Negative images of Africa which define the continent as being riven with poverty, crime, or war, are increasingly being challenged. Examples of soft power such as Nigeria’s Nollywood, athletic successes in Kenya, Rwanda’s commercial diplomacy, and South Africa’s liberal constitution, are all reasserting African agency and shaping more positive understandings of the continent.
This book considers the role and impact of soft power in the African context, and how it relates to the twenty-first century scramble for Africa. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, this book delves into various aspects of soft power in Africa, shedding light on how the continent's attractiveness is shaped by soft power by the continent’s biggest states, the small states, and also the regional organisations such as the AU, ECOWAS, SADC, and EAC. The book then goes on to assess the ways in which great powers, most notably China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil and France are themselves deploying soft power in Africa in order to vie for influence, resources, and strategic advantages.
Understanding Soft Power in Africa will be an important read for researchers in political science, international relations, African studies, and cultural studies, as well as for African policymakers.
Negative images of Africa which define the continent as being riven with poverty, crime, or war, are increasingly being challenged. Understanding Soft Power in Africa will be an important read for researchers in political science, international relations, African studies, and cultural studies, as well as for African policymakers.
Part I: Introduction
1. Soft Power in Africa: Assessing the Power of
Attraction from Pretoria to Beijing Part II: African Regional Powers Soft
Power
2. Nigerias Soft Power: Historical Development and Contemporary
3.
Ubuntu reconsidered? The rise and decline of South Africas soft power
4.
From Nasser to the Present: The Evolution of Egypt's Soft Power in Africa
5.
Kenyan Soft Power: An Untapped Bag of Mixed Fortunes
6. Seeing beyond
Africas Image Crisis: Sports and the Arts as Drivers of Cameroons Soft
Power Part III: African Small States Soft Power
7. Beyond the Genocide Guilt
Card: Understanding Rwandan Soft Power
8. Assessing the Soft Power Strategies
of African Small Island Developing States: The Case of Mauritius
9. Wielding
Soft Power? Botswanas Foreign Policy in Africa and Beyond
10. In the Sea of
Global Relations, is Seychelles Softly Surfacing? Part IV: African Regional
Organisations Soft Power
11. African Unions Soft Power on the International
Stage
12. Eliciting Compliance with ECOWASs Normative Frameworks as an
Expression of Soft Power
13. SADC: The Long Retreat from the Promise of Soft
Power
14. The EAC and the Soft Power of Eastafricaness: Does it Have Limits?
15. The Paradox of African RECs' Soft Power: Promise vs. Inertia in the
Restive AMU Part V: External Actors Soft Power in Africa
16. US Soft Power
in Africa: A Study in Soft Empowerment
17. Good Friends, Good Partners, Good
Brothers? Success and Failure in Chinas Soft Power Strategy Towards Kenya
18. Africa and the United Kingdom: Influence and Soft Power
19. Russia in
Africa: Understanding the Persistence of Soft Power
20. Soft Power in Crisis:
France's Struggles for Influence in Africa
21. Building Soft Power Across the
Atlantic: Unpacking Brazil-Africa Engagements
22. From Bollywood to
Diplomacy: India's Soft Power Strategies in Africa
Oluwaseun Tella is the Head of the Future of Diplomacy at the University of Johannesburgs Institute for the Future of Knowledge in South Africa. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has authored and edited eight books, including Africas Soft Power: Philosophies, Political Values, Foreign Policies, and Cultural Exports (Routledge, 2021), which is the first book on African soft power. In addition, he has published over 40 mostly single-authored book chapters and journal articles in Politikon, Social Dynamics, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of Black Studies, and other academic journals. He has also written approximately 30 op-eds. His research interests encompass soft power, international relations, peace and conflict studies, African politics, and knowledge production in Africa.
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