Balancing Act: South Africa’s Foreign Policy, Peacebuilding and SDG 16 in an Era of Renewed Unilateralism

Abstract

South Africa has established a post-apartheid foreign policy based on the principles of peace, justice, and inclusive governance, positioning itself as a supporter of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). However, renewed unilateralism in global politics, intensified by the return of a second Trump administration, is weakening multilateral institutions and placing greater pressure on middle powers to choose between normative commitments and strategic interests. This article examines how South Africa manages this dilemma by drawing on constructivism, middle power theory, and the English School to explain how identity, international norms, and strategic interests shape foreign policy behaviour. These insights inform a 2×2 scenario planning framework in which normative commitment and strategic interest alignment operate as independent variables and
the resulting scenario functions as the dependent variable. The framework is applied to three case studies: the 2014 Lesotho mediation, the 2013 Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Africa’s voting behaviour in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. The analysis finds that South Africa most often occupies the values-interests dilemma quadrant, where normative commitments are maintained rhetorically but weakened in practice by geopolitical and economic pressures. The article concludes that South Africa must recalibrate its diplomacy to remain strategically adaptive while preserving its credibility on SDG 16 in an increasingly divided international order.