Exploring Exceptionalism in Foreign Policy Discourses: How can we understand South Africa’s unconstitutional and ineffective withdrawal from the Rome Statute?

Abstract: This thesis seeks to understand South Africa’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute with a focus on the defective nature of the underlying decision-making process which resulted in an unconstitutional and ineffective withdrawal. To make sense of this procedural irrationality, the self-understanding of the central decision-making unit, the South African executive, was studied by applying the analytical framework of comparative exceptionalism. For this purpose, a qualitative content analysis was conducted which has highlighted particularist and universalist arguments in the discourse of the executive. The findings revealed that a superior morality is discursively constructed by referring to the moral mission of the ANC, South Africa’s strict adherence to its historical values, and to the country’s universal ‘Vision of a Better Africa and a Better world’. Overall, a virtually divine self-understanding as being the ‘moral compass’ in global politics is evident. It is concluded that despite making unilateral implications, the withdrawal from the Rome Statute neither signals a shift towards exemptionalism in South Africa’s foreign policy nor reflects an advancement towards regional hegemony. Rather, it demonstrates the large discrepancies between South Africa’s self-understanding and the prevalent challenges that the government is facing domestically and internationally, which are increasingly hindering its nation-building efforts.