Regional hegemon or regional bystander: South Africa's Zimbabwe policy 2000-2005

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Periodical article

Title:	Regional hegemon or regional bystander: South Africa's Zimbabwe policy 2000-2005
Author:	Prys, Miriam
Year:	2009
Periodical:	Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies (ISSN 0258-9346)
Volume:	36
Issue:	2
Pages:	193-218
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Zimbabwe
Subjects:	foreign policy regionalism
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589340903240138
Abstract:	South Africa's 'quiet diplomacy' has often been used to reject the notion of South African leadership or regional hegemony in Southern Africa. This article finds that this evaluation is founded on a misguided understanding of regional hegemony, which is based on conventional hegemony theories that are mostly derived from the experiences of the global role of the United States after World War II. Instead, the article uses a concept of hegemony that, for example, takes into account the 'regionality' of South Africa's hegemony, which allows both external actors to impact on regional relations and South Africa to pursue its foreign policy goals on the global level of international politics. This procedure helps to systemically analyse South Africa's foreign policy in the Zimbabwean crisis and to integrate it better into the broader framework of its regional and global ambitions. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]