Challenge:

In policy reform, comparative research is too often dismissed as an academic luxury rather than embraced as a practical tool for meaningful and lasting change. South Africa’s own history illustrates this tendency. Public service reform in the 1990s leaned heavily on global models such as New Public Management, without fully grappling with the specific contexts that had made those reforms effective elsewhere. The result was the adoption of solutions ill-suited to South Africa’s complex social, cultural, and political realities.

Unless reforms are informed by a critical understanding of how similar efforts have succeeded or failed internationally, and the conditions that shaped those outcomes, South Africa risks repeating the mistakes of the past. Additionally, there is a great need to revisit and broaden the range of credible ‘sources’ we turn to for examples of good practice, looking beyond the ‘usual suspects’.

Action:

At NSI, we view comparative research not as a purely academic exercise, but as a strategic tool for driving meaningful and lasting reform. By engaging with global experiences, we seek to understand what works, what fails, and, crucially why, always with a clear focus on how these insights can inform South Africa’s development.

We also aim to foster dialogue between postcolonial and post-socialist spaces, whose transitions have revealed similar policy and institutional challenges for emerging and delicate democracies. At the same time, we bring a distinctly Southern perspective to comparative studies, examining reform efforts across Africa and the broader Global South. This enables us to highlight shared challenges while identifying solutions that are relevant, transferable, and practically adaptable to local realities.

A central pillar of our work is democratisation. We study how states around the world, particularly those navigating complex histories and difficult environments, have succeeded in bringing key institutions under democratic control. Drawing on these lessons, our vision is to contribute to advancing similar achievements in South Africa, helping to strengthen the foundations of a democratic and accountable state, but also its place within a rapidly changing world.

Impact:

By championing a globally informed yet locally grounded approach to reform, NSI equips policymakers with data-driven insights that help them avoid the pitfalls of importing and simply copying foreign models uncritically, without context.

Our goal is to shape reform strategies that are tailored and fit-for-purpose, ensuring that initiatives in various policy areas respond effectively to South Africa’s unique socio-political landscape as well as its national interest. Central to this mission is our commitment to strengthening democratic institutions, delicate yet vital.

At the same time, we work to foster ‘regional’ solidarity by illuminating shared experiences across the New South, encouraging dialogue, collaboration and collective problem-solving.