Africa and international relations: A comment on IR theory, anarchy and statehood

Review of International Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 119-143

  Brown, William ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33644587017     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210506006954     Document Type: Review

References (132)

1. Kevin C. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and International Relations Theory', in Kevin C. Dunn, and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 1-8.
2. I use the label 'Africanist critique', inadequate as it is, to characterise this group of critics who loosely share some common critical analyses of IR theory and who include scholars of Africa based in the West as well as African IR scholars. I realise that some might object to the term 'Africanist', though I am at a loss to think of an alternative label. I certainly do not mean to imply by this that all ' Africanists' - analysts of Africa - would share these critics' views on IR.
3. Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).
4. Stephanie G. Neuman (ed.), International Relations Theory and the Third World (London: Macmillan, 1998).
5. Others include Siba N. Grovogui, 'Regimes of Sovereignty: International Morality and the African Condition', European Journal of International Relations, 8:3 (2002), pp. 315-38;
6. Larry A. Swatuk, 'The Brothers Grim: Modernity and " International" Relations in Southern Africa', in Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 163-82;
7. Tandeka, C. Nkiwane, 'Africa and International Relations: Regional Lessons for a Global Discourse', International Political Science Review, 22:3 (2001), pp. 279-90;
8. and Cirino, H. Ofuho, The Legitimacy and Sovereignty Dilemma of African States and Governments: Problems of Colonial Legacy', in Bakut tswah Bakut and Sagarika Dutt (eds.), Africa at the Millennium: An Agenda for Mature Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), pp. 103-25.
9. The prefixes vary between 'traditional', 'orthodox', 'western', 'northern' and 'Eurocentric', but all imply a definite and identifiable body of theory or 'received wisdom' in the discipline. As I go on to argue, precisely which parts of existing IR theory are being attacked is in fact rarely made sufficiently explicit.
10. See Kevin C. Dunn, 'Tales from the Dark Side: Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory', Journal of Third World Studies, 17:1 (2000), pp. 61-2.
11. Nkiwane, 'Africa and International Relations', p. 280.
12. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory', p. 2;
13. also Dunn, 'Tales from the Dark Side'.
14. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory', p. 3;
15. also Swatuk, 'The Brothers Grim'.
16. Mohammed Ayoob, 'Subaltern Realism: International Relations Theory Meets the Third World', in Stephanie G. Neuman (ed.), International Relations Theory and the Third World (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 37.
17. Stephanie G. Neuman, 'International Relations Theory and the Third World: An Oxymoron?', in Stephanie G. Neuman (ed.), International Relations Theory and the Third World, p. 2.
18. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory', p. 4.
19. Assis Malaquias, 'Reformulating International Relations Theory: African Insights and Challenges', in Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 12-15.
20. Basil Davidson, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-state (London: James Currey, 1992).
21. Ofuho, 'Legitimacy and Sovereignty', p. 106.
22. Ofuho, 'Legitimacy and Sovereignty', Ibid., p. 107.
23. Malaquias, 'Reformulating International Relations Theory', p. 13.
24. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory', p. 5.
25. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 8.
26. The phrase is from Justin Rosenberg, The Empire of Civil Society: a Critique of Realist Theory of International Relations (London: Verso), p. 46.
27. Justin Rosenberg, The Follies of Globalisation Theory: Polemical Essays (London: Verso, 2000), pp. 65-85.
28. Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
29. Rosenberg, Follies of Globalisation Theory.
30. Craig Calhoun, Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995);
31. Robert Cox, 'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', Millennium, 10:2 (1981), pp. 126-55;
32. Andrew Linklater, The Achievements of Critical Theory', in Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (eds.), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 279-98.
33. Davidson, The Black Man's Burden.
34. The highly circumscribed scope for social change allowed for in Realism limits the extent to which it can be viewed as a critical theory - a comment which does not apply to other 'western' approaches such as Liberalism and Marxism. Simon Bromley and Mark Smith, 'Transforming International Order?', in William Brown, Simon Bromley and Suma Athreye (eds.), Ordering the International: History, Change and Transformation (London: Pluto Press in association with the Open University, 2004), pp. 523-68.
35. Kevin Dunn, 'MadLib #32: The (Blank) African State: Rethinking State Sovereignty in International Relations Theory', in Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), Africa's Challenge to IR Theory, p. 55.
36. Malaquias, 'Reformulating International Relations Theory', p. 15.
37. There are too many possible citations here. To get an idea of the range of debates, an eclectic selection might include: Paul Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985);
38. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
39. Stephen D. Krasner, 'Rethinking the Sovereign State Model', Review of International Studies, 27 Special Issue (December 2001), pp. 17-42;
40. Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State: a Sociological Introduction (London: Hutchinson, 1978);
41. John G. Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization (London: Routledge, 1998);
42. Benno Teschke The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern International Relations (London: Verso, 2003);
43. Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (London: Verso, 2002).
44. Malaquias, 'Reformulating International Relations Theory', p. 15.
45. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', pp. 66-7.
46. See Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher and Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1970).
47. For example, see Tony Chafer's excellent history, The End of Empire in French West Africa: France's Successful Decolonization? (Oxford: Berg, 2002).
48. With respect to the charge of ignoring Africa, it is worth noting here that some strands of 'traditional IR' such as the English School have in fact given the changes in the international system around the expansion of statehood a great deal of attention. See for example, Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon).
49. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory'.
50. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory'. Ibid., citing Gourevitch, p. 1.
51. Mahmmod Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 10.
52. As we shall see later, the phrase is Waltz's, Theory of International Politics', p. 95.
53. In particular I will use Moravcsik's liberalism to offer some limited illustration of the difference this shift makes. Andrew Moravcsik, 'A Liberal Theory of International Politics', International Organization, 51:4 (1997), pp. 513-53.
54. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 94-5.
55. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', p. 76.
56. Malaquias, 'Reformulating International Relations Theory', pp. 15-16.
57. Dunn, The (Blank) African State';
58. Christopher Clapham, 'Degrees of Statehood', Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 143-57.
59. Davidson, Black Man's Burden, p. 290.
60. Davidson, Black Man's Burden, Ibid, p. 10.
61. Bakut tswah Bakut, The African Economic Community (AEC): A Step Towards Achieving the Pan-African Ideal', in Bakut tswah Bakut and Sagarika Dutt (eds.), Africa at the Millennium: An Agenda for Mature Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), pp. 79-100.
62. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', p. 78.
63. Bakut, The African Economic Community', p. 79, emphasis added.
64. Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (London: International African Institute with James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1999).
65. Dunn, 'Introduction: Africa and IR Theory', p. 5.
66. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 6-7.
67. Moravcsik, 'A Liberal Theory of International Politics'.
68. Justin Rosenberg, The International Imagination: IR Theory and "Classic Social Analysis" ', Millennium, 23:1 (1994), pp. 85-108.
69. Weber, cited by John Dunn, The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics (London: Harper Collins, 2000), p. 67.
70. John Dunn, Cunning of Unreason, pp. 67-8, emphasis added.
71. Justin Rosenberg, 'A Non-Realist Theory of Sovereignty?: Giddens' The Nation State and Violence, Millennium, 19:2 (1990), p. 251.
72. Justin Rosenberg, The International Imagination', p. 94.
73. Clapham, 'Degrees of Statehood'.
74. Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy', Atlantic Monthly (February 1994), pp. 44-76.
75. Chris Allen, 'Understanding African Politics', Review of African Political Economy, 22:65 (1995), p. 318.
76. William Reno (1998), Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
77. Reno, Warlord Politics, ch. 3.
78. Reno, Warlord Politics, Ibid., ch. 4.
79. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', p. 78.
80. Chris Allen, 'Warfare, Endemic Violence and State Collapse in Africa', Review of African Political Economy, 26:81 (1999), pp. 381-2.
81. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 95.
82. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Ibid., p. 103.
83. Of course, it is not the African states, not even Uganda, one of the more solid examples of state reconstruction in Africa, which have given us reason to doubt Waltz's certainty, but one of the great powers, the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist.
84. Barry Buzan, 'Conclusions: Systems versus Units in Theorizing about the Third World', in Stephanie G. Neuman (ed.), International Relations Theory and the Third World, p. 219.
85. Clapham, 'Degrees of Statehood', p. 156.
86. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 114-16.
87. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Ibid., p. 116.
88. Neuman, 'International Relations Theory and the Third World', p. 3.
89. Ayoob, 'Subaltern Realism', p. 37.
90. Buzan, 'Conclusions', pp. 215-16.
91. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 103.
92. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Ibid., p. 103.
93. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', pp. 66-7.
94. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', Ibid., p. 68.
95. Helen Milner, The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique', in David A. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 143-69.
96. Milner, The Assumption of Anarchy', pp. 152-3.
97. Milner, The Assumption of Anarchy', Ibid., p. 167.
98. In particular see Moravcsik, 'A Liberal Theory of International Politics'.
99. In particular see Moravcsik, 'A Liberal Theory of International Politics'.Ibid.
100. Dunn, Tales from the Dark Side', p. 67.
101. Buzan, 'Conclusions', p. 216.
102. Though see Stephen D. Krasner, Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (Berkeley, CA: California University Press, 1985) for a realist account of this relationship and a counter to the charge that realists always ignore the Third World'.
103. Aaron B. Sampson, Tropical Anarchy: Waltz, Wendt, and the Way We Imagine International Politics', Alternatives, 27 (2002), pp. 429-57.
104. Roger D. Masters, 'World Politics as a Primitive System', World Politics, 16:4 (1964), pp. 595-619.
105. Sampson, Tropical Anarchy', p. 436;
106. Radcliffe-Brown, 'Preface', in M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. i-xxiii.
107. Fortes, cited in Sampson, Tropical Anarchy', p. 437.
108. Sampson, Tropical Anarchy', pp. 437-8.
109. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 88.
110. Sampson, Tropical Anarchy', p. 440.
111. Ibid., p. 438.
112. Ibid., p. 444.
113. M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, 'Introduction', in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems, pp. 1-23.
114. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer of the Southern Sudan', in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems, pp. 272-96.
115. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, 'Introduction: African Political Systems', pp. 14-15;
116. also see Sampson, 'Tropical Anarchy', p. 437.
117. Sampson, Tropical Anarchy', p. 452.
118. M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems (London: Oxford University Press, 1963 [1940]).
119. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.
120. Sampson, Tropical Anarchy', p. 452.
121. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; Michael Havinden and David Meredith, Colonialism and Development: Britain and its Tropical Colonies 1850-1960 (London: Routledge, 1993).
122. Havinden and Meredith, Colonialism and Development, pp. 168-9.
123. See: Commission for Africa; New Partnership for African Development; Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.
124. As well as the critics cited above, Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Nairobi, Kenya: EAEP, 1989) is an example of an essentially top-down approach;
125. while Jean-Francois Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (London: Longman, 1993) is more bottom-up;
126. and Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, is more mixed.
127. Andrew Moravcsik, 'A Liberal Theory of International Politics'.
128. And an account which might support Robinson and Gallagher's characterisation of the course of colonialism as a product of the interaction between Europeans and the societies with which they came into contact - Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher and Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians.
129. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society,
130. Robert H. Jackson, Quasi States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
131. See, for example, Robert H. Jackson, 'Armed Humanitarianism', International Journal, 48:3 (1990), pp. 579-606.
132. Justin Rosenberg, The International Imagination'.