The Quest for Hegemony and the Future of African Solutions to African Development Problems: Lessons from Headways in the African Security Sector

Abstract

The problems of African development and integration with the world of globalisation have continued to attract concern in the policymaking cycle and the academic world, within and beyond the shores of the continent. Ever since the issues of economic development became the continent’s priority, a series of propositions have been advanced and considered. Against a background of post-colonial nationalism, most African leaders have preferred African solutions to African (development and security) problems, despite the region’s continuous reliance on external investment and markets. At the moment, however, this strategy is low priority. In consideration of this, a revival and new dimension of the African Solution (AS) Strategy is observed in this paper. In this regard, global, regional and sub-regional struggles for competitiveness and the resultant hegemonic traits are seen to dominate the unveiling of AS Strategy.

Keywords

Africanisation economic development hegemony globalisation security

Introduction

The problem of development in Africa remains as apparent as it was five decades ago. In addition to the limitations of individual African states and their economies in development, the region has received little consideration from investors who often restrict themselves, at best, to the exploration of natural resources. In this situation, the African Solution to African (African Development) Problems, henceforth AS Strategy, has gained regional prominence. However, predominant ASSs in the 1970s and 1980s, which included among others the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the sub-regionalisation strategy and the Organisation of African Unity’s Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) (1980), did not meet the test of time. In its trial period, Africa came under a new capitalist world order. This marked the time when foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign trade and concomitant financial and economic institution-building became the major drivers of development across the globe. Therefore, Africa became engrossed in a new form of competition in order to attract foreign investors. Institutionalisation of ‘the new economic diplomacy’ through the World Trade Organization (WTO) was an ataxia for Africa in the ability to control resources and the economy in general (Pigman, 2010; Soobramanien, 2011).

In the early days of the neoliberal world order coupled with the collapse of Moscow’s socialism, Africa was rated as less attractive to investors and donors because of the cultural affinities that gave eastern Europe a leverage over Africa. Until the recent surge in Chinese competition, the western hegemonic interest reduced Africa’s choice of strategy. Before now, Africa had struggled painfully for integration into the western world order; but despite this, the myopic view of Africa predominates (Bolton, 2008). However, with the decline of the westernisation of the world order, the West and the world’s emerging powers have identified the strategic importance of the new scramble for Africa (Bond, 2006; Carmody, 2011; Stephan et al., 2006; Thompson, 2009). The debate on the extent to which this trend could be sustained by African states is ongoing. Moreover, it is a concern that this trend has not translated into the development of African populations and that the benefits of this new scramble are widening the development gap between African states. These and other problems have framed with uncertainty the basis for a developing AS Strategy.

It is therefore hoped that regional organisations and intra-African relations are gaining acceptance in the coordination of African state partnerships with global efforts in order to enhance development in the continent. This understanding is set in relation to the struggle for competitiveness and the resultant hegemonic structure at the global, regional and sub-regional levels, as well as development in its recent African dynamism. Currently dominated by external investments and markets, the extent that AS Strategy will shape the future of African development deserves attention. This study generates insight from a comparative understanding of the experience of African states and the application capability of AS Strategy in the security sector and sets it against its relevance to development. This will receive philosophical academic interrogation below.

Philosophy and the theory of international quest

The study of international relations has been philosophically dominated by the western traditions of economic, political and social philosophies described as the imperialism of social science by Ake (1982). In these traditions, the historicism of human nature is believed to have been dominated by competition for resources, power and status. Prominent philosophers such as Hobbes, Hegel, Marx and Gramsci have shared different convictions on what this competitive historicism looked like. For instance, the Hobbesian establishment found a brutish and nasty historicism of human society, where survival depends on competitiveness. The Hegelian philosophy also pointed out that the historicism of human nature is dominated by the struggle for status. Marxism further reinforced and rationalised this struggle and competition in human society with its scientific historicism. In this way, it is argued that human society across history has produced its final competition between the capitalist and the proletariat.

This philosophy has been aptly transposed to capture the modern conduct of international relations in three ways. First, international politics is observed based on neorealism as a struggle for power and dominance among states, which is in return tied to their survival. Second, international economy, by neoliberal evaluation, entails the struggle for the wealth of nations, which is limited in supply, but required for survival. Third, international political economy, in Gramscian terms, is associated with materialism, and the resultant ‘power and resistance’. Generally, international relations is characterised by the quest against quest from which actors often struggle to outpace each other in their competition for value.

Competitions for survival, status, resources and power often cycle to enhance one another. As a result, according to neorealism the accumulated power of a state is a function of its acquired resources and status and vice versa, which in return determines its survivability in competitive international politics (Adas, 2006; Halper and Clarke, 2004; Lieber, 2005). This point is likewise reinforced by the neoliberals. Based on these two theories, a state is expected to struggle with other states for limited world resources in accordance with its competitive technological, military, economic, cultural and political capacities (Adas, 2006; Amin, 2006). In this regard, however, sufficient accumulation by a state is expected to insulate its domination over others in further contests. A situation of this nature is called hegemony. Unfortunately, a state hegemony often threatens other states in competition, thereby making it difficult for them to contest their divergent interests freely and fairly. By implication, resistance against domination or its attempt is a natural international affair.

Marxist–Leninist–Gramscian tradition explains the pace of this unending quest in terms of the capitalist hegemony of the state and its internationalisation as the prevailing capitalist world order (Amin, 2006; Gill, 2008; Thomas, 2009). This tradition denies the state and the world capitalist order associated with it. This is the basis of the postulation that the end of materialism, which is expected to accompany the collapse of capitalist world order, will end the history of this quest. During the Cold War, the success of the communist East was anticipated to destroy the faulty world order and produce an end to further materialist quests. The hope raised in this tradition that a struggle can end further struggle has, however, become unsustainable following the decline of communism and the resultant end of the Cold War.

In contrast to Marxist tradition, Fukuyama (1992) leaned on Hegelian historicism in writing the end of history in favour of liberalism. Despite this, competition involving states and non-state actors over ideas and values continues to dominate every facet of the post-Cold War and the 21st century world (dis)order (Gill, 2008; letto-Gillies, 2012; Moïsi, 2007, 2008, 2009). In this regard, neo-functionalists have argued for trusting cooperation and institutionalism as a means to escape the challenges of continuous struggle, which is tied to high stakes such as a state’s survival. This is the light in which neoliberals viewed cooperation in competition and neorealists embraced the possibility of a cooperative hegemony with an emphasis on institutionalism, recognition and legitimacy (Mahler, 1995; Sapru, 2004; Tukur, 2013). This has helped to reduce the known level of violence that is associated with hegemonic competition. However, a total elimination of hegemonic competition seems to be less of a possibility. In other words, domestic demand for global competitiveness and the resultant desire to dominate other competitors will maintain the need for bandwagon hegemonic state(s) for self-preservation. One world, in this regard, will now coexist with many worlds (Haass, 2008; Hurrell, 2007).

Against this background, it is not sufficient for African states to base their strategy for cooperation toward economic development solely on cultural solidarity. There is a need to understand a development strategy that fits into the historicism of human development and appreciates the reality of international relations, particularly its competitiveness for power, resources and status, and its implication for hegemonic quest and resistance. Africa operates within an international system that is predominated by this trend, and is also evolving a similar system. This trend is acknowledged as the hope and future of African development strategy, while the experience from the security sector stands to enrich the understanding of this trend.

Background to the African Solution (AS) Strategy

The ASS is a product of the continent’s deep rooted history of colonialism and the quest for statehood and its resultant manifestation in the subsequent interplay of a state’s domestic dynamics with the region and the international community at large.

Historically, from the domestic outlook of African colonies, the quest for statehood was activated by the increase in African competitive capacity against colonial powers in local administration, economy, politics and the military. In most British and some French colonies, for instance, competition between Africans and Europeans for administrative appointments and trade consent are the major domestic forces that work against the foundation of colonialism (Adebayo, 1986). However, the Portuguese colonies’ and Algeria’s quest for statehood were a result of the increase in African competitive capacity in local administration and unconventional warfare when compared to the colonial administration and the colonial monopoly of conventional means of repression respectively (Fanon, 1961; Seibert, 2002). Based on this scenario, political consciousness increased and the demand for independence persisted. This created a wave of nationalism across the continent, amidst Pan-Africanism, and by which the momentum for independence for African states was set (Amusan, 2010).

This dichotomy plays its way into the East–West ideological rivalry. Against painful colonial experiences under western powers, African sympathy for the rhetoric of anti-colonialism/nationalism and anti-capitalism/communism by eastern powers was, therefore, natural. However, for many African advocates, anti-capitalism/communism was second only to anti-colonialism/nationalism. The then raging Cold War prompted leaders of these new states to take a median posture in order to safeguard their newly won political freedom, as well as freedom of choice in decision-making with regard to international affairs.

Against this background, many African states acknowledged the need for a regional platform. This development sets the pace for what is referred to as the background of ASS. As soon as they won political freedom, many African states commenced what they considered to be a quest for economic freedom from the European monopoly of African wealth. At the domestic and regional levels, the growth of African economic elites, known to critics as semi-bourgeoisies, spearheaded this quest and between the 1960s and 1970s a wave of nationalisation of foreign assets ranged across Africa. Within this period, many African states embarked on internal developmental measures. The import substitution strategy was at the forefront of many states. Many called for the surrendering of sovereign power to actualise the concept of a United States of Africa (USAf), but this was mooted by Senegambia and the Ghana/Guinea states among others. At the global level, African states teamed up with other Third World States (TWSs) to demand a New International Economic Order (NIEO) (Onwuka and Aluko, 1986).

However, by all evidence, this phase of ASS was dominated by the political and cultural revival efforts at domestic (individual African states) and regional levels. It is recounted that the disarticulation of the economy, monopolistic tendencies, unfavourable terms of trade, technological shortages, monoculture economy and political instability are some of the prominent problems that disrupted the African political-led development strategy (Ake, 1981; Bond, 2003, 2005, 2006; McGown, 2006; Onimode, 1988, 2000). Moreover, cooperation among African states was also hampered by the emphasis on the independence of individual states evident during the formative years of the defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU) between 1958 and 1963.

The experiment with AS Strategy and the unfulfilled promise

As the international market collapsed on agricultural, fossil fuel and other mineral resources dependent on the African economy, the compass that piloted internal measure at the domestic level became unsustainable. As a result, many African states hoped for a NIEO. In comparison with other post-colonial regions of the world, the African development gap increased through the 1980s. By this time, the lack of economic progress had become a major challenge to African states. The architects of the LPA (1980: 4) captured this aptly:

The effect of unfulfilled promises of global development strategies has been more sharply felt in Africa than in the other continents of the world. Indeed, rather than result in an improvement in the economic situation of the continent, successive strategies have made it stagnate and become more susceptible than other regions to the economic and social crises suffered by the industrialised countries. Thus, Africa is unable to point to any significant growth rate, or satisfactory index of general well-being, in the past 20 years.

Based on this background, African states agreed to increase intra-African trade and to transfer technology. Ambitious plans were made as if it would soon become a reality. However, the 1980s is really a decade of decline for Africa’s economy. The decade unveiled the limitations of many African states in internal developmental measures and the capacity to provide social welfare. By the turn of the 1990s, trade deficits resulting from the declining prices of African primary products and the debt crisis caused by the subsequent financial crises have become dominant in Africa. The debt crisis has further caused Africa to be at the mercy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the London and Paris clubs.

In contrast to the AS Strategy, the IMF led Africa into the painful structural adjustment programme (SAP) of one-size-fits-all in the name of debt rescheduling. The institution (IMF) intensified the trend, despite the fact that its prescriptions are not working, and even when it made the situation worse (Athanasiou, 1996: 156). This was preceded by a Washington Consensus, an ambitiously planned blueprint to bring the whole world under the capitalist world order. This entailed the principle of fiscal discipline, cuts in public expenditure, tax cuts, competitive exchange rates, the liberalisation of the inward flow of FDI, interest rates and trade, privatisation and deregulation (Williamson, 2004). In this trial, Africa’s development was tied to hope in FDI investment that was not totally forthcoming and to export orientation. The concentration of African states on export worsened the situation, as this increased the supply by developing states of their primary products far above their demand in the world market (de Soto, 2000; Mbeki, 2009). At the same time, the cost of importing manufactured goods increased beyond African purchasing power. The most painful aspect is the dominant perception of Africa by western investors, who did not see any hope or future in the region.

New global Africa reappraisers

The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov acknowledged Russia’s US$4 billion trade turnover with Africa as unacceptable to Moscow when compared with China’s US$120 billion trade turnover in 2011 (Blank, 2013). This was emphasised as a call on Moscow to focus more on the continent. China overtook the US as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009. India’s trade relations with Africa rose from US$1 billion in 2001 to US$50 billion in 2010. In addition to this, the percentage of Turkish, South Korean and Brazilian transactions in Africa’s trade is on the rise.

At the global level, the crisis of the US hegemonic moment and the rise of others constituted the major factor that engineered the recent African reappraisal. In what is known as the US world, Japan, the US and the EU, who own preponderant power and influence in the continent’s economic life, were found to be exonerating themselves of commitments, wallowing in the idea that ‘Africa doesn’t matter’. This is perhaps because the little strategic importance that is attached to Africa, the competition for allies, and the influence between the East and the West on the continent, ended with the Cold War. In addition to the collapse of the USSR, the European and Japanese economic slumps left the US to dominate the world politically, economically, militarily, culturally and technologically.

However, the current relative decline of the US hegemonic moment has revived declinists’ views (Huntington, 1988/89, 1996, 1999; Layne, 2006; Nye, 2010; Zakaria, 2008). In this debate, it is argued that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa’s (BRICS) quest for status, wealth and power in the declining US world is likely to create a new form of global bloc competition (Hurrell, 2006; Larson and Shevchenko, 2010). With regard to this competition, the value of Africa’s rich resources and market has continued to attract both investment and trade (ECA, 2011; Miguel, 2011: 155–160). As a result, Africa has been recording an amassing growth rate, attributable to this new scramble. For instance, FDI projects in Africa have grown at a compound rate of 22% since 2007 (Ernest and Young’s Attractiveness Survey, 2013: 5).

In this regard, at the international level, there is an increase in the strategic consideration of Africa by global powers. To some extent, President Obama’s visit to Africa two months after the Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the continent is considerable. The US Council of Foreign Relation Daily Brief (23 June 2013) leaned on Asia Times’s assertion that ‘China may not be a rival that the US wants to name-check, but there is no doubt that the spectre of Beijing’s flourishing influence in the region is a vital subtext to the President’s [Obama] visit’. This argument is also substantial in the case of other leading global competitors for Africa such as Russia, the EU, Japan and India, and lesser stakeholders such as Canada, Australia and Brazil (Hutton, 2006; Khanna, 2008; Kissinger, 2012; Kuran, 2011; Studwell, 2002; Versi, 2013).

Individual African states and the region’s recent record are significant as Africa is calculated to have recorded an average economic growth rate of 4–5% over the last decade (Devarajan and Fengler, 2013). The McKinsey Global Institute (2010) acknowledged the existence of 20 indigenous companies with not less than US$3 billion worth in Africa by 2008. The size of South Africa’s economy has recently qualified her to join Brazil, Russia, India and China in a group of emerging economies and the global anti-hegemonic power bloc known as BRICS. Also, Rwanda moved up 10 places (to the 70th position) in the world and third in Africa on the Global Competitiveness Index in 2011–2012 (Schwab, 2011). In the same report, South Africa ranked 50th in the world, second in BRICS and first in Africa. One recent World Bank report also projected Nigeria’s economy to emerge as one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2050, and by April 2014 the country was already acknowledged as the largest economy in Africa by the IMF. Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan are expected to be insulated toward development with the recent pace of investment in their natural resources. Even as global investment declined in 2012, Africa is still rated to have recorded improvement in its global share of 3.7% compared to 2.9% in 2011 (UNCTAD, 2013).

The hope for the new AS Strategy

The role of FDI-led development that glues Africa into the capitalist world order is significant in the promise for development. Simultaneously, it increases Africa’s vulnerability to global economic conditions. It has further brought inequality and unequal economic development within Africa and the world at large. To this extent, this arrangement has mostly benefited the few oil exporting countries in the region. Even at best, the corresponding value of FDI-led development remains remote to the African population. On average, FDI in the continent is more capital intensive with its vicissitudes on economic development, and for the most part it only yields low rated employment opportunities for the unskilled and semi-skilled population, and the problem of how to convert growth to public goods persists in Africa (UNIDO, 2008). This is better understood from the region’s position in the Human Development Indexes of recent years (UNDP, 2013). Africa’s economy is still mostly disintegrated, disorganised and uncomplementary. In addition to this gap, Africa is even short of indigenous innovation and therefore unprepared to benefit from world technological and financial progresses (Beck and Maimbo, 2013; Bilbao-Osorio et al., 2013). In terms of economic diplomacy, the continent is not able to involve itself in the maze of negotiation due to its lack of experienced negotiators/diplomats and lack of representation in ‘capitals that have a heavy economic diplomacy agenda, such as Geneva, New York or Brussels’ (Soobramanien, 2011: 196).

To combat this, many African states have embarked on institutional capacity building at the domestic level. Rwanda’s progress is the most appraised here. At the regional level, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) has emerged as an ambitious mechanism to integrate weak African states’ developmental efforts with prosperous ones and with the wider international community (Adesina, 2006). Likewise, at the sub-regional level, the proliferation and allegiance to sub-regional economic blocs like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and East Africa Economic Community (EAC) are noted.

However, the workability of this path is still questionable. For instance, NEPAD is feared to be turning out to be another Washington-inspired economic arrangement that believes in North–South cooperation for the development of Africa. It has been accused of a lack of local legitimacy, as its reserved role for domestic input or civil society actions is debatable (Maloka, 2006). Against industrial development and technological improvement, Africa continues to be a major producer of inputs for the industrialised North through the labyrinth of the World Trade Organization’s arrangement (Oyejide, 2008). As much as the continent is forced to believe and remain in its imposed specialisation in the agrarian sector, food crises and vicissitudes of agricultural prices will always militate against any meaningful dividends of the neoclassical model of endowment theory in the explanation of international trade (Todaro and Smith, 2011: 576–581). Other issues affecting Africa’s economic development include environmental concerns, social policy, democratic enforcement, accountability and legitimacy. For these tasking demands, the role of developed states and their various inter-governmental bodies among other non-state actors is even exulted (Stephan et al., 2006).

The ongoing crisis in the Kivu region of the DRC cannot be fully explained without looking into the activities of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) whose parent states continue to shield them from the laws of host states. How then can one situate economic growth based on political liberalisation, democratisation of policymaking and economic reforms without addressing the impact of the Great Powers in Africa (Mills, 2010; Stiglitz, 2013)? Africa continues to pay the price of inequality in the midst of commonwealth economies for a crowded planet that resulted from development (Sachs, 2008; Stiglitz, 2013).

Devarajan and Fengler (2013: 69) therefore admitted that:

Africa’s recent growth has largely followed rising commodity prices, and commodities make up the overwhelming share of its export – never a stable prospect… the pessimists argue that Africa is simply riding a commodities wave that is bound to crest and fall and that the region has not yet made the kind of fundamental economic changes that would protect it when the downturn arrives.

Africa is being described as a group of extractive and sclerotic institutions, which explains why the politics of development in the continent are complex and sometimes go beyond the comprehension of the basic law of demand and supply (Wilk & Nordhaug, 2013). This therefore calls for value-adding and beneficiation in the extractive and agricultural industries which will not only increase the continent’s GDP, but also serve as sources of employment for the teeming unemployed unskilled and semi-skilled population.

Based on this background, it is observed that development in Africa requires Africa’s pace and lead. But how can this happen? The aspiration for an increase in intra-African trade that currently preoccupies African leaders is based on a misguided assumption which downplays the importance of the content of Africa’s foreign trade (ECA, 2013; Lawrence et al., 2012). However, intra-African investment is better positioned to boost intra-African trade and political stability. In this regard, the impacts of increase in the flow of FDI to some African states from other parts of the world will be localised, and be shared with other states that are initially less attractive to FDI. In this way, states that are less attractive on the global investment domain will then find more benefit from intra-African investment opportunity. Intra-African investment has been particularly impressive over this period since 2007, growing at a 32.5% compound rate (Ernest and Young’s Attractiveness Survey, 2013: 5). Also, the direction of recent migration flow in Africa, which is largely intra-regional and economically driven, is instructive (IOM, 2011). This is important in understanding the recent drive for sub-regional blocs, a form of sphere of influence, by many sub-regional and regional hegemonic states in Africa. It should not be taken for granted that each region automatically produces its regional power (Nolte, 2010: 884).

The traditional understanding of Africa’s political economy cannot but question this line of development. How could the developing states of Africa, which depend on foreign financials, technology and market, invest abroad? This question is partially answered by the recent success story of South Africa and Nigeria’s raised drive for intra-African investment. Even allowing for this, to what extent is dependency compatible with independency? African states are too small to individually confront the ongoing forces of globalisation. As a result, the necessity of a regional mechanism is not in doubt. But to what extent can AS Strategy or African interests align with the forces of global interest? It is considered that the application of this strategy in Africa’s security will better inform this understanding.

AS Strategy for security

Apart from development in economic terms, AS Strategy is interested in Africa’s security sector. The economic and security sectors are distinguished as the most technical and require aspects of AS Strategy. Comparatively, both sectors facilitated one form of competition or another that ultimately tend to produce a contest for dominance. Even with the persistence of limitations in the application of ASS in the security sector, its recent headways are impressive (Mays, 2003).

As Africa began to lose its little strategic importance following the end of the Cold War, international investment in her security declined. Before AS Strategy became prioritised in regional security, Africa had experienced cases of instability such as those in the DRC and Angola, where world powers pursued their selfish interests to the total annihilation of regional security concerns. The Somali and Rwandan case, where world powers abandoned and neglected the continent in its security predicament is, however, a prime mover ASS for security. At this point, different African initiatives, mostly involving regional or sub-regional hegemonic states or their led blocs, emerged to maintain order on the continent. It is under this initiative that the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) mission to Liberia in 1997 and South Africa and Botswana deployed their military to Lesotho in 1998, in the name of SADC. The African Union (AU) was also not devoid of different initiatives at this point (Powell, 2005). The OAU actively involved itself in conflict management and post-conflict re-fertilisation in Chad, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, the Central Africa Republic and Somalia.

This trend prevailed until the 9/11 attacks in America and the resultant securitisation of African failed states, which unveils global security implications of the ongoing contest for influence in Africa. This contest involves the al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iranian and North Korean axis, against the Europen–American axis. The prevalence of illegal trade, presence of uranium in the continent and the recent fear of nuclear proliferation and terrorism has brought Africa to the limelight of world politics (Broodryk and Stott, 2012; World Customs Organization, 2012). Moreover, the crises in the Middle East, Venezuela’s incessant ideological incompatibility, and Russia’s renewed interest in world politics beyond Eurasia have some security implications, mostly in energy politics. This development has elevated the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) to be a centre of focus of Great Powers politics (Wilk & Nordhaug, 2013). The previously neglected states of Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea are invaluable in oil/energy politics. Also, states such as Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Algeria, Kenya, Somalia, Libya and Chad are prominent in the geo-strategic calculations of Great Powers with regard to international efforts against terrorism. In a similar way, the formation of Africom is not out of altruistic concern for America’s foreign and defence policies (Khanna, 2008). This coincided with the devolution of power and influence in the international system, the result of which is that ‘power is now found in many hands and in many places’ (Haass, 2008: 45).

Based on this background, Africa has emerged to be of strategic importance in the global security calculus of world powers. As a result, global concerns for the stability and security of the region are on the increase. In this regard, more attention is devoted to building partnerships and partners’ capacity, as well as to create a sense of common security. Moreover, America and Europe have continued to invest and influence the African security architecture. But their influence is not black and white in defence planning and budgeting; rather, its occurrence is technical and strategic. The situation is increasingly becoming a matter of common interest: ASS is interested in Africa’s security and foreign (either direct or indirect) investment in the African security sector (FIASS) (this, however, excludes private investment) and is interested in donors’ security, which is interlocked with Africa’s security. While ASS is a means to an end for Africa, to expect FIASS that will be an end in itself will be an erroneous hope. In this way, ASS and FIASS are making a convenient threshold of complementary effect toward the common good. With this, therefore, individual African states, regional and sub-regional organisations and hegemonic states have continued their role in the continent’s security architecture with more capability generated beyond the continent.

Conclusion

Interest intersection and compatibility are a matter of effort and perception. World powers are desperate about their investment, security and status in relation to Africa. Therefore, global interest is running alongside local and regional interests. This is a context that one should appreciate as the initiative behind the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Growth and Opportunity Acts (AGOA) and their sponsors. But just as this holds, African states are the ones that will take the lead in their own security and development; for example, South Africa is leading the continent’s drive for intra-African economic investment and Nigeria is pushing for intra-African peacekeeping and other security cooperation. Different sub-regional blocs are most likely to serve as a stepping stone for these states to achieve their goals, which are also a common security and development interest. In this regard, Africa will need a paradigm shift from the castigation of foreign investment, or at best its embracement, to its complementation for the public good.

Global capital will continue to search for prepared regions. It will be difficult to determine precisely when Africa will lose recently acquired or emerging strategic importance in the global security calculus of Great Powers, especially in relation to al Qaeda’s contest for influence in the region; a decline in inflow of FDI and regional growth is not likely to be so soon or sudden. However, the best option is for Africa to prepare for uncertainty. Also, that Africa is said to have recorded this progress does not mean that the region has arrived; rather, the recently offered condition is an ideal base for economic take-off. The increase in security and economic significance of a state or region to a great power often precedes economic take-off. This is evident from the Chinese and Indians. Chinese strategic importance in balancing the US and USSR’s Cold War influence and power competition is particularly indicative.

The global quest for hegemony will continue to increase Africa’s international status and competitiveness. At another level, this is likely to pit African leading states against each other in competition in order to attract global investors and invest in ventures across the continent. It is on this premise that both Nigeria and South Africa must develop long term diplomatic consciousness, at least to encourage political cooperation, as their economies will not forever remain anonymous rivals, and the two states cannot avoid contesting hegemony at the regional level. There is a strong common background to set this pace (Amusan, 2006). At both sub-regional and regional levels, however, the two states will face resistance of continental medium power. Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria in West Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and South Africa in southern Africa, and Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda are potential resistance to the possibility of East African hegemony. At large, dominant sub-Saharan states could not avoid a confrontation with North African counterparts and the whole dynamism of recent crises in the region. However, this is not likely to become violent.

African states are strongly encouraged to enhance their individual institutional capacity for substantial domestic stability, which can guarantee a stable diplomatic future for the continent.

Footnotes

Author biographies

Lere Amusan is a professor of International Relations, Department of Politics and International Relations, North West University, South Africa. He has published widely on African politics, international economic relations and foreign policy analysis.

Samuel Oyewole is a postgraduate student in the Department of Political Science, University of Ilorin, Nigeria. His areas of focus are peace and conflict studies, comparative politics and democracy and democratisation.

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