Background
South Africa became a member of the United Nations (UN) on 7 November 1945. Although it was never expelled from the organisation for its apartheid policies (the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), and France vetoed any resolutions with this purpose in mind), it was denied voting rights in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) from 1974 until 1994 (Hamill and Spence 1997, pp. 225–7). The new South Africa was welcomed back to full participation in the UN by the Assembly on 23 June 1994. On this occasion, the country’s first Executive Deputy President Thabo Mbeki expressed South Africa’s position as the following: ‘South Africa can be counted on to adhere to the pursuit of important goals of international peace and security and is committed to being a good citizen of the world’ (UN Chronicle 1994, p. 4).
In 1994, the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party in South Africa’s new government, stated that:
the changing nature of global society has increased the importance of the UN in the search for peace … has improved the prospects for multilateralism … and has underlined the necessity for South Africa to approach many international questions from a common perspective: judicious multilateral diplomacy will enhance South Africa’s international standing. (ANC 1994)
Indeed, since 1994 South Africa has, in its diplomatic efforts, attempted to represent the country as a ‘voice of reason in world affairs’ (Landsberg 2004, p. 185). In accordance with this promise South Africa has fully participated in and contributed to international organisations (IGOs), treaties, and conventions concerned with global policies (Permanent Mission of South Africa to the United Nations 2015). South African foreign policymakers have remained convinced that the ‘multilateral system of global governance is the best hope for the challenges that face humanity’ (South Africa—The Good News, 17 October 2006). The South African government stresses, in particular, support for the UN as the most important facilitator of international peace and security (Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Annual Report 2002/03 2003, p. 26). Many others have adopted a similar stance since, in the absence of an alternate world body, the UN is the central site for multilateral diplomacy, and the UNGA is at centre stage (Karns and Mingst 2004, p. 97). Aspects of foreign policy and voting in the UNGA are closely related (Rai 1972, p. 589) and it is with this in mind that post-apartheid South Africa has ‘deliberately sought to play in the premier league of world affairs’ (Landsberg 2004, p. 185).
In 1999 Deputy Director-General for Africa (in the DFA), Welile Nhlapho (quoted by Dludlu in Financial Times, 20 September 1999), declared that the South African government understood the need to focus its policies to ensure their effectiveness and that ‘people must know where we stand in terms of our track record and there must be a systematic way in which we engage in foreign policy matters’. Seven years later, on 16 October, for the first time in history, South Africa was chosen by 186 states to represent Africa’s regional grouping and take up a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC). It would hold this seat from January 2007 to December 2008. This development enabled South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to declare the country’s ‘readiness to serve the peoples of Africa and the world’ (BBC News, 17 October 2006).
With the above statements in mind, however, South Africa’s voting activities in the UNSC left its ‘admirers slack-jawed’ as to the ‘apparent incongruity of its positions’ (The New York Times, 23 March 2007a). The Washington Post (12 May 2008a) and (28 May 2008b) as well as Habib (2009, p. 143) expressed similar views. In January 2007 the international community looked on in stunned bemusement as South Africa sided with China and Russia to crush a mild UNSC resolution demanding an end to political repression and human rights violations in the military-ruled Myanmar (Neuer 2007).
Several suggestions concerning the reasons behind South Africa’s unexpected vote exist. Perhaps the country was building up its strategic relationship with China (which backed the dictatorship in Myanmar), or it was merely ‘testing’ its political clout. Perhaps South Africa was indirectly trying to take a stand for the Global South by challenging the permanent three, and Global North members, the US, UK, and France. Perhaps most worrying of all was the perception that South Africa’s leadership was undecided over the purpose behind its foreign policy.
The question raised by observers and analysts with regard to South Africa’s voting behaviour in its first term on the UNSC is: Why? South Africa’s voting in the UN has only lately attracted media attention; previously (since 1994) this has not been the case (Mail & Guardian Online, 19 January 2007a; The Economist, 17 February 2007). Does this imply therefore that South Africa has always voted ‘respectably’ in the past (since 1994)? This book intends to answer these questions and others set out below.
The Purpose of This Book
The primary intention of this book is to place on record democratic South Africa’s UN voting data, systematically by theme over the first 20 years of its democracy (1994–2014), and to investigate consistency in terms of South Africa’s declared foreign policy and its actual voting practices at the UN. It does so by asking: is there a rationale behind South Africa’s voting behaviour in the UN?; does South Africa consistently take the moral high ground when casting each vote?; has South Africa always voted ‘respectably’ since 1994?; is there congruity between South Africa’s declared foreign policy and its UN voting behaviour?, and, finally, does South Africa take the middle road or align with others in its voting record—perhaps in the developing world?
During the 1990s the number of resolutions in the UNGA averaged 328 annually (Karns and Mingst 2004, pp. 109–10). Based on this average a possible 6560 resolutions, and related votes, would need to be examined over the 20-year period. This would be a close-to-impossible task considering how time-consuming such an endeavour would be. Therefore specific attention will be paid to the most important areas in South African foreign policy in the context of the UN. These areas are laid out in Chap. 2 in the form of themes.
It is important to examine how South Africa votes in the UN because, according to some, in politics ‘perception is reality’ (Wheeler 2007, p. 3) and South Africa’s reputation internationally and domestically is dependent on how it is perceived and perceives itself regionally, on the continent and internationally. South Africa’s re-emergence into the family of the UN brought with it serious obligations and expectations. If South Africa aims to assume a permanent position in the UNSC one day then its history of voting, the congruity—or lack thereof—in its foreign policy positions, its alignments, and controversies will all play a part in its potential to become a standing global player within this institution.
As mentioned previously, it would be near impossible to record and analyse South Africa’s voting behaviour since 1994 in its entirety, at least for the purposes of a single book. However, this venture should not be excluded from future research enquiry. Nevertheless, the specific issues under review in this study remain strategically important to South Africa’s foreign policy actions within multilateral institutions, in this case the UN, and therefore deserve such in-depth attention.
Analytical Framework
Selected aspects of foreign policy analysis and multilateral diplomacy within the IGO context, specifically voting behaviour of states, form the core theoretical framework of this book. The framework draws on fundamental strands from these areas, making use of elements of rationalism (neorealist and neoliberal) and constructivism. Due to space constraints it is important to note that this book examines a specific area of South African foreign policy implementation, in particular its voting behaviour in the UN, and not the actual foreign policymaking process preceding implementation.
As regards a state’s foreign policy in practice (at the UN specifically for this study), particularly useful are the three areas of interest highlighted by Breuning (2007, pp. 7–8): decisions, behaviours, and outcomes. Examining foreign policy decisions involve learning why a particular foreign policy option was chosen—that is, what objectives guided a state’s foreign policy. The foreign policy behaviour is the acting out of a decision or, as Hudson (2008, p. 12) defines it, the ‘observable artefacts of foreign policy … specific actions and words used to influence others in the realm of foreign policy’. A foreign policy outcome indicates the ‘end result of a state’s foreign policy in interaction with the foreign policy behaviour of other states’ (Breuning 2007, p. 8).
Analysing consistency in foreign policy behaviour is decidedly normative and descriptive. It is necessary to acknowledge that there are many instances in international relations where a state’s foreign policy and its actions have been wholly inconsistent for various reasons. As argued by March and Olsen (1998, p. 944):
individual states are imagined to act rationally in the service of coherent goals … to seek understandings that are mutually satisfactory and to use all available resources to maximise the attainment of separate national objectives. Such attainment is limited primarily not by explicit rules regulating international encounters but by the simultaneous competitive efforts of other states to maximise their own objectives.
Although a state’s national interests may remain consistent, ‘the circumstances to which they must react are not’ and so many ‘countries make up their foreign policy as they go along’ (Mayall quoted by Spence, in Nathan 2005, pp. 361–2). Additionally, those
who look for coherence and consistency in a well-structured foreign policy underestimate contingent and unforeseen factors and the developments and forces that lie outside the control of even the most skilful bureaucracy and political class. (Spence quoted in Nathan 2005, p. 361)
Nevertheless, in order for foreign policy to be convincing, it must have a rationale and ‘it must have consistent objectives and a global pattern of implementation’ (Rockefeller in Vital Speeches of the Day, 15 June 1980). State behaviour also involves more than actions: it reflects ‘an ongoing set of practices that both restrict and comprise norms and interests’ (Mills and Lott 2007, p. 517).
Considering the above, this book defines consistency as recurring patterns demonstrating a link between foreign policy declarations a...