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South Africa: Tied for Last 

Throughout the observed period between 2016 and 2020, South Africa remains one of the bottom performers in the BPSM and comes in 19th place, tied with Argentina.  South Africa’s Power Share has dropped slightly since the 2019 BPSM update, making the country the weakest of the members (Power Score of 0.46). However, South Africa shows a positive development in terms of Country Change (CC +5.01), coming in 14th in terms of Country Specific Change.

South Africa does not host any companies among the Fortune 500 enterprises, which underscores a micro-structural power lack. Further, only one South African University is listed among the Top 200 Universities. Turning to the Chokepoint indicator, South Africa comes in last with control over only one chokepoint. Further, South Africa comes in last in terms of GDP (PPP), behind Argentina and Australia. In terms of Military Spending, South Africa presents the second lowest rate of all G19 Countries (CS 0,18%) only spending more than Argentina.

Turning to the UNESCO indicator, South Africa gained two new sites since 2016, making it a total of 10 World Heritage Sites. However, South Africa has the third fewest total amount of UNESCO World Heritages, only coming before Saudi Arabia and Indonesia with 5 and 9 UNESCO World Heritage Sites respectively.
South Africa does not seem to develop as well as the other states among the G19. It still remains in last place and does not seem to be able to keep up in comparison to the other states. To conclude, South Africa does not show to have obvious pillars of success.

Please cite as:

Center for Global Studies (CGS) (2022). “Bonn Power Shift Monitor: South Africa: Tied for Last”, University of Bonn, Bonn.