Ubuntu diplomacy: Broadening soft power in an African context

• Author: Christopher Isike,Dikeledi Madise
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2097

ACADEMIC PAPER

Ubuntu diplomacy: Broadening soft power in an African

context

Dikeledi Madise | Christopher Isike

Department of Political Sciences, University of

Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Correspondence

Dikeledi Madise, Department of Political

Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria,

South Africa.

Email: deekaymadise@gmail.com

Ubuntu is an African philosophical worldview that has increasingly gained promi-

nence since South Africa's democratic transition in 1994. It places emphasis on the

world's common humanity and its consequent interdependence. Through content

analysis, the article examines the soft power that is inherent in South Africa's foreign

policy, as codified in the 2011 White Paper on South African Foreign Policy–Building a

Better World: Diplomacy of Ubuntu. In its findings, the article established a distinction

between Joseph Nye's original conceptualization of soft power, formulated from a

United States realist foreign policy perspective, and the one inherent in

South Africa's humanist foreign policy guided by the philosophy of Ubuntu. This dis-

tinction is premised on the geopolitical disparities between the two nations. The arti-

cle further examines South Africa's wielding of soft power within the African

continent, the first audience of the country's diplomacy of Ubuntu.

1|INTRODUCTION

This article is prompted by a noticeable absence in African academic

literature on an African conception of soft power, which in many ways

speak to the limited study of Africa's soft power in general. Because

of this absence, it is important to expand Africa's conception of soft

power, since most African countries have been at its receiving end.

Wesley stated that “the decolonisation and independence of Africa

was part of an ideological scramble for Africa between the US and the

USSR”(Wesley, 2013, p. 23). Even in the post-Cold War era, Africa

continues to be treated as a battleground of ideology and cultural

influence between great powers, with the most recent being China's

soft power.

The projection of sof t power in Africa has of ten been about

which great soft power state can exert the most influence on the

continent as a validation of its dominance in the international sys-

tem. This projection occurs in the form of cultural, social, intellec-

tual, and economic influence on the receiving nation's internal

characteristics and values. From a constructivist perspective “it is

important to investigate the influences of the structure of the inter-

national system and the relative power of states in order to under-

stand the outcomes of foreign policy decisions”(Zondi, 2014,

p. 131). When the concept of soft power was first coined in the

1990s, African states did not have the military capabilities to

successfully use co ercive or hard power against the domi nant states,

and they were in effect with the subordinate members of the inter-

national system.

However, times have changed and we have seen dramatic shifts

in the international system, and theory must factor in those changes.

From the post-Cold War era to an era of intense globalization, the

international system has become more polarized, and the diversity

that is inherent in the international system has become evident. Africa

and the Euro-North American states have taken different historical

trajectories that have had a direct impact on their development. This

has bearing on their use of the concept of soft power, as well as its

success in achieving the foreign policy objectives of their respective

states. In Asia, an analysis of China's soft power by Glaser and Murphy

(2009) recognized that China's adoption and practice of soft power as

an American concept was purposefully infused with Chinese charac-

teristics. In this way, China is a successful example of the possibility of

adopting indigenous ideas, philosophies, and values in conjunction

with a mainstream theory in international affairs. The country has also

emerged as one of the leading powers in the world. It is worth noting

that its success is unique in the sense that “it is neither 'Western' nor

predominantly Christian or even a child of the enlightenment. It devel-

oped independently of Western philosophies, recasting foreign ideas,

including Marxism and capitalism, within its own template of thought”

(Dellios, 2011, p. 65).

Received: 9 October 2019 Revised: 18 December 2019 Accepted: 10 February 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2097

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2097. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 1of10

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2097