Outsourcing a partnership? Assessing ACP–EU cooperation under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement

Since 2000 the cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states has been governed through the Cotonou Partnership Agreement. This article complements existing research that focuses on Brussels-based stakeholders with an analysis drawing on the existing literature and on stakeholders' perceptions of ACP–EU cooperation and ACP institutions gathered via interviews in nine ACP countries. The findings presented observe a social disconnect between, on the one hand, the Cotonou Partnership Agreement's institutions and Brussels-based representatives, and, on the other hand, the broad-based and multistakeholder partnership they are tasked to promote. The article points to low levels of support in ACP countries, particularly in Africa, to continued ACP–EU cooperation in its present form, and stresses the need for an open and participatory process of reviewing and reshaping ACP–EU relations.     

ANC foreign policy making during the Mbeki period: More democratic or less?

The African National Congress, as an entity distinct from government, served during the 1994–2008 period as an independent forum for debate about South Africa's foreign policy, particularly in the National Executive Committee's Subcommittee on International Relations. This debate retained the oligarchic character of the movement in exile, with few voices – Thabo Mbeki's most prominent among them – dominating the discussion, inputs from subnational party structures almost non-existent, and dissenters expected to keep quiet publicly. That said, participants in these discussions largely dismissed characterisations of Mbeki as a dictator in the foreign policy debate, noting that the predominance of his views stemmed mostly from his strong argumentation and knowledge rather than bullying. Senior ANC leaders also claimed that limited interest in foreign policy, outside of national party structures, hindered efforts to broaden participation in foreign policy formulation.     

The regional brand: collective image consciousness in Africa and Southeast Asia

States in the same region are bound together by the ways in which the world imagines them as a collective. One distinguishing feature of post-Cold War regionalism is its outward orientation – the importance of the external dimension of regional cooperation. By and large, though, existing analysis of regional institutional development in the Global South does not explicitly conceptualise and theorise collective image consciousness and management. This paper works to address this conceptual gap. Making use of two cases of regional image crisis – post-1980s Africa and post-1997 Southeast Asia – it draws out two primary logics of regional image consciousness: the logic of influence and the logic of resources. A region’s ‘brand’ with respect to (dys)function and international norm (non-)compliance matters to regional actors because it affects the region’s political influence in international arenas and the region’s ability to attract resources from donors and investors.     

African Union and Intra-State Conflict Resolution: A Return to the Libyan Crisis (2011)

This paper looked at the performance of the African Union (AU), in the resolution of intrastate conflicts in Africa. The study necessitated a revisit to the Libyan crisis. It is acknowledged in the study that conflicts pervade human relations. In the case of Africa, the study further shows that Africa has never experienced a lasting peace. The theoretical framework of games theory has been adopted in the study, to describe the character of African conflicts and to proffer solutions for the minimization of the level and number of such intrastate conflicts. The Libyan conflict typified the character of intrastate conflicts in Africa and was used for illustration in the study. The study concluded that the AU has made significant contributions toward the resolution of intrastate conflicts in Africa but there are still shortcomings of the AU and impediments to the efforts of the African Union, toward the resolution of such crises.     

中央苏区时期共产国际与毛泽东的关系

大革命失败后,共产国际指导中国革命的方针是以城市为中心。城市工人运动屡屡受挫,毛泽东等创建的赣南、闽西根据地及其他根据地蓬勃发展,促使共产国际改变指导中国革命的战略方针,开始以加强红军和根据地建设为中心。毛泽东在中央苏区第一至三次反“围剿”战争中表现的卓越才能得到了共产国际的肯定,被认为是“有声望的领袖”。在毛泽东坚持正确主张而被“左”倾教条主义者指责为“右倾机会主义”时,共产国际进行了干预,要他们以同志式的态度对待毛泽东,同他密切合作。因此,毛泽东在中共六届五中全会上由四中全会时的政治局候补委员当选为政治局委员,在中华苏维埃共和国第二次全国代表大会上继续当选为中央执行委员会主席。尽管这时毛泽东没有实际权力,但他在中央苏区的地位和威望仍然存在。     

Marriage and household in the Belgrade elite at the beginning of the 20th century: The Novaković family

Building on Ahmad ibn Yusuf b. al-Qadi al-Timbuktawi's treatise entitled Hatk al-Sitr Amma Alayhi Sudani Tunis min al-Kufr (Piercing the Veil: Being an Account of the Infidel Religions of the Blacks of Tunis) this paper examines the implications of the Hausa non-Muslim Bori cult practice in Ottoman Tunis on enslaved West Africans' retentions of religious and family values from their original homelands. Specifically, the paper traces and analyses the evolution of Bori cult practice in the Tunisian milieu and places it in its proper historical and diasporic contexts. To this end, the paper goes beyond questions that are not central to al-Timbuktawi's condemnation of the enslaved West African community of Tunis, but which nonetheless attracts the attention of scholars interested in the diasporic and historical significance of Bori cult practice in the Maghreb.     

‘Done to death by father or relatives’: Irish families and infanticide cases, 1922–1950

In February 1929 the Bishop of Ossory commented on the fact that in Ireland illegitimate infants were often ‘done to death by father or relatives’ (Irish Catholic, 16 February 1929). There were many instances where family members of unmarried women who gave birth were the sole defendants or co-defendants in infanticide cases in post-independent Ireland. Although illegitimate infants were ‘done to death’ by their fathers in a number of cases that were tried at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin between 1922 and 1950, this article will focus on cases where infants were murdered or suspected of having been murdered by relatives of the birth mother both in the Twenty-Six Counties and in Northern Ireland (Irish Catholic, 16 February 1929). For the purposes of this article I have referred to the murder of illegitimate infants as ‘infanticide’ even though there was no separate charge of infanticide in the Irish Free State until 1949. The English infanticide acts of 1922 and 1938 also applied to Northern Ireland. This article discusses the motives of the relatives of single mothers who played a part in the deaths of illegitimate infants. Unmarried motherhood was severely frowned upon in Ireland and the relatives of single pregnant women assisted their female kin in destroying the evidence of extra-marital conception in order to protect the family's honour and moral reputation in the wider community. The records of infanticide trials provide a great deal of insight into the ways in which mainly working-class families dealt with the strain of pregnancy outside wedlock in Ireland between 1922 and 1950.     

Sectarian Rebellions in Post-Transition Nigeria Compared

The Boko Haram, a radical Islamic group based in north-east Nigeria, has killed over 1,000 people since mid-2011. This article explores the historical origins and structural drivers of Boko Haram and puts them into context. It argues that the Nigerian government's coercive response to Boko Haram has perpetuated a cycle of violence and undermined endogenous sources of moderation based on cultural, institutional, and political conditions. State repression to implement a counter-terrorism strategy has radicalized the group, created incentives to find international sympathizers, and contributes to fragmentation that impedes political solutions. A comparison with rebellions in the oil producing Niger Delta helps identify some barriers to and opportunities for conflict resolution.     

Defeat in Iraq: The Challenges for Obama and the Region

Abstract

Though community policing is widely promoted by donors and criticized by academics, there has been little research on its practice in Africa. This essay examines one of the main elements of community policing, namely community forums, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. They were examined from the point of view of the police, Partnership Board executives and local communities. The triangulation of response provided an evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses. Positively they have improved communication between police and communities and provided intelligence, investigation, intervention, arrest and dispute resolution. Negatively they are elite dominated and most of the activities, initiatives and even finance come from the community. Despite the difficulties, the Partnership Boards are universally valued and are not seen as unwelcome foreign imports.     

International politics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century central Asia: beyond anarchy in international-relations theory

Using historical analysis of relations between city-states and other international actors in Central Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this article evaluates new structural theories of international politics, chiefly those of David Lake and Jack Donnelly. Pre-colonial Central Asia offers a usefully tough case for structural theories, since it so little resembles the modern international order that these theories were developed to describe. Empirically, the article proceeds by evaluating the region's city-states' relations with three groups of actors: one another; neighbouring empires; and the many non-state actors present at the time. It concludes with an assessment of the merits of the new structuralisms, and a discussion of their value for constructivist international-relations theories of international change.