Understanding Soft Power in Africa

The Power of Attraction from Pretoria to Beijing

Oluwaseun Tella

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040428207
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African Drama
• Index: Social Sciences

Negative images of Africa, which define the continent as being riven with poverty, crime, or war, are increasingly being challenged. Examples of soft power, such as Nigeria's Nollywood, athletic successes in Kenya, Rwanda's commercial diplomacy, and South Africa's liberal constitution, are all reasserting African agency and shaping more positive understandings of the continent.

This book considers the role and impact of soft power in the African context and how it relates to the 21st century scramble for Africa. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, this book delves into various aspects of soft power in Africa, shedding light on how the continent's attractiveness is shaped by soft power in the continent's biggest states, the small states, and also the regional organisations, such as the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC), and East African Community (EAC). The book then goes on to assess the ways in which great powers, most notably China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and France, are themselves deploying soft power in Africa in order to vie for influence, resources, and strategic advantages.

Understanding Soft Power in Africa will be an important read for researchers in political science, international relations, African studies, and cultural studies, as well as for African policymakers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Introduction
• 1 Soft power in Africa: Assessing the power of attraction from Pretoria to Beijing
• Part II African Regional Powers’ Soft Power
• 2 Nigeria’s soft power: Historical development and contemporary utilisation
• 3 Ubuntu reconsidered? The rise and decline of South Africa’s soft power
• 4 From Nasser to the present: The evolution of Egypt’s soft power in Africa
• 5 Kenyan soft power: An untapped bag of mixed fortunes
• 6 Seeing beyond Africa’s image crisis: Sports and the arts as drivers of Cameroon’s soft power
• Part III African Small States’ Soft Power
• 7 Beyond the genocide guilt card: Understanding Rwandan soft power
• 8 Assessing the soft power strategies of African Small Island Developing States: The case of Mauritius
• 9 Wielding soft power? Botswana’s foreign policy in Africa and beyond
• 10 In the sea of global relations, is Seychelles softly surfacing?
• Part IV African Regional Organisations’ Soft Power
• 11 African Union’s soft power on the international stage
• 12 Eliciting compliance with ECOWAS’s normative frameworks as an expression of soft power
• 13 Sadc: The long retreat from the promise of soft power
• 14 The EAC and the soft power of Eastafricanness: Does it have limits?
• 15 The paradox of African RECs’ soft power: Promise vs. inertia in the restive AMU
• Part V External Actors’ Soft Power in Africa
• 16 US soft power in Africa: A study in soft empowerment
• 17 “Good friends, good partners, and good brothers”? Success and failure in China’s soft power strategy towards Kenya
• 18 Africa and the United Kingdom: Influence and soft power
• 19 Russia in Africa: Understanding the persistence of soft power
• 20 Soft Power in crisis: France’s struggles for influence in Africa
• 21 Building soft power across the Atlantic: Unpacking Brazil–Africa engagements
• 22 From Bollywood to diplomacy: India’s soft power strategies in Africa
• Index