International Relations in Africa Class Notes
- includes tips for the Semester Test
- includes tips for the Semester Essay
- detailed notes on class discussions
International Relations in Africa
• Part 1: Historical overview and Contextualization
• Week 1: Precolonial International Relations of Africa
• Context:
- IR: power needs to be maximized in relation to other states
- Western centric, emerged in Scotland
- Discipline ignores the history of colonialism and the contributions Africa can make
- Very state-centric discipline
• 1648: Treaty of Westphalia
• established the territorial sovereign state as we know it today
▪ these types of states existed in Africa and predates the treaty
• International Society?
- Spies (international society)
- Pella (international system)
- Separate political entities existing peacefully together
- There is an order and legal framework to ensure this
- Deeply asymmetrical international system in which Africa has been subjugated
- Asymmetrical society still exists today
• Global north has the majority of the power
• African states have less power and less deliberative abilities
▪ Africa still doesn’t have a permanent representative on UNSC
- Because it is state-centric, it is also a euro-centric idea of what international society
is
- European construct that ignores the African experience which disadvantages Africa
in taking part in international decisions
- New or young states that decolonized were rewarded for taking on European
governance styles
• Socialized and civilized by displaying western government types
• Us vs. them rhetoric
• Distinction between global north and global south
▪ Opposes the idea of being a universal international society (false)
- Monolithic construct
• Eurocentric & realist/liberal even though vast majority of world’s states are not Western
• Colonial oppression
• Young states are rewarded for displaying European style behaviour (Neocolonialism)
- “Us” vs. “Them” (populism) = denouncement of idea of a universal international
society
• Historical overview of African IR:
- What were the international relations of Africa before the Europeans?
- Birthplace of humankind, therefore Africa is the birthplace of international society
- 1789: French Revolution- the individual triumphing over the king
- humans developed language and then diplomacy to help govern international
society
• the continent is where diplomacy began
• interaction between different individual and different societies
, - initially nomadic creatures
• was not limited to a specific territory according to resource availability
• after iron tools were developed, became increasingly settled in particular territories
• once the communities settled, it was necessary to interact with other communities for
resource trade and overcoming resource scarcity
▪ § birthplace of politics as we know it today
- Ramesses II and leader of Anatolia (Turkey) = first ever recorded peace treaty (found
in Africa)
• Polities/ political units that existed:
- Mostly in west Africa
- All interacted and traded with each other
- Rules and norms guided interactions in these societies
- Pella: international system is a relatively ordered set of relationships amongst
political units
- The state is a western concept; precolonial Africa would refer to these as polities
- Tied to kinship rather than territory
• All shared the same ancestor or spiritual beliefs
• Only part of the polity if you shared some ancestral ties to the people around you
• When more people were included, then one can speak of them as political polities
• King with advisors and provinces who had political autonomy
▪ The more centralized these became, the more we can refer to them as
states
▪ Most societies were monarchical
▪ Outside of the kingdom, they had provinces which were included through
being occupied in war
▪ Had autonomy as long as tribute was paid yearly (bought themselves
autonomy and governance, but also provided security)
- Pella distinguishes 4 types of states (not important for test)
• the environment determined the type of state seen
• Stateless societies
• Savannah states
• Consolidated savannah states
• Hinterland states
• Most advanced polities in west Africa due to more trade routes existing
▪ Many of these societies (Mali, Ghana, etc.) had access to gold
▪ Valuable resources gave one access to power
▪ Inequality of the value of resources gave unequal power to the different
polities (access to those resources = power)
▪ Being able to trade with these resources led to political organisation through
trade
· How trade was to take place
· Trader to have immunity
· Central markets
· Determined who had power (where the market was and could tax
the merchants)
· Rules laid down on how trade was conducted
▪ Increase in trade led to increase in political organisation
,• War:
- States want to maximize their power done through access to resources
- Engage in war to gain access to resources
- Wanting to dominate and protect commercial activity
- Access and control to trade routes resulted in war
- Through war, societies were able to get bigger by acquiring smaller states around
them
- Slavery associated with war
• NB: transatlantic slave trade is very different to slavery in precolonial Africa
• Slaves were not regarded as a commodity
• They had more rights than those shipped across the Atlantic
• Prisoners of war were subjugated into slavery
▪ That society then had access to labour
- No idea of private property in precolonial Africa
• Important in the conversation surrounding land and land reform
• Land was a communal resource (first come, first serve)
• Because land wasn’t owned, it was important to own slaves in order to work that land
▪ The more slaves you had, the more wealth you had, the more power you
had
▪ Slaves worked the land and had shares in what was reaped off the land
▪ Many people willingly went into slavery (work, food and safety provided)
· Did not have a negative connotation
• Europeans knew about precolonial slaves and profited off them
• Berlin Conference: 1884
- Previously, independent African polities existed and interacted with each other
- Africa then arbitrarily carved up across these African communities
- UK had the majority of Africa, following with France and King Leopold’s Kongo
- Imperialism disrupted and almost erased the political evolution of Africa
• Borders of states are cut up in a manner that split political community
• Colonialism was a disruption to Africa's politics and international relations
• Culture of colonisers imposed onto these communities
• New governments and values imposed that had consequences
• Could not return to their pre-colonial political state
• Pan-Africanism:
- Slavery abolished
- Slaves that were liberated
• Movement to bring them back to Africa
• Africa to be considered as one state with many sub-states to be governed independently
• Black star on the flag over Liberia
▪ Slaves shipped from Africa
▪ Ghana is the first country being independent
▪ Liberia as the Israel of Africa (liberated their slaves first)
• Many pan Africanists found themselves in Europe
▪ Adverse to being absorbed into euro-centric, liberal way of thinking
- Monrovia and Brazzaville groups
• State-centric rather than federal
, • Continental dispensation
• Organisation for African Unity:
- Pan Africanists wanted an international organisation for community and solidarity
- Led the decolonisation movement across Africa
- Instrumental in the struggle against apartheid
- Established in 1963
- Many states gained independence
• More interference from western world again during the cold war
• Proxy wars on African continent
• No nuclear war, but the majority of the proxy wars took place on Africa
▪ Many African deaths and conflict, but no European deaths and conflict of
this scale
30 July 2019
• European arrival:
- What happened when the European's arrived?
- Creation of sovereign territorial nation-state led to competition for expansion
• -
• Began in the 15th century with the age of discover
- 1488(*) Bartholomew Dias found the cape of good hope (stopover)
- European exploration of central Africa was very little (small trading posts existed
around the coast of Africa)
• Early years, no real European interest in Africa
- First European settlement
• Dutch in 1652 in the Cape
• VOC
• Africa only had logistical benefits
• Europe was more interested in the new world in north and south America than in Africa
- Africa had more significance
• Slave trade
▪ Many shipped from the west coast to work in north and south America
• Rich in resources
▪ Towards end of 18th century, the IR had kickstarted in England (needed
labour and resources)
▪ Africa supplied the raw materials for the IR
• Moral justification to colonisation
▪ Bringing civilization to Africa
▪ Missionaries brought civilization to the dark, savage continent
▪ Informed by social Darwinism
· Europeans superior to Africans
• 3 G's
▪ Glory
▪ Gold
▪ God (Gospel)
• Up to mid-1800s, various treaties signed with European powers
• 1884-1885
▪ Conference of Berlin (scramble for Africa)
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