A generation ago, the United States and the West emerged triumphant from the Cold War, and the “end of history” proclaimed on the basis that all ideological alternatives to liberal democracy had exhausted and discredited themselves.

Today, a generation later, we are back in a multipolar world. Anti-Western forces, having learnt from their own past mistakes as well as the accomplishments of their adversary, have built up formidable capabilities and are buoyed up by renewed confidence. Faced with economic stagnation and relative decline, certain sections of the Western political and intellectual elite seem to slip between superciliousness and self-doubt, and struggle to respond effectively to challenges from without and within.

BRE·DE·RE is a Europe-based research centre born of a countervailing experience. In South Africa there was no “end of history” moment after the collapse of Soviet communism and the dismantling of apartheid. Rather liberal ideals have had to be continually fought for and defended by the opposition against an overbearing liberation movement which remained committed to the realisation of its harsh Soviet-shaped racial nationalist objectives.

Today, that liberation movement has fragmented, with the once dominant African National Congress losing its majority for the first time in the 2024 elections. South Africa’s fate, however, still hangs in the balance, with vastly divergent futures still possible for the country. Attaining one of the better outcomes, while avoiding the worst, requires a deep understanding of the country’s current predicament, how it came about, and the path out of it.

Such insight is necessary not just for South Africans themselves, but also for the Western democracies which have an interest in the country. With the re-emergence of great power rivalry across the world southern Africa has reacquired its strategic importance. The knowledge of South Africa in the United States and Europe is however often shallow and limited, with the resultant danger that even well-meaning Western interventions may prove harmful and counterproductive.

BRE·DE·RE seeks to pursue research driven by the immediate need to attain and foster critically needed understanding of South Africa’s situation and the alternatives open to it. We believe that such knowledge is of wider applicability, as these lessons are often of universal relevance. Our ultimate mission then is to identify and counter threats to the liberty, comity and prosperity of all democratic societies through historical and comparative research.