ABSTRACT
Apart from Walter Carlsnaes' special interest in foreign policy analysis, two other ‘Carlsnaesian’ markers help to demarcate this contribution to the Festschrift. One is provided by Walter's response when, in 1994, I told him of the strongly ethical thrust of the foreign policy that the ‘new’ South Africa was about to pursue. ‘I've heard that one before,’ was his sceptical response. The present chapter investigates the record of democratic South Africa's ethical foreign policy over the past 16 years. The other marker is a question I heard Walter ask of work produced by political scientists: ‘Where is the theory?’ Here, an individualist interpretative approach to the study of foreign policy (Carlsnaes 2002: 341) will be used. Known as national role conceptions, this under-utilised approach developed out of role theory which, in turn, originated in the fields of social psychology and sociology (Aggestam 1999: 11; Adigbuo 2007: 88–89).
