African agency? Africa, South Africa and the BRICS

Shaw, Timothy M.

doi:10.1057/ip.2014.48

Cited by 33 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…4 For instance, reflecting this range, according to Nicolas Blarel and Hannes Ebert (2015), Pakistan's response to India, the regional hegemon, included open resistance, indirect resistance and reluctant acquiescence. In the case of Africa, Timothy Shaw (2015) argues that soft-balancing against South Africa within the Southern African region (but not the entire African continent) is occurring.…”

Section: Strategies Of Resistance Accommodation and Neutralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do secondary states choose to support, follow or challenge?

Lobell¹,

Jesse

Williams

2015

Int Polit

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In this article we examine when and why secondary and tertiary states select a strategy that does not entail following the lead of the rising states. To address these questions we outline a simple model that examines systemic and sub-systemic (regional) constraints on and opportunities for secondary and tertiary states: how engaged in the region is the global hegemon, how many rising (and extra-regional) states are in the region, and which states are waxing and waning and by how much. These three characteristics create different opportunities for and constraints on secondary and tertiary states, which in turn influence the set of strategy choices of these states as they respond to the regional hegemon. Our model cannot account for the specific foreign policy strategies that secondary and tertiary states select. Such a model would require domestic and individual level variables. We leave it to the area specialists and experts in the following articles in the volume to introduce these variables and explain the specific strategies used. Instead, based on our model we can explain general tendencies toward accommodative strategies, resistance strategies and neutral strategies. It is important to note that secondary and tertiary states can use a mix of different strategies toward regional and global hegemons, such as resisting primary threats and accommodating secondary threats. Moreover, secondary and tertiary states are often engaged in multiple games -a strategy might appear to be costly and suboptimal at one level but reasonable and optimal at another level. Finally, in selecting a strategy secondary and tertiary states factor the systemic, subsystemic and domestic costs of the alternative strategies.

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Section: Strategies Of Resistance Accommodation and Neutralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do secondary states choose to support, follow or challenge?

Lobell¹,

Jesse

Williams

2015

Int Polit

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“…By identifying the transition point between consensual and cooperative hegemony it will be argued that the Lula administration experienced an inflection point in Brazil's intraSouth America relations that brought the peak, albeit only partial, of the consensual hegemony (Burges, 2008) and a subsequent call for something more closely resembling a cooperative hegemony (Pedersen, 2002). Although the soft power leadership intrinsic to consensual hegemony demonstrated far more traction and potential power in South America than might be the case in other seemingly similar situations such as South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa (Alden and Schoeman, 2015;Shaw, 2015), it nevertheless still had distinct medium-and long-term limitations as a strategy without the use of more proactive leadership tactics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Revisiting consensual hegemony: Brazilian regional leadership in question

Burges

2014

Int Polit

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A central challenge confronting Brazilian foreign policy is its reluctance to accept measures that might restrict national autonomy. This limits the extent to which Brazil can lead and leverage the region, particularly in the face of competing visions such as ALBA and the Pacific Alliance. The issues is Brazil's continued reliance on a consensual hegemony approach to regional relations after neighbouring countries opened space for a more assertive leadership closer to Pedersen's model of cooperative hegemony. Although consensual hegemony allowed Brazil to establish its project in South America, by the end of Lula's first presidential term more was being demanded and the failure to provide leadership goods weakened Brazil's regional position. Current questioning of Brazilian leadership on the continent is found in an almost contradictory approach that sees Brazilian diplomats pushing away suggestions of assertive leadership while more concrete action is quietly taken by other regionally engaged sections of the Brazilian state.

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“…In t he words of Timothy Shaw: 'Hosting the Africa Cup of Nations, or FIFA World Cup, or running the continent's largest airline do not lead to regional hegemony. South Africa's soft power is separate from its inter-state status ... ' (Shaw 2015). In terms of strict raw power considerations, Southern Africa has long been unipolar, and is apparently becoming bipolar.…”

Section: The South American Mirrormentioning

confidence: 99%

The Southern African unipolarity

Schenoni

2017

Journal of Contemporary African Studies

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Despite the tectonic changes that have taken place in Southern Africa since the demise of apartheid, South Africa is still widely considered a hegemonic regional power by scholars, practitioners and pundits. This article challenges this interpretation, asserting that both Pretoria's foreign policy and that of its neighbours fit the concept of regional unipolarity with more precision. Since the early 1990s, South Africa has pursued leadership within binding regional institutions and invested resources in order to reinforce the sovereignty of second-tier states such as Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, which have in turn disputed its diplomatic and military primacy, achieving impressive results. This behaviour is characteristic of unipoles rather than hegemons. In this article 1 revisit the evolution of South African relations with its more proximate neighbours in a transition from hegemony to unipolarity. 1 start by defining both concepts arnd clarifying the behaviours that regional powers and small states are expected to have under hegemonic and unipolar settings. Then, 1 examine inter-state relations in the region, showing that the concept of unipolarity best describes power distribution and best predicts foreign policy in Southern Africa since the 1990s .. Finally, 1 show that this exercise in concept rectification illuminates comparisons with other regional unipoles, and provides a useful framework to forecast the consequences of an eventual Southern African bipolarity, if Angola continues to catch up.

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African agency? Africa, South Africa and the BRICS

Cited by 33 publications

References 26 publications

Why do secondary states choose to support, follow or challenge?

Why do secondary states choose to support, follow or challenge?

Revisiting consensual hegemony: Brazilian regional leadership in question

The Southern African unipolarity

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