Occasional Paper 6/2024
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SEPTEMBER 2024
SOUTH AFRICA’S NATIONAL INTEREST:
PEOPLE-CENTERED AND PRAGMATIC
Pursuing a progressive policy with realist considerations
Dr Klaus Kotzé
BA Social Dynamics, BSocSci Honours Political Communication, Master in Global Studies, PhD Rhetoric Studies
(Source: istockphoto.com – iStock-2113233015)
“Foreign policy and national interests should be debated much more vigorously. The sad fact is that in practice there is no debate on the issues” (Le Pere and Vickers, 2004).
Abstract
The national interest is a useful concept that does not receive sufficient critical engagement in South Africa. Considered as its ambition or reason, states must perceive, articulate and pursue their national interests. Its turn to a multiparty Government of National Unity, together with the ongoing changes in international relations, present opportunities to recast South Africa’s national policy and governance.
This paper explores the meaning and purpose of the national interest, conceptually. It then assesses how it has been perceived and used in post-Apartheid South Africa. Lastly, the paper suggests that South Africa’s national interest approach be drawn from its national identity and aspirational, value-based Constitution. It should balance between a realist and idealist approach, while strategically considering domestic and international concerns. Ultimately, the national interest is more than a government concept. Its true value and power is discharged when society at large grasps its potential and participates in its actualisation.
Introduction
In a fracturing and evolving world, states must perceive, articulate and pursue their national interests. In 1994 South Africa turned from its securocrat system of maintaining control over a population, to embrace a human-centred approach guided by the value-based Constitution. This turn to non-racial democracy ushered in a new political reality and with it a new national interest.
Thirty years later, South Africa is again pivoting. For the first time in its democratic history, the African National Congress did not garner an outright majority. The formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) compromising several parties demonstrates a reboot in the national political environment. It ushers in a seminal moment to recast policy and governance. The turn from the ideological dominance of a single party to the GNU’s broadly representative pursuit of the national project, as guided by its Statement of Intent, demonstrates a reorientation of the state. The changed internal dynamics, as well as the increasingly fluid landscape between states, necessitates a revision of South Africa’s national interest.
This paper undertakes a critical assessment so to guide South Africa’s thinking about its national interest. It does so by first exploring the meaning and purpose of the concept. It then discerns how the national interest has been interpreted in democratic South Africa. This is done by analysing official documentation. Lastly, the paper looks at how the national interest should be interpreted and applied, so as to best give expression to the strategic vision and goals of the South African state. In so doing, it will show how the national interest is a useful concept for drawing in diverse stakeholders and bolstering participatory politics during the seventh administration. A way to popularise the ideals of the state. Giving personal and collective expression to both domestic and international policy and ultimately advancing the state.
Delineating the national interest
In 1949, the German American jurist and political scientist Hans Morgenthau infused the words national interest with contemporary meaning. At a time when the world was entering a new macro political arrangement, Morgenthau spoke of the primacy of the national interest (Morgenthau, 1949). That in the grand arrangement of states, power is the goal. States, according to Morgenthau (writing particularly of the United States), must act so to maintain, enable and advance their power. His was a realist approach to politics. An approach which, while recognising that the world has no central authority and thus anarchic, political interactions are contests between self-interested states.
Power in this realist gaze is the ability to pursue one’s own ends without hindrance. It is also the ability to determine the actions and decisions of others. The pursuit of power, in this realist view, is the reason for the state. This perception is rooted in the deeply sceptical Machiavellian instincts of warring between European states over the centuries. It is, ultimately, a strategic response to the conditions on the ground. Or, what is known as the political environment. Here power entails a zero-sum game; power over, vis a vis other iterations, such as power with. The primacy of this form of power in a state’s affairs ensures a race to the top, and thus the concomitant race from the bottom. According to Morgenthau, “moral principles and the national interest have contented for dominance over the minds and actions of men throughout the history of the modern state system” (Ibid, 208).
This well-known perception of the national interest is countervailing. To maximise the significance of a state’s national interest, its conceptual approach must be recognised. The realist determination also offers meaning to its counterparts which sees the reason of the state through an idealist or moralist gaze. Here the state is guided by principles to pursue value-based ends.
A state’s national interest will differ both in meaning and substance from one state to the next. It can thus be seen as a realist, idealist or a qualified composite. It all depends on the strategic lens through which the state chooses to perceive its national interest. How a situation is interpreted will depend on the approach undertaken.
Morgenthau’s definition assists in guiding how a state should perceive its national interest. The path, or strategic approach, of any state, should be determined by what he called the political reality: “the choice is not between moral principles and the national interest, devoid of moral dignity, but between one set of moral principles divorced from political reality, and another set of moral principles derived from political reality” (Morgenthau, 1951: 33).
Real governance
The distinction between real (direct) and ideal (indirect or soft) power is important within the (contemporary) exercise of international power. Foucault reminds us that “the exercise of power consists in guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order the possible outcomes” (Foucault, 1982). The system that has steered the global power arrangement since prevailing in the Cold War, the last contest for global power, has done exactly that. The West and particularly the United States has guided the realm of possibilities of the global governance system by providing a series of possible outcomes.
In the absence of a guiding alternative, the period since the Cold War has seen states behave more like federated provinces in a global arrangement than truly sovereign and thus independent entities. The dominance of ascendent Western power has seen to it that nations forego their strategic autonomy so as to benefit from global markets and other privileges of the international order. They have also been kept safe, whether it be direct protection or by being spared incursion. The result is thus that real and soft power has been waged by a determinist apex power which in turn has charged the global environment with a specific set of ideals. Most other states, so as not to encroach upon the superpower, have been determined by (and mostly adopted) an accorded realm of ideas: democracy, human rights, etc.
The world’s states, including South Africa, were shaped by this normative framework of global power. States followed international prescripts. Both assuming a normative framework in their interaction between other states, but tellingly also in the ways that they perceived and enacted their domestic affairs. In so doing, states such as South Africa exercised partial sovereignty.
This short period where national alignment afforded access and benevolence has come to an end. The pressure on European and Asian states away from Russia and China, respectively, and towards the interests of the United States, signals pressure and co-optation as opposed to accommodation. This is not a cold, irrational reaction but partly in response to an outward campaign of attraction (and co-optation) by these very states. Including Russia, China and Iran, states pursuing independent and increasingly active foreign policies.
In toto, these movements signal the end of the singular hegemonic moment. The United States no longer has the means nor the strategic will to charge such an international realm of ideals. This closure clarifies that instead of a period of multilateralism, the recent period has been one of privileged inclusion. Compositely, the world is returning to an unfolding period of (great) power politics.
For states to pursue their national interests, they must autonomously make sense of and articulate these perceptions. They cannot understand their ideas through external concepts or approaches. A perceptive clarity of self – a national identity - is needed. The realist vision of Machiavelli is useful here. He stressed that states and their statesmen should interpret the world as is, rather than how it should be. For a state to, therefore, have a discernible national interest. For it to put its own ideas into action, it must have a discernible identity.
Notwithstanding the dominance of a superpower or multiple vying superpowers, states are the legitimate units of power. The United Nations as the primary arrangement of international power provides states with the exercise of self-interest. Article two of the United Nations Charter clearly sets out that members of the organisation are sovereign equal members. It is thus incumbent upon states to formulate and express their sovereignty, while asserting the mandate of the charter and respecting the sovereignty of others.
While it appears contradictory to contemporary globalist perceptions, multilateralism is not when all states agree or pursue the same approach. Instead, it is when states give expression to their national interests in concert with others. Such a concert of voices has not matured beyond the ritual of the yearly United Nations General Assembly, where most states use a portion of their allotted time to recognise the primacy of the United Nations. It is incumbent on each state to claim its authority and express its own views. The formulation and articulation of its interests are important components of a successful state. It sets out meaning, purpose, orientation and direction. It defines and claims a state’s place among other states. It presents a consolidated expression of self, from which a foreign policy can be built. A state’s national interest thus emerges from its context, both domestic and international.
Towards a working definition of South Africa’s national interest
The realist / idealist axis
From the paragraphs above it emerges that a nation cannot perceive its interests using external logics or paradigms. It must consider the (comprehensive) political reality while giving expression to domestic identity and policy. Van Nieuwkerk, in his 2004 essay South Africa’s National Interest, suggests that the national interest is not sufficiently debated in South Africa. “Adeptness at identifying the national interest and pursuing it in a creative way is part of the challenge of governance and state leadership in the current global arena” (Van Nieuwkerk, 2004: 99). For his part, the author continues the predominant realist approach, suggesting that a state’s national goals should be formulated following thorough consideration of the global strategic environment. To this consideration, one should add the local environment to which we return later.
Context matters to national interests. It is determined by an array of forces and agents. It is therefore not only insufficient but can at times also be detrimental for a state to determine its national interest only based on ideals. Ideals for their ambition seek to shape and not contend with context. In the case of early democratic South Africa, it was fortuitous that its principled Constitutionalism coincided with a world embracing a collective, idealist moment – pursuing liberal democracy guided and protected by the Western order. The end of this moment is a reason to reflect and pivot.
Van Nieuwkerk warns against a purely value-based national interest. Such an ideologically driven approach is said to be insufficient and would manifest in “misperception, or an absence of means-ends calculations, that could lead to costly policy and strategy failures (Ibid: 91) …and that an “overtly pursuing a human rights-based foreign policy is a delicate balancing act at the most of times” (Ibid. 93).
The White Paper on South Africa’s Participation in International Peace Missions, 1998, is one of the first democratic-era documents to offer clarity on how South Africa views its national interest. The document states that “South Africa’s emerging national interest is underpinned by the values enshrined in the Constitution…a commitment to the promotion of human rights; a commitment to the promotion of democracy…” (Department of Foreign Affairs, 1998). This sentimental concept is developed and gives expression to an idealist national interest in a broader domestic and international context of democratisation.
The 2012 White Paper on South Africa’s Foreign Policy presents a national interest that has matured, somewhat. The White Paper foregrounds common humanity, relationship-building and interdependence when it describes South Africa’s foreign policy as a “diplomacy of ubuntu” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2012). Ubuntu is the Southern African maxim of a shared humanity. That one derives one’s existence and place in the world together with others. Or as per the Zulu ubuntu ngumuntu ngabantu: I am because you are. The South African approach to its national interest is collaborative and inclusive. It is pursued cooperatively and through an interdependent arrangement of states. Such an approach does not pursue a (narrow) national interest but a regional, continental and global interest.
The White Paper claims that “it is in our national interest to promote and support the positive development of others” (Ibid: 4). Throughout its democratic era, South Africa has maintained its “national interest as being intrinsically linked to Africa’s stability, unity, and prosperity…(and) accords central importance to our immediate African neighbourhood and continent” (Ibid: 3). Regional or continental anchoring does a few things. First, as Africa’s most industrialised and developed country, South Africa’s continentalism seeks to propel itself through propelling the continent. It does this to recognise the historical debt to African states who supported the liberation movement in the anti-apartheid struggle. It also does this not to isolate, nor to elevate itself and thus assumes continental leadership without enforcing authority.
The ubuntu diplomacy, an expression of internationalism, has seen South Africa steadfastly campaign for the continent on the global stage, whether at multilateral fora such as the United Nations General Assembly or during bilateral engagements with global powers. This diplomatic entrepreneurialism has seen South Africa punch above its weight on the international stage. It has secured some significant victories. It is widely considered that South Africa was brought into the BRICS arrangement of states as a continental representative.
South Africa’s humanist, ubuntu diplomacy has given expression to the predominant global idealism. Its outward focus – promoting global ideals – has contributed to the substantiation of modern internationalism. The 2012 White Paper suggests that “since 1994, the international community has looked to South Africa to play a leading role in championing values of human rights, democracy, reconciliation and the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment. South Africa has risen to the challenge and plays a meaningful role in the region, on the continent and globally” (Ibid: 4). South Africa’s idealist foreign policy has actively sought to sustain and strengthen the multilateral system; by aligning and building this arrangement it advances itself.
While there may be secondary value in integrating its interests to that of a broader arrangement that supports the same ideals, a state must first be able to hold its own when the global arrangement breaks down. Recently, the increasing discord among great powers has exposed significant weaknesses in the global governance arrangement. This is best seen with the failures of the United Nations Security Council seize or prevent blatant atrocities, whether in Ukraine, Palestine and elsewhere. Power leveraging is here to stay, it will only become more recalcitrant. States with an idealist approach and no realist reinforcement will remain circumscribed going forward.
The strategic approach of the new British government proposes the use of real means to advance progressive ends. This presents a compelling path to advance national interests in the contemporary setting. “Instead of realism for transactional purposes”, the thinking goes, “we want to use it in the service of progressive goals…it is the pursuit of ideals without delusions about what is achievable…Progressive realism is not only defined by the policies we espouse, but by the approach we take to diplomacy” (Lammy, 2024). South Africa’s new government should take heed of this strategic calculation: pursuing a progressive policy with realist considerations. We return to this later.
The domestic / international axis
The 2012 White Paper makes a poignant observation. It states that foreign policy should take “into account the ever-evolving global environment in which we operate in order to respond effectively to our domestic imperatives. Effective policy development is essential for the survival and prosperity of any country in the global system” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2012: 7). Though recognising the strategic importance of the domestic reality, the White Paper submits that South Africa will persist in its pursuit of a global order. Here it says that South Africa will push “towards the transformation of the global system of governance from power-based to a rules-based system in a just and equitable global order” (Ibid).
At the time of writing such an approach might have appeared as self-evident. This narrow view, held since democratic inception, responded to a singular global reality with a similarly singular approach. But by entrenching itself in a definite gauge, it neglected the strategic necessity of first attending to the domestic political environment: a state cannot only pursue its domestic ends through foreign policy.
When articulating a state’s national interest, it is unwise to rest on moral authority (soft power) to make environmental assumptions. Accordingly, it is unwise to pursue a steadfast approach in a changing global arrangement. The same holds for the domestic strategic environment. It is foolhardy to suppose that South African state will pursue people-centred development simply because the Constitution says so. The seismic decay and rampant corruption that enveloped the state in the years since 2012 proves that any policy orientation needs critical and constant consideration.
The latest expression of the national interest is found in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s Framework Document on South Africa’s National Interest and its advancement in a Global Environment, 2022. This document, which has its orientation established in its name, goes some way to offer a more nuanced, subjective approach in a vastly changed global and domestic environment.
The Framework Document which is a departmental and not a government-wide guide proposes the South African national interest be “premised on the values and ideals as enshrined in its Constitution and informed by the needs of the people” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2022: 1). It integrated ideals and needs when it recognises the three principles of inclusiveness, exclusiveness and external relevance.
“The inclusiveness principle suggests that the claim should concern the nation as a whole, or at least a substantial enough subset of its membership to transcend the specific interests of groups and factions. The exclusiveness principle refers to a state seeking the National Interest when it is not concerned with the interests of any groups outside its jurisdiction, except to the extent that it may affect “domestic interests”. This implies that the interests being pursued should at all times be related to the interests at home and not those of any group outside its jurisdiction or territorial control. According to the external relevance principle, the needs in question should significantly be affected by the international environment and, consequently, by the conduct of foreign affairs” (Ibid: 4).
The Framework goes some way reconcile the national and international through pragmatic, not only ideological, considerations. It does this when it says that “national interest is a sub-set of the public interest that is affected by external politics” (Ibid). The domestic should guide the foreign. The Framework presents an evolved perception beyond aligning to international norms to advance domestic interests. Tellingly, it extends beyond the idealist view when it refers to the views of George Kennan, the arch American realist, who proposed that states should not pursue moral considerations but tangible interests.
While the Framework is more comprehensive, what is needed is a guideline where strengths are activated to give pragmatic expression to the national interest. South Africa’s ‘soft power’ execution, what the Framework calls ‘principled diplomacy’, is often limited to the policy practitioners charged with “restoring and maintaining South Africa’s image, stature, moral high ground and standing in the region, the continent and in global affairs” (Ibid: 8). Towards the end of the Framework, it makes a compelling point without developing it. It says that the “presence of civil society organisations in international affairs has become increasingly relevant. They have played a role in agenda-setting, international law-making and diplomacy and can be important voices in support of South Africa’s development agenda. Civil society, particularly its large grassroots coverage, plays an importance role in the implementation and monitoring of a number of crucial global issues” (Ibid: 19). For South Africa to connect its four axes and comprehensively pursue its national interests, it should pragmatically leverage its true potential: its human capital.
Recommendations for a South African national interest that is both people-centred and pragmatic
South Africa’s seventh administration represents a new political era which requires a concomitant new approach to national interests. The 2022 Framework advocates for as much when it says: “a review of the National Interest is therefore usually linked to the ending of a particular historical era and the beginning of another” (Ibid 5). As the new administration charts its path, it is crucial that an appropriate and strategic national interest path is charted.
The new South African government must strategically charge the orientation and pursuit of the national interest with the same cooperative and pragmatic intent as shown in the Statement of Intent which guided the establishment of the Government of National Unity. As the British are doing with their interpretation of progressive realism, South Africa should develop its own. Giving expression to both realism and idealism, in both domestic and international considerations. South Africa’s national interest should follow the spirit of the national Constitution. It should both protect (rights) and command (responsibilities) public officials and citizens to give expression to ideals it pursues.
This position has already gained initial conceptual meaning. The new minister of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola, has indicated that South Africa will pursue its own version of active idealism. In a speech to the South African Institute of International Affairs, Lamola said: “the evolving international world order necessitates the strengthening of the Non-Aligned Movement. South Africa, with its unique policy of active non-alignment, is not reactive but proactive in its pursuit of peace. This approach is not about being neutral or abstaining from world affairs, but about leading a unifying agenda through dialogue to achieve peace for developing countries that do not wish to take sides in great power rivalry” (South African Institute of International Affairs, 2024).
Whereas active non-alignment presents a real and ideal response to a fraught global political environment, it does not yet give expression to South Africa’s domestic concerns. To do so, the anarchic global reality and the lawed local reality should be read together so to give appropriate responses.
South Africa’s principled diplomacy of ubuntu and non-alignment does not represent the coercive assertion of power over, but rather that of a cooperative power with others. Such a formulation of power is not imposed but exalted, claimed. While the state should formulate and guide this pursuit, it is strategically expedient to extend responsibility to as a diverse and inclusive a constituency as possible. The people, the citizens of South Africa, and those committed to its ethos, have a central role in fulfilling the Constitutional ambitions. They are the means of South African power. The means of pursuing the ends of the state. To build a transformed and developmental state. Such an inclusive perception of power is not only progressive and pragmatic, but also fundamentally human-centred. It brings the pursuit of the national interest into the home of the individual citizen. With the national interest emerging from context, there is no more immediate context than the home of the citizen.
The 2012 White Paper alludes to the central and participatory role of the diversity of South Africa’s people (and its ethical allies). It remarks that: “The business of national interest cannot be the purview of the state alone, but it can encourage an enabling environment of dialogue and discourse among all stakeholders to interrogate policies and strategies, and their application in the best interests of the people” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2012).
Greater effort needs to be made to bring the national interest into the daily lives of the people. For South Africa to expediently pursue its strategic ambitions of ‘power with’, it must be clarified how citizens can best give expression to ideals and thus pursue interests. For this, the state requires representatives who are skilled in drafting, communicating and executing people-centred strategic frameworks. Such a process should not be ad hoc or issue specific. Instead, a national interest strategic framework should be initiated, and a national interest framework document should be formulated at the beginning of each new administration, so to facilitate expedient expression.
A national interest framework document can take inspiration from the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States. The NSS has since 1987 been a regular report. Prepared by the executive and mandated by an act of Congress. The NSS communicates the executive’s national view of and approach to power to the legislative branch. The report “is obligated to include a discussion of the United States’ international interests, commitments, and policies, along with defence capabilities necessary to deter threats and implement U.S. security plans” (Office of the Secretary of Defense, United States of America, nd.). Whereas South Africa is not the United States and does not have a similar a focus on defence matters, it should develop its own framework document to discern the strategic environment and give political effect to the nation’s interests.
Like the NSS, the South Africa’s strategic framework document should: “communicate the executive’s strategic vision”; “create internal consensus on foreign and defense policy”; and “contribute to the overall agenda of the President” (Snider, 1995).
In the South African case, a national interest framework document would give expression not to defence (hard power or power over), but to ubuntu (soft power or power with). The nation’s goals will be served by a pragmatic, human-centred approach, guided by values. Here it should be pointed out that these goals may be served in various ways and means, and that those serving the domestic, may be different and pursued differently to those serving international interests. It is the political environment that determines the ways and means; a value-based approach will not always suffice, may even be exclusionary, especially in the anarchic and increasingly fraught international arena where self-interest may be expedient.
It is important, in the South African spirit of discursive democracy, that the framework documents be debated and enacted by a wide cross-section of society. They need to be people-centred, forward looking and pragmatic. In the spirit of the Statement of Intent, the national interest framework document should respond to the current political juncture and thus the present needs of the state. The Statement which convenes the divergent parties in government recognises and commits to specific causes. Thus, giving it direction; to “ensure accountability and foster trust between the electorate and the political parties that form part of the GNU”. By listing a “basic minimum programme of priorities” and by defining “the modalities of government of national unity” (African National Congress, 2024) it defines the collective understanding and thus the strategic pursuit of government.
A national interest framework document would afford similar clarity. At its most profound and yet at its most foundational, such a framework document would marshal resources and offer direction by describing an example. The 2012 White Paper points in this direction in its prescient conclusion: “South Africa’s greatest asset lies in the power of its example. In an uncertain world, characterised by a competition of values, South Africa’s diplomacy of Ubuntu, focusing on our common humanity, provides an inclusive and constructive world view to shape the evolving global order” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2012). The ultimate task of a strategic framework document would be to lead the state and its citizens in their discharge of their Constitutional charges. To reveal to them, as the assets (means) of the state, how to enact principled (ubuntu) diplomacy and active non-alignment. This expression of power is not only expedient in the context of South Africa’s assets but will increasingly be valuable in an evolving world defined by asymmetry, fluidity and relationships.
Conclusion
A regular strategic framework document would take stock of the domestic and international political realities at the commencement of each administration. In doing so it will give persuasive expression to the ideas of the state.
The 2022 National Interest Framework Document already provides some direction when it says that national interest can be “articulated as people-centred, including promoting the well-being, development and upliftment of people” (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, 2022: 8). By describing the domestic and international situation through the eyes of the Constitutional state, it will contextualise and demystify a complex global and local environment. It will give needed expression of the South African identity and by doing so it would collaboratively charge the state and its citizenry with purpose and direction.
References
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This report has been published by the Inclusive Society Institute
The Inclusive Society Institute (ISI) is an autonomous and independent institution that functions independently from any other entity. It is founded for the purpose of supporting and further deepening multi-party democracy. The ISI’s work is motivated by its desire to achieve non-racialism, non-sexism, social justice and cohesion, economic development and equality in South Africa, through a value system that embodies the social and national democratic principles associated with a developmental state. It recognises that a well-functioning democracy requires well-functioning political formations that are suitably equipped and capacitated. It further acknowledges that South Africa is inextricably linked to the ever transforming and interdependent global world, which necessitates international and multilateral cooperation. As such, the ISI also seeks to achieve its ideals at a global level through cooperation with like-minded parties and organs of civil society who share its basic values. In South Africa, ISI’s ideological positioning is aligned with that of the current ruling party and others in broader society with similar ideals.
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