International Reputation

This is an important post for me. I have long wondered what motivates the sometimes delinquent behaviour of government agencies in South Africa. I do not think it is ideology, as it often is in the West. I do not think it is self-interest, either. Certainly, ideology and self-interest are big, yet they don't finally explain it. I think a major motivation is maintenance of the country's reputation. Curiously, government agencies will risk their reputation to protect it. OBSERVATION: South Africa has come dangerously close to becoming a pariah state, but that has not happened. I think, too, that the concern for reputation lies behind South Africa's untypical response to war in Ukraine.