What is it about?
This article looks at what has made up the 'peace and security' part of the EU-SA Strategic Partnership defined through their overall partnership over the 10 years of its lifespan. It proposes that the strategic partnership is not just about the EU and South Africa, but about how their relationship is balanced against competing dynamics and other groups external to them both. Further South Africa has used the peace and security aspects to craft a particular and unique 'capital', whose relative value is and has been dynamic.
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Why is it important?
The article happens to be unique in that it forms part of Special Issue reviewing the Strategic Partnership over the past 10 years. Each contribution has been made by either a European viewpoint and scholar, or a South African one.
Perspectives
The empirical approach used has an advantage over using secondary source material, in that it provided an insight into what the EU and South Africa judged themselves to be issues of peace and security. It was coupled with points in media and press statements by both EU representatives and from the South Africa Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). A theoretical framework was deliberately left out, rather using a critical assessment of the empirical evidence found. This prevented the perennial problem of finding a theory to fit rather than let what was seen speak for itself.
Dr Lara Hierro
University of Johannesburg
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Short term interests, long term perspectives: Balancing South Africa's peace and security approach in the EU–SA Strategic Partnership, South African Journal of International Affairs, April 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/10220461.2017.1337589.
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