Running like a red thread through this book are the manifestations of Sino-African relations dating back many centuries. In this way, The Rise and Decline and Rise of China: Searching for an Organising Philosophy takes forward the work MISTRA conducted on the Mapungubwe society, one of the advanced states that existed in southern Africa some 800 years ago, and which enjoyed trade relations with China and other centres in the East. Mapungubwe rose and fell, long before European colonial incursions. Other states emerged in the vicinity, but they also suffered the same fate. When do southern Africa and Africa at large rise again? Are there lessons that the continent can draw from the experience of the Chinese people? If - beyond material considerations - religion, culture and ideology do play a role in the rise, decline and resurgence of a civilization, what are the similarities and contrasts between these regions? Of course, such research cannot ignore the fundamental questions: whence does the current system of social, economic and political relations in China draw its resilience, how adaptable is it, and is it sustainable? As the outcome contained in this book demonstrates, a research exercise of this kind can only be exploratory. It serves merely as a genesis to work that should find new legs. What makes this research report unique, though, is that the treatment of these issues has been undertaken primarily from an African perspective.

Are ordinary citizens capable of shaping foreign policy? To answer this question, fifteen established and emerging scholars use South Africa as a case study to assess the extent to which democratic consolidation can be translated into the realm of foreign policy. Contributors discuss the South African Development Community as an arena of transnational democracy, the impact of European Union trade policy, and the significance of South Africa's controversial 'arms deals' as they explore the opportunities and constraints facing recently democratized societies in the Southern Hemisphere. Democratizing Foreign Policy? Lessons from South Africa provides a broad-ranging assessment investigating conceptual issues regarding the role of women, think tanks, civil society, labor movements, and the impact of globalization upon the process of foreign policy making of the opportunities and challenges involved in opening the process of foreign policy making to civil society and the need to do so if the developing world is to better manage the complexities of globalization."