Contemporary Africa and the Foreseeable World Order

Contemporary Africa and the Foreseeable World Order Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 1 1/30/2019 1:47:45 PM Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 2 1/30/2019 1:47:45 PM Contemporary Africa and the Foreseeable World Order Edited by Francis Onditi, Gilad Ben-Nun, Cristina De’Alessandro, and Zach Levey Foreword by Abu Bah LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 3 1/30/2019 1:47:45 PM Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available ISBN 978-1-4985-9810-1 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-9811-8 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 4 1/30/2019 1:47:46 PM Contents Foreword ix Abu Bah Preface: Accolade to Professor P. G. Okoth: An Icon in International Relations and Diplomatic History xiii Edmond Were and Francis Onditi Acknowledgments xix PART I: AFRICAN STATES AND ACTIONS TOWARD NORMATIVE AGENDA 1 Introduction: Contemporary Africa and the Foreseeable World Order 3 Francis Onditi, Gilad Ben-Nun, Cristina De’Alessandro, and Zach Levey 1 Rethinking the New World Order and Its Implications for Africa 23 Tom Ondicho 2 Africa and the Remaking of Global Order 39 Tim Murithi 3 Toward a New Peace and Security Agenda: Contributions from Pan Africanism 57 Cheryl Hendricks v Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 5 1/30/2019 1:47:46 PM vi Contents 4 The AU’s New Funding Mechanisms: Self-Financing at Last? 77 Kasaija Apuuli 5 Can the African Union Innovate in Conflict Prevention? Evidence from Mediation and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism 93 Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Giovanna Kuele 6 Antidotes to Extremism: Africa’s Refugee Hospitality Paradigm 113 Gilad Ben-Nun 7 Relational African Values between Nations: Bringing Communion to the Global Order 133 Thaddeus Metz PART II: AFRICA: GEOPOLITICS AND GLOBALISM 151 8 Between Atavism and Modernity: Sub-Saharan Africa’s Strained Relationship with Constitutionalism 153 Tom Syring 9 Another Round of Plunder? China, Africa, and International Politics through the Lens of the Mugabe Government, ca. 2000 to 2016 173 Wesley Mwatwara and Ushehwedu Kufakurinani 10 How “Organized Hypocrisy” within the Standby Force Is Pulling African Institutions from the Global Influence 191 Francis Onditi 11 Balance of Power and the 2017 African Union Commission Elections 209 Kizito Sabala 12 Hydropolitics of Resource Exploration in Eastern Africa 227 Edmond Were 13 Politics of Oil in Eastern Africa: Does It Present AQ: Subtitle of Chapter Another Geopolitical Pivot? 245 14 is mis- Paul Opondo match with subtitle inside 14 State-Led Development in Ethiopia: A Failing Legacy the Chapter. or an Existential Threat to the Nation? 257 Please check Frew Yirgalem and update. Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 6 1/30/2019 1:47:46 PM Contents vii PART III: AFRICA’S INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES TOWARD FORESEEABLE FOREIGN POLICIES 275 15 Regime Construction and Sustainable Stability in the Nile Basin: The East African Community Multilateral Diplomacy in a Theoretical Context 277 Korwa Adar and Mercy Kaburu 16 The Future of Kiswahili Is Bright: The Potential of East Africa’s Lingua Franca in the Emerging World Order 293 Ken Walibora 17 Kenya’s National Security and International Refugee Law in the Dynamic World Order 311 Ken Oluoch 18 Can “African Centered Journalism” Contain the Terror Threats in the New World Order? 329 Fredrick Ogenga 19 African Foreign Policy Making in the African Union: Peace and Security 347 Solomon Dersso 20 Kenya’s Foreign Policy (2013–2017) and African Renaissance 361 Rosemary Anyona 21 The Making of “Gender Diplomacy” as a Foreign Policy Pillar in Kenya and Namibia 377 Francis Onditi Conclusion: Contemporary Africa and the Foreseeable World Order 399 Francis Onditi, Gilad Ben-Nun, Cristina De’Alessandro, and Zach Levey Index 409 About the Contributors 000 Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 7 1/30/2019 1:47:46 PM Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 8 1/30/2019 1:47:46 PM Foreword This edited book by Francis Onditi, Gilad Ben-Nun, Zach Levey, and Cristina de Alessandro raises a gigantic question about the world order revolving around critiques of the political, economic and social realities of Africa, the global political and economic environments that shape African realities (i.e., the world order), and how Africa reacts to the emerging world order. The world order as we see it is a set of dynamic relations among states that condition not only the nature of states but also the liberties and wellbeing of everyday people. As Immanuel Wallerstein long noted, the world system is hierarchically ordered. This ordering has been such that Africa has at best been at the periphery. But for African scholars, that periphery is not just a spatial location on the chain of capitalist world trade but a history of exploitations and injustices that have produced pathological states, environmental damages, economic dependency, and material poverty in the lives of too many people. As Onditi and his colleagues candidly point out, poverty is a plaque in Africa, largely as a result of an exploitative world order. Moreover, that history is one that have been characterized by varying forms of overt and subtle resistances to the world order and pragmatic moral maneuvering within the world order. While it is known that African experiences within the world order have been bitter, the more burning question is really what lies ahead for Africa and the possibilities for African agency over its affairs within the world order. Of course, African agency is not set to dominate the world order, but it is merely for Africans to be the drivers of security and economic policies in Africa. The world order is at a crossroads where the conventional norms and approaches to the world order are been unraveled by major global actors. The end of the Cold War was to not only lay to rest the threats of catastrophic superpower wars, but also to shed the light on the values and material benefits of liberal political and economic systems. Under this narrative, ix Onditi et al._9781498598101.indb 9 1/30/2019 1:47:46 PM x Foreword the end of history would have been a triumph for people living under oppressive political systems that stifle material wellbeing and human dignity. Ironically, the current world order is being challenged by the very pathologies of oppression that supposedly ended with the Cold War. Established democracies in the United States and Western European are contending with ugly forms of nationalism that exploit class, race and religions differences, and undermine liberal democracy, nationally and globally. At the same time, major world powers and aspiring powers are maneuvering for survival and dominance in ways that titter on war and disruptions of international security and trade arrangements. For Africa, this actually means confronting a world order in which all that we have been told about democracy, economic liberalization, the rule of law, and human security seem to be undermined by those very powers who have been holding us accountable to those principles. In sum, what lies ahead for Africa may well depend on how Africa adjusts to the contradictions of the contemporary world order. While this may seem to be a bleak future, it can also be an opportunity for Africa to carve out a better space and assert more agency in a way that improves the conditions of African countries and the people of the continent. To gauge that future, this book rightly engages the normative agenda of the world order fronted by African states. More importantly, it asks: “What innovations are the African states putting in place to sustain such normative agenda? . Are the African state’s foreign policies adequately responding to the dynamics in the current and future world order?” The cntributors to this book rightly understand that “Africa’s position in the new or foreseeable world order is largely dependent on the influence of world powers in the continent’s development processes.” That position is rooted in deep historical analysis Africa’s relations with the rest of the world, which contastly metastasize into renewed forms of injustices. In the African experience, the world order—old and new—has been a treacherous terrain. That terrain is not just a lived experience, but also the site of resistances to myriad aspects of the world order. All of these are summed up in pivotal moments in African history—from the western infiltration into African empires to the nascent Chinese rise into the African development agenda. Africa’s pushback against the world order dates back to the varying resistances to colonialism from Ethiopia to South Africa. The fruition of that resistance was the end of the racialized colonial state that instilled subjecthood and the attainment of independent states where Africans can be citizens in their own countries. Various chapters in this book capture this struggle and more importantly point to Africa’s stamp on the morality of the just cause principle in the word order.

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