The Role of Foreign Actors in African Security

Abstract

Although Robert Kaplan’s framing of the African sociopolitical landscape is one in which instability and violent conflict appear to be the norm, this chapter contends that such Eurocentric paradigms and avatars of ‘state failure’ do not rigorously interrogate the historicity of Africa’s encounter with Europe through colonial rule, the transatlantic slave trade, or persistent neoliberal interventions through diverse security assemblages. Drawing on the varied instances of major power interventions in the Sahara-Sahel, particularly Mali, the chapter argues that such illiberal interventions under the rubrics of the ‘War on Terror,’ often have unintended consequences, including human displacement, youth radicalization, and structural violence that undermine the nation-building project and state cohesion. The chapter concludes with the argument that decolonization of the African political space requires equal decolonization of the economic field to ensure development and human security.