Explaining Foreign Policy in Post Colonial Africa Stephen M Magu Full Chapter PDF

Explaining Foreign Policy in
Post-Colonial Africa Stephen M. Magu

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/explaining-foreign-policy-in-post-colonial-africa-steph
en-m-magu/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
The Portuguese Escudo Monetary Zone: Its Impact in

Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa 1st ed. Edition Maria
Eugénia Mata
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-portuguese-escudo-monetary-
zone-its-impact-in-colonial-and-post-colonial-africa-1st-ed-
edition-maria-eugenia-mata/
American Foreign Policy Towards the Colonels' Greece

1st ed. Edition Neovi M. Karakatsanis
https://ebookmass.com/product/american-foreign-policy-towards-
the-colonels-greece-1st-ed-edition-neovi-m-karakatsanis/
Principled Pragmatism in Mexico's Foreign Policy Rafael

Velazquez-Flores
https://ebookmass.com/product/principled-pragmatism-in-mexicos-
foreign-policy-rafael-velazquez-flores/
Foreign Policy and Security Strategy Wight
https://ebookmass.com/product/foreign-policy-and-security-
strategy-wight/
Private Print Media, the State and Politics in Colonial
and Post-Colonial Zimbabwe 1st Edition Sylvester Dombo
(Auth.)
https://ebookmass.com/product/private-print-media-the-state-and-
politics-in-colonial-and-post-colonial-zimbabwe-1st-edition-
sylvester-dombo-auth/
Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860–1975

1st Edition Filipa Lowndes Vicente
https://ebookmass.com/product/photography-in-portuguese-colonial-
africa-1860-1975-1st-edition-filipa-lowndes-vicente/
Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics

of U.S. Foreign Policy John M. Thompson
https://ebookmass.com/product/great-power-rising-theodore-
roosevelt-and-the-politics-of-u-s-foreign-policy-john-m-thompson/
Australia in the Age of International Development,

1945–1975: Colonial and Foreign Aid Policy in Papua New
Guinea and Southeast Asia 1st ed. Edition Nicholas
Ferns
https://ebookmass.com/product/australia-in-the-age-of-
international-development-1945-1975-colonial-and-foreign-aid-
policy-in-papua-new-guinea-and-southeast-asia-1st-ed-edition-
nicholas-ferns/
George White and the Victorian Army in India and

Africa: Serving the Empire 1st ed. Edition Stephen M.
Miller
https://ebookmass.com/product/george-white-and-the-victorian-
army-in-india-and-africa-serving-the-empire-1st-ed-edition-
stephen-m-miller/
Explaining Foreign
Policy in Post-Colonial
Africa
Stephen M. Magu
Explaining Foreign Policy in Post-Colonial Africa
Stephen M. Magu
Explaining Foreign
Policy
in Post-Colonial Africa
Stephen M. Magu
Political Science & History
Norfolk State University
Norfolk, VA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-62929-8 ISBN 978-3-030-62930-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62930-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: © Alex Linch shutterstock.com
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Re-dedicated to the brightest star in the constellation, Mary Wanjiku
Macharia-Magu, all her children all their/her/my children, for anchoring
these turbulent times and sharing the joys of life and work. And to
Dr. Akomolafe & departmental colleagues, for taking a chance on future
possibilities;
To other really special people Tina Thomas (and Andros), Jade Nicquole,
the Bellos and Rose.
To Ashia Danielle and zeitgeist conversations about the world and
spirituality before pandemics.
To Lessie, for excellence in everything. To Joy. For friendship, mentoring
and ‘my siblings’.
To the next generation of leaders and activists I had the pleasure of
teaching:
to my many students who needed stuff to read Alesha, Alexis, Alicia,
Aniyah, Breauna, Deja and thousands more.
And to a continent figuring out its future in a most convoluted,
post-colonial, post-Cold War, post-pandemic world.
Preface
This book’s contours were triggered by a NCSU workshop on Civil-

Military Relationships in Africa, and Just War theory in pre-colonial
African societies. Even while they fought, societies sustained enough
diplomatic interactions to facilitate negotiations—peace terms, surrender
terms, conduct during war, treatment of prisoners, post-conflict settle-
ment and even payment of tributes. The study prepared argued that Just
War (theory) existed in African societies just as it did elsewhere. The
question was one of systematicity: how did (pre) modern nations agree
on parameters of the conduct of conflict? Conventions, e.g., dropping a
blade of grass indicated surrender; some only fought men, not women and
children. Even more prescient, the Numidian (Algeria/Tunisian) Bishop
(or Saint) Augustine of Hippo articulated some of the earliest formalized
tenets of Just War, which were also used in many other African countries.
This was an element of diplomacy.
Despite few written accounts of their history, the Agı̃kũyũ people,
similar to other African societies, conducted the complete spectrum of
government and foreign policy. They made war and sued for peace; they
traded, conducted diplomacy and entered into alliances. Their history,
conquests and setbacks were kept alive through stories, plays, proverbs,
age-sets traditions, theatrical, musical and dances, wise sayings and all
other manner of education, gave insight into war conduct. They forged
alliances, declared wars, negotiated cease-fires, made peace treaties, sent
emissaries, received diplomats, and conducted cross-societal marriages in
vii
viii PREFACE
service of peace and diplomacy and alliances, much as Europe did. Some
of these were directed at the world-famous Maasai, Akamba, Meru, etc.;
diplomacy was alive and well. Back to St. Augustine: who else in Africa
fought (mostly everybody), how did they fight (variably: some killed all
enemy warriors, women, kids, boys, men; some killed everyone except
marriage-age women, some saved all women, children and the elderly).
Together, these constituted (just) war conduct.
Proceeding thence, it was useful to consider what we knew, didn’t
know, and didn’t know we didn’t know. There is much we don’t know
about pre-colonial African societies; yet we know that these units were not
mere ‘tribes,’ incapable of ‘government.’ Contrariwise, ‘tribes’ collected
taxes, enumerated citizenry, recruited and trained armies, had judicial
systems with appropriate punishments and judges (elders) selected for
wisdom and knowledge of precedent. They had executive organs (council
of elders), built infrastructure (roads, earthen works, cities, drainage
systems, outposts, irrigation systems, defense positions, grain storage),
traded (barter trade, long distance—i.e., exports and imports), maintained
social systems, and issued currency, e.g., cowrie shells, gold, bronze and
salt. They made known their practices to others and used reciprocity
(Maasai and Kikuyus would cease fighting when one side dropped their
spears). In short, diplomacy in the contemporary African nation is not a
post-colonial reality.
Today, many African countries do not scream, “I am not a regular,
modern, Westphalian, bureaucratic state.” Instead, Africa is more…dif-
ferent. Bits and bytes have been expended trying to figure out how,
and why. Perhaps some explanations might stem from the fact that
African states experienced their first instance of centralized, bureau-
cratic, Westphalian statehood during a decidedly violent colonial occu-
pation. It was solely predicated on a preponderance of violence (no
rights, no privileges or immunities, just violence, murder, arson and
taxes). Further, random lines drawn on a map, disregarding the pre-
colonial experience, purported to concoct a modern, European version
of the Westphalian state—producing Somalia’s irredentism and an oddly
shaped DRC map (southern tip). The residents—not yet citizens—were
now supposed to get along and bury their perceived differences. The
Maasai of Kenya/Tanzania, their nomadic lifestyle and habitat shared with
wildlife, show little regard for borders or passports. Whatever utility such
states served, they magnified division and conflict, fostering the need for
diplomacy all around.
PREFACE ix
Granted, this is quite the quantum leap, to imply that since pre-colonial
African societies utilized diplomacy, modern African nations have foreign
policy positions and further, that there is an African foreign policy posi-
tion. These probabilities lend themselves to other avenues of analysis.
The question of what common foreign positions were adopted by African
nations either in Pan-African solidarity or as individual nations are worthy
scholarly endeavors. More specifically, African colonial nations, adminis-
tered either as part of the French Empire or as no-status territories by
other European powers, would soon become free, join a universe of bi-
and multilateral diplomacy, former colonizers casting shadows over their
future, but also fighting to liberate especially the southern African colonies
and territories still under apartheid. It was inevitable, that the joint prefer-
ences for Africa’s complete liberation intersected but that collective action
had a better chance of forcing a greater reckoning with colonialism. This
was the beginning of elements of a common African foreign policy, the
subject of this treatise.
Norfolk, USA Stephen M. Magu

Acknowledgments
Completing this manuscript, which was under research and preparation

in the years preceding the most consequential issue of our time, the
100-year, COVID-19 pandemic, was taxing. Despite the disruptions, the
steep learning curve and the circumstances that required us to learn and
adapt to the new ‘language’ of social-distancing, PPE, masks, Zoom,
BB Collaborate, a/synchronous teaching and learning and reminded us
of the beauty (and peril) of in-person human interactions, some of the
amazing people around me deserve a mention. I am grateful to NCSU’s
SPIA for the invite to the Civil-Military Relationships in Africa work-
shop that helped shape these ideas. I recognize the SERSAS/SEAN
conferences, which have become a place of camaraderie, friendship, colle-
gial collaborations and scholarly critiques to make research and knowl-
edge a most productive undertaking. I am indebted to the Tuskegee
Colleagues, especially Dr. Ndi, for your research and career insights and
faith in the continent. I am grateful to colleagues, especially Joy, Mamie,
Mike, Mohammed and Robert for…everything. I am grateful to Maureen
(MEL), for embodying the very best of us and for the amazing things
you will do. My eternal gratitude to Catherine (CLP) for insight, colle-
giality, critique, academic road trips with stops in some of the most inter-
esting places in these United States, and for conference flights to random
cities and random stops to other conferences and everything you did—and
amazing pictures of Grover.
xi
Contents
1 The Beginning of a Post-colonial Foreign Policy

in Africa 1
2 Conceptual Approaches to Foreign Policy

and Application to African Countries 19
3 Politics of Geography, Statehood, Residual

Colonization and Territorial Integrity 61
4 Africa Huru! Complex Events—Cold War, Residual

Colonization and Apartheid 99
5 Nation vs. Continent: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity

and Rebellion 153
6 Made in Europe: Breaking Nations, Secession

Movements and OAU Responses 193
7 Region or Continent: O/AU Development

and Regional Economic Communities 231
xiii
xiv CONTENTS
8 Between BRICs’ Promise and Past Western Trauma:

Whither, Africa? 265
9 Africa’s Post-Colonial Foreign Policy: Assessing

History, Imagining the Future 299
Index 339
Abbreviations
ACHPR African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

ACP African, Caribbean and Pacific countries
ADB African Development Bank
AMISOM African Union Mission to Somalia
APRM African Union’s African Peer Review Mechanism
AU African Union (2002–present; OAU was Its Predecessor)
BRIC Rising/Major Global Powers—Brazil, Russia, India and China
CIS Confederation of Independent States
COMESA Common Market for Eastern and South Africa
EAC II East African Community II (EAC I: 1967–1977)
EACSO East African Common Services Organization
EALA East African Legislative Assembly
ECOMOG Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
FLS Front Line States
FOCAC Forum on China-Africa Cooperation
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GNU Government of National Unity—(Post-election peace in Kenya,
Zimbabwe)
HIPC Highly Indebted Poor Countries
IAFS India–Africa Forum Summit
ICC International Criminal Court
ICPSD International Convention for the Pacific Settlements of Disputes
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
xv
xvi ABBREVIATIONS
IGAD Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (formerly

D—Drought)
LDCs Least Developed Countries
MDGS Millennium Development Goals, Sunset 2015
MENA Middle East & North Africa
MONUSCO United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission-Dem. Rep.
of the Congo
NAM Non-Aligned Movement
NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development
OAU Organization of African Unity (1963—2002)
PSC African Union’s Peace and Security Council
R2P Responsibility to Protect
RECs Regional Economic Communities
SADC Southern African Development Community
SADR Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (or Western Sahara)
SSA Sub-Saharan Africa
UN United Nations Organization
UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
UNEP United Nations Environmental Program
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNSC United Nations Security Council
UPU Universal Postal Union
WTO World Trade Organization
CHAPTER 1
The Beginning of a Post-colonial Foreign

Policy in Africa
This chapter sets the scene for the formation of states in Africa, as
a result of independence, beginning late in the 1950s, particularly in
the sub-Saharan region. As World War II concluded and a new world
order emerged, pitting the US-led, democratic capitalist western world
against the USSR-led communist-socialist world, European countries, war
ravaged and desperately holding onto increasingly assertive and soon-to-
be independent colonies in Asia and Africa, found themselves increasingly
on the periphery of global order debates, but also provided ammuni-
tion to the USSR and its allies, given continuing colonialism. Pressure
also came from within the colonies in the form of independence move-
ments, from the more receptive Soviet orbit, from the US itself given
the pointed contradictions, from regional organizations, such as the Arab
League and afield, Asian countries and their collective action (e.g., the
Bandung Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement), and the liber-
ated African countries such as Ghana and former French West Africa. The
chapter outlines the most important issues addressed in the monograph—
read foreign policy—that would confront the countries, individually, and
together, as they struggled to rid the continent of the yoke of colonialism
especially in the southern African region.
A book—any book—that purports to articulate an African foreign
policy evokes intellectual disquiet, even suspicion. Africa is territorially
massive, covering 11.7 million mi2 , 20% of Earth’s land area and has
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
S. M. Magu, Explaining Foreign Policy in Post-Colonial Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62930-4_1
2 S. M. MAGU
(54+) countries (Western Sahara), a 1.3 billion persons or 16.64% of

earth’s population and its fastest growing as of 2019. North-South, and
East-West, it covers almost 5000. 2600 different languages are spoken,
with likely the same number of ethnic, social, linguistically, historically,
religiously, culturally and economically disparate groups. Even their colo-
nial experiences were different. As diverse and different as the nations are,
there is a diversity of viewpoints of and positions on issues such as foreign
policy.
It is useful to articulate a working definition of foreign policy. Foreign
policy is about a country and its government enunciating interests that
translate into its interaction strategies with other countries, organizations,
MNCs and other ‘actors’ who can influence its actions, reactions, deci-
sions and outcomes. Thus, of necessity, defining foreign policy should
include the range of actors, often acknowledged to be countries with
articulated preferences and interest(s), strategies that involve unilateral,
bilateral and multilateral negotiations, coercion, concession or a mix
thereof, entailing actions aimed toward at least one or more actor external
to the country or actors, a decision, and a means of communicating
preferences and outcomes. Formally, foreign policy is “the strategy or
approach chosen by the national government to achieve its goals in its
relations with external entities. This includes decisions to do nothing.”1
Most IR scholarship holds that states are the primary actors in inter-
national relations, that they all have, and articulate their preferences, that
these preferences are mostly unchanging from one to the other (i.e., states
are functionally similar). States signal these preferences to other states
and actors and to their own publics. It is useful to consider where these
interests arise from, despite the proposition that states are unitary actors.
Without delving into domestic audiences and sources of legal authority
in states, often, leaders pursue policies harmful to their states in their
name. Some territorially expansive states have different population and
interest groups that vary the interests, but even in smaller states such
as Rwanda, such interests can vary. Even in unitary, homogeneous states
(e.g., Somalia), these interests vary and often pull the fabric of states’
centrality apart.
1 Valerie M. Hudson, “The History and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis.” In Steve
Smith, Amelia Hadfield and Timothy Dunne, Eds., Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 14.
1 THE BEGINNING OF A POST-COLONIAL FOREIGN … 3
These differences are aptly captured by Benedict Anderson, writing

that “an American will never meet, or even know, the names of more than
a handful of his [300] million-odd fellow-Americans. He has no idea what
they are up to at any one time. But he has complete confidence in their
steady, anonymous, simultaneous activity.”2 There are shared commonal-
ities binding them within the polity—a national anthem, president, senate
or federal structures—and other interests such as foreign wars, trade and
immigration, upon which a nation builds some form of consensus. If
even countries disagree on their interests, a foreign policy for Africa is
less defensible. This is not just due to its size (~3.5X the US), but due
to its diversity that also has common features, e.g., colonial experiences,
liberation outcomes, post-colonial paths and current interests. There is
a further distinction between sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the North
African region (Maghreb/Sahel), culturally, religiously, demographically
and historically.
An argument on the more fortuitous proposition of examining Africa’s
most critical states’ foreign policy, and their influence on the continent’s
major issues is plausible. Several states come to mind: South Africa (even
with its tortured history), Egypt (the Arab world’s cultural and religious
center), Nigeria (most populous African country with the highest GDP),
or Equatorial Guinea, the wealthiest country in Africa (GDP p.c. of US$
34,865). Ethiopia was not colonized but endured several years of Italian
occupation after 1935, and Liberia, the American Colonization Society’s
creation as a destination for newly-freed African slaves, or Mauritius,
consistently ranked highest in measures of democracy in Africa, or perhaps
D. R. Congo, with its perennial conflicts, or the failed Somalia, decid-
edly merit scholarly inquiry. Given the earlier recognition of a perceived
common destiny and colonial experience, a continental approach is more
useful.
Even those countries not listed have unique history, characteristics and
circumstances with merit. Yet as most theorists might posit, these are not
major powers, and therefore, their actions are less consequential to the
broader interstate interactions. Rather than wade into interstate, regional
and continental contests over whom, when and why, and potentially risk
another interstate war, this research approaches the question of Africa’s
foreign policy from an “issues” perspective. It focuses on issues that have
2 Benedict R. O. G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and

Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991), 26.
4 S. M. MAGU
been especially important to Africa and required collective action. Even

after resolving the selection criteria—issues versus states—a subsequent
challenge presents: What issues are, have been most important, and how
should they be studied, even organized?
African states, entering a largely structured and stratified world order,
had less influence than especially European and Asian states. But they
faced issues unique to, or reflecting their own experience: apartheid and
Ian Smith’s UDI in Rhodesia are good examples. But even with a most
egregious issue such as apartheid, where one might expect an African
consensus on the evil apartheid portended, some countries defected from
consensus. Should the Organization of African Unity (OAU), African
Union’s (AU) predecessor, take a hard-line position (favored by most
countries) and support armed struggle? Could the OAU negotiate with
the apartheid South African leadership to find inclusion for the disen-
franchised majority, as a minority of countries argued? In advocating for
collective action, did intervention necessarily rise to the level of interfer-
ence in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, which African countries
were unequivocally opposed to?
Decolonization fervor challenged the extent to which countries were
willing to go. Even as its diplomats used every occasion at the UN to
demand decolonization, Frontline States (FLS) such as Tanzania actively
hosted, and Libya trained freedom fighters, violating sovereignty and non-
interference in the affairs of sovereign nations, at the behest of the OAU.
Still, new challenges arose around colonial borders and the dispersal of
language groups that led to irredentism, as in Somalia. How would coun-
tries deal with borders, irredentism and the conflict it entailed? What—if
there would be one—would the African position on the Cold War and the
East/West divide be? Was this even important for Africa? What countries
considered extremely important varied, even though most of Africa’s new
countries seldom articulated their foreign policy.
Many African countries were now independent, sovereign nations, free,
and able to pursue their own interests and craft foreign policy. The
pursuit of these interests brought them into close proximity with each
other, and with issues that often affected the countries the same way—
trade, development, neo/colonialism, regional and the ~ phone residual
relations (Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone and other), defense
agreements, etc. The individual countries’ positions often differed from
the continental position on foreign policy issues, and countries regularly
violated the continent-wide tenets of independence, of sovereignty and
non-interference in the domestic issues of other countries even when

genocides were occurring. Tanzania, for example, cheerfully and success-
fully intervened in Uganda in 1978–1979, ousting Amin; granted, Amin’s
expansionist ambitions brought upon him the Armageddon of an invasion
by the all-around, usually mild-mannered Tanzania’s wrath.
Defining Africa’s Important Issues

A cursory Google web search of the term ‘key issues + African Union’
produces the usual suspects: a list of three, seven, top or ten issues
perceived to be Africa’s most important. Some are as perennial and
predictable as sunrise (conflict, poverty, hunger), while others are newer
(state failure, terrorism, war and hegemony). For AU’s 2017 Heads of
States and Governments summit, Gaffey identified three ‘key issues’ (i)
the status of Western Sahara in light of Morocco’s stated desire to rejoin
the African Union in 2017 and subsequent re-admission; (ii) preventing
genocide in South Sudan (Africa’s newest country promptly degener-
ated into ethnic conflict after nearly 40 years of conflict and OAU/AU
peace activities); and (iii) leadership changes and election of the AU
Commission Chair, where Chad’s Moussa Faki succeeded Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma.
In the Crisis Group’s briefing No. 135 of January 2018, seven major
issues confronting the AU are discussed. They include the need for
the AU to identify a strategic direction through consensus-building
on institutional and financial reform, contain disruptions occasioned by
Morocco/Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (AU Member State, recog-
nized by 85 countries around the world, with diplomatic representation
in 40 of them); elections in the DRC (postponed to two years beyond
the deadline and the almost inevitable rejection of the results); facilitating
deployment of election observers to 17 countries holding elections in
2018; stemming conflict in and implementing peace (based on the AU
roadmap) in the Central African Republic; continuing to support Somalia
and not withdrawing AU troops (deployed through AMISOM); and
stabilize South Sudan, independent in 2011, and which has experienced
conflict since 2014.3
3 The Crisis Group, “Seven Priorities for the African Union in 2018.” Briefing No.
135/Africa, 17 January 2018.
6 S. M. MAGU
The AU has sought to address the most critical issues, yet, despite the
OAU having existed for almost 40 years, it had remained largely ineffec-
tive. Part of the reason is the inclusive, rather than exclusive nature of
membership. Could African states and the OAU have found more success
by predicating membership on the European Union (EU)-like Acquis
Communautaire? The AU has in some instances shown grit, including
deploying troops to Somalia, later transforming into an UN-supported
peacekeeping mission, AMISOM. There are issues where the AU collab-
orates on much better as a continental body (on decisions binding to
the members states)—e.g., broadly supporting boycotts and embargoes
directed at the apartheid South African government. Thus, this is a more
profitable route to take, in assessing how African countries have made
their decisions on the most important issues, especially those affecting
member states.
Most issues affecting African countries can generally be classified as
domestic policy, or foreign policy issues. A robust IR debate addresses
the influence domestic politics has on foreign policy and vice versa. This
link is the subject of Putnam’s 1988 Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The
Logic of Two-Level Games. In analyzing the 1978 Bonn summit outcomes,
Putnam postulates that “neither a purely domestic nor a purely interna-
tional analysis could account for this episode. Interpretations cast in terms
either of domestic causes and international effects (‘Second Image’) or
of international causes and domestic effects (‘Second Image Reversed’)
would represent merely a ‘partial equilibrium.’”4 Putnam argues for a
more ‘general equilibrium,’ linkage and simultaneity in the influence of
domestic issues and preferences on global politics and vice versa. Africa
is special—or not: it is not immune to this logic of two-level games a la
Putnam. Diplomacy does not guarantee that consensus will be reached,5
although per de Senarelens, “the conventional divide between domestic
politics and international relations has become obsolete as the former,
4 Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level

Games.” International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Summer, 1988): 430.
5 For additional discussions on two-level games, strategy and bargaining, and the inter-
play between domestic and international politics, see, among others, Kahler (1993),
Moravcsik (1993), Milner and Tingley (2015), James Rosenau (2003) (with a substan-
tive discussion on distant proximities - greater globalization and localization of global
vignettes), and de Senarelens (2016).
while largely determined by the latter, can in turn affect regional and
world security and wellbeing.”6
During the earliest independence years, Africa faced the urgent ques-
tion of what to do with newly-inherited national borders. Should nations
keep them, or should the OAU consider new boundaries? Leading
pan-Africanist leaders such as Nyerere, Kenyatta, Nkrumah and Banda
and others acknowledged the urgency of the issue, in conference, they
kept the borders. Not even a year later, the borders led to regional
conflicts: Kenya and Somalia, 1964–67, Ethiopia and Somalia, Ethiopia
and Eritrea (Eritrea becoming independent in 1993) and Nigeria and
Cameroon, over the Bakassi Peninsula. States’ borders, crafted without
regard for ethnic composition, resulted in splitting of territories occupied
by Somalis (between Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya), the Maasai (Kenya
and Tanzania), among others. In large part, this division and subse-
quent decisions assured that Rwanda, Kenya/Somalia, Ethiopia/Somalia,
Somalia/Djibouti would persist long after.
The Critical Issues

Appreciating Africa’s complexity, the breadth of its issues, its rich history,
current opportunities and challenges, and future strategies, an assess-
ment of its foreign policy from independence to the present is warranted.
Its pre-colonial period does not lend itself to continental analysis; there
were states, kingdoms and empires, but these were scattered and seldom
undertook coordinated actions. Some African states’ foreign policy deci-
sions and strategies, formulated after 1950, have been informed by pre-
and colonial issues, foreign pacts, geography, spheres of influence, trade,
territorial interests and foreign powers domination of global power rela-
tions. After they liberated themselves, they could formulate own foreign
and domestic policy strategies, although structures and foreign policy
were often sprinkled with European flavor. They soon became Cold
War trapeze artists: they were courted by the eastern and western blocs,
while most former colonies were choosing non-alignment. Thus, though
6 Pierre de Senarelens, “Psychoanalysis and the Study of Emotions in International

Politics.” In Yohan Ariffin, Jean-Marc Coicaud, Vesselin Popovski, Eds., Emotions in
International Politics: Beyond Mainstream International Relations (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2016), 171.
8 S. M. MAGU
they were often de jure non-aligned, former European colonial powers

influenced them in/directly and the east/west wooed them.
Independence confronted myriad African issues, the most pertinent
of which are discussed here. Criteria for consideration are these: issues
that affected Africa or parts thereof, had global implications, or led
to intervention individual states, groups and external actors (e.g., UN,
NATO, OECD, EU). Some are addressed more generally as they affected
countries in different ways but were always present. An example is the
Washington Consensus conditionalities relating to reforms to allow access
to loans. The changes not just donor-driven: domestic pressure, polit-
ical activism and broader global changes such as the fall of communism
gave oxygen to African political reforms. Other ‘mandated reforms’ were
geared toward economics and were thus replicated in Regional Economic
Communities and the African Economic Community but also as a precon-
dition for foreign aid. Reforms included free trade, removing non-tariff
barriers, free markets, better governance and political freedom among
others. African countries detested the preconditions but global power
structure changes assured that the only loan sharks they could borrow
from, made the rules, and there really was no viable alternative.
Africa’s foreign policy issues can be analyzed through myriad lenses and
even theoretical approaches. This study applies three broad lenses. First,
colonization of African societies, which forced them to transition from
sub-state, homogeneous, pre-colonial societies into the legally ill-defined
colonial ‘entities,’ subjected to foreign rule through fraudulent treaties
and brute force. Their freedom came after 1950, and their introduction
into a global order was in the context of an ongoing global Cold War. The
second lens was the immediate post-Cold War period: here, the issues
centered on a new global order. Inextricably interlinked issues included
state-failure and the rise of (violent) non-state actors, who often utilized
the dire levels of human development and poverty to recruit into militia
and terrorist groups focused especially on western interests. The capitalist-
democratic western alliance-imposed aid preconditions, including trade
liberalization, free markets, good governance and expansion of political
space. The third lens reflects more recent global trends: whereas the
capitalist-democratic front has persisted, challengers emerging from post-
colonial states such as China, Brazil and India. Increasingly, they have
offered an alternative to the western-dominated global apparatus, and
suggest a model that African countries can follow.
Suffice to say, these three lenses cannot cover the entirety or complexity
of Africa’s past, present and future issues. Africa did not have or
stake common positions out of the gate, but their experiences and
unwavering determination to end minority rule in South Africa and
Rhodesia and other residual colonialism created shared interests and
thus natural alli(anc)es. OAU’s founding was vital, and its constituent
nations launched efforts to untangle the complex mess of future states
the Europeans left. Africa’s institutes found themselves trying to undo
the damage done by the colonial administrators, including balkanization
and splitting homogenous groups, and divide-and-rule that sowed seeds
of an inevitable future conflict. African states held diametrically incon-
sistent positions: if colonial governments were not legitimate and did
not represent Africans’ aspirations, were they obligated to honor treaties
and agreements colonists acceded to? Conversely, they kept the colo-
nial borders, thus recognizing decisions by authorities they considered
illegitimate. The desire for self-governance was so strong that African
nations upheld these agreements that were often detrimental to their own
historical practices and interests.
One such example, thorny then and now, was agreements governing
the Nile waters; it heavily favored Egypt, and prohibited upstream coun-
tries from damming the river. The Nile’s origin is Lake Victoria, fed
by rivers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Three pre-independence
agreements were the culprits: a 1902 treaty between Great Britain and
Ethiopia; H. E. “Menilik II, King of Kings of Ethiopia, engages himself
towards the Government of His Britannic Majesty not to construct or
allow to be constructed any work across the Blue Nile, Lake Tana, or the
Sobat.”7 The 1929 Anglo-Egyptian treaty (often referred to as ‘exchange
of notes’) stated that: “save with the previous agreement of the Egyp-
tian Government, no irrigation or power works or measures are to be
constructed or taken on the River Nile and its branches, or on the lakes
from which it flows […] which would in such a manner as to entail any
prejudice to the interests of Egypt, either reduce the quantity of water
arriving in Egypt, or modify the date of its arrival, or lower its level.”8
7 Joseph Awange and Obiero Ong’ang’a, Lake Victoria: Ecology, Resources, Environment
(Berlin: Springer, 2006), 287.
8 Mwangi Kimenyi and John Mukum Mbaku, Governing the Nile River Basin: The
Search for a New Legal Regime (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015),
37.
10 S. M. MAGU
The third was the 1959 bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan;
it reinforced the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian treaty’s provisions, and increased
water usage allocations for both Sudan and Egypt.9
The April 1955 Bandung Conference brought together nations newly
independent and proposed to form an alternative to the east/west blocs.
It was the first Afro-Asian conference that articulated countries’ desire to
pursue a non-alignment policy.10 Six African countries—Egypt, Ethiopia,
(then) Gold Coast, Liberia, Libya and Sudan—sent delegations. Coun-
tries attending the conference represented a “combined population [that]
made up approximately two-thirds of the world’s people.”11 During the
conference, Nehru’s support for African countries’ independence was
a notable rallying point. Eventually, the Non-Aligned Movement was
founded at the Belgrade Conference in 1961, with the agreement that
the members “had to pursue an independent foreign policy, peaceful
coexistence, and abstain from joining cold war military alliances.”12
African countries’ non-alignment policy was severely tested, yet they
had little trouble reconciling sovereignty with active support of anti-
colonial movements and ultimate independence of other African ‘coun-
tries’ and territories still subjected to foreign control.13 The actual
practice of non-alignment was mostly unsuccessful: newly independent
countries remained beholden to former colonial powers. Frequently, bilat-
eral relations with former colonial powers overshadowed those established
with neighbors. Still, the principle of non-alignment became a central
pillar of African countries’ relations with the rest of the world.
9 Kimenyi and Mbaku, Governing the Nile River Basin, 2015.

10 C. M. Turnbull, “Regionalism and Nationalism.” In Nicholas Tarling, Ed., The
Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume 2, The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
11 Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri and Vasuki Nesiah, “Introduction: The Spirit of
Bandung.” In Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri and Vasuki Nesiah, Eds., Bandung, Global
History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017), 4.
12 Marco Wyss, Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Sandra Bott and Janick Maria Schaufelbuehl,
“Introduction: A Tightrope Walk—Neutrality and Neutralism in the Cold War.” In Sandra
Bott, Jussi M. Hanhimaki, Janick Schaufelbuehl and Marco Wyss, Eds., Neutrality and
Neutralism in the Global Cold War: Between or Within the Blocs? (New York: Routledge,
2016), 4.
13 Wyss, et al., “Introduction: A Tightrope Walk,” 2016.
Parallel to the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

in 1961, then-sovereign African countries were engaged in deciding
the character of future African unity. Three major schools of thought
presented (as groups): Brazzaville Group, Monrovia Group and
Casablanca Group. The Brazzaville Group was populated by Francophone
states that favored continental integration based on economic cooperation
and closer ties with their overlord, France. The Casablanca Group envi-
sioned African unity as a federal government structure, akin to that of the
US. This approach intimated a political and economic union of African
countries. The Monrovia Group was numerically superior to the other
two. It favored a looser continental association, but emphasized that state
sovereignty was sacrosanct.14 This ultimately informed the Organization
of African Unity’s structure.
As nations contended with OAU’s structure and found challenge in
regionalism advocated by Nyerere, Senghor and Houphouet-Boigny, old
and new regional organizations formed. They were infused with histor-
ical basis, regional and economic integration and services and political
aspirations. The organizations were not all new: in 1967, the first East
African Community (EAC I) was formed. It replaced the East African
Common Services Organization (EACSO). Further back in 1917, Kenya
and Uganda had a customs union (Tanzania joined later). The customs
union was succeeded by an abortive East African High Commission
in 1947.15 In French-controlled Equatorial and West African region,
L’Afrique-Équatoriale française (French Equatorial Africa), comprising of
the Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon and Congo was reflected
this trend. It had regional federal structures (currency, trade, transport)
that fostered regional integration but also assured French control in the
event of independence. The French vision came to pass: in 1959 countries
founded the Union douanière équatoriale (Equatorial Customs Union).16
A major issue in Africa’s foreign policy is the persistent manifesta-
tion of the spectrum of political violence. It ranges from interstate wars
14 Kimenyi and Mbaku, Governing the Nile River Basin, 2007.

15 Hector Carcel, Luis A. Gil-Alana and Godfrey Madigu, “Currency Union in the
East African Community: A Fractional Integration Approach.” In Almas Heshmati, Ed.,
Economic Integration, Currency Union, and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in East
Africa (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016), 42; and The Republic of Kenya,
“The Kenya Gazette,” Vol. LXVII-No. 43 (Nairobi: GP, 21 September 1965), n.p.
16 Aghrout, “Africa’s Experiences with Regional Co-Operation and Integration,” 1992.
12 S. M. MAGU
(e.g., Kenya vs. Somalia, Ethiopia vs. Somalia, Libya vs. Egypt, Algeria
vs. Western Sahara, Djibouti vs. Eritrea (a border conflict), Uganda vs.
Tanzania’s vita vya Kagera, among others. Intrastate wars (civil wars),
low-intensity conflicts and coups d’états account for the near 40% of
global conflicts attributed to Africa. Interspersed with these are interna-
tional, and African-led peace overtures, peacekeeping missions, military
interventions the world is happy happen (e.g., Tanzania-Ugandan war,
or the ECOWAS near-intervention in The Gambia after Yahya Jammeh’s
refusal to concede defeat in elections), and ongoing attempts to activate
a Peace and Security Council of the African Union.
Some conflicts have attracted international dispute resolution mecha-
nisms and UN-sponsored prosecution of war criminals. They include the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR),17 the UN Special
Court for Sierra Leone (and Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone).18
The adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
(ICC, or, International Criminal Court Statute) in July 1998, and its
entry into force in July 2002 ushered in a new era for Africa and the
world. War crimes would be more systematically addressed. Notwith-
standing, majority of its prosecutions and arrest warrants issued have
led to the ICC being accused of bias, a “court for Africans” even as its
mechanism addresses conduct during conflict.
Another major issue touching on Africa’s foreign policy is human
rights. Africa’s record here is less than stellar, perhaps predictably so,
given that their first instance of statehood of diverse previously conflictual
groups was the colonial state. The very nature of the independent state
born out of colonialism with its egregious treatment of African subjects,
and the broader global geopolitical realities of the Cold War meant that
states could get away with human rights violations with impunity. After
all, the colonial state was built on a foundation of oppression and in
the US, civil rights were only now producing positive outcomes, denying
the major powers any standing to advocate for human rights. Push-back
17 The full title of the court is: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecu-
tion of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International
Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens
Responsible for Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in the Territory of
Neighbouring States between 1 January and 31 December 1994.
18 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library. “UN Documentation: International
Law.” UN Documentation: International Law. https://research.un.org/en/docs/law/
courts.
might drive countries into the Sino-soviet camp, and that was decidedly
the least optimum outcome.
An unintended consequence of this reality was that African leaders
had little impetus to level the playing field or address the grievances
informed by ethnic schisms exacerbated by colonialism. Most quickly
abandoned any pretense of multiparty democracy. But the extent to which
governments could run amok was changing: The Rome Statute recast
sovereignty as states’ responsibility to protect, with the implied possi-
bility of external intervention. Cold War realities that enabled countries’
bad behavior could lead to intervention. Intriguingly, 30 African coun-
tries have ratified the Rome Statute, none have unsigned. As distasteful as
the now-diluted concept of sovereignty is, governments have reluctantly
conceded that their new raison d’être is protecting their citizens, and if
they don’t, international collective responsibility to intervene may occur.
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has been applied successfully in Africa,
including during Kenya’s post-2007 election. R2P was used to address
Libyan government’s response to the 2011 Arab Spring protests. Even
in Darfur, former Sudanese president al-Bashir found himself scram-
bling out of countries that might arrest him and hand him over to the
ICC on the basis of suspected war crimes in Darfur. Africa has also
increasingly sought to pursue pacific settlement of disputes. It has also
responded with moves to encourage greater accountability for leaders
using NEPAD’s Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) that evalu-
ates governance, and the fiscally-attractive Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s
Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership with a US$5 million
award. Other mechanisms include data and reports issuing from the
World Bank Group’s Worldwide Governance Indicators and Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) indicators.
Economic development has been, predictably, most salient to African
countries. As they became independent, it was clear that colonial neglect,
despite arguments to the contrary, rapid development and elimination of
poverty, disease and illiteracy were urgent. For almost three-quarters of
a century, colonial powers bestowed upon Africa the worst HDI indica-
tors. Tanzania had few paved roads, DRC had one doctor for the whole
country and 16 doctoral students. Despite escaping colonization, half of
Ethiopia’s high school teachers in 1962 were Peace Corps Volunteers.
Funding human and economic development for countries dependent on,
and net exporters to the west was challenging, in addition to colonial obli-
gations they inherited. Despite strong advocacy for independent financial
14 S. M. MAGU
institutions such as a UN bank, they found little success and had to

subject themselves to the Bretton Woods institutions conditions for loans,
or accept aid from donors, funding that came with strings attached.
Spurred by the west, trade liberalization was afoot, led by technocratic
institutions such as GATT. Development theory suggests that Africa and
other Global South countries were unable to compete with developed
countries that had only recently colonized them. Africa was unsuccessful
in driving favorable trade conditions, agreements and exemptions. The
western prescription for economic growth entailed “reforms” including
the Structural Adjustment Program (SAPs) and Washington Consensus.
The result was, unsurprisingly, a steep decline, a decrease, elimination and
under-investment in basic services and introduction of user fees for coun-
tries with meager per capita GDP. Predictably, social services, health and
educational sectors suffered and reversed most of the progress countries
had made.
Other issues that inform African countries’ foreign policy include
regional economic communities (RECs). Some are holdovers from colo-
nial institutions, while others issued from the post-colonial Brazzaville,
Casablanca and Monrovia groups. Many applied the EU model to pre-
colonial institutions and aspired to integrate on the basis of shared
economic conditions, to pool resources and expand markets. Over time,
some developed military and security cooperation: ECOWAS organized
ECOMOG while IGAD, even absent a standing military apparatus,
undertook the IGADSOM mission and more loosely, EAC member states
deployed troops to Somalia. Overall, economic development is a priority
for African countries. This is warranted: their development indices show
exceptionally high unemployment rates, an ever-growing “youth bulge”
where 60% of Africa’s population is below 30. The growing importance
of technology as a fourth factor of production is tied to economic devel-
opment. Africa has notched some wins such as M-Pesa (mobile money
platform) and Ushahidi crowdsourcing software. Applying technology
to the challenges of economic development can increase the pace of
development.19
Collective actions implied in Africa’s foreign policy line up with trends
among the world’s major economies and regions. Africa is courted, for
better or worse, by these established and by rising powers for its resources
19 UNICEF, “Levels & Trends in Child Mortality Report, 2018.” New York, 2018.
and manpower. BRICs and the UE are partners with the AU, and have
supported African solutions to the continent’s challenges. Its institutions
have repurposed their role and expanded its structures and issues. It is
leading in mitigating conflict, viz. the AMISOM mission. Outside of
effects and implications of Sars-Cov-2 (COVID-19), institutions, e.g.,
Africa’s CDC and newly-fangled AfCFTA with a 1.4 billion market,
hold promise, compliment RECs, AEC and a future political federation,
perhaps fulfilling Agenda 2063, a century past colonialism.
Research Monograph Outline

A foreign policy for Africa remains imprecise. There are 54 sovereign
nations, a few non-self-governing countries, European enclaves, disparate
issues, interests and geography. Synthesizing each country’s foreign policy
is attractive; still, it is undeniable that continental issues might best be
addressed through the O/AU lenses. Since some of the major issues—
trade, sovereignty, conflict—attract global involvement and countries’
issues sometimes overlap or appear related, an O/AU lens is prudent as
are the Cold War and post-Cold War periods.20 As a collection of inde-
pendent nations, the immediate post-independence period was obtruded
into a Cold War landscape, with proxy wars often fought in Africa.
Tellingly, convergence of interests with unusual, self-interested allies such
as the USSR, which supported the liberation movements to spite and/or
challenge the US and its allies, the Cold War had an outsize impact on
Africa. Other proxy battlefields included wars, such as the Ogaden War of
1977–78, Angola, Namibia and the Congo.
The post-Cold War period, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall
and ultimately, the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, led to
countries and the OAU scrambling to conform with a new, less forgiving
world order. The straw-man was no more, and the new hegemon, the
US, intended of remaking the world in its image. Unable to play the
US against any other country and with only one option, African coun-
tries danced to the tune of western global capitalism and democracy.
Africa failure to secure independent global development institutions and
20 Other scholars have studied Africa’s foreign policy, from antiquity to present (Nanjira
2010), individual countries (Mandela 1993: South Africa’s future foreign policy); and
foreign policy of the Congo and South Africa (Jackson 1984), but the number of such
studies is woefully small.
16 S. M. MAGU
financing basis was now leveraged against them, and there was great
nostalgia in such institutions as the UN’s Special Fund (SUNFED).
Despite glaring inequalities and dependency of African nations, free trade
and market liberalization was a thing. Would African nations adapt to the
new boss’ whims or meet a most Jurassic Park end?
Besides identifying the major events that have occurred in Africa since
the 1950s, the book addresses theoretical explanations of Africa’s foreign
policy-making processes and whether they comport to processes else-
where; the politics of geography, new statehood, residual impacts and
implications of colonization as well as territorial integrity, the complexity
and impact of the Cold War on Africa’s most important issues (libera-
tion for all) and responses to apartheid. It considers nationalism, national
unity, dispersal of homogeneous populations across state borders and the
challenges it procures, such as separatism, secession, rebellion and state
contestation. It highlights the parallels of Regional Economic Communi-
ties (RECs) and a repurposed AU, BRICs, their foreign policy preferences
and the new ‘race’ for engagement with Africa, seeking to frame new
directions and relationships away from a capitalist-democratic world order.
Lastly, an inflection, a blueprint of Africa’s future foreign policy is
considered.
References
Aghrout, Ahmed. “Africa’s Experiences with Regional Co-Operation and Inte-
gration: Assessing some Groupings.” Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi e
Documentazione Dell’Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, vol. 47, no. 4
(1992): 563–586. www.jstor.org/stable/40760734.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread
of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 1991.
Awange, Joseph and Obiero Ong’ang’a. Lake Victoria: Ecology, Resources,
Environment. Berlin: Springer, 2006.
Carcel, Hector, Luis A. Gil-Alana and Godfrey Madigu. “Currency Union in the
East African Community: A Fractional Integration Approach.” In Economic
Integration, Currency Union, and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in East
Africa. Edited by Almas Heshmati. Cham: Springer, 2016.
The Crisis Group. “Seven Priorities for the African Union in 2018.” The Crisis
Group. Briefing No. 135/Africa (January 2018). https://www.crisisgroup.
org/africa/b135-seven-priorities-african-union-2018#.
Eslava, Luis, Michael Fakhri and Vasuki Nesiah. “Introduction: The Spirit of
Bandung.” In Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts
and Pending Futures. Edited by Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri, Vasuki Nesiah.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Jackson, Henry F. From the Congo to Soweto: U. S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa
Since 1960. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1984.
Kahler, Miles. “Bargaining with the IMF: Two-Level Strategies and Devel-
oping Countries.” In Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and
Domestic Politics. Edited by Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert
D Putnam. Berkeley: UC Press, 1993.
Kimenyi, Mwangi and John Mukum Mbaku. Governing the Nile River Basin:
The Search for a New Legal Regime. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2015.
Makinda, Samuel M. and F. Wafula Okumu. The African Union: Challenges of
Globalization, Security, and Governance. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Mandela, Nelson. “South Africa’s Future Foreign Policy.” Foreign Affairs, vol.
72, no. 5 (1993): 86–97. https://doi.org/10.2307/20045816.
Milner, Helen V. and Dustin Tingley. Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic
Politics of American Foreign Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2015.
Moravcsik, Andrew. “Introduction: Integrating International and Domestic
Theories of International Bargaining.” In Double-Edged Diplomacy: Interna-
tional Bargaining and Domestic Politics. Edited by Peter B. Evans, Harold K.
Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam. Berkeley: UC Press, 1993.
Nanjira, Daniel Don. African Foreign Policy and Diplomacy from Antiquity to the
21st Century, Volume 1. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.
Putnam, Robert D. “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-
Level Games.” International Organization, vol. 42, no. 3 (1988): 427–460
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706785.
Republic of Kenya. “The Kenya Gazette.” Vol. LXVII-No. 43. Nairobi, 21
September 1965.
Rosenau, James N. Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
de Senarelens, Pierre. “Psychoanalysis and the Study of Emotions in International
Politics.” In Emotions in International Politics: Beyond Mainstream Interna-
tional Relations. Edited by Yohan Ariffin, Jean-Marc Coicaud and Vesselin
Popovski. New York: Cambridge, 2016.
Turnbull, C. M. “Regionalism and Nationalism.” In The Cambridge History of
Southeast Asia: Volume 2, The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Edited by
Nicholas Tarling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
UNICEF. “Levels & Trends in Child Mortality Report, 2018.” https://data.uni
cef.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Child-Mortality-Report-2018.pdf.
United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjöld Library. “UN Documentation: International
Law.” UN Documentation: International Law. https://research.un.org/en/
docs/law/courts.
18 S. M. MAGU
Wyss, Marco, Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Sandra Bott and Janick Maria Schaufel-
buehl. “Introduction: A Tightrope Walk—Neutrality and Neutralism in the
Cold War.” In Neutrality and Neutralism in the Global Cold War: Between
or Within the Blocs? Edited by Sandra Bott, Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Janick
Schaufelbuehl and Marco Wyss. New York: Routledge, 2016.
CHAPTER 2
Conceptual Approaches to Foreign Policy

and Application to African Countries
Introduction
This chapter addresses the pertinent question of approaches to under-
standing foreign policy-making. Scholars have long debated whether the
theories that explain foreign policy, overwhelmingly developed in western
countries, are likely to explain the same phenomena elsewhere, especially
in the Global South. Theories and approaches such as Almond’s Mood
theory, domestic audience costs, bureaucratic politics, Groupthink, poli-
heuristic theory or foreign policy approaches that explain foreign policy
in democracies have limited explanatory power over African countries,
OAU and AU’s institutional foreign policy. This chapter examines the
existence, absence, role and the sources of foreign policy in Africa—elites,
bureaucracies, citizens, domestic audiences and the external stakeholders
in the making of foreign policy. Foreign policy is a more recent area
of growth in scholarship in global politics, and theory-testing around
who the key actors, ideas and approaches continue to evolve. Though
Africa’s post-colonial foreign policy was partly informed by colonial
experiences and residual colonization, limited educational and political
participation during colonialism impacted the ability of citizens to direct
foreign policy and gave elites much latitude in crafting foreign policy. Still,
once-consensus national, regional and pan-African goals were swept up
in personality disagreements and regional vendettas. Still, understanding
foreign policy from a theoretical perspective is invaluable; this chapter
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2021
S. M. Magu, Explaining Foreign Policy in Post-Colonial Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62930-4_2
20 S. M. MAGU
examines approaches that are more, or less likely, to explain foreign policy
in Africa.
What informs countries’ interests, preferences, choices and foreign
policy decisions? Realist theory argues that states are functionally similar
and their interests and interactions are informed by pursuit of, among
others, security and power. Other theories herald cooperation: norms,
rules and institutions promote cooperation (neoliberalism). Still others
suggest shared values, interests and ideologies such as democratization,
cooperation and peace can reduce conflict and increase cooperation
(constructivism), even as the exploitative nature of powerful (core)
states against weaker (dependent) states explains international interac-
tions (Marxist theories). The ‘national interest’ is historically a perceived
source of states’ interests articulated through foreign policy actions. The
‘national interest’ stems from the preferences of domestic audiences,
interest groups, bureaucracies and elites. But try as one might, some
countries evidently show little interest in gaining power, and whether
all states are functionally equal is a fair question, as is the level of citi-
zenry involvement in foreign policy-making. This extends to the theories
explaining foreign policy-making and processes, including, for example,
Almond’s Mood theory. African countries have tended to approach
foreign policy as a ‘bloc’—at the UN and other IGOs, and the prolif-
eration of RECs suggests that Africa might be functionally different from
other regions.
Theories of foreign policy-making are still relatively new, and primarily
based on the experiences of western nations. Granted, states are func-
tionally similar, but just as development of states and economies cannot
be explained by the same theories, one imagines the same to be true for
foreign policy-making. There are many possible explanans and conceptu-
alization of foreign policy-making, examined in detail in this chapter. Of
great import is the question of whether they also explain African coun-
tries’ foreign policy individually and institutionally. Pending the analysis,
it helps to reflect on why they may not be universally applicable. The
impact of democracy and domestic audiences is expected to have a signif-
icant impact; so too, is the reality that most western countries have, at
some point, been great powers with different considerations than those
of African countries.
The sources and impacts of domestic sources of foreign policy have
been especially infused with Euro-Atlantic, but predominantly American
perspectives and explanations. For the hegemon, the maxim that ‘politics
2 CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES TO FOREIGN POLICY … 21
stops at the water’s edge’ is a truism. The unitary nature of the state in
its interactions with others is aptly captured: “when it comes to foreign
policy, American political leaders should speak with one voice-a distinc-
tion from the cacophony that marks domestic policy making.”1 A clear
distinction between domestic and foreign policy-making exists; even as
states are considered unitary actors, obvious ideological divisions within
states manifest and globally. There are often stakes and levels of support
for factions within the US, partly based on expected future relations. But
since there is rare ability to constrain actions, e.g., pulling the US out
of the JCPOA, Paris Climate Accords or TPP, the illusion of states as a
unitary actor persists.
The preponderance of American power and influence on global poli-
tics especially post-Cold War makes sense, but is inherently risky as a
source of explanation for other global phenomena. The US is unlike
many other countries, even among its peers. It derives its character
from unique historical, social, cultural and political basis that set it from
almost every other country even liberal democracies. Its political system
is peculiar, with robustly (almost) co-equal branches of government,
domestic audiences, the Dahl-ian, key components of a democracy, a
“harmonious system of mutual frustration.”2 Where US policy-makers
might be concerned about domestic audiences, other countries, e.g.,
Chad’s leaders might face fewer constraints and opposition. Govern-
ments, internal political mechanisms and checks and balances often confer
foreign policy-making to the whims, sometimes expertise, of a pliant elite
cabal, driven by concerns such as history, regime survival and their own
well-being.
This brings us back to the important question: Do foreign policy-
making structures especially in Africa mirror the US and developed
countries? Can African countries’ foreign policy-making be explained by
theories derived out of the Euro-Atlantic Westphalian state? Africa epito-
mizes the world of difference in social, economic and political processes
1 Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley, Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics
of American Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 1.
2 Larry N. Gerston, American Federalism: A Concise Introduction (Armonk: M. E.
Sharpe, 2007), 35.
22 S. M. MAGU
and conditions from the west, and the use of western theoretical frame-
works to understand African issues has led to little progress.3 A cursory
survey of the civilization missions of Europe, pseudo-scientific ideas
of superiority that gave us slavery, the misadventures of colonialism,
traditional theories of economic development, Washington Consensus,
Structural Adjustment Programs, multiparty democracy and other issues
illustrate their incompatibility with African realities. Explanans of Africa’s
foreign policy stem from the western world; they rarely apply to Africa.
Parsing Process: Considering

Theories and Foreign Policy
Theory is as a body of statements that systematize knowledge of and
explain phenomena. They consist of general, verifiable statements that
explain why things happen and offer specific and empirically testable
predictions.4 IR theories are “a system of generalizations,”5 “a collec-
tion of stories about international politics [which] relies upon IR myths
in order to appear to be true.”6 Scholars can evaluate whether hypotheses
predict or explain reality. Theories provide “cumulative knowledge about
hitherto unexplained phenomena,”7 and “provide intellectual order to
the subject matter of international relations. They enable us to concep-
tualise and contextualise both past and contemporary events. They also
provide us with a range of ways of interpreting complex issues […] they
3 Some scholars, e.g., Acharya and Buzan (2001) the preponderance and overwhelming
source of western and absence of Global South IR theories, even though the major powers
have inordinate influence on world affairs.
4 Janet Johnson and H. T. Reynolds, Political Science Research Methods (Thousand Oaks:
CQ Press, 2015).
5 Yaqing Qin, “Why Is There No Chinese International Relations Theory?” In Amitav
Acharya and Barry Buzan, Eds., Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives
on and Beyond Asia (London: Routledge, 2010), 26.
6 Cynthia Weber, International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction (London:
Routledge, 2001), 2.
7 Colin Elman and Miriam Elman, “Introduction: Appraising Progress in International
Relations Theory.” In Colin Elman and Miriam Elman, Eds., Progress in International
Relations Theory: Appraising the Field (Cambridge: BCSIA, 2003), 1
help us think critically, logically and coherently.”8 Social science theories

have downsides, including perceived inferiority by natural sciences, impos-
sibility of empirically testing some propositions and difficulty predicting
human behavior in different populations.9
One attribute of theory is empirical generalization.10 Robust theo-
ries explaining the [process of] foreign policy [making] should hold true
universally; otherwise, inconsistencies require reconsideration. Even as
differences between states and citizens abound, there are few existing
theories using sociocultural and religious factors to explain global poli-
tics. Acharya and Buzan restate that most extant theory derives from
European model of statehood and interstate interactions.11 Asia, they
argue, is “the site of the only contemporary non-Western concentration
of power and wealth even remotely comparable to the West”12 that has
had significant IR interactions. They also contend that “western IRT
(international relations theory) is both too narrow in its sources and
too dominant in its influence to be good for the health of the wider
project to understand the social world in which we live.”13 Other regions
that proportionally contribute to the non-western world in which IR
interactions occur should be considered in proposing theory and the
implications considered.
The terms ‘IR theory’ and ‘foreign policy’ are often used interchange-
ably. Some consider foreign policy analysis a sub-field of IR. Hellmann
8 Scott Burchill, “Introduction.” In Scott Burchill, Richard Devetak and Andrew

Linklater, Eds., Theories of International Relations, 2nd Ed. (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2001), 13.
9 Milja Kurki and Colin Wright, “International Relations and Social Science.” In Tim
Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith, Eds., International Relations Theories (London:
Oxford University Press, 2013).
10 Other attributes include empirical verification, falsifiability, non-normative research,
cumulative nature of research, its explanatory function, prediction, probabilistic explana-
tion and parsimony (Johnson and Reynolds, 2015).
11 Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western Interna-
tional Relations Theory? An Introduction.” In Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, Eds.,
Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia (London:
Routledge, 2010).
12 Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations
Theory?” (2001), 2.
13 Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations
Theory?” (2001), 2.
24 S. M. MAGU
and Urrestarazu propose “‘systemic’ IR, which provides a bird’s-eye view

on the whole international system as a whole, and ‘sub-systemic’ foreign
policy analysis (FPA), which zooms in on the placement and actions of
states considered to be the most fundamental unit of this system.”14
Palmer and Morgan propose an approach where foreign policy defies
single issues; rather, it is the process of “a state constructing bundles of
policies – what we will call portfolios – that, in combination, are designed
to achieve things – outcomes – that the state wants.”15 Beach argues
that “the study of foreign policy does not require a unique FPA theo-
retical toolbox,”16 but apprehending choices and decisions policy-makers
arrive at has intrinsic value outside of theory. Given gaps between theories
and their explanatory power of states’ foreign policies, the actions warrant
study. The goal of study is not developing an Africa-centric theory; rather,
its task is to understand foreign policy-making in Africa.
Contemporary Theories of Foreign Policy

Comparative foreign policy analysis (FPA) is an alternative explanation of
foreign policy processes. That said, Smith questions whether FPA is an
attempt at an empirical study of non-scientific ideas, implying that it is a
pseudoscience.17 FPA stems from a systemic analysis of the international
system, the playground for actors’ interactions. Granted, mainstay IR
theories—realism, liberalism, constructivism and Marxism—were devel-
oped to explain interactions between actors in the international system
in the past century, making such studies nascent. There was a concur-
rent idea, behavioralism, which classical realists such as Hans Morgenthau
articulated in the seminal work Politics Among Nations. Deriving from
studying and understanding human nature, Morgenthau argued that vari-
ables such as power, self-interest and morality inform human behavior, but
also, that the conduct among nations.
14 Gunther Hellmann and Ursula Stark Urrestarazu, Theories of Foreign Policy (Oxford
Bibliographies, 2013), n.p.
15 Glenn Palmer and Clifton Morgan, A Theory of Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2006), 2.
16 Derek Beach, Analyzing Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2012), 6.
17 Steve Smith, “Theories of Foreign Policy: An Historical Overview.” Review of
International Studies, Vol. 12 (1986): 13–29.
Behavioralism as applied to the broader IR discipline is confounding,

considering states are functionally similar, and therefore, they over-
ride understanding the actions of leaders and decision-makers. Besides
Morgenthau’s work, Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, with three
levels of analysis (individual, state and international system), provide
explanations of the impact of individuals’ actions, while the third level
of analysis implies international interactions, the domain of foreign policy.
FPA “attempts to understand foreign policy by treating states as members
of a class of phenomena and seeks to generalize about the sources, and
nature, of their behaviour, focusing on the decision-making process in its
varying aspects in order to produce explanations.”18 It uses empirically
testable ‘models of decision-making’ and ‘decision rules.’
Hudson examines and then aggregates existing FPA scholarship,
producing several FPA ‘hallmarks.’ FPA is multi-factorial, multilevel,
multi-disciplinary, integrative, agent-oriented, actor specific approach.19
Nonetheless, there is no consensus on any elements of FPA models:
number, key variables and threshold of models, model robustness or
which models explain the processes. Foreign policy-making is not suffi-
ciently specified or the differences between decision rules and decision-
making articulated. Table 2.1 outlines six models based on the works of
Norwich University, Mingst and Arreguín-Toft, Mintz and Sofrin, and
Yetiv.
The main foreign policy analysis models are Rational Actor or Rational
Choice Model, organizational processes, bureaucratic politics, group-
think, and prospect theory and poliheuristic models. Most of the models
include all the variables, while several FPA models appear only once.
The Mingst-Arreguín-Toft elite model has elements of bureaucratic
politics model. Other theories include interbranch politics and polit-
ical processes20 ; elite, pluralist and constructivist theory,21 the Bounded
18 Smith, “Theories of Foreign Policy”, 14

19 Valerie M Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis: Classic and Contemporary Theory
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 8.
20 Norwich University, “5 Key Approaches to Foreign Policy Analysis.” Diplomacy
(Norwich University Online, 2017). https://online.norwich.edu/academic-programs/res
ources/5-key-approaches-to-foreign-policy-analysis.
21 Karen A. Mingst and Ivan M. Arreguín-Toft, Essentials of International Relations
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2016).
26 S. M. MAGU
Table 2.1 Some foreign policy theories
Model /Scholar(s) General Norwich Mingst & Mintz + Sofrin Yetiv

Arreguim-Toft
Rational actor X X X X X
model
Organizational X X X X ?
processes
Bureaucratic X X X X X
politics model
Groupthink X ? ? ? X
approach
Prospect /loss X ? ? X ?
aversion
Poliheuristic X ? ? X ?
model
Rationality/Cybernetic Model/Cybernetic Theory of decision-making22

and government politics, cognitive model and domestic politics.23
Jackson and Sørensen apply foreign policy analysis, bureaucratic struc-
tures and processes, the comparative approach (based on behavioral
foundations of policy-making), the cognitive processes and psychology
approach (which often includes the ‘evoked set’),24 the ‘perception
and misperception’ approach,25 the ‘multilevel and multidimensional
approach’ and a social constructivist approach to explain foreign policy-
making. This is the intersubjective view of foreign policy-making
22 Alex Mintz and Amnon Sofrin, “Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Anal-
ysis,” Oxford Research Encyclopedias (World Politics), (October 2017). https://doi.org/
10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.405.
23 Steve Yetiv, Explaining Foreign Policy: U.S. Decision-Making and the Persian Gulf
War (Baltimore: JHU Press, 2004).
24 Evoked set defines situations in which “actors are prone to think that the matters
that worry them and/or they are focused on, are the main focus of attention of other
actors” (de Castro 2009: 34).
25 See Jervis’ 1976 work titled Perception and Misperception in International Politics.
Jackson and Sørensen also address components, processes and outcomes of perception,
including, e.g. cognitive consistency and interactions, assimilation of information, and
common misperceptions, etc.; see also Tang (2013).
proposed by constructivists26 ; several approaches thereof are discussed

next. Jackson and Sørensen’s model, with its five elements, begins with
the foreign policy analysis approach, which they argue is “traditionally
the domain of diplomatic historians and public commentators.”27 This
‘official,’ ‘traditional’ approach reserved foreign policy and diplomacy to
‘experts’ and “leading state officials (emperors, kings, presidents, prime
ministers, chancellors, secretaries of state, foreign ministers, defense secre-
taries, etc., and their closest advisors).”28 Practitioners of this approach
include Henry Kissinger and George F. Kennan.
The comparative approach to foreign policy is based on behavioralism;
it systematically builds theories from analyzing large datasets. Rosenau’s
analysis and synthesis of five variables, i.e., idiosyncratic, role, govern-
ment, societal and systematic variables, ranked by importance and based
on sort factors such as polity size29 were central to this approach.
Jackson and Sørensen propose the bureaucratic structures and processes
approach, focusing on organizational decision-making processes. Graham
Allison’s Essence of Decision—its analysis and conclusions the subject of
heated intellectual debate—is the central influence to this approach, and
focuses on the relative interests, strengths and functions of different
bureaucracies in the same polity, based on three premises: rational actor
model/theory/approach, information and decisions reached based on
the best interests of each government bureaucracy, individual decision-
makers’ bargaining and decisions favoring own goals, desired outcomes
and competing interests (e.g., State Department’s goals to peacefully
resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis against the Defense Department obliga-
tion to win a potential war, and the Commerce Department’s preference
for economic tools (embargoes and sanctions) to resolve the crisis,
limiting economic harm to one’s own and regional interests.30
The fourth, cognitive processes and psychology approach focuses on
individual decision-makers, pathologies and fears that influence their
26 Robert H. Jackson and Georg Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations:

Theories and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
27 Jackson and Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations (2013), 254.
28 Jackson and Sorensen, Introduction to International Relations (2013), 254.
29 Jackson and Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations (2013), 254.
30 Jackson and Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations, 255.
28 S. M. MAGU
decisions. George H. W. Bush’s reading of Neville Chamberlain’s auto-

biography and the Munich appeasement is seen as informing Bush’s
determination to avoid another Munich after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in
1990. Conversely, Saddam‘s morbid fear of assassination led him to using
many body doubles, while leaders of reclusive states rarely travel outside
their countries for fear of assassination plots against them. Leaders’ reac-
tions, actions, reactions and decisions frequently reflect their perception
of the ‘self,’ the ‘other,’ their pathologies, and motives, real or perceived.
The fifth model is the ‘multilevel and multidimensional approach’; its
central feature and contribution is the recognition that there are different
approaches to explaining foreign policy, actors, relationships and interests,
measured against constraints in international politics.
Besides these models, scholars have identified ‘decision rules’ related
to group decision-making. They include groupthink (or polythink) which
can be cohesive or fragmented; groupthink-polythink continuum, a rule
characterized by scholars as a foreign policy approach rather than a deci-
sion rule, ranging from ‘completely cohesive’ (groupthink) to totally
fragmented (polythink) with myriad points of views and possible dead-
lock.31 In the mid-range of the groupthink-polythink continuum is the
Con-Div Group Dynamic—that is, “a balanced group dynamic in which
neither groupthink nor polythink dominates.”32 The final decision rule
is the two-group decision model, which shows elements of bureaucratic
politics. Two-group decision model can function as small, select groups
(e.g., elites), or larger groups within the continuum, reflecting a Prison-
er’s Dilemma challenge, unless both groups are closer to the middle in
the groupthink-polythink continuum.
Rational Actor Model/Rational Choice Theory

Rational Choice Theory stems from mostly economic approaches to
decision-making, but has since found utility across disciplines: for polit-
ical scientists, this includes public choice, neoclassicism (per economists),
to expected utility (psychologists) and rational choices (sociologists).33
31 Mintz and Sofrin, “Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Analysis,” (2017).
32 Mintz and Sofrin, “Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Analysis,” (2017),
n.p.
33 Mary Zey, Rational Choice Theory and Organizational Theory: A Critique (Thousand
Oaks: Sage, 1997), 1
RAM/RCT has significant crossover: psychology matters in foreign

policy decision-making, so does economics. RAM/RCT was originally
a conceptual framework for economic—and recently—social behavior.
Some assumptions hold universally across the conception of rational
choice, including decision-making to further individual welfare or ‘utility
maximization.’34 Understanding the choices made by a rational actor—
all actors are assumed to be rational despite often having incomplete
information or other actors’ choices—is challenging.
Defining rationality is important; Breuning holds that rationality is
simply the demand that the means, or the policy choices—are logically
connected to the ends—or the leader’s [actor’s] goals.35 Though what
to one actor might not appear rational might to another, the process of
arriving at a decision can meet the rationality criteria. Although actors
act in their best (rational) interests, constraints can stem from insuf-
ficient information, the environment and the effects of the decision.
Assessing other actors’ responses and capabilities might influence the deci-
sion that a rational actor makes based on expected reactions. Further,
decisions present social dilemmas, including shirking contribution and
responsibility, the perennial free-rider problem, the moral hazard, the
credible commitment dilemma, generalized social exchange, tragedy of
the commons, exchanges of threats and violent confrontations.36
The foregoing medley notwithstanding, Oppenheimer provides
perhaps a succinct definition of theory of rational choice, arguing that it
“presumes decisions to be the result of conscious choice made by individ-
uals to further the realization of their own preferences.”37 This definition
captures consensus elements of RCT: actors’ preferences, expected utility,
34 Donald Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of
Applications in Political Science (New Haven: Yale, 1994).
35 Marijke Breuning, Foreign Policy Analysis: A Comparative Introduction (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 3.
36 Elinor Ostrom, “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective
Action: Presidential Address, APSA, 1997.” The American Political Science Review, Vol.
92, No. 1 (March, 1998): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585925.
37 Joe Oppenheimer, Principles of Politics: A Rational Choice Theory Guide to Politics
and Social Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 15.
30 S. M. MAGU
instrumental rationality and transitivity in preferences, cost-benefit anal-

ysis preceding decision-making, self-interest and utility maximization.38
To these, Zey adds scarcity of resources and differential access thereto,
opportunity costs (related to cost-benefit analysis), institutional norms
which act as constraints (institutions to include family, school, church,
government, other organizations), and access (or availability) of full infor-
mation (considering that actors rarely possess perfect or full information
to aid in decision-making).39
Mintz and Sofrin outline an 8-step decision-making process. They
include (i) identifying the problem; (ii) articulating and ranking goals; (iii)
gathering information; (iv) identifying plausible alternatives, (v) analyzing
alternatives and calculating costs and benefits for each option and the like-
lihood of success; (vi) selecting choices (alternatives) for maximum utility;
(vii) implementing the chosen alternative; and (viii) monitoring and eval-
uating the chosen option; repeating the process if the selected option is
sub-optimal.40 Challenge to optimal (if not rational) decision-making is
further enhanced by repeated interactions (enter Game Theory), particu-
larly given the constraints in information, shadow of the future (one time,
or repeated interactions with other actors) and the initial choice actors
make, e.g., cooperation or non-cooperation, tit for tat, defecting.41
Foreign policy is primarily about interstate relations, though domestic
audiences in states and actors outside them affect foreign policy-making
and by extension, global politics. This discussion therefore holds that
actors (states) are rational actors, as they perceive their choices and prefer-
ences.42 States’ preferences stem from the ‘national interest,’ their raison
d’être,’ whose definition includes “an end that is defined by rational
38 Lina Eriksson, Rational Choice Theory: Potential and Limits (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011), 17, and Oppenheimer, Principles of Politics, 14–19.
39 Zey, Rational Choice Theory and Organizational Theory, 3.
40 Mintz and Sofrin, “Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Analysis,” 2017.
41 Ostrom, “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective
Action,” 1998.
42 Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments
and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), and Steve Yetiv,
Explaining Foreign Policy: U.S. Decision-Making in the Gulf Wars (Baltimore: John
Hopkins, 2011).
consideration of what leads to the benefit of the society, and by a norma-

tive choice of where the good of the whole lies.”43 It includes the
strategies to advance the good, public choices necessary to maintain it,
and the “obligation to protect and promote the good of the society,”
and to “protect the society from outside threats.”44 Krasner holds that
for preferences to be considered the national interest, “the ordering of
goals must persist over time.”45 National interest “is generally viewed
as embodying certain lasting values”46 resulting in “a set of transitively
ordered state preferences concerned to promote the general well-being
of the society that persists over a long time.”47
Krasner’s definition requires that constituent preferences “do not
consistently benefit a particular class or group, and that they last over
an extended period of time.”48 Frankel links national interest to foreign
policy; restated in Holloway, “foreign policy is defined as ‘a formulation
of desired outcomes which are intended (or expected) to be consequent
upon decisions adopted (or made) by those who have authority (or
ability) to commit the machinery of the state and a significant fraction
of national resources to that end,’ national interest describes the desired
outcomes.”49 Ole Holsti’s definition revolves around “survival, security,
power, and relative capabilities.”50 Holloway holds that, “if we see a state
pursuing a certain goal or policy, over a long period of time, despite
changes in leadership, and if that goal can be justified as being in the
interest of society as a whole, then we have found a national interest.”51
This mirrors Krasner’s 3-component national interest definition consisting
43 W. David Clinton, The Two Faces of National Interest (Baton Rouge: LSU Press,
1994), 52.
44 Steven Kendall Holloway, Canadian Foreign Policy: Defining the National Interest
(Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006), 52, and Joseph Frankel, National Interest
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1970), n.p.
45 Krasner, Defending the National Interest, 44.
49 Holloway, Canadian Foreign Policy, 12.
50 Ole R. Holsti, “Theories of International Relations.” In Michael J. Hogan and
Thomas G. Paterson, Eds., Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd
Ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 54.
51 Holloway, Canadian Foreign Policy, 12.
32 S. M. MAGU
of (i) objectives related to general societal goals; (ii) persistence over time;
and (iii) a consistent ranking of importance.52
African countries do have some overall national goal, often insuffi-
ciently articulated. Some interests are historical, circumstantial and others
are formulated in reaction to system stimuli. For example, a web search of
‘Kenya’s national interest’ is uninspiring. According to a Maina Chege’s
blog entry on Quora, it boils down to ‘trade.’ Goldman’s list of ‘the
most vital of these national interests’ include “preservation of territorial
integrity, establishment of peace and security within the nation, main-
tenance of law and order, consolidation of a developed, mature and
versatile political system and assurance of national development.”53 On
the National Interest (Kenya) page which features three articles last
updated in 2013, the Al-Shabaab menace, militancy in the East African
region, and the ICC’s post-election violence cases account for Kenya’s
national interest. Wario articulates it as bilateral and multilateral rela-
tionships, trade and security actions that enhance Kenya’s capacity to
improve its citizens’ lives.54 The first official written 34-page foreign
policy document was issued in 2014, 51 years after independence.
Although focusing Iraq, Breuning’s discussion on the logic of
Saddam’s incursion into Kuwait shows how irrational preferences can
be pursued. Saddam had other avenues of intimidation or coercion,
including “amassing troops on the border to underscore a threat. […] He
could have gone to the Arab League or the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) to address his grievances. He could have
called for a summit meeting with the leaders of Kuwait […] He could
even have decided to do nothing at all.”55 The premise of foreign policy-
making suggests a deliberative process, but decisions are often made by an
individual or small group of elites in groupthink conditions. Some foreign
policy decisions (e.g., Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait or Idi Amin’s
invasion of Tanzania in 1978) are questionable and irrational. Breuning
holds that with some decisions, “it can be quite difficult to figure out
whether a foreign policy decision was based on sound analysis and careful

53 Goldman, David, “GoK Must Protect National Interests.” National Interest (Web)
(January 20, 2015), n.p.
54 Wario, Hukka, “Security Main Pillar of National Interest,” The Star (January 9,
2015).
55 Breuning, Foreign Policy Analysis, 7.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Taikapeili
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Taikapeili
Nelinäytöksinen satunäytelmä
Author: Larin-Kyösti
Release date: October 19, 2023 [eBook #71912]
Language: Finnish
Original publication: Jyväskylä: K. J. Gummerus Oy, 1916
Credits: Tapio Riikonen
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TAIKAPEILI

***
TAIKAPEILI
Nelinäytöksinen satunäytelmä
Kirj.
LARIN-KYÖSTI
Jyväskylässä, K. J. Gummerus Osakeyhtiö, 1916.

HENKILÖT:
IMANDRA, Suvikunnan kuninkaantytär.

KAUKOVALLAN PRINSSI, kuljeksiva kuninkaanpoika.
OTRO, hänen ystävänsä.
HOVIHERRA, |
HOVIROUVA, | kuninkaantyttären holhoojia.
INKERI, kamarineiti.
KEPULI, |
HEPULI, | kujeilijoita.
Hoviväkeä, keihäsmiehiä, morsiuspiikaisia, paimentyttöjä,
soittajia y.m.
NÄYTÖS I
Linnan etuhuone.
(Hovirouva tulee toiselta, hoviherra toiselta taholta, tekevät

naurettavia kumarruksia ja niiauksia, asettavat sormet suulleen ja
sipsuttavat prinsessan huoneen ovelle ja tirkistävät avaimen
reijästä.)
HOVIROUVA. Kuulitteko?
HOVIHERRA
Kyllä minä kuulin.
HOVIROUVA
Kuulkaa, kuinka prinsessa mellastaa. Nyt hän heitti jotain lattialle,

ai!
HOVIHERRA
Kaulakoristeen, jonka hän sai korkealta kosijalta. Rasavilli!

HOVIROUVA
Hän on mahdoton! Eilen hän tahtoi pukeutua ryysyihin ja kulkea

paljain jaloin.
HOVIHERRA
Tuittupää, oikullinen orpo. Hänellä ei ole ikäistensä seuraa. Eilen

hän näki linnanikkunasta paimentyttöjen ajavan lammaskarjaa ja nyt
hän tahtoo olla paimentyttönä.
HOVIROUVA
Hänen täytyy tottua hovitapoihin. Meidän velvollisuutemme on

opettaa ja ohjata häntä.
HOVIHERRA
Mutta hän ei tottele, tekee ja sanoo kaikki päinvastoin. Olisiko

syy…
HOVIROUVA
Syy meissä, minussa? Minä olen aina hyvällä esimerkillä

koettanut…
HOVIHERRA
Hänen pitäisi saada kuulla soittoa, tanssia ja iloita. Ja sitten pitää

hänen rakastua. Minäkin…
HOVIROUVA
Tekin..? Hän ei huoli kenestäkään. Kääntää kosijoille selkänsä tai
tekee heistä pilkkaa.
HOVIHERRA
Eilen hän istui pitkän aikaa tornikomerossa ja uhkasi vaijeta

kokonaisen viikon… Mutta pohjaltaan hän on hyvä, hän antaa
almuja.
HOVIROUVA
Te olette pilannut hänet. Te olette niin kevytmielinen. Eilen te

nipistitte kamarineitiä korvasta, te, te…
HOVIHERRA
Mi, minä, armollinen rouva, olen aina ollut vain teidän nöyrin
palvelijanne. Mutta nyt prinsessa tulee, vetäytykäämme syrjään.
(Hoviherra ja -rouva poistuvat perälle.)
IMANDRA (tulee paljain jaloin ja hajalla hapsin, kamarineiti rientää

hänen jälessään. Prinsessa heittäytyy maahan.)
Minun on niin ikävä, ikävä että… minä purisin!
INKERI
Menemmekö kutomaan kultakangasta? Sehän huvittaa teidän

korkeuttanne.
IMANDRA
Ei, ei! Minä osaan jo sen taidon. Minä olen kyllästynyt koreihin
pukuihin ja koreihin puheihin.
INKERI
Nouskaahan, armollinen prinsessa, joku voi tulla!
IMANDRA
Joku kosija? Hahhaa, muistatko, sitä viimeistä minä nipistin

nenästä.
INKERI
Hyi, prinsessa, kuinka te olitte häijy.
IMANDRA
Niin, hovirouva sanoo minua häijyksi ja minä tahdon olla häijy, niin
häijy, että ne ajavat minut linnasta.
INKERI
Kultavaunuissa te kerran linnasta ajatte, te olette niin kaunis ja

maan kuulu, että tänne saapuu ruhtinaita aina Arapiasta kameleilla,
kuormitettuina kullalla ja kalliilla kivillä.
IMANDRA
Minä en tahdo olla kaunis, katsos kuinka minä olen ruma! Sano,
enkö minä ole ruma! —(vetää kasvonsa ryppyihin.)
INKERI (leikillä)
Ruma kuin hyypiä. Mutta jos nyt saapuisi se Kaukovallan prinssi,

josta huhu käy.
IMANDRA
Kaukovallan prinssi? Keimeileva kenokaula?
INKERI
Ei! Sorea, solakka, yhtä viisas kuin viehkeä. Hän kulkee

tuntemattomana kuin tuhannen yön ruhtinas.
IMANDRA
Jos hän tulee minua kosimaan, niin minä nokean naamani, kynsin
kuin kissa tai juoksen linnankaivoon.
INKERI
Suokaa minun sukia suortuvianne. (Nostaa prinsessan ikkunan

ääreen.)
IMANDRA
No, teehän niin. Mutta lue samalla sitä hauskaa kirjaa paimenesta
ja metsätytöstä!
INKERI (järjestäen tukkaa, lukee)
— — — Ja paimenpoika kulki metsälähteelle, jonka luona istui

ihmeen ihana metsätyttö. Paimenpoika koristi hänen päänsä
mesikukilla, syötti häntä mesimarjoilla, soitteli paimenpillillään, hyväili
häntä kuin katrastaan, ja he nousivat, kulkivat tanssien ilossa ja
rakkaudessa läpi hämyisen metsän — — —.
IMANDRA
Oh, olisinpa metsässä ja kohtaisin kauniin ja kainon paimenpojan!

Täällä minä tukehdun. Minua inhoittaa kaikki hovitavat, tanssin- ja
soitonopettajat! Hyi! (Sylkee).
INKERI
Ai, ai, ei saa sylkeä!
IMANDRA
Mutta minä sylen vaan! Hyi! (kurkistaa ikkunasta). — Kas tuolta

tulee paimentyttöjä! Hei, hei, tytöt, tulkaa tänne!
INKERI
Mutta prinsessa, ne ovat niin likaisia.
IMANDRA
Mutta minä tahdon!
INKERI
Pistetään toki kultakruunu päähän ja kultakengät jalkaan!
IMANDRA
Ei, ei, kruunu painaa ja kengät puristavat.
INKERI
Mutta hovirouva pistää mustaan komeroon.
IMANDRA
Pistäköön vaan! Minä tahdon olla kuin likainen paimentyttö.

(Paimentytöt tulevat.) Tässä on mesikakkuja! Kuulkaas, miltä
ketunleivät maistuvat, tuleeko niistä kieli vihreäksi? Näyttäkää
kieltänne! Kas niin. Sehän on punainen niinkuin minunkin. (Näyttää
kieltään, tytöt nauravat.)
INKERI
Mutta prinsessa!
IMANDRA
Mutta miksei teillä ole koreita vaatteita eikä mesikukkia kiharoilla?
PAIMENTYTTÖ
Me koristamme itseämme vain sunnuntaina.
IMANDRA
Ja minun pitää olla koreana joka päivä, siksi ei se tunnu miltään.

Minä tahtoisin kulkea metsässä puettuna repaleisiin vaatteisiin.
Annahan, kun koetan! (Aikoo ottaa tytön röijyn.)
INKERI (estää)
Ei, ei, siinä voi olla pieniä — eläviä.
IMANDRA
Hellan lettu, minä en koskaan näe täällä linnassa pieniä eläviä.

Mutta osaattehan tanssia. Tanssikaa!
(Tytöt tanssivat.)
Kuinka se on kaunista! Siinä ei ole kumarruksia eikä polven

koukistuksia. (Syöksyy keskelle tanssia.) Hih!
HOVIROUVA (tulee)
Mitä tämä merkitsee! Prinsessa, kuinka te käyttäydytte! Tämä on

kauhea rikos hovisääntöjä vastaan. Avojaloin ja hajalla hapsin!
IMANDRA
Minä en välitä säännöistä! Piti, piti, piti!
HOVIHERRA (liehutellen nenäliinaa)
Hirvittävää! Mikä katku!
HOVIROUVA (pirskottaen hajuvettä)
Tuulettakaa huonetta! Ja te karjatytöt, lähtekää heti tiehenne!

(Tytöt pois.)
IMANDRA
Ei, ei, minä tahdon mukaan. Minä tahdon tanssia heidän
kanssaan.
HOVIROUVA
Kamarineiti, viekää armollinen prinsessa heti pukuhuoneeseen,

sillä kohta tulee tänne Kaukovallan prinssi ja hänen ystävänsä
hovitaidemaalari!
IMANDRA
Jos he tulevat, niin minä rupean rääkymään tai hypin harakkaa.

Joko minä alan? (Tekee liikkeen).
HOVIHERRA
Ä, älkää toki, tuuliviiri prinsessa…!
IMANDRA
Minä en tahdo olla prinsessa!
HOVIHERRA
Vaan harakka!
HOVIROUVA
Hirveätä, harakka!
IMANDRA
Armollinen rouva! Hyppikää minun kanssani harakkaa!
HOVIROUVA
Olenko minä harakka?
HOVIHERRA
Hahhaa!
HOVIROUVA
Mitä te räkätätte! Te pilaatte prinsessan.
IMANDRA
Hahhahhaa, harakka! (Juoksee tiehensä, Inkeri hänen jälessään.)
HOVIROUVA
Ei, tämä menee jo liian pitkälle, minä ihan halkean harmista.

Hoviherra, te olette kelpaamaton kasvattaja, te turmelette koko
hovin.
HOVIHERRA
No, no, armollinen, muistattehan, te itsekin… hypitte nuorena

harakkaa! Muistatteko, kerran puutarhassa ollessamme…
HOVIROUVA
Siitä on jo kulunut monta vuotta, kun…

HOVIHERRA
… Kun minä katsoin teihin kuin kuningattareeni.
HOVIROUVA (keimaillen)
Oi, kuningattareen! Anteeksi! Minä kiivastuin. Miettikäämme

kasvattavia keinoja.
HOVIHERRA
Prinsessaa hemmoitellaan, vuoroin peloitetaan. Seuratkoon kerran

oikkujaan, olkoon paimentyttönä, niin hän saa nähdä, onko se niin
hauskaa ja runollista.
HOVIROUVA
Te olette oikeassa. Tehkäämme niin, jollei hän suostu Kaukovallan

prinssiin. Menkäämme nyt katsomaan prinsessaa! (Hovirouva ja
hoviherra menevät.)
(Kaukovallan prinssi ja Otro tulevat.)
PRINSSI
Minä näin hänet taas ikkunassa. Mikä suloinen, kiehtova kuva!

Sellaista sinä, Otro, et koskaan ole ikuistanut.
OTRO
Me olemme vaeltaneet kauan tuntemattomina, nyt olette onnenne

ovella. Mutta olkaa varovainen, prinsessa kuuluu olevan omituinen ja
oikullinen.
PRINSSI
Mutta paimentytöt kertoivat hänestä vain hyvää. Minä vapisen

onneni odotuksesta.
OTRO
Teidän korkeutenne! Ette ole ensimmäinen, jonka prinsessa on

karkoittanut.
PRINSSI
Mitä? Kuulin ääniä.
OTRO
Sieltä tulee jo tuulispää! Olkaa vatuillanne! (Vetäytyy syrjään.)
IMANDRA (Toisessa jalassa kenkä, toinen puoli päätä on

palmikkona.)
Mitä? Kuka te olette, mitä te täällä teette?
PRINSSI
Olen Kaukovallan prinssi! Armollinen, armas prinsessa! Kuulu

kauneutenne on minut tuonut tänne kaukaiselta maalta. Te olette
kuin ihana ilmestys.
IMANDRA
Minä en ole kaunis enkä armollinen. Katsokaa! (Vetää tukan

silmilleen.) Minä onnun.
PRINSSI
Se johtuu siitä, että nousitte ehkä vuoteestanne väärällä jalalla.
IMANDRA (tehden eleitä)
Ja minun nenäni on väärässä ja silmäni vinossa. (Vääntelee

nenäänsä ja silmiänsä.)
PRINSSI
Sallikaa minun suudella ruusuista kättänne. (Tarttuu käteen.)
IMANDRA
Hyi, siinä saitte! (Tukistaa prinssiä.)
PRINSSI
Prinsessa, minä en ole tullut tänne tukistettavaksi vaan…
IMANDRA
Vaan?
PRINSSI
Pyytämään teidän kunnioitettavaa kättänne.
IMANDRA
Mitä, kättäni? Mitä te sillä tekisitte? Onhan teillä käsiä

itsellännekin.
PRINSSI
Minä tahtoisin laskea sydämeni teidän jalojen jalkojenne juureen.
IMANDRA
Nyt te puhutte kuin sydämenne olisi kurkussanne. Älkää puhuko

tyhmyyksiä, olettehan viisas mies.
PRINSSI
Se ilahuttaa minua kuullessani sen teidän suloisesta suustanne.
IMANDRA
Miksi olette imelä niinkuin muutkin korkeat kosijani? Minä olen

väsynyt teihin, koko hoviin, kaikkeen, kuuletteko!
PRINSSI
Niin minäkin, siksi lähdin etsimään jotain uutta. Minä haukottelen

usein hoviherrojeni seurassa.
IMANDRA
Nyt minä pidän teistä. Haukotelkaamme yhdessä! Kun minä

katselen teitä, niin olettehan sentään ihmisen näköinen. Kunhan
olisitte paimenpoika ja soittaisitte paimenhuilua!
PRINSSI
Ja jos minä olisin paimenpoika?

Explaining Foreign Policy in Post Colonial Africa Stephen M Magu Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Explaining Foreign Policy in Post Colonial Africa Stephen M Magu Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Explaining Foreign Policy in Post Colonial Africa Stephen M Magu Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Explaining Foreign Policy in

Post-Colonial Africa Stephen M. Magu

The Portuguese Escudo Monetary Zone: Its Impact in

American Foreign Policy Towards the Colonels' Greece

Principled Pragmatism in Mexico's Foreign Policy Rafael

Foreign Policy and Security Strategy Wight

Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860–1975

Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics

Australia in the Age of International Development,

George White and the Victorian Army in India and

ISBN 978-3-030-62929-8 ISBN 978-3-030-62930-4 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Alex Linch shutterstock.com

This book’s contours were triggered by a NCSU workshop on Civil-

Norfolk, USA Stephen M. Magu

Completing this manuscript, which was under research and preparation

1 The Beginning of a Post-colonial Foreign Policy

2 Conceptual Approaches to Foreign Policy

3 Politics of Geography, Statehood, Residual

4 Africa Huru! Complex Events—Cold War, Residual

5 Nation vs. Continent: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity

6 Made in Europe: Breaking Nations, Secession

7 Region or Continent: O/AU Development

8 Between BRICs’ Promise and Past Western Trauma:

9 Africa’s Post-Colonial Foreign Policy: Assessing

ACHPR African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

IGAD Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (formerly

The Beginning of a Post-colonial Foreign

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

(54+) countries (Western Sahara), a 1.3 billion persons or 16.64% of

These differences are aptly captured by Benedict Anderson, writing

2 Benedict R. O. G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and

been especially important to Africa and required collective action. Even

non-interference in the domestic issues of other countries even when

Defining Africa’s Important Issues

4 Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level

The Critical Issues

6 Pierre de Senarelens, “Psychoanalysis and the Study of Emotions in International

they were often de jure non-aligned, former European colonial powers

9 Kimenyi and Mbaku, Governing the Nile River Basin, 2015.

Parallel to the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

14 Kimenyi and Mbaku, Governing the Nile River Basin, 2007.

institutions such as a UN bank, they found little success and had to

Research Monograph Outline

Conceptual Approaches to Foreign Policy

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Parsing Process: Considering

help us think critically, logically and coherently.”8 Social science theories

8 Scott Burchill, “Introduction.” In Scott Burchill, Richard Devetak and Andrew

and Urrestarazu propose “‘systemic’ IR, which provides a bird’s-eye view

Contemporary Theories of Foreign Policy

Behavioralism as applied to the broader IR discipline is confounding,

18 Smith, “Theories of Foreign Policy”, 14

Table 2.1 Some foreign policy theories

Model /Scholar(s) General Norwich Mingst & Mintz + Sofrin Yetiv

Rationality/Cybernetic Model/Cybernetic Theory of decision-making22

proposed by constructivists26 ; several approaches thereof are discussed

26 Robert H. Jackson and Georg Sørensen, Introduction to International Relations:

decisions. George H. W. Bush’s reading of Neville Chamberlain’s auto-