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One of the key features of today's global economy is an 'offshore world' of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number of quantitative studies of capital flight as well as by influential investigations such as the Pandora Papers, Panama Papers and Luanda Leaks. The offshore world's limited presence in the study of contemporary African politics, political economy and international relations is therefore striking. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to highlight this gap, provide a preliminary analysis, and suggest that the politics of African insertion in the global offshore economy merits more attention from scholars of African politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Global IR research agenda lays emphasis on the marginalised, non-Western forms of power and knowledge that underpin today's international system. Focusing on Africa, this article questions two fundamental assumptions of this approach, arguing that they err by excess of realism – in two different ways. First, the claim that Africa is marginal to international relations (IR) thinking holds true only as long as one makes the whole of IR discipline coincide with the Realist school. Second, the Global IR commitment to better appreciate 'non-Western' contributions is ontologically realist, because it fails to recognise that the West and the non-West are dialectically constitutive of one another. To demonstrate this, the article first shows that Africa has moved from the periphery to the core of IR scholarship: in the post-paradigmatic phase, Africa is no longer a mere provider of deviant cases, but a laboratory for theory-building of general validity. In the second part, the Sahel provides a case for unsettling reified conceptions of Africa's conceptual and geographical boundaries through the dialectical articulation of the inside/outside dichotomy. Questioning the 'place' of Africa in IR – both as identity and function – thus paves the way to a 'less realist' approach to Global IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The kingdom of Allada in the seventeenth century was an important supplier of slaves for the trans-Atlantic trade, and also an object of Christian missionary activity, but the earlier history of its interactions with Europeans is poorly documented. It has previously been assumed that the first direct Portuguese contact with the Allada area occurred in 1553. However, recently discovered documents in Portuguese archives correct this view. These comprise two petitions to the King of Portugal from an ambassador of the King of Allada currently in Lisbon: although undated, the content of one of them enables it to be dated to either 1544 or 1555, more probably the former; given the time which the ambassador had already spent in Portugal, his original dispatch from Allada occurred in 1540/1541 or 1551/1552. The petitions document the Allada king's interest in the establishment of a Christian church in his realm, as well as commercial relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of Africa for Europe was highlighted in the 1950 Schuman Declaration. Although the overarching framework for relations between the European Union and Africa is embedded in the 2000 Cotonou Agreement, cooperation between the European Union and Africa became increasingly institutionalized through the European Union–Africa Summits of 2000, 2007, 2010 and 2014, during which political leaders from both sides made strong rhetorical commitments to a strategic partnership. Yet, for the wider public, the relationship between the European Union and Africa appears to be both obscure and complex. The fifth European Union–Africa Summit is scheduled to take place in Ivory Coast in November 2017. This article will provide an overview of the development of European Union–Africa relations that coincided with the emergence of the African Union, the successor of the Organisation of African Unity. The so-called ‘strategic partnership’ between the European Union and the African Union represents the most comprehensive partnership the African Union has with any non-African actor. By highlighting current challenges affecting both, such as irregular migration, this article will, however, demonstrate that cooperation between the two is limited and somewhat lacking in strategic direction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Institute of African Studies of Fourah Bay College (University College of Sierra Leone) and the Committee for African Studies of the University of California, Berkeley, jointly arranged this seminar, whose sub-title was ‘the inter-relationship of area and comparative studies’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

British reactions to China's increasing engagement with Africa in recent years have been manifested in particularly negative and reductive ways tending to depict China's presence in Africa as destructive and self-serving, in contrast to Britain's more enlightened, supportive approach. However, more recently official discourse has begun to stress the shared outlook between British and Chinese objectives, emphasising Chinese moves towards a more constructive, development-focused approach in Africa. This article discusses the ways in which China in Africa is viewed in British political circles and assesses the degree to which such views resonate with the British sense of its own idealised identity. It suggests that the two narratives represent two sides of a dual ‘liberal’ approach to the problem of ‘non-liberal’ actors in international politics: first the tendency to reject and see them as outside the international order; and second the attempt to rehabilitate them and bring them within it. The article concludes by exploring a number of reasons for the particular ways in which Britain, China and Africa are configured, arguing that this dual conception represents a sense of ambiguity about the potential universality of liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 21st century, it is a great event in the field of international politics that both China and Africa are marching towards revival and more cooperation among each other. The old international order which centered on the West can no longer meet the demand of the changes of African geopolitical pattern. Therefore, it is high time to establish a multilateral cooperation mechanism concerning Africa's peace and development. The authors argue that there are differences in historical experience, diplomatic ideas and principles as well as extensive common grounds of diplomatic strategy and national interests between China and the West in respect of their relations with Africa. Both China and the West should promote talks which are more open, more cooperative and more conducive to a win-win end. In doing this, they can achieve a win-for-all result for all the parties involved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As part of on-going multidimensional foreign policy changes in recent years, there has been since 1998 a revival in Turkey's relations with Africa. Initially rather passive, after 2005 this became a massive effort to develop relations with the whole continent. However, Turkey's Africa policy is unique in Turkish foreign policy, since for the first time it is driven and complemented by the activities of civil society organisations in and about Africa. Conceptualisation of Africa in Turkish society has changed dramatically in less than a decade, and the recent Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summit should be seen as part of this trend. Turkey's opening to Africa is not a short-term inclination, but is likely to develop and deepen in coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses an emerging African trading community in Guangzhou, China. It is argued that migrant communities such as this one act as linguistic, cultural and economic bridges between their source communities and their host communities, even in the midst of tensions created by incidents such as immigration restrictions and irregularities. Sociolinguistic and socio-cultural profiles of this community are built, through questionnaire surveys and interviews, to address issues such as why Africans go to Guangzhou, which African countries are represented, what languages are spoken there, how communication takes place between Africans and Chinese, what socio-economic contributions Africans in Guangzhou are making to the Chinese economy, and how the state reacts to this African presence. Following from the argument that this community acts as a bridge for Africa-China relations it is suggested that both the Chinese and the African governments should work towards eliminating the harassment of members in this community by many Guangzhou law enforcement officials and instead harness the contributions of this community to promote Africa-China socio-economic relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of over a half century of interventions and waves of "reforms," higher education in Africa today consists of institutions, systems, and practices that lack distinct values and goals, or a mission and vision connecting them to the major challenges of their local and global contexts. What is needed in African higher education is true transformation, which will involve practical and epistemological ruptures with previous ways of doing things and a reconstruction of structures, relations, cultures, and institutions. Of particular importance are initiatives that will ensure gender equity, changes in the organization and process of knowledge production, and a reenvisioning of universities' funding sources and mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the foreign relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC's) and Africa in the 1990s. In-depth look at trade between China and Africa during the 1980s; Details on China's aid to Africa during the 1980s; Examination of China's economic dealings with Africa.

Focuses on the relations between Africa and Western Europe following the end of the cold war since 1980s. Effect of demands for political reforms on African states; Reference to crises and reactions of European Union Member-states to the review of Lome in 1995; Identification of prospects for military intervention.

Examines influence of the United States in the socio-political condition of Africa. Role of US national interests in shaping policy towards Africa; Increasing marginalization of africa leading to spread of American values; Democratization in Africa as a goal for US policy; Africa policy as a victim of bureaucratic politics.

Discusses the events that led to the changes in Franco-African relations in the 20th century. Redirection of French trade and capital investment away from francophone states to others in the continent; Demise of the Franco-African preferential monetary and trading area known as la zone france.

Assesses the perceptions of persons concerning the Kushite state, with reference to the understanding of the history between the relationship of the Middle Nile and Sudanic Africa. Reference to the development of societies in the Middle Nile; Role of external influences and cultural contacts on the Middle Nile; Details on the origin of the Kushite state; Information on explorations conducted on the Middle Nile.