Contemporary South Africa and the Political Economy of Regional Development

South Africa’s struggle in balancing its domestic needs while playing a dynamic developmental role in the African region and global context exposes a complex web of relations shaped by its geostrategic location on the continent, and the world, and the staggering legacies of colonialism and apartheid. As such, understanding the complexities of the global economy and of South Africa's place in it, is of great importance. This book builds upon an existing body of literature which has demonstrated that while the post-apartheid South African state has recast its nation building goals - with advances having been made notably in the area of a stellar post-apartheid constitution, policy directives, and democratic political integration - economic integration and policy implementation presents a projection of captured interests, where big business concerns are entrenched in the post-apartheid state’s apparent neo-liberal turn. The main focus of the book is to contextualise issues relating to