ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the processes, institutions and actors which govern and determine the manner in which foreign policy has been made in South Africa since 1994. Post-apartheid South Africa has emerged in a changed and uncertain world, marked by contradictory tendencies and impulses. The leitmotif governing South Africa’s foreign policy has been labelled ‘universality,’ essentially the opening of foreign and local doors in the same reconciliatory spirit that has characterised its own domestic transformation. South Africa’s domestic environment has been drastically altered since the formal demise of apartheid following the elections in April, 1994. The South African government’s response to the domestic socio-economic challenge was to adjust significantly its earlier Reconstruction and Development Programme, which focused on poverty reduction. South Africa’s regional relations have also benefited from its transition. In a rather ironic twist, South Africa has become the main guarantor of regional security and by its example has strongly promoted regional norms of democracy and human rights.
