ABSTRACT
Much of the academic literature on South Africa's role in Southern Africa is characterized by a clash of concepts, assumptions and normative convictions. This often leads to a contraposition of key terms, such as partnership versus hegemony, pivot versus hegemon and emerging regional power versus traditional middle power (cf. Habib 2006, Jordaan 2003, Lipton 2009: 332, McGowan and Ahwireng-Obeng 1998, Schoeman 2003). In these debates, concepts often remain under-specified and are used in a way that overly simplifies the issue as one of either partnership or hegemony, with hegemony taking on an explicitly negative connotation.
