African Foreign Policies: Selecting signifiers to explain agency
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Africa Foreign relations 1960- , Africa Politics and government 1960-
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161716 , vital:40657 , ISBN 9780367348281 , https://www.routledge.com/African-Foreign-Policies-Selecting-Signifiers-to-Explain-Agency/Bischoff/p/book/9780367348281
- Description: This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size. In the past, African foreign policy has largely been considered within the context of reactions to the international or global 'external factor'. This ground-breaking book, however, looks at how foreign policy has been crafted and used in response not just to external, but also, mainly, domestic imperatives or (theoretical) signifiers. As such, it narrates individual and changing foreign policy orientations over time - and as far back as independence - with mainly African-based scholars who present their own constructs of what is a useful theoretical narrative regarding foreign policy on the continent - how theory is adapted to local circumstance or substituted for continentally based ontologies. The book therefore contends that the African experience carries valuable import for expanding general understandings of foreign policy in general. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, Foreign Policy Studies, African International Relations/Politics/Studies, Diplomacy and more broadly to International Relations. , Introduction / Paul-Henri Bischoff -- What Next? Past and present African foreign policy concepts and practices / Paul-Henri Bischoff -- The African Union as a Foreign Policy Player: African Agency in International Cooperation / Tshepo Gwatiwa -- Unprincipled Pragmatism and Anti-Imperialist Impulses in an Interconnected World: The Zuma Presidency, 2009-2017 / Mzukisi Qobo -- Towards A Strategic Culture Approach to Understanding and Conceptualising Ethiopia's Foreign Policy Towards Israel and the Middle Eastern Arab Countries / Makonnen Tesfaye -- Nigeria's Foreign Policy and Intervention Behaviour in Africa: What Role for Agency? / Olumuyiwa Amao -- Zimbabwe and New Signifiers: Towards a cultural political economy of Foreign Policy Making / Mike Mavura -- Realist Conceptions of Kenya's Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Behaviour: A Theoretical and Contextual Disposition / Korwa Gombe Adar and Mercy Kathambi Kaburu -- Addressing the Conceptual Void of African Small State Foreign Policy in Orthodox Theory: A Case Study of Botswana's Principled Pragmatism / Kabelo M. Mahupela -- Tunisia's Foreign Policy Towards France Before and After an Undemanding 'Revolution': A Theoretical Explanation of the An-Nahdha-led Interim Governments' Soft Policy / Ahmed Ali Salem -- Straddling Between Convergence and Divergence: A Constructivist's View of Malawi's Foreign Policy in Post-independence Africa / Eugenio Njoloma -- Strategies of a Small State Between Realism and Liberalism: Sixty Years of Guinea's Diplomacy and Foreign Policy (1958-2018) / Issaka K. Souaré -- Rethinking SADC's Collective Policymaking Processes on External Relations and Non-state Participation for Region-building / Cecilia Lwiindi Nedziwe -- Towards an Understanding of the Interplay Between Ghana's Foreign and Defence Policies / Kwesi Aning and Kwaku Danso -- Conclusion / Paul-Henri Bischoff
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Africa Foreign relations 1960- , Africa Politics and government 1960-
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161716 , vital:40657 , ISBN 9780367348281 , https://www.routledge.com/African-Foreign-Policies-Selecting-Signifiers-to-Explain-Agency/Bischoff/p/book/9780367348281
- Description: This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size. In the past, African foreign policy has largely been considered within the context of reactions to the international or global 'external factor'. This ground-breaking book, however, looks at how foreign policy has been crafted and used in response not just to external, but also, mainly, domestic imperatives or (theoretical) signifiers. As such, it narrates individual and changing foreign policy orientations over time - and as far back as independence - with mainly African-based scholars who present their own constructs of what is a useful theoretical narrative regarding foreign policy on the continent - how theory is adapted to local circumstance or substituted for continentally based ontologies. The book therefore contends that the African experience carries valuable import for expanding general understandings of foreign policy in general. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, Foreign Policy Studies, African International Relations/Politics/Studies, Diplomacy and more broadly to International Relations. , Introduction / Paul-Henri Bischoff -- What Next? Past and present African foreign policy concepts and practices / Paul-Henri Bischoff -- The African Union as a Foreign Policy Player: African Agency in International Cooperation / Tshepo Gwatiwa -- Unprincipled Pragmatism and Anti-Imperialist Impulses in an Interconnected World: The Zuma Presidency, 2009-2017 / Mzukisi Qobo -- Towards A Strategic Culture Approach to Understanding and Conceptualising Ethiopia's Foreign Policy Towards Israel and the Middle Eastern Arab Countries / Makonnen Tesfaye -- Nigeria's Foreign Policy and Intervention Behaviour in Africa: What Role for Agency? / Olumuyiwa Amao -- Zimbabwe and New Signifiers: Towards a cultural political economy of Foreign Policy Making / Mike Mavura -- Realist Conceptions of Kenya's Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Behaviour: A Theoretical and Contextual Disposition / Korwa Gombe Adar and Mercy Kathambi Kaburu -- Addressing the Conceptual Void of African Small State Foreign Policy in Orthodox Theory: A Case Study of Botswana's Principled Pragmatism / Kabelo M. Mahupela -- Tunisia's Foreign Policy Towards France Before and After an Undemanding 'Revolution': A Theoretical Explanation of the An-Nahdha-led Interim Governments' Soft Policy / Ahmed Ali Salem -- Straddling Between Convergence and Divergence: A Constructivist's View of Malawi's Foreign Policy in Post-independence Africa / Eugenio Njoloma -- Strategies of a Small State Between Realism and Liberalism: Sixty Years of Guinea's Diplomacy and Foreign Policy (1958-2018) / Issaka K. Souaré -- Rethinking SADC's Collective Policymaking Processes on External Relations and Non-state Participation for Region-building / Cecilia Lwiindi Nedziwe -- Towards an Understanding of the Interplay Between Ghana's Foreign and Defence Policies / Kwesi Aning and Kwaku Danso -- Conclusion / Paul-Henri Bischoff
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Conclusion: The diversity of contemporary African foreign policy: Selecting Signifiers to explain Agency
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161681 , vital:40654 , ISBN 9780367348281 , https://www.routledge.com/African-Foreign-Policies-Selecting-Signifiers-to-Explain-Agency/Bischoff/p/book/9780367348281
- Description: This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161681 , vital:40654 , ISBN 9780367348281 , https://www.routledge.com/African-Foreign-Policies-Selecting-Signifiers-to-Explain-Agency/Bischoff/p/book/9780367348281
- Description: This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Introduction:
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161700 , vital:40655 , ISBN 9780367348281 , https://www.routledge.com/African-Foreign-Policies-Selecting-Signifiers-to-Explain-Agency/Bischoff/p/book/9780367348281
- Description: This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161700 , vital:40655 , ISBN 9780367348281 , https://www.routledge.com/African-Foreign-Policies-Selecting-Signifiers-to-Explain-Agency/Bischoff/p/book/9780367348281
- Description: This book explores, at a time when several powers have become serious players on the continent, aspects of African agency, past and present, by African writers on foreign policy, representative of geography, language and state size.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Chinese engagement of Zimbabwe and the limits of elite agency:
- Chipaike, Ronald, Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Authors: Chipaike, Ronald , Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161548 , vital:40637 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/0021909619848783
- Description: This article contends that Zimbabwe’s agency in its engagement with China has been limited and at best circumscribed. This owes to factors such as indifference by state authorities to cooperation with civil society actors in negotiating with Chinese actors, the desperation of the The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front regime in the face of isolation by erstwhile partners as well as the opacity and secrecy that characterizes significant areas of the Zimbabwe–China relationship. The pressing need for critical institutions such as parliament to play independent oversight roles as well as the creation of space for civil society watchdog functions are highlighted as key enablers if Zimbabwean agency is to generate positive gains from the country’s engagement with China.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Chipaike, Ronald , Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161548 , vital:40637 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/0021909619848783
- Description: This article contends that Zimbabwe’s agency in its engagement with China has been limited and at best circumscribed. This owes to factors such as indifference by state authorities to cooperation with civil society actors in negotiating with Chinese actors, the desperation of the The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front regime in the face of isolation by erstwhile partners as well as the opacity and secrecy that characterizes significant areas of the Zimbabwe–China relationship. The pressing need for critical institutions such as parliament to play independent oversight roles as well as the creation of space for civil society watchdog functions are highlighted as key enablers if Zimbabwean agency is to generate positive gains from the country’s engagement with China.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
A challenge to conventional wisdom: locating agency in Angola’s and Ghana’s economic engagements with China
- Chipaike, Ronald, Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Authors: Chipaike, Ronald , Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161537 , vital:40636 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/00219096187639223
- Description: This article makes the point that African states with significant strategic resources and democratic governance systems bargain better in economic and development assistance engagements with China and other partners. In democratic African states, non-state actors play critical complementary roles to the state, leading to multi-faceted forms of African agency. For non-democratic states, a significant limiting factor in their agency is the lack of working relationships between the state and non-state actors. Concomitantly, such states find themselves with weak bargaining and negotiating capacities. If African agency is to be assertive, then state and non-state actors should work together when engaging external partners.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Chipaike, Ronald , Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161537 , vital:40636 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/00219096187639223
- Description: This article makes the point that African states with significant strategic resources and democratic governance systems bargain better in economic and development assistance engagements with China and other partners. In democratic African states, non-state actors play critical complementary roles to the state, leading to multi-faceted forms of African agency. For non-democratic states, a significant limiting factor in their agency is the lack of working relationships between the state and non-state actors. Concomitantly, such states find themselves with weak bargaining and negotiating capacities. If African agency is to be assertive, then state and non-state actors should work together when engaging external partners.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
How Far, Where To?: regionalism, the Southern African Development Community and decision-making into the Millennium
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161638 , vital:40649 , ISBN 9781138726093
- Description: This title was first published in 2002: The resurgence of the democratization movement in Africa in the post-Cold War era is gradually replacing authoritarianism with forms of democratic systems. These changes have put into question the traditional big man image of African states’ foreign policy and foreign policy-making. The first book of its kind to focus on the foreign policy-making process of Southern African countries in the era of globalization, these instructive and rewarding case studies contextualize the increasing involvement of other internal actors in African states foreign policy-making process. Foreign policy actors such as the Presidency, Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Trade, Finance and the Intelligence Community, among others, are examined in a comparative perspective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161638 , vital:40649 , ISBN 9781138726093
- Description: This title was first published in 2002: The resurgence of the democratization movement in Africa in the post-Cold War era is gradually replacing authoritarianism with forms of democratic systems. These changes have put into question the traditional big man image of African states’ foreign policy and foreign policy-making. The first book of its kind to focus on the foreign policy-making process of Southern African countries in the era of globalization, these instructive and rewarding case studies contextualize the increasing involvement of other internal actors in African states foreign policy-making process. Foreign policy actors such as the Presidency, Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Trade, Finance and the Intelligence Community, among others, are examined in a comparative perspective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
African transnationalism in China: at the interface of local, transnational, bilateral and multilateral responses
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161522 , vital:40635 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/0021909615623809
- Description: The growing presence of a diversifying group of Africans in China raises broader issues of their status and permanence. The politics associated with African transnationalism in China are evident in Chinese and African government responses and the transnational African voice. This article looks at facets of an African transnational presence and some key responses at a local, international and transnational level to suggest an evolving state of Sino-African relations in which African multilateralism and the transnational African actor play a greater part.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161522 , vital:40635 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/0021909615623809
- Description: The growing presence of a diversifying group of Africans in China raises broader issues of their status and permanence. The politics associated with African transnationalism in China are evident in Chinese and African government responses and the transnational African voice. This article looks at facets of an African transnational presence and some key responses at a local, international and transnational level to suggest an evolving state of Sino-African relations in which African multilateralism and the transnational African actor play a greater part.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Africa in global International relations: emerging approaches to theory and practice: an introduction
- Bischoff, Paul, 1954-, Aning, Kwesi, Acharya, Amitav
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954- , Aning, Kwesi , Acharya, Amitav
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161662 , vital:40651 , ISBN 9781317437536
- Description: This book investigates why Africa has been marginalised in IR discipline and theory and how this issue can be addressed in the context of the emerging Global IR paradigm. To have relevance for Africa, a new IR theory needs to be more inclusive, intellectually negotiated and holistically steeped in the African context. In this innovative volume, each author takes a critical look at existing IR paradigms and offers a unique perspective based on the African experience. Following on from Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s work, Non-Western International Relations Theory, it develops and advances non-Western IR theory and the idea of Global IR.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954- , Aning, Kwesi , Acharya, Amitav
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161662 , vital:40651 , ISBN 9781317437536
- Description: This book investigates why Africa has been marginalised in IR discipline and theory and how this issue can be addressed in the context of the emerging Global IR paradigm. To have relevance for Africa, a new IR theory needs to be more inclusive, intellectually negotiated and holistically steeped in the African context. In this innovative volume, each author takes a critical look at existing IR paradigms and offers a unique perspective based on the African experience. Following on from Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s work, Non-Western International Relations Theory, it develops and advances non-Western IR theory and the idea of Global IR.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
How much its own and to what end?: SADC and the culture of security and regional organisation in Southern Africa
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161650 , vital:40650 , ISBN 9781134118656
- Description: This book aims to examine the conceptions and practices of security adopted by Regional Organisations (ROs) across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased focus on regions as a relevant realm for security, with actors within regional contexts identifying a significant degree of interdependency between one another. As a consequence, international security has taken on a distinct regionally institutionalised character, as seen by the increase in calls for greater utilisation of ‘Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements’ of the UN, in order to create a devolved UN-led system of global security management. However, the idea of a system of global security management is a remote prospect, because divergence seems to be as important as commonality in terms of regional security.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161650 , vital:40650 , ISBN 9781134118656
- Description: This book aims to examine the conceptions and practices of security adopted by Regional Organisations (ROs) across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased focus on regions as a relevant realm for security, with actors within regional contexts identifying a significant degree of interdependency between one another. As a consequence, international security has taken on a distinct regionally institutionalised character, as seen by the increase in calls for greater utilisation of ‘Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements’ of the UN, in order to create a devolved UN-led system of global security management. However, the idea of a system of global security management is a remote prospect, because divergence seems to be as important as commonality in terms of regional security.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
What's been built in twenty years?: SADC and Southern Africa's political and regional security culture
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161498 , vital:40633
- Description: The sense of region in Southern Africa is based on nationalism and its struggles for national liberation. Unusually, the norms of smaller states initially shaped the region's scope and culture of interaction. First and foremost, cooperation happened in the area of security, an initial focus being to uphold the independence and sovereignty of the state in the face of challenges from apartheid South Africa. As such, rather atypically, intergovernmental security cooperation preceded broad based economic cooperation. This has meant that security and development have remained largely de-linked and this has helped discourage implementing a society or human rights centred approach to security. Cooperation has been made more difficult by disparate political systems with divergent values, cultures, agendas and sensibilities. As such, regionalism reinforces nationalism to the exclusion of development or wider notions of political and social security. The region amounts to a security regime with only a patchy record in advancing security. Therefore, in the face of developmental challenges and unless a degree of strategic coherence along political and policy fronts is reached, after 20 years of SADC the endeavour to institutionalise security in conventional state-centred ways amounts to a scenario of diminishing returns.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161498 , vital:40633
- Description: The sense of region in Southern Africa is based on nationalism and its struggles for national liberation. Unusually, the norms of smaller states initially shaped the region's scope and culture of interaction. First and foremost, cooperation happened in the area of security, an initial focus being to uphold the independence and sovereignty of the state in the face of challenges from apartheid South Africa. As such, rather atypically, intergovernmental security cooperation preceded broad based economic cooperation. This has meant that security and development have remained largely de-linked and this has helped discourage implementing a society or human rights centred approach to security. Cooperation has been made more difficult by disparate political systems with divergent values, cultures, agendas and sensibilities. As such, regionalism reinforces nationalism to the exclusion of development or wider notions of political and social security. The region amounts to a security regime with only a patchy record in advancing security. Therefore, in the face of developmental challenges and unless a degree of strategic coherence along political and policy fronts is reached, after 20 years of SADC the endeavour to institutionalise security in conventional state-centred ways amounts to a scenario of diminishing returns.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Contrivance with purpose?: International relations and the reconstitution of the international
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161480 , vital:40631
- Description: In observing and plotting the dialectics of how our present world works, fragmenting as it integrates we struggle in wanting to pin down a moving target! Unlike the world of science with its physical laws, the social nature of the world and its relations across borders keep changing course with social and transnational relations constantly mutating. This makes it rather difficult to plot the complexity of human relations, also those across borders. As the late Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon once said, the social sciences are, after all, the really ‘hard’ sciences. They are so hard because they are so hard to explain.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161480 , vital:40631
- Description: In observing and plotting the dialectics of how our present world works, fragmenting as it integrates we struggle in wanting to pin down a moving target! Unlike the world of science with its physical laws, the social nature of the world and its relations across borders keep changing course with social and transnational relations constantly mutating. This makes it rather difficult to plot the complexity of human relations, also those across borders. As the late Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon once said, the social sciences are, after all, the really ‘hard’ sciences. They are so hard because they are so hard to explain.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Foreign policy ambiguity on the part of an emergent middle power: South African foreign policy through other lenses
- Serrão, Olivier, Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Authors: Serrão, Olivier , Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161464 , vital:40629 , DOI: 10.1080/02589341003600189
- Description: This paper attempts to address the ambiguity so frequently highlighted in South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy. Three central arguments are put forward. Firstly, it is argued that traditional accounts of South Africa's foreign policy, utilizing rationalist or ‘mainstream’ theories of International Relations, are insufficient in themselves to explain the complexities inherent in the country's foreign policy. In this regard, constructivist IR theory offers several key insights into studies of South Africa's foreign policy. Secondly, although it is argued that constructivism, particularly its focus on identity, is crucial to understanding South African foreign policy, it alone cannot sufficiently explain its reception or results on the world stage. Finally, it is argued that in order to fully appreciate both the nature and effects of South Africa's foreign policy, a mixed focus, incorporating insights from both constructivist and materialist-based theories of IR, is necessary.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Serrão, Olivier , Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161464 , vital:40629 , DOI: 10.1080/02589341003600189
- Description: This paper attempts to address the ambiguity so frequently highlighted in South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy. Three central arguments are put forward. Firstly, it is argued that traditional accounts of South Africa's foreign policy, utilizing rationalist or ‘mainstream’ theories of International Relations, are insufficient in themselves to explain the complexities inherent in the country's foreign policy. In this regard, constructivist IR theory offers several key insights into studies of South Africa's foreign policy. Secondly, although it is argued that constructivism, particularly its focus on identity, is crucial to understanding South African foreign policy, it alone cannot sufficiently explain its reception or results on the world stage. Finally, it is argued that in order to fully appreciate both the nature and effects of South Africa's foreign policy, a mixed focus, incorporating insights from both constructivist and materialist-based theories of IR, is necessary.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Reform in defence of sovereignty: South Africa in the UN Security Council, 2007–2008
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161431 , vital:40626 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/000203970904400205
- Description: After 1994, South Africa became the sine qua non of an internationalist state, willing to promote cooperation amongst a plurality of actors, believing common interests to be more important than their differences. This raised the hopes of constitutionalists, and those who believed in the expansion of a liberal democratic peace. South Africa has acted out two seemingly contradictory roles: those of a reformer and those of a conserver. By 2007–2008 she had shifted towards the latter, conservative-reformist position. Thus, South Africa's voting record at the General Assembly expressed her overriding concern to regionalise African issues and minimise the US and the West shaping political events. This brought her foreign policy into sharper relief. But while in some sense successful, it came at a price: a controversy about her surrendering her internationalism and principles on human rights for African unity and traditional sovereignty. But it also marked the arrival of South Africa in the world of international Realpolitik.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161431 , vital:40626 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1177/000203970904400205
- Description: After 1994, South Africa became the sine qua non of an internationalist state, willing to promote cooperation amongst a plurality of actors, believing common interests to be more important than their differences. This raised the hopes of constitutionalists, and those who believed in the expansion of a liberal democratic peace. South Africa has acted out two seemingly contradictory roles: those of a reformer and those of a conserver. By 2007–2008 she had shifted towards the latter, conservative-reformist position. Thus, South Africa's voting record at the General Assembly expressed her overriding concern to regionalise African issues and minimise the US and the West shaping political events. This brought her foreign policy into sharper relief. But while in some sense successful, it came at a price: a controversy about her surrendering her internationalism and principles on human rights for African unity and traditional sovereignty. But it also marked the arrival of South Africa in the world of international Realpolitik.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Pan-African multilateralism: transformative or disconnected?
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161452 , vital:40628 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02589340802366968
- Description: Despite a multitude of international institutions on the African continent, worldwide Africa's multilateralism has generally received little attention. Yet, with the emergence of the African Union (AU) and its institutions, questions arise about its character. Will rhetoric and state symbolism take the place of substance or will the space opened up for democracy and civil society participation allow for greater democratically informed sustainability? With this in mind, the article addresses the issue to what extent the character of African multilateralism continues to display features of disconnectedness as opposed to those of transformation, where its institutions address issues of uneven development in concert with civil society concerns.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161452 , vital:40628 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02589340802366968
- Description: Despite a multitude of international institutions on the African continent, worldwide Africa's multilateralism has generally received little attention. Yet, with the emergence of the African Union (AU) and its institutions, questions arise about its character. Will rhetoric and state symbolism take the place of substance or will the space opened up for democracy and civil society participation allow for greater democratically informed sustainability? With this in mind, the article addresses the issue to what extent the character of African multilateralism continues to display features of disconnectedness as opposed to those of transformation, where its institutions address issues of uneven development in concert with civil society concerns.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Towards continental transformation: understanding sustainable peace agreements in Africa
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161409 , vital:40624 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC15983
- Description: There are social and political questions to be asked about the new continent-wide institutions in and around what is still a young African Union (AU). These include questions such as whether the AU and its institutions can be built in ways that will allow this body to transform Africa's international relations, and how this is to be done. What are the norms and values that will inform this change and the African renewal promoted by the AU? Is the multilateral architecture of the AU able to encourage democracy and people-centredness, for instance? Will it, in the end, be able to deliver on the hoped-for "pan-African transnational democratic revolution"?.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161409 , vital:40624 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC15983
- Description: There are social and political questions to be asked about the new continent-wide institutions in and around what is still a young African Union (AU). These include questions such as whether the AU and its institutions can be built in ways that will allow this body to transform Africa's international relations, and how this is to be done. What are the norms and values that will inform this change and the African renewal promoted by the AU? Is the multilateral architecture of the AU able to encourage democracy and people-centredness, for instance? Will it, in the end, be able to deliver on the hoped-for "pan-African transnational democratic revolution"?.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
"The French Imperial Nation-State":
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161376 , vital:40621
- Description: Book Review. The French Imperial Nation-State. By G Wilder (2005).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161376 , vital:40621
- Description: Book Review. The French Imperial Nation-State. By G Wilder (2005).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
The reflection on peace agreements in Africa: feature
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161398 , vital:40623
- Description: For Africa, the advent of globalisation, delivered in the shape of Structural Adjustment Programmes in the period from the early 1980s, ushered in the beginning of the end of the nation-building framework adopted at independence. Government's withdrawal from social, intellectual and economic areas of life brought into sharp relief the vulnerability of both state and society. Accompanied on the foreign policy front by a loss of Big Power protection after the Cold War ended, 'low and intrastate politics' came to the fore.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161398 , vital:40623
- Description: For Africa, the advent of globalisation, delivered in the shape of Structural Adjustment Programmes in the period from the early 1980s, ushered in the beginning of the end of the nation-building framework adopted at independence. Government's withdrawal from social, intellectual and economic areas of life brought into sharp relief the vulnerability of both state and society. Accompanied on the foreign policy front by a loss of Big Power protection after the Cold War ended, 'low and intrastate politics' came to the fore.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
External and domestic sources of foreign policy ambiguity: South African foreign policy and the projection of pluralist middle power
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161442 , vital:40627 , https://doi.org/10.1080/0258934032000147291
- Description: As a pluralist middle power, post-apartheid South Africa seeks to generate successful foreign policy initiatives at bilateral, multilateral and regional levels in order to shape international outcomes. In this endeavour, it has three important political resources – a recognition of its geo-political position and importance as a democratic yardstick and reformer; its acceptance of a transnational, neo-liberal elite alliance and finally, recognition of its leadership role from forces wishing to challenge African political establishments. However, the international and domestic political environment which in the mid-1990s was favourable towards middle-power initiative and reform has narrowed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161442 , vital:40627 , https://doi.org/10.1080/0258934032000147291
- Description: As a pluralist middle power, post-apartheid South Africa seeks to generate successful foreign policy initiatives at bilateral, multilateral and regional levels in order to shape international outcomes. In this endeavour, it has three important political resources – a recognition of its geo-political position and importance as a democratic yardstick and reformer; its acceptance of a transnational, neo-liberal elite alliance and finally, recognition of its leadership role from forces wishing to challenge African political establishments. However, the international and domestic political environment which in the mid-1990s was favourable towards middle-power initiative and reform has narrowed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina: lessons of peace‐maintenance for Africa?
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161365 , vital:40620 , DOI: 10.1080/10220460309545430
- Description: The Bosnian model is potentially a useful model for the development of a new strategic framework for African conflicts, particularly in situations where international organisations such as the United Nations are overstretched and regional organisations wish to take charge of peacebuilding operations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161365 , vital:40620 , DOI: 10.1080/10220460309545430
- Description: The Bosnian model is potentially a useful model for the development of a new strategic framework for African conflicts, particularly in situations where international organisations such as the United Nations are overstretched and regional organisations wish to take charge of peacebuilding operations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
A foreign policy for all?: South Africa and the call for an African Renaissance
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 1999
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161388 , vital:40622 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC15569
- Description: In the political vacuum that accompanies Africa's 'strategic marginalisation' and in a situation of fifteen conflicts, our continent finds itself in a state of flux. Here lies the challenge for inter-African diplomacy and regional initiatives by state and non-state actors seeking to indigenously define, manage and contain conflict. The intention must be a purposive one: to seek to normatively structure an environment 'paddocked' to provide security for states, civic society, communities, women, children and individuals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1999
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 1999
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161388 , vital:40622 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC15569
- Description: In the political vacuum that accompanies Africa's 'strategic marginalisation' and in a situation of fifteen conflicts, our continent finds itself in a state of flux. Here lies the challenge for inter-African diplomacy and regional initiatives by state and non-state actors seeking to indigenously define, manage and contain conflict. The intention must be a purposive one: to seek to normatively structure an environment 'paddocked' to provide security for states, civic society, communities, women, children and individuals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1999