As dramatic changes unfold throughout the world, and the new millennium begins, many in South Africa have begun to ask 'what next'? The scale and pace of change have led to a feeling of powerlessness. How to cope with 'globalization', 'regionalization', a depleting ozone layer, new diseases, rampant militarization, let alone unseen structures of influence and oppression like race, class and gender? While there is no shortage of theoretical models on offer many feel that they are inadequate for the case of Southern Africa. In this book, scholars of both international relations and Southern Africa present a wide variety of thoughts on the future of the reign and the place of theory in helping us to understand the bewildering array of events characterizing the late-modern, early twenty-first century world. This book marks a 'call to theory': if Southern Africans are to overcome the divisive legacy of the past, and to move toward a more prosperous and sustainable collective future, theory must be placed at the centre of everyday life. For it is our understanding of the world that shapes both it and us.

The New Multilateralism in South African Diplomacy provides a detailed analysis of how post-apartheid South Africa has participated in multilateral diplomacy in a variety of sub-regional, regional and international settings during the last decade. The book will interest scholars interested in multilateralism and South African foreign policy.

Africa has been noticeably absent in international relations theory. This new collection of essays by contemporary Africanists convincingly demonstrates the importance of the continent to every theoretical approach in international relations. This collection breaks new ground in how we think about both international relations and Africa, re-examining such foundational concepts as sovereignty, the state, and power; critically investigating the salience of realism, neo-liberalism, liberalism in Africa, and providing new thinking about regionalism, security and identity.

This book investigates civil society regionalization in Southern Africa. The point of departure is the study of 'new regionalism', which refers to the wave of regional integration globally since the 1980s. However, whilst the current regionalism studies undoubtedly contributes to a deeper understanding of regional processes, important gaps remain, in particular the relatively scant emphasis given to civil society. This particularly relates to regions in the global South, including Southern Africa. The overarching aim of this book is therefore to analyse the dynamics of civil society regionalization in Southern Africa, both empirically and from a theoretical perspective, through analysing the cases of trade and HIV/AIDS. The study finds that CSOs can be more active in regional governance than has previously been conceptualized and are also highly active in terms of constructing regionalization through framing issues and, to a less extent, making identities 'regional'. Furthermore, the book enhances knowledge of the heterogeneous nature of civil society regionalization. Lastly, it is demonstrated that 'going regional' is only partly an autonomous process and also has to be understood as under the influence of the deeper statist and capitalist social structures marking the regional order in Southern Africa.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.

This book examines key emergent trends related to aspects of power, sovereignty, conflict, peace, development, and changing social dynamics in the African context. It challenges conventional IR precepts of authority, politics and society, which have proven to be so inadequate in explaining African processes. Rather, this edited collection analyses the significance of many of the uncharted dimensions of Africa's international relations, such as the respatialisation of African societies through migration, and the impacts this process has had on state power; the various ways in which both formal and informal authority and economies are practised; and the dynamics and impacts of new transnational social movements on African politics. Finally, attention is paid to Africa's place in a shifting global order, and the implications for African international relations of the emergence of new world powers and/or alliances. This edition includes a new preface by the editors, which brings the findings of the book up-to-date, and analyses the changes that are likely to impact upon global governance and human development in policy and practice in Africa and the wider world post-2015.

In addition to offering a comprehensive overview and fair insight over more than twenty five years into the relations between two South Middle Powers, namely South Africa and Malaysia, this book also discusses them within their respective regional structures and evaluates their respective diplomatic and commercial connections. It also explores issues that have generally be neglected by International Relations specialists and, in this regard, it gives attention to cultural contacts that bring to the fore the critical role of non-state actors in international affairs. Since the ideas espoused by South Africa and Malaysia’s political leaders are rooted in their specific national and broad regional philosophies, the study also unpacks the notions of the ’African ways’ vis-à-vis the ‘Asian ways’ in maintaining and sustaining state-to-state relations within the two regions. This book, which uses Critical Theory as an appropriate framework that takes full cognisance of various developments in International Relations, will be of interest to scholars and researchers in both the Social Sciences and the Humanities.

Exploring how the region is changing today - as transnational solidarity and a single regional economy remove the distinctions between national and international politics - he asks whether South African domination can finally be overcome and considers what sort of cosmopolitan political arrangement will be appropriate for southern Africa in the new century."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume examines Educational Change in South Africa, a country undergoing rapid social and political change, and situated geographically, historically and culturally in the South.

This book focuses on southern Africa by engaging with ‘norms’ from various perspectives and how they have proliferated within a neo-liberalising context since the 1990s. It particularly examines gender norms in relation to agency, influence and their impact. Despite growing transnational activities, regional studies analyses have so far maintained a primarily linear logic not incorporative of the increasing interface between state and non-state regionalism in a transnational context since the advent of liberalisation and democratisation. Increasing non-state activities, and their connection to state processes involved in norm creation, adaptation, diffusion and implementation around broad questions of security (including gender security), amount to regional thickening. The book’s analytical approach is informed by alternatives to mainstream approaches, emphasising processes rather than linearity inherent in regional international relations studies. The research reveals that transnational activities and regionalisation of gender and women-focused civil society actors are critical for advocacy and diverse representation within intergovernmental policymaking structures at the regional scale.