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The African Union and African Agency in International Politics

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  • © 2022

Overview

Authors:
  1. Tshepo Gwatiwa

    1. Department of International Relations, African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa

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  • Explores the African Union's strategic partnerships

  • Explores a different dimension of African agency in international politics

  • Examines two forms of agency slack—shirking and slippage—in AU partnerships

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
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  2. Introduction

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 1-15

  3. African Agency as Agency Slack: From Fiction to Multilateral Empirics

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 17-40

  4. African Agency in Historical Perspective: A History of Agency Slack

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 41-66

  5. Agential Challenges Within African Regionalism and Security

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 67-102

  6. African Agency in the Early Design of African Security Institutions

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 103-135

  7. The Africa–EU Partnership and African Agency: Model or Pareidolia?

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 137-152

  8. Shirking in AU Partnerships: The UN and NATO

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 153-181

  9. Slippage in AU Partnerships: The US Africa Command

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 183-200

  10. Conclusion

    • Tshepo Gwatiwa
    Pages 201-218

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 219-223
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the role of the African Union in relation to African agency in international politics. It examines the manner and extent to which the African Union exercises two forms of agency—shirking and slippage—in its strategic and collaborative partnerships. The author focuses on four major AU partnerships with the European Union, NATO, the United Nations and US AFRICOM. The books examines African agency in each partnership by exploring the politics and dynamics of each partnership in different aspects: the multilevel engagement, institutionalization, resource contribution and disbursement, as well as preference linkage. It specifically does that by examining African ownership and leadership in all of these aspects. The book highlights the role of agency slack as a survival strategy to escape from the AU’s subaltern position in international politics. It designates the partnership with the European Union as emblematic of African agency; while the others exhibit different forms of agency slack. Partnerships with NATO and the United Nations exhibit shirking, while that with the US AFRICOM exhibits slippage.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of International Relations, African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa

    Tshepo Gwatiwa

About the author

Tshepo Gwatiwa, PhD is a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also a Research Associate at the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS) at the same university. He was previously at lecturer at the University of Botswana, where he was also seconded as an adjunct lecturer to the Botswana Defence Force (BDF)’s Defence Command and Staff College. He is the co-editor of Expanding US Military Command in Africa: Elites, Networks and Grand Strategy (Routledge, 2021).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The African Union and African Agency in International Politics

  • Authors: Tshepo Gwatiwa

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87805-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-87804-7Published: 11 December 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-87807-8Published: 11 December 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-87805-4Published: 10 December 2021

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 223

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: African Politics, Foreign Policy, Regionalism, Globalization

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