The “Africa Recolonization Act”? The Politics of Pan-Africanism and Globalization in the 1990s

Abstract

This article examines the conflict between two visions of Pan-Africanism and global economic integration in the late 1990s. On one side, many African political and economic elites allied with some Black leaders and groups in the United States to support legislation called the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). This article argues that AGOA represented a form of neoliberal Pan-African politics, which posited that African freedom and prosperity required embracing global capitalism. Contesting this vision were progressive nonprofits, unions, and legislators in Africa and the United States. In the United States, these groups offered an alternative trade deal—the Human Rights, Opportunity, Partnership, and Empowerment Act. This bill, in turn, articulated a social democratic Pan-Africanist worldview and a challenge to global neoliberalism.