ABSTRACT
Apartheid-era South Africa’s unhappy relationships with neighbouring states during the 1948–89 period are highly instructive in this regard. South Africa has never been more than a fragile hegemon. In the post-1994 era, South Africa could only have become a bona fide hegemon by meeting several requirements. The country is hegemonic within the Southern African Customs Union it established with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. South Africa has met some of the requirements of hegemony by providing public goods, but lacks the capacity to do so extensively and consistently in both the Southern Africa region and beyond. The new, democratic South Africa repudiated the philosophy and practices of the dark era of militarism, but had to live with the period’s regional legacy of suspicion, resentment and fear of South African power. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
