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African Foreign Policies: Power and Process. Edited by Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Terrence Lyons. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001. 260p. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2002

Timothy M. Shaw
Affiliation:
University of London

Extract

The analysis and practice of foreign policy are in flux on the African continent as elsewhere at the turn of the century. The combined forces of the end of bipolarity, then apartheid plus exponetial liberalization(s) and globalization(s), have changed the balance of power, not just between states externally but also between states and nonstate actors (e.g., civil societies and private sectors) internally. The eight regional or national case studies in this collection capture the latter dynamic well—foreign policy is no longer, if it ever was, the monopoly of regimes—but the pair of end pieces by the coeditors is, alas, more cautious and realistic. Thus, this original volume, by nine mainly younger scholars, encapsulates the debate about the sources and causes of, actors and interests in, inter- and transnational relations in this distinctive region with relevance for broader discourses about local to global governance. So chapters 1 and 10 could have been written a decade ago, whereas the central eight very much reflect the profound changes in relations and analyses of the 1990s, especially that by William Reno, “External Relations of Weak States and Stateless Regions in Africa,” with resonance for comparable regions such as Central Europe and Central Asia.

Type
Book Review
Copyright
2002 by the American Political Science Association

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