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South Africa's contemporary foreign policy cannot be understood outside an explanation of its post-apartheid political transition. Its actors, the ideas they express, the interests they represent and the institutions they craft are all crucially influenced and impacted upon by the democratic transition and how it has evolved. This democratic transition is defined by two foundational characteristics. First, as one of the last of the ‘anti-colonial’ transitions led by an African nationalist leadership, it is driven with a focus on achieving racial equality in both the domestic and global context. Second, the transition has occurred when a particular configuration of power prevailed in the global order that not only established the parameters which governed its evolution, but also determined which interests prevailed within it. The former's imprint on the foreign policy agenda is manifested in South Africa's prioritisation of Africa, its almost messianic zeal to modernise the continent through a focus on political stability and economic growth, and its desire to reform the global order so as to create an enabling environment for African development. It is also reflected in South Africa's insistence not to be seen to be dictated to by the West, especially in the fashioning of its economic policies and its approach to addressing the Zimbabwean question. The latter manifests itself not only in how corporate interests take centre stage in South Africa's foreign policy interactions, but also in how transnational alliances like India–Brazil–South Africa (IBSA) are being fashioned to challenge big powers and their interests in global forums and in the international system. These thematic concerns are the subject of investigation in this paper.