Africa's Soft Power

Philosophies, Political Values, Foreign Policies and Cultural Exports

Oluwaseun Tella

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000402247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book investigates the ways in which soft power is used by African countries to help drive global influence.

Selecting four of the countries most associated with soft power across the continent, this book delves into the currencies of soft power across the region: from South Africa's progressive constitution and expanding multinational corporations, to Nigeria's Nollywood film industry and Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme, Kenya's sport diplomacy, fashion and tourism industries, and finally Egypt's Pan-Arabism and its reputation as the cradle of civilisation. The book asks how soft power is wielded by these countries and what constraints and contradictions they encounter. Understandings of soft power have typically been driven by Western scholars, but throughout this book, Oluwaseun Tella aims to Africanise our understanding of soft power, drawing on prominent African philosophies, including Nigeria's Omolúwàbí, South Africa's Ubuntu, Kenya's Harambee, and Egypt's Pharaonism.

This book will be of interest to researchers from across political science, international relations, cultural studies, foreign policy and African Studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at

http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ 9781003176022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

1 Introduction

Background and context: soft power in Africa

Since Joseph Nye coined the term in the 1990s, the concept of soft power has become a buzzword among policymakers, scholars, journalists, and keen observers of international relations across the globe. Yet, African scholarship on soft power remains undeveloped and this is the first book publication on African soft power. I have defined soft power elsewhere as “a state’s non-coercive capability (ranging from its foreign policies and political values to its cultural exports) that engenders other states’ attraction, admiration and aspirations” (Tella, 2016: 153). I further argue in the same article that the three As are the critical attributes of soft power as other actors are attracted by, adopt the model, and aspire to achieve a similar level of prosperity as the soft power state. While this definition captures the essence of soft power, it does not sufficiently reflect some aspects of African states’ soft power capacity. For example, Nigeria’s Omolúwàbí, South Africa’s Ubuntu, Kenya’s Harambee, and Egypt’s Pharaonism are not highlighted. These are critical African philosophies that are relevant to the countries’ actual and potential soft power. It is therefore imperative to conceptualise soft power to sufficiently accommodate the African context.

There are few studies of Africa’s soft power, with virtually none in terms of Egypt and Kenya, but a growing body of literature with regard to Nigeria and South Africa. Despite increasing interest among scholars of international relations in the latter countries’ (particularly South Africa’s) soft power, the African philosophies noted earlier have not been captured in the conceptualisation of the term. Against this backdrop and for the purpose of this book, I define soft power as an actor’s (including state and non-state) ability to influence the action, inaction, position, and behaviour of other actors through its non-coercive capability – including its philosophy, culture, values, and policies – that engenders these actors’ attraction, admiration, and aspirations.

In light of the increasing relevance of soft power in international politics, two major institutions have emerged to develop indices and set indicators to it. These are The Soft Power 30 by Portland and Global Soft Power Index by Brand Finance. The Soft Power 30 is not comprehensive as it only focuses on 30 states, which are largely Western countries. Table 1.1 shows the 2019 Soft Power 30.

Table 1.1 Soft Power 30

Rank	Country	Score
1	France	80.28
2	United	79.47
3	Germany	78.62
4	Sweden	77.41
5	United States	77.40
6	Switzerland	77.04
7	Canada	75.89
8	Japan	75.71
9	Australia	73.16
10	Netherlands	72.03
11	Italy	71.58
12	Norway	71.07
13	Spain	71.05
14	Denmark	68.86
15	Finland	68.35
16	Austria	67.98
17	New Zealand	67.45
18	Belgium	67.17
19	South Korea	63.00
20	Ireland	62.91
21	Singapore	61.51
22	Portugal	59.28
23	Poland	55.16
24	Czech Republic	54.35
25	Greece	53.74
26	Brazil	51.34
27	China	51.25
28	Hungary	50.39
29	Turkey	49.70
30	Russian Federation	48.64

Source: author’s adaptation from Portland (2019).

Table 1.1 clearly illustrates the dominance of Western countries, with no African country featuring in the index. While soft power is not often associated with African states, the methodology deployed is partly responsible for these results. Among the 25 countries that were polled, Africa only had two representatives – Egypt and South Africa. Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index provides a more comprehensive list of soft power countries and indicators. It highlights the soft power of 60 states and features four African countries – South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Nigeria. While Portland’s Soft Power 30 relies on six indicators, namely, Culture, Education, Engagement, Digital, Enterprise, and Government; Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index has seven broader indicators including: Business and Trade, Governance, International Relations, Culture and Heritage, Media and Communication, Education and Science, and People and Values. Brand Finance also conducted their polls in 87 countries including 20 African countries. It is not therefore surprising that four African states feature on the Index.Table 1.2 reveals the African and global ranks of the African states that feature in Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index.

While this index has its shortcomings such as the non-inclusion of the African philosophies mentioned earlier, it presents more comprehensive and acceptable data, given the methodology adopted. Three (Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt) of the four case studies in this book feature in this index. Like other East African countries, Kenya does not appear in this index. However, the aim of this book is to engage the soft power currencies of key states in the four key sub-regions on the continent – North Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, and East Africa (a state in the last sub-region in Africa – Central Africa – has not been included because none of the states in the sub-region, including Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) features in the soft power index, projects remarkable soft power and exercises significant influence in Africa) – hence the inclusion of Kenya. While Nairobi’s power in the East African sub-region is contested by countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania, Kenya’s robust philosophy and cultural output including Harambee, fashion, achievements in athletics, and tourism justify its inclusion.

The case for Egypt is less controversial despite the fact that its regional powerhood is challenged by Algeria and Morocco in the sub-region. No other state in North Africa has influenced the politics in the sub-region and the broader Middle East like Egypt. Cairo’s reputation as the cradle of civilisation and perceptions that it is the foremost Arab country also justify its inclusion. Unlike the two aforementioned countries, the choice of Nigeria and South Africa seems pretty straightforward given that their hegemonic profile is not contested by other countries in the West and Southern African sub-regions, respectively. These two countries are the largest economies and the major peacemakers on the continent. South Africa’s progressive constitution (regarded as one of the most liberal in the world), and the spread of its multinational corporations across the continent are also important criteria. The influence of Nigeria’s film industry (Nollywood) and the popularity of its music (Afrobeats) on the continent are equally germane in this regard.

Table 1.2 Global Soft Power Index

Country	African rank	Global rank	Index score
South Africa	1	36	36.4
Egypt	2	38	34.8
Algeria	3	54	29.0
Nigeria	4	56	28.8

Source: author’s adaptation from Brand Finance (2020).

Table 1.3 The eight largest economies in Africa

Country	African rank	Global rank	GDP (millions of US dollars)
Nigeria	1	30	397, 270
South Africa	2	33	368, 289
Egypt	3	44	250, 895
Algeria	4	55	173, 758
Morocco	5	59	117, 921
Angola	6	62	105, 751
Kenya	7	66	87, 908
Ethiopia	8	68	84, 356

Source: author’s adaptation from World Bank (2019).

Beyond their soft power capabilities, it is important to note that these states are also the most significant hard power (especially in economic terms) states in their respective sub-regions and on the continent at large. Table 1.3 shows the largest economies in Africa.

As Table 1.3 shows, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt are the largest economies in Africa. Kenya is ranked seventh, outstripped by Algeria, Morocco, and Angola. However, Kenya is the highest ranked East African state on the index. In terms of military capability, the 2020 Global Fire Power Index reveals that Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola are the top five mili...