South Africa’s Foreign Policy since the End of Apartheid: Continuities and Discontinuities

This article examines the evolution of South Africa’s foreign policy since the end of apartheid, aiming to highlight both the continuities and changes in the country’s international relations across different presidential administrations over the past thirty years. This essay shows that the changes in South Africa’s foreign policy over three decades have resulted less from sudden shifts and more from a gradual evolution involving all successive presidents. Each president has historically impacted the others in their efforts to advance South Africa’s political and economic interests within an international context that has both imposed restrictions on Pretoria’s actions and presented opportunities that the government has sought to capitalise on.