‘Africa in International Relations’ as well as ‘Africa in international relations’ are both in a state of controversy. But the controversy over ‘Africa in international relations’ is our concern here.
Intervention recalls how, in 2013, some British scholars of International Relations based mainly at Queen Mary University of London published an essay to challenge the more entrenched idea that Africa suffers from inertia as an agent in international relations. It is difficult to know what kind of reactions greeted the essay in party headquarters, universities, think tanks and policy houses in Africa and outside Africa. It wasn’t instantly a terrible idea, surely. But the de-industrialisation experience across Africa, for example, didn’t seem to support that sort of argument. Anyway, the sleeping dog was allowed to lie until recently when events began to bear out the essayists.
Some African leaders offering to mediate the Russia – Ukraine war is one such symbolic African agency. It sent an alarm to the right places. Then Africa’s admission into the G-20, warts and all. It has since been looking like the three essayists were and are right after all.
Still, African agency in international relations is a site of controversy. What kind of agency is this with the level of misery, violence, corruption, collapse of social services and total disarray on so many fronts? So, the debate goes on among those whose specialisation is to reflect on Africa in the world.
What is new now is that the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) is bringing its own dimension to the controversy. NIIA will not and cannot close the debate but it is entering the arena with a panel which parades academics and NIIA’s own resource persons to look at ‘Africa in the International Arena’. It has added ‘search for relevance’ to its own framing of the issue, implying more concepts to be clarified and demonstrated. Uhmm! Above all, it is doing this with a foreign mission in Nigeria – the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Nigeria.
NIIA has provided a link for those who are curious about the topic to join: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a2qr3Tja7lMiwnbmSLN3qxgQCekAFvkL8ZBHMLGWmOpg1%40thread.tacv2/1696489542321?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2273662592-1795-430b-a5e6-9460b1931960%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a348aeb8-6d33-4861-b764-8ae78a45ac94%22%7d.
The interesting thing about ‘Africa in international relations’ is that it is about the only theme in that subject which is arresting, irrespective of which International Relations any scholar speaks, be it traditional realism or neo-realism or constructivism – conventional or critical or the hardcore “dissident” tradition. So, the NIIA event promises to be a fascinating outing.
