Awkward Embraces: Emerging and Established Powers and the Shifting Fortunes of Africa's International Relations in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This article examines the contours of Africa's international relations in the twenty-first century. Specifically, it explores the way in which the rise of emerging powers has affected the continent's international position, and the impulses which have arisen through emerging powers' closer engagement with the continent. It is contended that rather than having eclipsed the role traditionally played by the powers of the North on the continent, the presence of emerging powers—and particularly the leadership they provide in new Southern-based multilateral fora—moulds Africa's interaction with the North. At the same time the prominence of emerging powers requires new ways of understanding international hierarchy, hegemony and power. Three predominant trends and their implications in contemporary African international relations are discussed: the North's greater interest in the African continent and its involvement in the establishment of major aid and development programmes; deepening multilateralism in the South, with the enhanced creation in recent years of major Southern alliances led by emerging powers; and the more extensive securitisation of international politics stemming from, inter alia, the so-called Global War on Terror.