South Africa's soft power conundrum: how to win friends and influence people in Africa

South Africa's soft power capacity is often constrained by the tensions emerging between regional normative commitments on the one hand and more cosmopolitan, liberal democratic norms on the other. The country's African leadership aspirations, which require sanctifying state sovereignty and non-intervention over human rights and democracy, is one such example. This article illustrates how these tensions illuminate the extent to which South Africa's more independent, cosmopolitan, bridge-building posture under Mandela has increasingly given way to an orientation emphasizing its Africanist credentials as more of a liberationist than liberal democracy and soft balancing against the OECD world. Whether this move has resulted in unequivocal African followership as a form of soft power remains uncertain.