Introduction

Abstract

As the world shifts from the international politics of a bipolar system, to those of a multipolar system, the position of a host of international and regional powers takes on renewed significance. The long winter of the Cold War, with its stifling ideological conflict and domination by the superpowers, has given way to the development or enhancement of a number of centres of power — international, regional, national and transnational in character — that are shaping the destiny of the emerging international system. This is reflected in everything from the new role accorded to regional security organizations by the revitalized United Nations to the establishment and actualization of regional economic blocs. The impact of these developments on Africa, a continent racked by seemingly intractable economic and political woes, is to raise the importance of states and regional powers with enduring interests in its fate. Principal among these are France, with a history of international activism in Africa, and South Africa, with its dominant economic and military standing on the continent.