Africa-Europe Relationships

A Multistakeholder Perspective

Raffaele Marchetti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367467197
• eBook ISBN: 9781000072792
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The relationships between Africa and Europe are of high strategic importance. This volume studies the ongoing dynamics between the two continents by adopting a pluralist understanding of international relations which encompasses non-state actors as well as states.

Going beyond pure intergovernmentalism, this focus of this book is on activists, business people, religious believers, local politicians as well as transnational networks and by hybrid coalitions. Such plurality of socio-economic and political interactions underpinning the relationship between Africa and Europe is underexamined and yet of great importance. The text identifies new patterns of cooperation and recurrent obstacles in the African-European multistakeholder dynamics, thus opening the way for a more accurate understanding of the future relationship between Africa and Europe.

This book brings African and European reflections together, on an equal standing, in order to achieve a true dialogue among civilizations. This book is aimed at all those who are interested in African-European relationships, including students and researchers, as well as activists, business people, civil servant and functionaries at local and national level.

Part I
Introduction

1
A more encompassing understanding of the African-European relationship

Raffaele Marchetti

The strategic relevance of the African-European relationship

The relationship between Africa and Europe is of high strategic importance. Simply put, the future of Europe will depend on its relationship with Africa, and the future of Africa will depend on its relationship with Europe. While other areas of the world will also be relevant for global dynamics, the relation between a declining Europe and a rising Africa will be essential in many political domains, from economy to security, from culture to mobility. Building up win-win partnerships might constitute the only chance for prosperity for both players. Conversely, entering into a competitive relationship or looking somewhere else for partnership might entail a significant loss of opportunities.

In the last few centuries, the two continents have had a long history of interaction characterized by a prolonged period of colonialism and a difficult post-colonial period. More recently, the AU-EU (African Union–European Union) relationship has been undergoing a process of gradual institutionalization. The fifth AU–EU summit in November 2017 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, marks a special anniversary: It has been ten years since the adoption of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (EU-Africa Summit, 2007). In 2018, EC President Junker announced the Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investments and Jobs. The current dialogue is centred on a number of strategic priorities which include economic cooperation, job creation, peace and security, mobility and migration management, global issues such as climate change, and the need to invest in young people and future generations.

Africa and Europe are developing in divergent and yet reciprocally dependent paths. Sixty percent of the African population is under the age of 25, and huge investments are needed to give African youth the chances to successfully enter the job market without the necessity to leave their countries. Africa has been the continent with the highest economic growth in the period 2000–2015 (UN data), but it also has been a continent characterized by high political instability, frequent civil wars, and severe pandemics. Europe is going through a critical phase characterized by weak economic growth, institutional weakening, youth disillusion, social discontent, and centrifugal forces that threaten the unity of the continent. And yet, Europe remains a key political, economic, cultural, and security player at the global level.

If we take a future-oriented perspective, the relationship between the two continents might indeed constitute a key element of positive interdependence, as there is an intertwined destiny for the two continents. The African-European relationship is intensifying. Europe remains Africa’s biggest foreign aid provider. The trading and investments flows between the two continents is very high. Technological transfer across the Mediterranean Sea is also significant. Africa provides a significant amount of raw materials and labour forces to Europe, which is the place where significant African diasporas live. The two continents remain tied also in cultural terms: From the university system to religious integration, from linguistic commonality to the artistic scenes, the level of cultural exchange is very significant. Security threats are also shared by the two continents. From terrorism to cyberattacks, Africa and Europe face common problems and need to find common responses. Africa needs Europe; Europe needs Africa.

The underpinning assumption of this collection is that only through an inclusive development that is beneficial to both continents can Africa and Europe face the challenges lying ahead in the 21st century and spread a model of genuine cooperation. At the same time, the reverse is also true: Failing to launch a structured cooperation, both Africa and Europe will face a future of hardship and marginalization from world affairs. If rightly developed, the Africa-Europe relationship might indeed constitute a very significant component of a wider inclusive development at the world level.

The multistakeholder perspective

The Africa-Europe cooperation is already and will necessarily be based on multi-stakeholder interaction. The book looks at this relationship by focusing on a crucial node of interaction which is underexamined and yet of great importance: The plurality of socio-economic and political interaction underpinning the relationship between Africa and Europe.¹ In particular, it aims to identity patterns of cooperation and recurrent obstacles in African-European multistakeholder dynamics. This book studies the ongoing dynamics between the two continents by adopting a pluralist understanding of international relations which encompasses non-state actors as well as states. Traditionally the focus of the studies on Africa and Europe has been almost entirely put on government-to-government interaction. The current reality is far more complex and needs to be analysed with the right lenses in order to be fully understood.

The knowledge production on the Africa-EU relationship has grown exponentially in the last few years. However, it remains biased and incomplete. The scientific literature is predominantly European, hence it carries a strong political bias (Farrell, 2005; Haastrup, 2013; Scheipers & Sicurelli, 2008). Most of the studies look at how the EU engages with Africa on specific sectors: Security, economy, migration, and so forth (e.g. Carbone, 2013; Langan, 2015). Very few studies have a more comparative and comprehensive perspective on overall Africa-Europe relations. Even fewer are the studies that manage to have a more balanced perspective in which African voices are also heard on an equal standing (Adebajo & Whiteman, 2012; Marchetti, 2018). Finally, almost invariably, the studies look almost exclusively at the governmental level of analysis.

Policy-oriented production follows a similar pattern. A large part of the production is provided by think tanks or civil society analysts (Bello, 2010; Friends of Europe, 2017; Kotsopoulos, 2007), most of which come from Europe. Important are the official documents and reports (EU-Africa Summit, 2007) issued by either the European institutions (European Commission, 2014, 2016; European Commission and EEAS, 2017), the African institutions (African Union, 2015), or the UN (United Nations, 2015), but they tend to have an inter-governmental perspective.

The present collection aims to tackle these deficiencies. First, it aims to bring together African and European reflections on an equal standing for achieving a true dialogue among civilizations. Second, it intends to adopt a broad perspective that comprehensively analyses the political dynamics with a multi-field approach able to integrate economic, security, and cultural dimensions at once. Third, the research adopts a multi-actor perspective which includes but goes beyond pure intergovernmentalism. Indeed, it not only focuses on different actors but it brings in different actors. In fact, it contains different profiles: Scholars, but also activists, business people, and analysts, both from Africa and Europe.

For too long the focus of analysis of such relationship has been put almost exclusively on intergovernmental dynamics. While these are obviously of importance, I submit that we need to broaden our perspective if we want to fully capture the crucial dynamics creating interdependence between the two continents. A multistakeholder perspective that for sure includes government and regional organization but that also encompasses civil society, business, religious, and research actors as well as local authorities is essential to understand and steer in the right direction the complex interdependence between the two continents. It is ultimately a matter of avoiding risks, managing challenges, and taking up opportunities.

Politics in the era of globalization is much more complex than in previous times. Phenomena in one location are often connected with events in other locations. Together with states and international organizations, a plethora of new actors play a significant role in global politics. These actors range from international gatherings (e.g. the World Economic Forum) to global terrorism groups (e.g. Al-Qaeda or Daesh); from philanthropic foundations (e.g. the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to social movements (e.g. Movimento Sem Terra); from international non-governmental organizations (NGOs; e.g. Amnesty International) to national diasporas (e.g. Palestinian diasporas); from alternative media (e.g. Wikileaks) to pop singer/activists (e.g. Bono); from think tanks (e.g. the Council on Foreign Relations) to banks (e.g. JP Morgan Chase); from rating agencies (e.g. Standard and Poor’s) to major global media players (e.g. Al Jazeera) or new media (e.g. Twitter); from cities to regions. Non-state actors are everywhere in global politics (Khanna, 2011; Naìm, 2013). Hence, the system has become more intricate.

Complex pluralism depicts a world that is a-polar (Avant, Finnemore, & Sell, 2010; Haass, 2008; Hale & Held, 2011; Khanna, 2011; Kupchan, 2012), that is a world in which power is spread across many players, including non-state actors, and none has overwhelming power over the others, which implies that each needs the others to further its objectives. This is a world strongly moulded by globalization, in which realist state-centric exclusivity is rejected as well as liberal institutionalism. On the one hand, the state as a unitary actor is seeing its central role wane in favour of a disaggregation into sub-state authorities with an increasing transnational agency (Slaughter, 2004). Transnational governing networks are acquiring ever more importance: Courts, public authorities, inter-parliamentary assemblies, and central banks are all increasing their cooperation with international counterparts. On the other hand, there is an increasing number and range of nongovernmental actors which either demand inclusion in the decision-making process or de facto have the authority, expertise, and power to influence public affairs in parallel to and regardless of the state authority (Avant et al., 2010; Naìm, 2013).

The dynamics of globalization have accentuated the non-exclusivity of the states as actors of international relations. Globalization binds distant communities and de-territorializes the relations of power while extending contemporaneously their reach beyond traditional national borders. By diminishing the exclusivity of states as international actors, globalization has opened up space for new social players. Beyond the states and the intergovernmental organizations that have occupied a central place in international life since their origin (let us think of the United Nations), the system of global governance is currently populated by a variety of international and transnational actors that have a strong say in international affairs. By transnational here I mean actors operating beyond national boundaries, individually or in partnership, without necessarily passing through governmental filters. Among these actors, four typologies are particularly relevant: Profit-oriented transnational enterprises; non-governmental organizations of civil society that tend to have public goals (including violent groups, religious organizations, and the media); local authorities, including both regions and cities (so-called paradiplomacy); and private or hybrid organizations that regulate specific sectors through the formulation of standards (the so-called standard-setting bodies). While these typologies do not represent all the variety of actors of global governance, they do represent an important and innovative component of new world politics. Significantly, the sheer number of transnational enterprises, civil society non-governmental organizations, standard-setting bodies and networks of cities and regions has increased significantly in recent decades and follows a pattern which is very much in line with the spread of globalization.

Non-state actors have acquired an increasingly large role inside world politics by performing a growing number of functions that were previously carried out mostly by states (Avant et al., 2010; Hall & Biersteker, 2002; Marchetti, 2016). They contribute to bringing new issues to the attention of the public, and in so doing they participate in the formulation of the political agenda (e.g. the recent campaign by civil society organizations for abolition of the death penalty). They lobby policy-makers (as in the case of the decision to waive the debt of the least developed countries at the end of the last millennium). Non-state actors offer technical assistance to governments and intergovernmental organizations (e.g. the legal help provided by many NGOs during the conference that led to the Charter of the International Criminal Court of 1998). They provide funds for both private and public players (let us think, for the former, of the considerable resources allocated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for sanitary projects on a global scale; for the latter, of the taxation of enterprises on their patents and trademarks to assure the functioning of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Non-state actors formulate regulatory decisions (for instance, the various codes of conduct and the Kimberly Process providing guidelines for the trade of diamonds). They implement programs and public policies (let us think of the whole sector of development aid, but also of conflicts and the role played by mercenaries and NGOs in them). Non-state actors provide services which used to be prerogatives of embassies (e.g. private centres for the issue of visas). They monitor the respect of international agreements (e.g. the files compiled by the most important NGOs on human rights are then received by intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations, as a basis for reference and action). Non-state actors resolve disputes (let us think of the numerous arbitration chambers that resolve international litigation in a totally private way) and facilitate conflict resolution (e.g. the peacebuilding role played by Sant’Egidio in Mozambique). Non-state actors, finally, also help implement decisions, so-called enforcement (e.g. the strategy of numerous NGOs to enhance the respect of rules through campaigns to show which governments and multinational corporations do or do not respect such rules, as in the case of Transparency International on corruption or Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on the arms trade).

The book thus examines a plethora of different actors, including firms, NGOs, religious organizations, think tanks and research centres, individual leaders, and local authorities. Particularly important within this project is to analyse the role played by transnational networks and by hybrid coalitions. Of course, the book also studies the intergovernmental relations both in their bilateral and multilateral format, and attention is paid to the interregional interaction (e.g. EU-ECOWAS). Only by taking into account both traditional governmental relationships and more innovative multistakeholder interaction can a more accurate understanding of the current and future path of cooperation between Africa and Europe be developed.

Synopsis of the book

Following this introductory chapter, the collection is divided into three additional sections. In Part II, Bond, Freeman, Menegazzi, and Iratni explore different sections of the civil society domain. In Part III, Langan, Pistelli and Mudida look at the business sector actors. In the third section, Dimier and Gliottone, Massoni, Mattheis, and De Nictolis look at different types of institutional relationships and policymakers.

Bond’s chapter argues that African-European civil society relationships from below are often arrayed against a nexus of state and capital from above. The latter generally pursue neoliberal extractivist modes of capital accumulation and seek geopolitical power advantages within a hostile multilateral system. In the specific case of South Africa, this results in a sub-imperial/anti-imperial dialectic, full of extreme rhetoric and uneasy multilateral alliances. Yet from below, the situation resembles the arguments made by Karl Polanyi in the market-versus-society-versus market ‘double movement,’ but expanded to the inter-continental scale. So while most European forces that influence South Africa and the rest of Africa reinforce existing Western corporate hegemony, there is also periodic civil society resistance dating back to anti-slavery activism two centuries ago. Recent examples include anti-apartheid solidarity, the battle against European firms’ water commercialization in Johannesburg, fights against European mining houses and consumers of m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• PART I Introduction
• PART II Civil society organizations
• PART III Business organizations
• PART IV Institutions
• Index