Research On South Africa’s Policy Of Denuclearization From The Perspective Of Neoclassical Realism Theory

As the only country on the African continent that possesses nuclear weapons,but ultimately voluntarily chooses to give up possession of nuclear weapons,South Africa has been attracting the attention of the academic community from the beginning to the end of its possession of nuclear weapons.Since the 1980 s,with the deepening of international sanctions and the increasingly serious domestic political,economic and social problems,the National Party from South Africa’s government began to seek reform to alleviate the negative effects of international sanctions and domestic problems.After the de Klerk government came to power at the end of the 1980 s,South Africa’s reform went deeper and put forward a series of fundamental problems,including abandoning the nuclear weapons policy,which troubled the normal development of South Africa.Through the analysis,it can be found that the proposal of the de Klerk government to renounce nuclear weapons has been affected by both international and domestic influences,and has had a profound impact on the international community and South Africa itself.This paper mainly consists of three parts and seven chapters.The first part is Introduction,which mainly describes the research background,research status at home and abroad,research content,research methods,research significance,research innovation and deficiencies.The second part is the text,which is divided into five chapters.Chapter I is about the theoretical construction.First of all,it gives an overview of Neoclassical Realism,and then,based on the actual situation of South Africa’s policy of denuclearization,the selection of dependent variables,independent variables and intermediary variables and the construction of the analysis framework under the perspective of Neoclassical Realism Theory;Chapter II analyzes the process of South Africa’s abandonment of nuclear weapons policy,mainly from the perspective of the South African government and the International Atomic Energy Agency;Chapter III combs the influence of the international system and system stimulus as an independent variable on South Africa’s policy of denuclearization from the international level,and discusses the role of structural adjustment factors in it;Chapter IV,starting from the domestic level,explores how four intermediary variables,namely,the image and cognition of South African leaders,South African anti racism,South African state society relations and South African political elite,affect South Africa’s decision to abandon nuclear weapons;Chapter V will rely on the above analysis to summarize the impact of South Africa’s policy of abandoning nuclear weapons from both international and domestic levels.The third part is Conclusion,which is a comprehensive summary of South Africa’s nuclear abandonment policy analysis based on the perspective of Neoclassical Realism.Through this study,we can see that South Africa’s decision to give up nuclear weapons is the product of multiple factors,which not only has a positive impact on the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and the security of Africa,but also has a far-reaching impact on South Africa’s own multi fields.