The African Union and African Agency in International Politics

This book examines the role of the African Union in relation to African agency in international politics. It examines the manner and extent to which the African Union exercises two forms of agency—shirking and slippage—in its strategic and collaborative partnerships. The author focuses on four major AU partnerships with the European Union, NATO, the United Nations and US AFRICOM. The books examines African agency in each partnership by exploring the politics and dynamics of each partnership in different aspects: the multilevel engagement, institutionalization, resource contribution and disbursement, as well as preference linkage. It specifically does that by examining African ownership and leadership in all of these aspects. The book highlights the role of agency slack as a survival strategy to escape from the AU’s subaltern position in international politics. It designates the partnership with the European Union as emblematic of African agency; while the others exhibit different formsof agency slack. Partnerships with NATO and the United Nations exhibit shirking, while that with the US AFRICOM exhibits slippage.

Tshepo Gwatiwa is Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also a Research Associate at the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS) at the same university.