Leading By Example?
South African Foreign Policyand Global Environmental Politics
Carl Death
Abstract
Global environmental politics is emerging as a key field for South African diplomacy and foreign policy, in which Pretoria is endeavouring to lead by example. Environmental summits and conferences such as Johannesburg (2002) and Copenhagen (2009) have been crucial stages for the performance of this role as an environmental leader, and in December 2011 Durban will host the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). There are also signs from within policy-making circles that ‘the environment’ is seen as a field in which some of the lustre of South Africa’s post-1994 international high moral standing could be recovered. However, tensions remain between South Africa’s performance and rhetoric on the global stage, and domestic development paths which continue to be environmentally unsustainable. The article concludes by suggesting that whilst the visibility and prominence of South Africa as an actor in global environmental politics is likely to grow, it remains doubtful whether this represents a sustained and committed new direction in South African foreign policy.
Keywords:climate change, sustainable development, diplomacy, summitry, foreign policy,nation-branding, South Africa
Convincing leadership in global environmental politics is currently remarkable by its absence. In the space leftvacant by the failure of the USA, and increasingly the EU, to provide meaningful or inspirational leadership on environmental issues, other state and non-state actors are repositioning themselves. One of the few clear outcomes of the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Copenhagen in December 2009 meeting was the emergence of Brazil, China, India and South Africa as key players in climate change debates.[1]Developing countries have also taken the lead on other environmental issues such as conservation and deforestation. Such trends belie the tendency in much of the literature on global environmental politics to look for leadership from the so-called developed states.[2]In this article I considerthe increasing salience of global environmental issues for South African foreign policy and diplomacy since 2002, and argue that ‘the environment’ represents a field in which South Africa is attempting to exert political leadership. This was evident at the Johannesburg UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, at the Copenhagen COP15 meeting in 2009, and in the decision to award the COP17 meeting in December 2011 to South Africa and the city of Durban. It is necessary, however, to critically explore the foundations of this emergent leadership, particularly in terms of the direction of South Africa’s domestic environmental policies. In the light of which,I argue that whilst it seems likely that South Africa will be an increasingly visible and significant actor in global environmental politics, current South African leadership is based upon a form of symbolic and opportunistic politics –leadership by example – whichrests on unsure foundations. Turning this potential into effective global leadership on environmental issues will require the development of a much more sustained and coherent environmental policy, as well as serious reconsideration of other areas of economic and development policy.
The following section contextualisesthis argument by examining some of the recent theoretical debates over the nature and drivers of South African foreign policy, as well asthe ways in which leadership has usually been conceptualised within global environmental politics. The article then proceeds by examining key manifestations of South Africa’s emerging environmental leadership, focussing on summits and high-level conferences such as Johannesburg (2002), Copenhagen (2009), and Durban (2011). The prominence of such meetings in South African environmental policy indicates the rationality of leadership by example on which South African diplomacyappears to be based.These summits are then considered in the light of the evolution of South African environmental and climate change policies, notingsome of the critiques and contradictions of their domestic stance. I conclude by arguing that the underlying rationality upon which South African environmental leadership is based is an exemplary but rather opportunistic one – in contrast to more sustained and deep-rooted forms of political leadership. If South Africa is going to exercise significant environmental leadership on global issues like climate change it will require more radical commitments to sustainability, and thorough-going institutional and policy reforms.
Theorising South African foreign policy and environmental leadership
South Africa is an important case for debates on foreign policy because of the saliency of questions regarding the possibility and effectiveness of an ethical approachto international relations. Under apartheid South African relations with the outside world were marked by increasing isolation from international institutions; a stance of defensive suspicion toward, or active destabilisation of, African neighbours; and diplomatic and discursive pressure from the anti-apartheid movement’s mobilisation of global public opinion.[3] It was therefore a signal of the considerable transformations taking place in the country when the ANC set out a vision of a future South African foreign policy defined around the pursuit and defence of democracy and human rights. In an article in Foreign Policy in 1993 Nelson Mandela argued that the time had come for ‘South Africa to take up its rightful and responsible place in the community of nations’, and proposed an ethical attitude to foreign affairs that would constitute ‘our own positive contribution to peace, prosperity and goodwill in the world’.[4]
After 1994 the new democratic government actively sought to reintegrate itself into international society. It was ‘the only child of the new order’ proclaimed by Ronald Reagan in 1990, and for many South Africa’s transformation symbolised the hopes of a new post-Cold War order of democracy, non-racialism, and human rights.[5]South Africa hosted a number of major international conferences, including the ninth UN Conference on Trade and Development in 1996, the twelfth Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 1999, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances in 2001, and the World Parks Congress in 2003.[6]It was noted that hosting summits was becoming ‘a very visible feature of South African diplomacy’, a feature which would become a central element of future environmental diplomacy.[7]South Africa also chaired the Commonwealth from 2000-2001, the Non-Aligned Movement from 1996-2000, and the African Union (which replaced the Organisation of African Unity) in 2002.Itwas welcomed back into the UN as the prodigal child returned, and lauded for its proactive multilateralism, public and voluntary renunciation of nuclear weapons, and its domestic achievements since 1994.[8] This process of reintegration culminated in 2007 with their election to a temporary seat on the Security Council. As such, South African foreign policy in this period constituted part of President Thabo Mbeki’s broader vision of an ‘African Renaissance’,[9] in which South Africa would play a key role as a bridge between the global North and South, and ‘as a resolver of conflict and deliverer of hope in Africa, and perhaps beyond’.[10]
Some of this international lustre and high moral standing of the 1990s has been dimmed by the inevitable compromises, contradictions, and complications of post-apartheid South African politics. In particular analysts have pointed to the visibly declining prominence of human rights and democracy as foreign policy principles, particularly in light of South Africa’s cooperation with China and Russia to prevent Security Councilresolutions condemning and imposing sanctions on the Burmese regime, as well as opposition to resolutions condemning Iran’s nuclear weapons programme and the use of rape as a political and military weapon.[11] The protracted crisis in Zimbabwe and the failure of South African ‘quiet diplomacy’, the Mbeki government’s disastrous and globally humiliating stance on HIV/Aids, and the political and legal difficulties faced by President Jacob Zuma have all further diminished the high moral standing the country enjoyed in the immediate post-apartheid period.[12]For some realist commentators, ironically,this transition to a more prosaic and hard-headed foreign policy has been welcomedin contrast to the ‘attention-grabbing universalism’ of the Mandela-era.[13]Looking ahead in 2008 to the transition in the Presidency from Mbeki to Jacob Zuma, via Kgalema Motlanthe, Elizabeth Sidiropoulos observed that the ‘new 2009 government will no longer be perceived as the favoured returnee to theinternational community’, and as such will be returned to the ranks of the ‘normal’, rather than exceptional, members of international society.[14]
South African foreign policy since 1994 has therefore been criticisedby idealists for compromising early commitments to human rights and democracy, as well by realists who have lambasted its ambiguities and contradictions, and the lack of clarity regarding the national interest. During the 1990s, for example, there were allegations that policy was being driven by the public statements of President Nelson Mandela, rather than vice versa.[15] Explanations of these contradictions, ambiguities and oscillations have focussed on a number of factors, such as the competing influences of a wide array of actors and institutions on the formulation of foreign policy;supposed clashes between ANC internationalism and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) realism;and South Africa’s structural position as an emerging or middle power straddling the developed and developing worlds, speaking alternately to the rest of the African continent, other emerging powers like Brazil and India, and major allies such as the USA.[16]
In contrast, what could be broadly termed constructivist perspectives have emphasised the mutually constitutive role of the domestic and international realms, and the centrality of national identity construction in South African foreign policy since 1994. Rather than critiquing the ambiguities and contradictions between realist and idealist foreign policy stances, authors such as Olivier Serrão and Paul-Henri Bischoff have argued that South Africa’s post-1994 foreign policy should be seen as the working out of a national identity which is itself deeply contested, and under construction.[17] From this perspective foreign policy statements and actions – such as Mandela’s vision of an ethical foreign policy based around promoting democracy and human rights in 1993 – should not be regarded as a promotion of an actually existing national interest, but rather as an attempt to re-imagineSouth African national identity at a time when the very foundation of the South African state was under negotiation.
Such perspectives entail an expanded conception of the nature of power in international relations. Power has tended to be seen by realists in terms of the ability of states –particularly global or regional hegemons – to persuade or coerce other states into particular courses of action.[18]In these terms South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy has usually beeninterpreted as either that of a middle power mediating between and balancing the great powers,[19] or as a regional hegemon able to dictate (at least to some extent) continental and Southern African positions on a range of issues from global governance to climate change.[20] These perspectives rest upon what Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall have termed ‘institutional’ and ‘compulsory’ forms of power relation in international politics, the former in which actors control or steer the conduct of other actors through a variety of formal and informal institutions (such as norms or regimes), and the latter, following Dahl, being ‘the ability of A to get B to do what B otherwise would not do’.[21]
Barnett and Duvall argue, however, that power in international politics is not exhausted by these forms, and also consists of ‘structural’ and ‘productive’ power relations, in which ‘power worksthrough social relations that analytically precede the social or subject positions ofactors and that constitute them as social beings with their respective capacitiesand interests’.[22]Productive forms of power are particularly relevant to the ways in which foreign policy has played a constitutive role in the broader shaping and reshaping of South African national identity. Such perspectives also allow for a fuller conception of the nature of leadership in international politics. Rather than leading by compelling other states to adopt particular courses of action, institutional arrangements, or normative values, leadership can also be conceived in more productive and discursive terms.
Leadership in global environmental politics has been most usually conceptualised in terms of regime formation. According to Oran Young, ‘[a]leader in this context is an actor who, desiring to see a regime emerge and realising that imposition is not feasible, undertakes to craft attractive institutional arrangements and to persuade others to come on board as supporters of such arrangements’.[23]For Karlsson et al this is described as ‘structural leadership’, in contrast to ‘directional leadership’ which encompasses unilateral action or leading by example, and ‘idea-based leadership’ which denotes problem framing and norm promotion.[24]South Africa’s promotion of human rights and democracy in the mid-1990s, or the public renunciation of nuclear weapons prior to the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty extension negotiations,for example, has frequently beeninterpreted in terms of the literature on norm entrepreneurs, where leaders ‘attempt to convince a critical mass of states(norm leaders) to embrace new norms’.[25]Indeed South Africa has consistently sought to project itself as a leader of the developing world and Africa, albeit with varying and limited degrees of success.[26]
In the field of environmental diplomacy, however, South Africa has not been particularly effective either in terms of power over other states, or in terms of regime building or norm entrepreneurship. Rather, South African diplomacy has relied upon their preferredrole as a mediator between the global North and South, and their symbolic and inspirational reiterated performance of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ identity. For example, in the UNFCCC negotiations it has been observed that ‘South Africa was an active participant in the talks and a recognised bridge-builder with a well-regarded negotiations team’.[27]This role has been particularly evident at major international summits and conferences, and a major platform of South African diplomacy has been, as Cornelissen notes, ‘using key UN events or conferences to raise its stature and to mark foreign policy priorities’.[28] Such events reveal the prevalence of forms of productive power, and the re-branding of national identity. The rise of ‘Brand South Africa’ at such international mega-events is symptomatic of broader trends in international politics, in which nations are increasingly seeking to utilise public relations and marketing forms of knowledge to position themselves in a global marketplace.[29]This literature on ‘brand states’, to use Peter van Ham’s phrase,captures many of the post-1994 developments in South African foreign policy, and highlights the close interrelationship between foreign policy and national identity formation.[30]The transition from international pariah to celebrated returnee is a clear example of highly successful international re-branding, drawing upon widespread media attention and praise for South Africa’s transition and democratisation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a vibrant economy and tourism sector, the successful hosting of major sporting events, and strong tradition of cultural exports.[31] Such re-branding successes do not occur by accident, and in August 2002 South Africa established an International Marketing Council(IMC) to ‘help create a positive and compelling brand image for South Africa’.[32] According to the most prominent index of nation-brands, the Anholt brand value survey, ‘Brand South Africa is worth well over half a trillion rand’,[33] and Nelson Mandela was reported to be ‘the world’s second-most recognised “brand” after Coca-Cola’.[34]
While this literature focuses mainly on the commercial and economic dimensions of branding,[35] South Africa’s evolving foreign policy has drawn upon the political and performative dimensions of international branding. The importance of theatrical forms and techniques – from staging to rhetoric, plot to characterisation – in diplomacy and foreign policy is well known, and as van Ham points out, ‘to do their jobs well in the future, politicians will have to train themselves in brand asset management’.[36]Major global summits and conferences – such as Johannesburg in 2002, Copenhagen in 2009 and Durban in 2011 – are significant sites of nation-branding, and for performing a particular national identity.[37] Moreover, environmental politics is a powerful field for the performance and branding of national identity for a country such as South Africa, where the landscape, flora and fauna are important elements of the national imagination, and to international perceptions of the country.[38] The form of leadership by example that South Africa has tried to perform at these global mega-conferences therefore includes both ‘directional’ and ‘idea-based’ forms of leadership, both unilateral initiatives and consensus building.[39]
The following sections of this article explore how environmental issues have figured in South African attempts to re-brand a national identity as an exemplary leader in environmental politics, asa ‘negotiating capital of the world’[40] and a ‘custodian of sustainable development’.[41] These forms of leadership are not best conceptualised as examples of compulsory, institutional or structural power, but rather as forms of productive power involving the contestation and constitution of South African national identity in the ongoing project of redefining the ‘Rainbow Nation’ in a global context.
South Africa and global environmental politics
Whilst environmental issues have rarely taken centre stage in foreign policy circles, it is significant that the environment and the landscape are powerful cultural and political motifs in South Africa. There is a deep-seated attachment to the land, the soil, the open veldt, the bush, the mountains and the sea in the South African national imagination.[42] A particular Afrikaner outdoor masculinity, the tourism value of the country’s national parks and iconic sites like Table Mountain, and what might be termed an African humanist attachment to the land (and its dispossession), have all come together to render ‘the environment’ a potentially nodal concept in South African national branding. It was no accident that Thabo Mbeki’s iconicI am an African speech began by asserting ‘I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land’.[43]