4IR and Digital Policy Research Unit

The articles in this special issue span a variety of disciplines and sectors, but they are all joined by a focus on the future of South Africa and the opportunities presented by digital transformation. Contributions cover the futures of: jobs, borders, migration, education, technology, media & democracy, SA land reform, and continental free trade. They also present solutions based on empirical analyses.

Chapter 23: South Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The 4IR is widely predicted to transform what have been manual labour-dominated sectors in the production of goods and offering of services while driving wages down. South Africa is largely no exception, although we also note some unevenness and contradictory trends in this chapter. 4IR also presents numerous opportunities for the South African government, businesses and consumers in economic growth, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We conduct a review of recent trends in the 4IR worldwide and focus on such trends in South Africa through wages, key sectors, corporate sentiment, as well as government expenditure in research and development. There is indication that the country has mismatch in the skills being produced and those required by the 4IR, while its GERD is substantially below the global average for 4IR leadership and equitable participation. 4IR Commission recommendations propose reforms, but over them looms the slow rate of implementation due to past poor execution of other plans in the digital and communications spheres.

Digital agendas have become increasingly central to national policies and plans that aim to respond to the challenges of the future. 

Our review of African countries’ policies and strategies, the most comprehensive of its kind, demonstrates that most African countries have digital agenda documents. These are found as legal texts, stand-alone digital strategies, as sections of national development plans or within aspects of other policies. Click here to read the entire document.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) specialists can play a crucial role in advancing the country’s science diplomacy. In the same vein, the definition of diplomacy needs to expand and include, for example, representation of South Africa to leading technology companies and globally leading research centres.

Click here to read more here (page 44).

Artificial Intelligence and International Relations Theories

Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere in national and transnational economies and politics. Through its transformative nature, it is simultaneously simplifying and complicating processes. Importantly, it also overlooks and “misunderstands”. Globally, leaders, diplomats and policymakers have had to familiarise themselves and grapple with concepts such as algorithms, automation, machine learning, and neural networks. These and other features of modern AI are redefining our world, and with it, the long-held assumptions scholars of international relations (IR) have relied on for their theoretical accounts of their universe. Artificial Intelligence and International Relations Theories takes a historic, contemporary and long-term approach to explain and anticipate AI’s impact on IR – and vice versa – through a systematic treatment of 9 theoretical paradigms and schools of thought including realism, liberalism, feminism, postcolonial theory and green theory. This pathbreaking book draws on original datasets, innovative empirical case studies and in-depth engagement with the core claims of the traditional and critical theoretical lenses to reignite debates on the nature and patterns of power, ethics, conflict, and systems among states and non-state actors.

Publication date: 2022. Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan.

African Women in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Change, Policies and Approaches

Publication date: 2023. Publisher: Oasis Books.

The book addresses contemporary issues within the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) era under the rubric of Humanities and Social Sciences Disciplines. The primary focus is to assess the prospects for, and problems and challenges of, Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the academic field of Humanities, to strengthen their interdisciplinary approach in providing robust academic research on contemporary issues. Therefore, the book is concerned about the place for Humanities in the 4IR in Africa and the real world.