Trust, Power and Partnership : A study of the evolution of Sweden’s bilateral economic partnership with South Africa between 1985-2018

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate how Sweden’s bilateral economic relationship with South Africa has evolved between the years 1985-2018, from a Swedish perspective. The study has four research questions. The first question focuses on how Swedish policies toward South Africa has evolved over time, which is followed by two questions on how these changes has impacted trade and non-trade economic activity between the countries. The last question binds the study together with a discussion of the balance of Swedish priorities between humanitarian goals and domestic self-interests during this period. The existing literature is mainly focused on the economic relationship leading up to the fall of apartheid in 1994, and there is not much written on the subject since then. This study aims to contribute to the field by connecting the apartheid-era literature to the development of the post-apartheid bilateral economic relationship. The study is based on a cross analysis of complementary data sources and methods to capture the complexity of the bilateral economic relationship between the two countries. The main bulk of data is derived through semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Swedish government, the civil society, and researchers with experience of this bilateral relationship. This is complemented with a content analysis of Swedish policy documents and illustrative quantitative data. The thesis is built on an analytical framework based on Embeddedness theory and a conceptualisation of Economic- and Soft Power, which highlights the interconnectedness between social, political, and economic relationships.