Migration after apartheid: Deracialising South African foreign policy

Some critics have pointed to South Africa's restrictive migration policy as one of the areas most deficient in overturning apartheid legacies. Yet it is not a lack of democratic process that forestalls change-witness open parliamentary debate, an array of think-tanks and researchers providing input into the policy-making process, and the mobilisation of diverse grassroots voices. Rather, a new non-racial xenophobia creates a potent barrier to reform. Therefore, advocates of migrants' rights and opponents of violence should utilise regional and international points of leverage to their fullest potential if postapartheid South Africa is to fulfill its democratic promise.