Fifty years after the foundation of the OAU and the consolidation of most African states and institutions, the international panorama and Africa’s position in it have changed considerably. The world's geopolitical and economic configuration has evolved, with new actors appearing in a new period of globalization. In tone with ECAS 2013, this volume proposes that the experiences appearing in Africa question dominant paradigms in terms of political practice and academic reflection and thus offer a clear challenge to the academic community. The volume offers clues to answer questions such as: What is the impact of the current processes of globalization for African countries and African citizens? How should African Studies be engaged to gauge African dynamics, both at a local and global level? What interdisciplinary means and tools should be brought in to produce an epistemologically relevant view (or narrative) of the issues under analysis?

This book considers the effect of China’s unprecedented economic growth and more prominent geopolitical role in the twenty-first century. Rising powers considerably alter international relations, leading to the emergence of a multipolar world order that impacts more traditional international players like the European Union (EU). China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence is particularly relevant in Africa, where it presents an alternative to conventional North-South relations and proposes a new type of South-South partnership. Stahl examines the EU’s foreign policy response regarding China’s growing presence in Africa, as well as the EU’s attempts to refocus attention on the African continent. Drawing on a rich body of evidence collected through fieldwork in China and Africa, and extensive expert interviews, the author sheds light on the novel trend of EU-China-Africa trilateral relations. The book offers a new analytical framework for the study of the EU’s foreign policy of engagement with emerging powers and will appeal to graduate students and scholars interested in the EU’s international role, international relations and development, as well as contemporary Chinese and African studies.

TOPICS IN THE BOOK The Rise of the Multipolar World Order: Opportunities and Challenges for Africa Cultural Diplomacy as a Key Component of Economic and Political Diplomacy: The Lessons for Nigeria Evaluating UNHCR’s Actions in Response to the Level 3 Sudan War Refugee Crisis in Ethiopia and Uganda: The Role of the Affected Community in the United Nations Policy and Practice Context Role of the Humanitarian – Development – Peace (HDP) Nexus Evidence in Tackling Protracted Environmental Conflicts in Somalia The Role of Intergovernmental Organizations on Poverty Reduction in Africa. A Critical Literature Review

This book analyses the rapidly increasing role of African states, leaders and other political actors in international politics in the 21st Century. In contrast to the conventional approach of studying how external actors impacted on Africa’s international relations, this book seeks to open up a new approach, focusing on the impact of African political actors on international politics. It does this by analysing African agency – the degree to which African political actors have room to manoeuvre within the international system and exert influence internationally, and the uses they make of that room for manoeuvre. Bringing together leading scholars from Africa and Europe to explore the role and conception of African Agency, this book addresses a wide range of issues, from relations with western and non-western donors, Africa’s role in the UN and World Trade Organisation, negotiations over climate change, trade agreements with the European Union, regional diplomatic strategies, the character and extent of African state agency, and agency within corporate social responsibility initiatives. African Agency in International Politics will be of interest to scholars and students of Africa’s international relations, African politics, development, geography, diplomacy, trade, the environment, political science and security studies.

This book uses extractive industry projects in Africa to explore how political authority and the nation-state are reconfigured at the intersection of national political contestations and global, transnational capital. Instead of focusing on technological zones and the new social assemblages at the actual sites of construction or mineral extraction, the authors use extractive industry projects as a topical lens to investigate contemporary processes of state-making at the state–corporation nexus. Throughout the book, the authors seek to understand how public political actors and private actors of liberal capitalism negotiate and redefine notions and practices of sovereignty by setting legal, regulatory and fiscal standards. Rather than looking at resource governance from a normative perspective, the authors look at how these negotiations are shaped by and reshape the self-conception of various national and transnational actors, and how these jointly redefine the role of the state in managing these processes for the ‘greater good’. Extractive Industries and Changing State Dynamics in Africa will be useful for researchers, upper-level students and policy-makers who are interested in new articulations of state-making and politics in Africa.

The book analyses how Africans and Africa relate to other parts of the multilateral world, and to the world in general, and how these relations stem from local, national and regional interactions in different parts of Africa, as well as Africa as a whole. The first part focuses on the assumptions that are necessary to understand the role of Africa on the global stage, especially from the perspectives of political philosophy and global and international studies. The second part of the book looks at both Afropolitan trends and the limits of Afropolitanism. In the third part the authors focus on specific African global tendencies stemming from the local conditions in several case studies. Traditional and modern politics is connected, problematically, with the current Jihadist organisations in the local African conditions related to unilateralism and global war on terror, for example. The fourth part deals with the relevance of the language ambivalence in relation to global interactions. It examines various views of African philosophy and lays bare the perception of earlier colonial languages in view of their current strength of global action. This book will be of interest to scholars of African studies, political philosophy, politics and global studies.

This volume offers a comprehensive evaluation of the concept of global order, with a particular emphasis on the role of regional organisations within global governance institutions such as the United Nations. Building from a solid theoretical base it draws upon the expertise of numerous leading international scholars offering a broad array of timely and relevant case studies. These all take into consideration the historical setting, before analysing the contemporary situation and offering suggestions for potential realignments and readjustments that may be witnessed in the future. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach when addressing some of the most pressing issues of global governance which our global community must tackle. This presents the readers an opportunity to understand related topics such as political economy, international law, institutions of global governance, in conjunction with the academic field of International Relations (IR). It further helps students and interested readers understand the theoretical and practical foundations to the changing nature of global affairs.

This open access book brings novel perspectives to the scholarship on transnational migration. The book stresses the complexity of migration trajectories and proposes multi-sited field studies to capture this complexity. Its constituent chapters offer examples of onward migration spanning all major world regions. The contents exemplify a range of interdisciplinary approaches, including both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The result is an impressive remapping and reconceptualisation of global migration and mobility, of interest to students and policy-makers alike.