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The ascent to power of the African National Congress, Africa’s oldest liberationmovement, complicated its assessment of South Africa’s post-apartheid externalenvironment. From viewing important sections of the international community asideologically opposed to it, it needed to begin to cultivate links with global powersas potential markets and investors in South Africa’s reconstruction. This challengeendured, along with durable – and often contradictory - perceptual lenses, toconfuse South Africa’s early foreign policy under Mandela. Mbeki’s presidencywrought fundamental changes in both the vision guiding South African foreignpolicy, and the institutional machinery for its implementation. Available resourcesfor an ambitious foreign policy outlook that included the African agenda, reform ofthe multilateral institutions, and South-South cooperation, however, remained inshort supply.Owing to the nature of South African politics, in which the ANC, and its alliancepartners, COSATU and the SACP, comprise the dominant political formation in thecountry, it is within the limits of this alliance that the process of legitimation is mostsignificant. In other words, intra-alliance opposition is the main source ofopposition to the ANC. Thus, to answer the question: to what extent doesinternationalism influence the foreign policy of South Africa, it is required to work inside thecontext of the dynamics of the tripartite alliance, and the room for manoeuvre ofthe ANC within bureaucratic institutions, especially the Department of ForeignAffairs, during the two terms of Thabo Mbeki, the most activist period of postapartheidSouth Africa’s foreign policy.The strengthening of the state machinery in relation to society, and thecentralisation of foreign policy to an ever greater extent in the President’s officecreate the expectation of sharper perception and more purposive action oninternational questions, away from internationalism. However, this did not occur inSouth Africa, owing to resource constraints, and the domestic political context, inwhich the ANC was dominant, but still required the support of its political allies.189