand the evolution and trajectory of South African policy in Africa.