John Barratt

South Africa's external relations since World War II have developed on the basis of an interaction between external and internal factors. The external factors have included the heightened consciousness, particularly in the Western world (and reflected in the United Nations Charter), of human rights as an issue affecting international relations; the anticolonial movement, particularly as expressed in the achievement of independence throughout Africa; and the cold war conflict between the Western and Communist powers. The inability of South Africa's internal political system to adapt adequately to these far-reaching changes in the postwar world caused a progressive deterioration in its external relations, resulting in increasing international isolation on a political level (though not economically).