International Relations, Foreign Policies and State Identity : South Africa (2015)

Abstract

 The year 2015 was a period of little change in South Africa’s international posture, characterised by continuity and policy predictability but little innovation. The period of the Zuma administration’s second term since 2014 has been dominated by domestic and party political issues while international affairs were experienced mainly through the prism of economic issues: 2015 is a year after the general election in 2014 at which the ANC received a new mandate to govern, no ground-breaking resolutions in the domain of foreign relations were adopted at the ANC’s National Conference in 2012, which had to be incorporated in its election manifesto and post-2014 policies: 2015 is two years away from the ANC’s next Policy and National Conferences and therefore is truly entrenched in mid-term continuity with little motivation for significant changes.