Power and Prestige in Black Diplomacy

Abstract

This article builds on the prevalent discussions of Western and Asian prestigious states to provide a distinct account of power and prestige in black diplomacy through the lens of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (T-AST), colonization, and neocolonialism. The principal argument is twofold namely; that T-AST and colonization have contributed significantly to prestige deficit of African states and contemporary forms of racism and discrimination targeted at blacks in the diaspora. Second, the paper argues that the pursuit of prestige recovery by African states, notably through attainment of political independence, has been undermined by neocolonialism. The analysis helps to fill a major gap in the literature with respect to the limited attention paid to African states and black communities in the rejuvenated discussion of prestige in International Relations. The policy recommendation is that power and prestige need to be redefined along the lines of genuine respect and cooperation between African societies and foreign powers.

Keywords

black diplomacy Africa power and prestige slave trade colonization

Introduction

This study critically analyses power and prestige in black diplomacy, understood as “the international experience of black peoples, the rules and values which have conditioned that experience, and the emerging patterns of communication between black peoples and the rest of the world” (Mazrui, 1977, p. 1). Existing discussions of black diplomacy largely draw on the international experiences of Africans in the diaspora and foreign policy targets of African states (cf. Adem, 2008; Blake, 1984; Bryce-Laporte, 1972; Holder, 1983; Johnson, 2014; Krenn, 1999; Nwolise, 1992; Pitre, 1983; Quraishi, 2023; Schoeppner, 2019; Wilson, 1972). In turn, the article builds on the prevalent discussions of power and prestige in international relations (IR) to analyze how the international experiences of African states and black people in general have been shaped by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (T-AST), colonization, and neocolonialism.

Power and prestige have been part of the central themes in IR as scholars have widely discussed how advanced states have mostly relied on prestige, rather than power, to pursue their interests in the international system (Khong, 2019). Prestige has been implied in and/or explained from different conceptual viewpoints including reputation, honor, status, respect, glory, vainglory, and credibility that states gain or lose, notably from their participation in significant global events including inter-state warfare (Biba, 2016; Slomp, 2000; Tang, 2005). While some academics have studied how political elites demonstrate prestige in African domestic politics, a few others have underlined prestige in inter-African state relations (Pinaud, 2014; Tamm, 2019). In contrast, the article provides a distinct account of power and prestige in black diplomacy that emphasizes prestige deficit—whereby states undermine their prestige in IR through underdevelopment of political, military, economic, and cultural power—in African states.

Overall, power and prestige scholarships have focused more on relations among advanced states including the US and China as opposed to prestige deficit of weaker states such as those in Africa (cf. Khong, 2019). Two main sources of prestige have been underscored in such discussions including positive prestige, whereby past achievements are used as criteria for determining the actual prestige of states, and negative prestige in which states use deception and trickery to create an impression about their prestige (Kim, 2004). The idea of positive prestige has particularly helped to understand major issues in IR including how power is a determinant of prestige (Gilpin, 1981). This study contributes mainly to the discussion of positive prestige or lack thereof using key historical events including T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism that have negatively impacted black diplomacy since the 14th century.

Prestige generally emerges in IR from states’ productive accumulation and use of hard and soft power. While soft power has gained prominence for some time now (Nye, 2004, 2008, 2011), hard (military) power has been the most evident determinant of prestige in IR as can be seen in how the US became prestigious following its military achievements in World War II (WWII) (Kim, 2004; Morgenthau & Thompson, 1985). Current debates involving power and prestige have largely focused on China’s contestation of US hegemony in Africa and elsewhere (Campbell, 2007). One of the central claims in this debate is that the Asian country is seeking to overtake the US in the hierarchy of prestige without warfare (Chan, 2007; Khong, 2019; Urdinez et al., 2016).

A major knowledge gap, which this article helps to fill, is the limited attention that has been paid to black diplomacy in the power and prestige discussions. Although a few scholarly works including Tamm’s (2019) analysis of status competition between Rwandan and Ugandan ruling elites have helped to understand some aspects of power and prestige in black diplomacy, a study of how T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism have contributed to prestige deficit in black diplomacy is missing. While contrasting the understanding of prestige as reputation for strength to some other interpretations of prestige, notably Thornton’s (1998) idea of vainglory, the paper analyses the evolution of prestige deficit in black diplomacy.

The central argument is twofold namely, that T-AST—the greatest atrocity in human history—and colonization have contributed significantly to the current prestige deficit of African states and contemporary forms of racism and discrimination targeted at Africans in the diaspora. Second, the article argues that the pursuit of prestige recovery by African states, which was initiated through political independence has been undermined by neocolonialism. In this vein, the analysis underscores how T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism have impacted differently on African and non-African states (cf. Nunn, 2008; Rodney, 1976). The study begins by elaborating on how power and prestige have been discussed in the context of powerful states before proceeding to analyze prestige deficit in black diplomacy.

Power and Prestige in IR

Power and prestige are fundamental in IR given that most states pursue their interests using various means including the military (Gilpin, 1981, p. 9). Max Weber’s famous definition of power as the “probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests” is still relevant today (Gilpin, 1981, p. 30). This is because advanced states such as the US and China have sought to use both hard power—coercing states militarily and economically—and soft power—persuading states through attraction and legitimacy—to pursue their political and socio-economic interests in IR. Hard power is seen in how the US cut off aid to Yemen in response to the Asian country’s decision not to vote in favor of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 in 1990 and China’s construction of military bases on disputed islands in the South China Sea (Khong, 2019, p. 121).

In turn, John Arquilla has famously asserted: “In today’s global information age, victory often depends not on whose army wins, but on whose story wins.” Nye (2004, 2008) has thus highlighted how soft power stems from a state’s capacity to achieve its interests through attraction and legitimacy rather than coercion and payments. Cultural relations—the ability of states to share and communicate their local cultures or customs internationally through education exchanges, art and media production, language teaching, and international broadcasting, among other things—form part of soft power (Holden, 2013). McClory has used “objective data”—including enterprise, culture, digital, government, engagement, and education—and “polling data”—consisting of cuisine, tech products, friendliness, culture, luxury goods, foreign policy, and liveability—to measure the soft power of states (McClory, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018).

The degree to which states accumulate and successfully utilize soft and hard power determine the level of prestige—“probability that a command with a given specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons” (Dahrendorf, 1959, p. 166)—that they enjoy in IR. Most advanced states avoid the cost of deploying power whenever they can pursue their goals by simply relying on prestige. In this vein, Gilpin (1981) has argued: “Prestige, rather than power, is the everyday currency of international relations, much as authority is the central ordering feature of domestic society” (p. 31).

One classic display of prestige in IR was the issuance of a warning by the US for all nations to desist from engaging in oil trade with Iran following Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action. The latter entails a 2015 agreement by Iran, US, UK, China, France, Germany, and Russia for Iran to roll back parts of its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions. The specific content to be obeyed by all states, which was issued on 23 April 2019 by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, stated:

Today I am announcing that we will no longer grant any exemptions. We’re going to zero. We will continue to enforce sanctions and monitor compliance. Any nation or entity interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution. The risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits. (Borger, 2019).

Following this warning, most countries including India—a leading purchaser of Iranian crude exports—resorted to buying more US and Saudi oil without seeking to challenge the order from the US (Iyengar, 2019). Thus, prestige helps to limit warfare and deployment of power in IR given that: “If your strength is recognized, you can generally achieve your aims without having to use it” (Wight, 1979, p. 98).

The strength of states is usually tested through warfare whenever countries believe that the level of their prestige in diplomacy is lower than their real power (Gilpin, 1981, p. 32). During the Cold War, for example, George Frost Kennan’s containment strategy helped the US to overcome the Soviet Union’s pursuit of prestige without needing to resort to a “hot war” (Leffler, 2006). Kennan’s (1947) containment policy recommendation was for the US government to “remain cool and collected and that its demands on Russian policy should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a compliance not too detrimental to Russian prestige” (pp. 566-582). This helped to prevent further expansion of Soviet power, promote seeds of destruction within the Soviet Union, and forced the latter to modify its behavior to align with “generally accepted international standards” (Luhr, 2005, p. 19).

Furthermore, advanced states have relied on negative prestige—using deception, denial, and trickery to show prestige—in IR. This includes building on “‘leaks,’ planted information, or decoys to create the impression that the truth is other than it actually is, thereby creating an ‘alternative reality’ for the target” “to believe a ‘cover story’ rather than the truth” (Godson & Wirtz, 2000, p. 425). For example, the deception plan for the 1943 invasion of Sicily by England entailed disinformation and forged documents delivered to German echelons to make Hitler reinforce Mediterranean targets, instead of the intended Sicily target, and create ambiguity about the timing of the invasion (Daniel & Herbig, 1981; West, 2009). Morgenthau and Thompson (1985) have also highlighted how the US deceived its rivals of the actual power that it possessed during the interwar period before becoming the world’s most prestigious state. The remaining sections draw on T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism to highlight prestige deficit and attempted recovery in black diplomacy.

Prestige Deficit in Black Diplomacy

Prestige deficit results from the outcome when states fail to achieve a reputation for strength in IR as Gilpin (1981) has argued:

In a diplomatic conflict the country which yields is likely to suffer in prestige because the fact of yielding is taken by the rest of the world to be evidence of conscious weakness. If the country’s prestige is thus diminished, it is weakened in any future diplomatic conflict. (p. 32).

T-AST marked a key historical moment when black societies generally began incurring huge prestige deficit in IR. Portugal is discredited with the initiation of T-AST as an Antam Gonçalvez-led trading expedition in 1441 ended up with the capture and shipment of ten Africans from the northern Guinea Coast to show to Prince Henry “in the same way that rare plants, exotic butterflies or tropical birds might have been shown” (Pope-Hennessy, 1998, p. 8). The voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492 increased the momentum to obtain enslaved Africans to build the “New World.” The motives usually attributed to T-AST include: “The making of money, the ‘saving’ of Africans from ‘Barbarism’, the excitement of voyages down the Guinea coast and of raiding expeditions up the rivers, [and] the exertion of a febrile ingenuity in outwitting local African chiefs and middle-men” (Eltis et al., 2017; Eltis & Richardson, 1995; Pope-Hennessy, 1998, p. 9). Once Africans were caught up in the slave trade, “Slave traders become ‘callous’, slaving captains ‘brutal’, slave-ship sailors ‘depraved, drunken and diseased’, African chiefs and middle-men ‘avid for gain’, the enslaved Africans ‘victims of European avarice’” (Pope-Hennessy, 1998, p. 6; Rawley & Behrendt, 2005).

John Thornton has interpreted prestige along the lines of vainglory to explain T-AST. According to this American historian, Africans had no direct economic pressure to engage in slaves as their participation in the slave trade was voluntary and under the control of the local decision-makers (Thornton, 1998, pp. 98–125). While showing how African societies possessed most of the exported goods from Europe in the 1600s including cloth, metal, cowry shells, jewelry, and alcoholic beverages, Thornton contends: “Africa’s trade with Europe was largely moved by prestige, fancy, changing taste, and a desire for variety—and such whimsical motivations were backed up by a relatively well developed productive economy and substantial purchasing power” (Thornton, 1998, p. 45).

To substantiate his claims, the American historian highlights how the technology to produce iron in Africa had been developed by 600 B.C. on the Sudanese fringe of the emerging Sahara Desert because black ironworkers had developed methods to conserve fuel in a fuel-poor environment (p. 46). Thus, European iron was not a profitable business in Africa as, according to the American historian, European traders found little market in African societies before the middle of the eighteenth century. Despite providing some interesting facts about past trade relations between African societies and Europeans, Thornton’s study has several flaws as the main thrust of his analysis is as follows:

The Atlantic slave trade and African participation in it had solid origins in African societies and legal systems. The institution of slavery was widespread in Africa and accepted in all the exporting regions, and the capture, purchase, transport, and sale of slaves was a regular feature of African society. This preexisting social arrangement was thus as much responsible as any external force for the development of the Atlantic slave trade. (Thornton, 1998, p. 97)

This position exemplifies several disingenuous scholarly attempts to absolve Europeans from T-AST, which must be flagged as a “racist bourgeois propaganda, having no connection with reality or logic” (Rodney, 1976, p. 112). The key limitation in Thornton’s analysis is the failure to underline the significant differences between T-AST and pre-European slave institutions in Africa. Rodney (1976), for instance, has highlighted how the Akan tribe in present-day Ghana acquired female slaves from Benin in the 1400s to become wives in order to expand their kingdom, which differed greatly from what enslaved Africans were subjected to through T-AST (pp. 103-161). Other prevailing reasons behind pre-European slave institutions in Africa include tribes enslaving people as means to pay off debts and as punishment for immoral/criminal acts including adultery and theft. Overall, “The different African kingdoms had their own rules for the protections of their slaves” as the latter became royals in many African societies (Pope-Hennessy, 1998, p. 88). This does not justify inter-African slavery given that non-Western empires were also involved in some atrocities. Rather, the point to note is that in place of defining prestige as vainglory to justify T-AST, it makes more sense to understand how this infamous event fueled underdevelopment of power and prestige in black societies.

Most prestigious states including Britain and the US depend on their local population and foreign allies to accumulate and effectively deploy power and prestige in IR (Gilpin, 1981). By violently capturing and exporting enslaved Africans abroad for centuries, the capacity of African states to develop politically, militarily, economically, and culturally was greatly undermined. According to Rodney (1976), “Once trade in slaves had been started in any given part of Africa, it soon became clear that it was beyond the capacity of any single African state to change the situation” (p. 90). For example, King Agaja Trudo of Dahomey (present-day Benin), after looting and burning European forts and slave camps between 1724 and 1726 to clamp down on T-AST, resumed slave trading in 1730 because he could not open new lines of trade (Rodney, 1976, p. 91). Thus, African leaders could not protect and rely on a significant number of the local population to build hard and soft power during T-AST, thereby limiting the capacity of African states to be prestigious in IR. C. Williams (1974) has argued, “When the sale of their fellows became the chief source of wealth, African leaders became increasingly estranged from the finest thing in African life, the sense of community and of kinship with all who would be friends” (p. 58).

The complicity of African leaders in selling their people to European slave traders was a demonstration of major weakness in diplomacy as the local rulers placed more value on foreign goods than the local people who were needed to develop power and prestige. According to Rodney (1976), “Many African rulers acquiesced in the European slave trade for what they considered to be reasons of self-interest, but on no scale of rationality could the outflow of population be measured as being anything but disastrous for African societies” (p. 106).

Pope-Hennessy (1998) has rightly affirmed: “As an industry the Atlantic slave trade encouraged greed, brutality, hypocrisy and fear. As a profession it was probably more degrading than any other. Its methods were even cruder than its motives” (p. 6). T-AST was unprecedented in terms of the number of enslaved people involved—12 million Africans minus those who were killed during raids and others who died in the slave dungeons and in the seas (Nunn, 2008, p. 142). It has contributed significantly to African states’ prestige deficit and deep racism targeted at blacks in the diaspora (cf. Bryce-Laporte, 1972; Calliste, 1995). As E. Williams (1944) has contended: “Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery” (p. 7).

Despite their contributions to the development of Western prestigious states including the US and Britain, enslaved Africans and their descendants have not been fully integrated into the lives of these states. This is seen in how African Americans have historically been the highest victims of discrimination and hate crimes in the US (Farivar, 2023). The killing of George Perry Floyd—a descendant of enslaved African in the US—on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin—a white American police officer—which reenergized global anti-racist protests led by the Black Lives Matter Movement underscores the longstanding structural racism in the US. Furthermore, different socio-economic factors including racism and relative deprivation have been cited as major reasons why Covid-19 hit black people the hardest in the US and Britain (Wired, 2020). Overall, widespread racism and discrimination against black people is evident across different sectors including education, legal systems, health, sports, media, and employment, among others (see Bjarnesen, 2020; EU-MIDIS II, 2018; Erel, 2007; Gordon, 2020; Maeso, 2017; C. Williams, 1974).

To summarize, the ability of states to be prestigious in IR is heavily dependent on their local populations and foreign allies. Thus, T-AST helped to fuel prestige deficit in black diplomacy since it marked a key historical moment when African societies were highly destabilized through indiscriminate capture, killing, and exportation of a significant number of the local population to the Americas and Europe. This prepared the grounds for colonization and neocolonialism as Nkrumah (1963) as highlighted: “For over three hundred years the slave trade dominated Africa’s history; and, in fact, influences it still today through our diminished population and its brutalizing and retarding effects upon our socio-economic order” (p. 5). Thus, “By 1885, when Africa was politically and juridically partitioned, the peoples and polities had already lost a great deal of freedom” (Rodney, 1976, p. 308). How African states have attempted to overcome the prestige deficit resulting from T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism is discussed in the next section.

Prestige Recovery in Black Diplomacy

States make prestige gains in IR by pursuing productive strategies with the help of their local populations and foreign allies. As Gilpin has highlighted:

The most prestigious states in the international system count on their prestige to ease and grease the routine transactions of international life, and to obtain their preferred outcomes. These transactions might include acquiring friends and allies, keeping them in tow, responding to their needs and working with them to achieve common goals. (Gilpin, 1981, p. 31).

This is evident in how European states including Britain and Portugal collectively profited from T-AST, thereby creating conducive grounds for Africa’s colonization. African labor had become cheap and easily exploitable by the colonial period—1870s to 1900s—given that the continent’s working class had been drastically reduced, very dispersed, and highly unstable because of T-AST (Rodney, 1976). The “Berlin Conference” (1884-1885) marked the formalization of Africa’s colonization as Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, and Germany led the “Scramble for Africa.”

The atrocities that accompanied the “Scramble for Africa” included an “extermination order” from Lothar von Trotha—a German military general—against the Heroro tribe following the latter’s revolt against German brutalities in Southwest Africa (Pakenham, 1991, p. 4). About 20,000 Heroros including women and children were forced to go to the Omaheke desert to die and make way for European occupation and exploitation of their lands. The negative impact of the “Scramble for Africa” is currently seen in how the ancestral homelands of, at least, one-third of African ethnicities straddle contemporary international borders, thereby fueling civil conflicts, border porosity, and other problems (Michalopoulos & Papaioannou, 2016). Also, the “Scramble for Africa” has contributed to the many large African states with highly heterogeneous geography and ethnically fragmented populations that undermine the capacity of governments to exercise power and consolidate state capacity (Michalopoulos & Papaioannou, 2016). Colonization ensured that “Africa’s people, mineral resources, harbours, rivers, forests—all were to be used to build up the economic and political strength of the colonial powers” (Nkrumah, 1963, p. 7). It institutionalized and consolidated European control of every aspect of African societies including geographical demarcation of borders, public administration, security, economics, religion, education, finance, employment, and language.

In turn, prestige recovery in black diplomacy began with slave and colonial revolts including the Haitian and Santo Domingo revolutions and political independence of African states (cf. Charles, 2020; Fordham, 1975; Nkrumah, 1965). Rodney (1976) has underscored how: “The regaining of political sovereignty by the 1960s constitutes an inescapable first step in regaining maximum freedom to choose and to develop in all spheres” (p. 308). The colonial rule in Africa came to an end largely due to the influence of pan-African leaders and scholars such as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Dubois, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Patrice Lumumba, and Julius Nyerere. Nkrumah was particularly significant as his leadership helped Ghana to attain political independence in 1957, thereby inspiring several other African states to follow suit. The decolonization process was such that eighteen other African countries achieved political freedom within 4 years after Ghana’s. This led Nkrumah (1965) to declare: “The twentieth century has become the century of colonial emancipation, the century of continuing revolution which must finally witness the total liberation of Africa from colonial rule and imperialist exploitation” (p. x).

However, attaining political independence did not lead to full restoration of black freedom as African states battled with several challenges and contradictions stemming from neocolonialism. According to Nkrumah (1965),

The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside. (p. ix)

Neocolonialism is evident in how some Africans and foreign powers have colluded to undermine political stability on the continent through coup d’états. In Ghana, for example, a Howard Bane-led US Criminal Intelligence Agency was aided by Britain to finance, mastermind, and tele-guide the overthrow of the country’s first president—Kwame Nkrumah—in 1966 as the US government described him as “doing more to undermine our interests than any other black African” (Doh, 2008; Quist-Adade, 2016). Neocolonialism ensures that African states remain politically, economically, militarily, and culturally weak to avert foreign threats because foreign powers use their strength to interfere in local matters. In this vein, the term “new scramble for Africa” has been coined to depict how foreign powers including China and India are pursuing different strategies to derive huge profits from Africa’s valuable oil and minerals to the detriment of the local population (Wengraf, 2018).

Given that hard (military) power is a key determinant of prestige as has been highlighted above, it is important to discuss the military strength of African states. The Global Fire Power (GFP) index has helped to rank the military strength of states using five indicators, namely: number of serving military members, naval force, fuel availability for military operations, number of jet fighters, defense budget, and logistics flexibility. It does not factor in nuclear weapons and fails to penalize landlocked countries with no naval powers, which help to improve the overall ranking of African states that do not possess nuclear weapons and those that are landlocked. The perfect score, which is impossible for countries to obtain in the GFP index, is 0.0000. This means that countries obtain a lower score depending on how far they are from the perfect score. Per the 2023 GFP ranking of 145 states, US, Russia, China, India, and France are the most powerful countries in the world. Table 1 shows how 10 African states have been ranked in the same study. Overall, African countries have performed poorly in the GFP rankings, although some have made progress over the years. For example, Ivory Coast leapt from 119 in 2018 to 104 in 2019.

Table 1.

Africa Power Index.

African ranking	States	World ranking
1	Egypt	14
2	Algeria	26
3	South Africa	33
4	Nigeria	36
5	Ethiopia	49
6	Angola	55
7	Morocco	61
8	DR Congo	72
9	Tunisia	73
10	Sudan	75

Source. Global Fire Power (2023).

In addition to political and military ploys, neocolonialism also ensures that: “The dominated countries do not have too much direct, horizontal contact among themselves, particularly not economic interaction, trade” (Galtung, 1973, pp. 121-122). The export-led African economies gained momentum during the colonial period as colonial roads led to the sea-ports and the sea-lanes led to Western Europe and North America. Although the African Continental Free Trade Agreement is geared towards improving intra-African trade, African economies continue to be among the weakest in the world. The continent’s high dependence on proceeds from the sale of natural resources, which yield insignificant financial returns has led to many longstanding challenges for the extractive sector and undermined economic development. For instance, cocoa farmers in the Gold Coast (Ghana) refused to sell their crops for several months in 1937 in an attempt to push for an increase in cocoa prices (Rodney, 1976, p. 184). Similarly, Ghana and Ivory Coast came together in 2019 to suspend forward sales of cocoa beans for the 2020–2021 season as the two West African states, who account for nearly two-thirds of global cocoa output, sought to augment their influence in determining global cocoa prices.

Furthermore, most African countries have suffered from “cultural bomb” in the wake of T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism. According to wa Thiong’o (1986), cultural bomb entails the process of annihilating “a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, environment, heritage of struggle, unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves” (p. 3). One key indicator of cultural bomb in African states is the continuous adoption of European languages including English, French, and Portuguese as the official languages of these states to the neglect of local languages. However, a few states including Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda have sought to promote certain African languages such as Kiswahili to the rank of national languages (cf. Mose, 2018), thereby initiating some concrete steps towards overcoming cultural bomb, and thus prestige deficit.

In summary, most African states and black communities around the globe have attempted to recover from the prestige deficit resulting from T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism although certain institutions and people—rather than focus on recovery—have sought to make profits from the prestige deficit. For example, some nongovernmental organizations emphasize “need” as a means to fundraise for self-seeking interests and certain foreign leaders have highlighted “fragility” as a way to legitimize local actors who have helped to maintain neocolonial structures in Africa (All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, 2019; Anderson, 2017; New African, 2018; Nzau, 2010). Also, Africa’s cultural products and relations such as indigenous languages, sacred texts, Afrobeats, Afro-Pop, Soukous, and Mbaqanga music, among other things, are yet to make meaningful contributions to the continent’s prestige recovery.

Conclusion

Power and prestige have largely defined inter-state relations as the past achievements of advanced countries usually help to shape their current and future relationships in the international system (Gilpin, 1981; Kim, 2004; Khong, 2019). In contrast to John Thornton’s interpretation of prestige as vainglory to justify European involvement in T-AST, the study has argued that African states and black communities elsewhere began experiencing huge prestige deficit in international affairs in the wake of T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism. Once African leaders and middle-men became complicit in the mass enslavement and coercive transportation of their fellow Africans abroad, the capacity of African states to develop hard and soft power, and thus prestige, was greatly undermined. This is because powerful and prestigious states mostly rely on their local populations and foreign allies to obtain their preferred outcomes in diplomacy. European colonization further enhanced the prestige deficit of African states, contributing to contemporary problems such as civil conflicts and border porosity. Slave and colonial revolts helped to initiate the process of prestige recovery, although this has been undermined by neocolonialism and a new scramble for Africa (cf. Wengraf, 2018).

The prestige deficit of African states has boosted the development of powerful and prestigious states elsewhere including the US and Europe. Some authors such as Wood (2013) have narrowly attributed the accomplishments of Western prestigious states including Britain to technological, economic, and military achievements. Such scholarships tend to downplay the pivotal role of T-AST in the development of some popular cities in Western prestigious states. For example, “In the years 1783 to 1793, the net profit to the town of Liverpool on an aggregate of 303,737 slaves sold was almost three million pounds, or about three hundred thousand pounds per annum” (Pope-Hennessy, 1998, p. 145). The link between Liverpool’s strategic role in T-AST and the development of the British state has been widely discussed (e.g., see Haggerty, 2017; Richardson et al., 2007). In turn, British taxpayers finished paying off a huge debt incurred in 1835 when the government sought to compensate British slave owners for abolishing slavery (Fowler, 2020). Overall, T-AST helps to explain why: “Ever since the 15^th century, Europe was in strategic command of world trade and of the legal and organisational aspects of the movement of goods between continents” (Rodney, 1976, p. 193).

According to Pope-Hennessy (1998), “A trade in which so many Europeans and Africans indulged for centuries cannot have been run exclusively by money-maniacs and pocket sadists” (p. 6). T-AST demonstrated the extent to which humans can negate the humanity of others in the name of trade and religion. John Newton—a slave trader who composed the famous Christian hymn “Amazing Grace”—confessed later in his life that it was impossible to imagine any other commerce “so iniquitous, so cruel, so oppressive, so destructive, as the African Slave Trade” (Pope-Hennessy, 1998, p. 271). Once some Europeans and Africans became complicit in T-AST, the prestige deficit in black diplomacy was greatly enhanced as the world continues to witness institutional racism including police brutalities targeted particularly at descendants of enslaved Africans and African migrants in the US and elsewhere.

Education played a crucial role in the attainment of political independence on the African continent in the 1960s. Parker (2009) and Shepperson and Drake (2008), for example, have highlighted how Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nkrumah, and other African leaders’ studies at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the US including Lincoln University helped with attainment of political independence in Africa. According to Rodney (1976), “However much the colonialist tried, they could not succeed in shaping the minds of all Africans whom they educated in schools” (p. 301). Western education of a few Africans and, most importantly, the will of the masses led to political independence, and thus prestige recovery. However, neocolonialism currently characterizes the state of most African countries who face exploitative economic relations with advanced states and global financial institutions. Africans have also suffered from cultural bomb resulting from colonization and neocolonialism (Allen & Amadi, 2022; wa Thiong’o, 1986, 1998). Overall, African states and black communities around the world still have major obstacles to overcome to enhance prestige in black diplomacy. It is important to redefine power and prestige along the lines of genuine respect and cooperation between African societies and foreign powers. While apologies and reparations cannot fully atone for the atrocities committed against black people in the wake of T-AST, colonization, and neocolonialism, they are an important step for improving power and prestige in black diplomacy. Sincere apologies and reparations can, among other things, help to reconcile descendants of enslaved Africans in the diaspora with their African roots (cf. Moffett & Schwarz, 2018).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Gabrielle Lynch of University of Warwick and the reviewers for their helpful comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Nana Kwasi Amoateng

Author Biography

Nana Kwasi Amoateng is a research fellow at the Legon Center of International Affairs and Diplomacy, University of Ghana. His research interests include black studies, international relations, peace and conflict in Africa, and international political economy.

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