African Foreign Policies in International Institutions

Jason Warner, Timothy M. Shaw, Jason Warner, Timothy M. Shaw

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781137575739
• eBook ISBN: 9781137575746
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Generates conversations in the fields of postcolonial international relations; political, economic, and security studies; as well as informing the fields of foreign policy analysis and the study of international organizations. 

© The Author(s) 2018

Jason Warner and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.)African Foreign Policies in International InstitutionsContemporary African Political Economyhttps://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57574-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

African Foreign Policies and International Organizations: The View from the Twenty-First Century

Jason Warner¹

(1)

United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA

End Abstract

Beginning with Hegelian tropes describing Africa as a “land of childhood” and “enveloped in the dark mantle of night,” even the more ostensibly inclusive post-World War II Western academy found Africa as a generally an inadmissible, or at least, uninteresting, topic of study for a specialist of international relations (IR). This trend was squarely bucked in the post-Cold War era, with Christopher Clapham’s (1996) Africa and the International System, which remains the standard-bearer for rigorous analysis of African international relations. And, while no analogous single-authored works have approached the topic of African international relations as broadly, sundry edited volumes (Harbeson and Rothchild 2000; Dunn and Shaw 2001; Brown and Harmon 2013; Murithi 2014; Bischoff et al. 2015) have worked to bring African states into the mainstream of the study of IR. More narrowly, another series of excellent edited volumes—though now decades old—(Mazrui 1969; Shaw and Aluko 1984; Wright 1998; Khadiagala and Lyons 2001a) worked to interrogate the nature of African foreign policies more acutely. Concurrently, editions too numerous to be named individually have investigated the nature of foreign policy processes of larger African states, especially South Africa and Nigeria . While various factors account for the general aversion to the study of African foreign policies, – including problems associated with data collection, the difficulty of locating a purely “foreign” policy in many African states, and an apathy of Western scholars toward African foreign policy generally (Wright 1998: 1) – scant focus has been given to African foreign policies in the past several decades; nor have many of the sub-topics related thereto been investigated with rigor.

To that end, this volume addresses one of the most auspicious omissions of the still seemingly inchoate study of African international relations: how African states conduct their foreign policies in international organizations and international institutions. Thus, the contributors to this volume were presented with the following motivating questions: How do African states conduct their foreign policies within international institutions and organizations? What strategic utility do states attach to these institutions? In short, how do we understand the relationships between African states and international institutions and organizations at the sub-regional, pan-African, global, and non-governmental levels of analysis ? More broadly, are there particular analytics, expectations, or logics that undergird the enactment of foreign policies in Africa? If so, in what ways might we apply insights from African experiences of statehood and statecraft to better understand the dynamics of foreign policies and international organizations in the world more broadly?

As an entry point to this edited volume, this introduction argues that while at one point in time, it might have been rightfully argued that there existed a uniquely “African” approach to the construction and effectuation of foreign policy—undergirded by what this piece refers to as the “Omnipotent African Executive” approach—the rise of a multiplicity of geopolitical actors over the past two decades has lessened the power of African executives, thus leading to more variegated African approaches to foreign policy—or what this chapter terms as the “Decentered Inputs” model of African foreign policy enactment. Precisely because of the contemporary diversity of inputs informing African foreign policy creation and effectuation, this introduction asserts that it is analytically unhelpful to attempt to corral under one rubric the interpretation of a singular, monolithic “African” approach to foreign policymaking.

Historic Views of African Foreign Policies and IOs: The “Omnipotent African Executive” Model

The prevailing orthodoxy in the limited study of African foreign policymaking over the past 30 years has been an assumption of the outstripped role of the executive, African head of state, in the creation of foreign policies. Or, as this chapter refers to the phenomenon, there has been a reliance on the “Omnipotent African Executive” model of foreign policy analysis . In brief, this paradigm for the study of African foreign policy understands that foreign policy has historically been made by African heads of state, who, wielding inordinate and often unchecked influence over the states and statist apparatuses over which they preside (generally due to a lack of democracy and/or an inordinate control of the military), could effectuate foreign policy decisions for their own personal benefit, rather than for the benefit of their country and its citizens. Indeed, an analysis of leadership by heads of state shows the long-held intuition of this model. Among others, the Omnipotent African Executive paradigm has been exemplified by broad and deep control of foreign policy by executives like Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire; Jean-Bédel Bokassa in the Central African Republic ; Sani Abacha in Nigeria ; Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea ; Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe ; Ali Omar Bongo of Gabon ; Isaias Afiwerki of Eritrea ; and, until January 2017, Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia . Given the above, the Omnipotent African Executive model has been an unsurprisingly salient way to think about the origins of African foreign policy, and one that understands African heads of state to be inextricably linked to African foreign policy construction and effectuation, and the primary reapers of its spoils, be they financial, reputational, or security related.

The Omnipotent African Executive trope of African foreign policy analysis is directly linked to the broader question of what constitutes “foreign policy” at all. A foundational—if not somewhat pedantic—statement at this point is the recognition that the construction and effectuation of “foreign policy” is an activity that is intrinsically undertaken by states themselves. Thus, though it might seem obvious, to understand what sorts of foreign policies have been produced on the African continent, one must inherently look at the nature of states and statist apparatuses that create foreign policies. To that end, our discussion on African foreign policymaking—in international institutions or otherwise—must inherently begin at the emergence of the African state in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the sorts of playing fields that such sovereignties offered to African leaders as they ascended to power. More acutely, then, the Omnipotent African Executive mode of analysis is premised upon the notion that to the extent that a somewhat unique genre of “African” foreign policymaking exists, it is derived from the fact that Africa’s post-colonial states shared common features that were more or less unique to them, to include: late entry into the global system of states; independence by legal fiat of decolonization that required no exertion of Weberian control over territory; and a general lack of Lockean social contract between government and citizens. Put otherwise, the nature of the emergence of African states has had a direct bearing upon the nature of foreign policies that the leaders of these states have elected to pursue.

For his part, Clapham (1996) has offered one of the most thorough discussions of how the nature of the post-colonial African state engendered specific tendencies for foreign policy creation, centered on the whims of the leader. Once assuming the top executive office, African leaders, he argues, worked assiduously to command as much presence over the state and its institutions as possible, a process he refers to as the pursuit of “monopoly statehood” undertaken in the service of protecting newfound positions of power. Controlling new states’ foreign policymaking portfolios was especially valuable, given early African leaders’ omnipresent threat environment, which included rival politicians and their followers, elements of the national military, non-co-ethnic groups within the country, belligerent neighboring states, and imperialist global states. Thus, the protection of individual interests of leaders, most typically tied to regime security —and not broader state interests of geopolitical power maximization—became the desired ends that determined African foreign policymaking processes. Calculations about the utility of managing nascent states’ foreign relations meant that once assuming executive offices, African leaders realized:

[T]hey could use their role in the diplomatic game together with their internal resources, in order to help keep themselves in power, to extend their control over the national territory and to extract resources from their domestic environment with which to strike further bargains on the international scene. They could well have general moral goals such as the economic development and national unity of their states, or the achievement of independence or majority rule for territories still under colonial or minority control, which their foreign and domestic economic policies were intended to achieve. They almost certainly had personal goals, such as glory or perhaps merely self-enrichment. But all of these depended on their ability to keep themselves going through the effective management of their external as well as their domestic environment. This was what foreign policy in African (and indeed most other) states was all about (Clapham 1996: 23).

Put in yet more explicit terms, Khadiagala and Lyons (2001b: 5) describe that:

African foreign policy decision making has always been the province of leading personalities. Foreign policy as the prerogative of presidents and prime ministers has dovetailed with post-colonial patterns of domestic power consolidation…The charismatic leader became the source, site, and embodiment of foreign policy… From this perspective, foreign policymaking emerged as a tool for leaders to both disarm their political opponents and compensate for unpopular domestic beliefs.

The Omnipotent African Executive Model: African Foreign Policies and IOs

Assuming that the Omnipotent African Executive paradigm of foreign policy analysis is true, we can also expect to derive useful sets of expectations about how African states will formulate foreign policies toward international organizations. If it is true that African foreign policies are primarily derived from leaders whose primary goals are regime security , then we can expect that: a) when African states create IOs, these IOs will hold as their primary goal to ensure regime security; b) that if many African leaders across the continent feel both insecure and can control foreign policy apparatuses, they might work together to protect mutual regime security via IOs and; c) given the primacy of regime security over statecraft, African foreign policy goals toward IOs will be rather narrow in scope.

Given these predictions of the Omnipotent African Executive model, do we see these played out in reality? Yes: the historical record indicates the profound saliency of this model in the analysis of early African foreign policy action, wherein African states understood IOs to primarily useful for the protection of incumbent regimes. To that end, a review at the creation of African IOs—especially the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963—gives tremendous credence to the Omnipotent African Executive model of foreign policy analysis . While space does not permit a thorough elucidation of the history of organization, its founding Charter (OAU 1963) vaunted, above all, non-interference, non-intervention, the respect and inviolability of colonial borders, and non-critique of member regimes. In the decades following its inception, the OAU’s constituent decision to remain “ingloriously silent” (Haggis 2009) led it, and the broader intra-African community, to bear silent witness when state leaders such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Idi Amin of Uganda , Moussa Traouré of Mali , Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia , Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe , Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic , and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan ravaged their populations of wealth, security, and representative governance, only rarely challenging the right of these leaders to rule. In no uncertain terms, the OAU served to ossify the privileged positions of African heads of state: perhaps no wonder then that it was often ignominiously referred to as “African Dictator’s Club.”

Contemporary African Foreign Policies and IOs: The Rise of the Decentered Inputs Model

While the Omnipotent African Executive paradigm of African foreign policy analysis has been shown to have had merits during a certain era, the general dearth of academic studies attempting to understand African foreign policies over the decades has meant that the literature has not moved much beyond this trope. Although it accurately described the period of African foreign policy creation and effectuation for a certain period of post-colonial history, it is here argued that this no longer the case.

Instead, the more appropriate way to think about the ways that African states now formulate their policies toward IOs and otherwise is via what this chapter calls the “Decentered Inputs” model of African foreign policymaking. In contrast to the Omnipotent African Executive Model, this chapter proposes this paradigm to accurately account for the sundry forces of globalization that have, in essence, “flattened” the capacity of some (though not all) African leaders to unilaterally commandeer the foreign policies of their states for their exclusive benefits. The Decentered Inputs approach therefore argues that African foreign policies in the twenty-first century are more rightly characterized by a proliferation of inputs—described presently—wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• Part I. African Foreign Policies in African International Institutions
• Part II. African Foreign Policies in Global International Instituions
• Part III. Country Case Studies of African Foreign Policies in International Institutions
• Back Matter