African Foreign Policies

Providing a timely analysis of the foreign policies of African states, this volume of original essays enables the reader to assess the position of African states within an evolving post?Cold War environment and to judge the extent of African marginalization from the global economy. As national foreign policies are increasingly influenced by factors such as regional organizations, democratization, external agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the apparent weakening of state structures, there is need for fresh analysis of African foreign policies.The thirteen essays in this book, written by African, European, and North American scholars, provide comprehensive assessments of these issues in both analytical and prescriptive fashion. Three essays are thematic, considering broad areas of policy and change at the regional and continental levels; the other ten essays provide country-by-country case studies, drawing from a broad cross-section of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Each essay analyzes factors such as decisionmaking, intraregional policies, and foreign policies toward non-African agents, including international financial institutions, and considers distinctions between formal and actual policies.As a whole, the volume seeks to explain how African countries’ foreign policies are adapting to new internal and international challenges in the fluid environment of the late twentieth century.

Stephen Wright is professor of political science at Northern Arizona University.