Africa in Post-Cold War World Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Post-cold war international relations and foreign policies in Africa: new issues and new challenges
African Journal of International Affairs, 2009
This paper argues that international relations in Africa have changed especially in content since the abatement of the Cold War. These changes have been accelerated by the pressures unleashed by the international environment, including the reality of Africa's marginalisation and the forces of globalisation. These, along with domestic factors, including debt, internal conflicts, the impact of the ubiquitous structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), HIV/AIDS and human insecurity in general have combined to underscore foreign aid and economic assistance as key driving forces of the continent's foreign policies and diplomacy towards the North. Yet, the new thrust of foreign policies, informed by the need for foreign aid, has not occurred without a price. Among other things it has elevated technocrats in central or reserve banks and finance ministries to positions of prominence vis-à-vis officials from foreign ministries and in the process introduced extra-African actors into the foreign policy making process of the continent. This in turn has undermined Africa's increasingly tenuous economic sovereignty. But above all, it has led to the strengthening of ties with the North and international creditors in particular at the cost of intra-African relations. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU) recently inaugurated, promise to open a new chapter in Africa's international relations. It is argued, however, that against a background of a confluence of factors, these new continental projects will make only a minimal impact in terms of mitigating the consequences of the aid-driven foreign policies and thus altering the donor-oriented postures of African states.
Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2010
In recent years, there has been a range of responses to the visible decline of interest in African area studies and the ongoing marginalization of Africa within the discipline of international relations. Some argue that there is no lack of scholarly interest in Africa (Bayart 2000; Taylor and Williams 2004), while others continue to suggest that the reverse is true: Africa is marginalized within the social sciences and within the study of IR in particular (Kitching 2000; Alpers and Roberts 2002; Hyden 2006). With a view to reframing the prevailing study of Africa in international relations theory, this chapter supports the latter view with a suggestion as to what scholars might do to alter present circumstances. The chapter argues that students and scholars of African affairs need to identify parallels of political experience and theory, rather than follow the prevailing forms of social science methodology, which stress the importance of identifying Africa as "different." As always, there will be some differences, but there are limits to those differences. Among recent trends in the literature is the suggestion that Africa is, in various ways, different from other regions, i.e., the language of IR theory is innappropriate for the African political context due, especially, to the ambiguity of the African state (Dunn and Shaw 2001). I believe that this mainstream position - supported by virtually all of the prevailing critical to conservative views that currently dominate Western institutions and scholarship - contributes to the process by which IR theory systematically marginalizes Africa. African states do exist and are well recognized as sovereign entities locally, regionally, and internationally. William Brown has rightly argued that the logic of sovereignty can be applied to African political contexts as elsewhere and that the limitations of application, if and when they exist, are not unique to Africa (Brown 2006). The notion that Africa is somehow isolated from human history and experience , or what social scientists prefer to identify as "different," can only lead us down the path of "essentializing" Africa, in much the same way Orientalists have done to the Middle East (Said 1979). Dunn and Shaw are right to say that African sovereignty is challenged but Brown is also right to say that there are limitations to presenting African affairs as entirely "unique." If we are to establish a reconstructed platform for IR analysis that includes Africa, we need to find ways to improve dialogue between Africanists and international relations theorists so that African political thought and experience can be better integrated into the main corpus of IR theory. Today, more than ever, the ongoing marginalization of Africa within the discipline of IR is simply a matter of choice. We can do better. For too long, the assumptions of mainstream IR theorists isolated Africa. For too long, Africa's sovereign states have been deemed too weak, too different, and generally not worthy of inclusion in IR theory. This chapter is an appeal to those who would like to challenge that long-established method of social science inquiry. Following a brief survey of the early intellectual debates with the field and the resulting "intellectual framework" of IR theory that Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr established, I argue that there are mainly two reasons why African political ideas have generally not been integrated into IR theory. Firstly, African theorists are forced to participate in already deeply entrenched, allegedly "global" social science debates, that view Western IR theory as the primary target of analysis (pro or con); and, secondly, the majority of IR theorists lack the professional motivation to include African political thought and experience in the debates. Moreover, political scientists, I suggest, are more fearful of looking naive than scholar of other social science disciplines. Accordingly, caution and pessimism prevail, with a seemingly entrenched focus on the interests of the powerful. In other words, African studies have fallen victim to a range of Foucauldian challenges that link established "knowledge" with the interests of "power." In this chapter I consider the more global approaches used in other social science disciplines as possible models for future change in IR study.
'In from the margins? The changing place of Africa in International Relations'
(with Will Brown) International Affairs 89(1): 69-87, 2013
This article surveys recent literature on Africa and International Relations (IR) and reviews the current place of Africa within the discipline. It notes that critical debates continue around claims of a mismatch between Africa and ‘mainstream’ IR theories and concepts. However, alongside this set of issues, there is in fact a burgeoning literature on many aspects of Africa’s international relations. While some of these studies utilize existing IR theories, and others explore empirical cases that could deliver important lessons for the wider discipline, much of this promise goes unfulfilled. The article reviews literature on China’s role and on HIV/AIDS governance in Africa to illustrate how the study of African international relations, the wider IR discipline and international policy could all benefit froma closer engagement between Africa and IR. The article concludes by setting out three challenges for a renewed agenda: a need to address the problematic relationship between universal analytical concepts and regional particularities; a need to give recognition to, and analyse, African agency in international politics; and a need to address inequalities in knowledge production in the field of Africa’s international relations.
The place of Africa in international relations: the centrality of the margins in Global IR
Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica
The Global IR research agenda lays emphasis on the marginalised, non-Western forms of power and knowledge that underpin today's international system. Focusing on Africa, this article questions two fundamental assumptions of this approach, arguing that they err by excess of realism – in two different ways. First, the claim that Africa is marginal to international relations (IR) thinking holds true only as long as one makes the whole of IR discipline coincide with the Realist school. Second, the Global IR commitment to better appreciate ‘non-Western’ contributions is ontologically realist, because it fails to recognise that the West and the non-West are dialectically constitutive of one another. To demonstrate this, the article first shows that Africa has moved from the periphery to the core of IR scholarship: in the post-paradigmatic phase, Africa is no longer a mere provider of deviant cases, but a laboratory for theory-building of general validity. In the second part, the Sahel...
Issues and Debates Surrounding the Cold War era in Africa
International Journal of Emerging Multidisciplinaries: Social Science, 2024
This paper argues that Cold War politics in Africa prioritised superpower geopolitical interests over local sovereignty which promoted corruption, political instability, and the entrenchment of authoritarian regimes. It examines how United States and Soviet Union support for dictatorial governments impacted state-building processes, governance, and human rights in post-colonial Africa. The primary objectives are to analyze the influence of U.S. and Soviet support on authoritarian regimes, assess the implications for human rights and democracy, and investigate the enduring legacy of these interventions in post-colonial Africa. Utilizing historical methodology, the study relies on secondary sources, including books, journals, and online resources, to provide analysis. The findings reveal that Cold War patronage not only entrenched dictatorial regimes but also hindered the development of independent political institutions, leading to persistent challenges in governance. The paper concludes that understanding the implications of Cold War for Africa is germane for addressing contemporary issues of democracy, human rights, and development, emphasizing the need for a reassessment of external influences in influencing African political trajectories.
Africa in international relations: agent, bystander or victim?
2015
Using a number of learning materials, including books and movies, MC324b provides students of international relations with an in depth analysis of the African continent’s agency and ‘play’ in global politics. Despite the apparent recentness of the globalization project, in taking a historical and structural perspective in the presentation of African affairs, the course’s content will begin its examination of Africa’s international relations by tracing the Continent’s initial European contact, setting off global events such as the ‘triangular trade’, colonialism, de-colonization, the establishment of modern independent African statehood during the post World War II era, and the Continent’s post-colonial ‘age of development’. The course will present these historical formations as the bases for the important current transformations in African affairs, including the continent’s economic challenges, its health crisis, neo-liberalism, 1990s conflict and resolution, democratization and reg...