Author: Chris Landsberg.

SOUTH AFRICA IS NOT A “ CHOICELESS DEMOCRACY” (MKANDAWIRE, 1999: 2); it is not a donor-driven democracy. It is a middle-ranked power in Africa, imbued with a vibrant political democracy, and it has been able for more than a decade now to punch above its weight, suggesting that it has been able to influence world affairs in a way few countries with its relative strength and size have been able to. But South Africa is never­ theless a democracy under severe socioeconomic stress. The republic faces significant development challenges—poverty, inequality, jobless­ ness, and unemployment. Many of these challenges continue to run along race lines. South Africa has over the past decade asserted itself as an African state, an African power, which makes African renewal and African development as the key priority of its foreign policy. The broader African condition depicts much of the same charac­ teristics of poverty and inequality as that of South Africa; it includes considerable conflict and wars in many parts of the continent. South Africa’s domestic and foreign policies continue to be under severe pressure to address the country’s and Africa’s vast development chal­ lenges, caused in the main by centuries of white supremacy and social research