Oluwaseun Tella

Highlighting South Africa’s approach to maritime diplomacy, this book shows how this approach is inherently cooperative and blends elements of both soft and hard power effectively. Employing realist and constructivist theories, this book explores the nature and scope of maritime diplomacy broadly. It discusses South Africa’s maritime industry, ocean economy, and the domestic policies that support its maritime interests. It analyses the conceptual relevance of hard and soft power in contemporary diplomacy and investigates their connection to maritime diplomacy in the South African context. The strategic application of these power forms in maritime diplomacy serves as a crucial tool for states to achieve their maritime foreign policy objectives more effectively. Further, the book applies theory to specific case studies such as the country’s demonstration of its power dimensions in Operation Phakisa and examples of South African humanitarian assistance, aid, disaster relief, and rescue missions at sea. By untangling South Africa’s approach and comparing this to other countries within and outside of Africa, the book provides deeper insight into how soft and hard powers are used in South Africa and how South Africa’s maritime diplomacy works. It fills an important gap in understanding African politics, international politics, and maritime diplomacy.

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.

Despite growing transnational activities, regional studies analyses have so far maintained a primarily linear logic not incorporative of the increasing interface between state and non-state regionalism in a transnational context since the advent of liberalisation and democratisation.

This book focuses on southern Africa by engaging with ‘norms’ from various perspectives and how they have proliferated within a neo-liberalising context since the 1990s. It particularly examines gender norms in relation to agency, influence and their impact. Despite growing transnational activities, regional studies analyses have so far maintained a primarily linear logic not incorporative of the increasing interface between state and non-state regionalism in a transnational context since the advent of liberalisation and democratisation. Increasing non-state activities, and their connection to state processes involved in norm creation, adaptation, diffusion and implementation around broad questions of security (including gender security), amount to regional thickening. The book’s analytical approach is informed by alternatives to mainstream approaches, emphasising processes rather than linearity inherent in regional international relations studies. The research reveals that transnational activities and regionalisation of gender and women-focused civil society actors are critical for advocacy and diverse representation within intergovernmental policymaking structures at the regional scale.

This book investigates the ways in which soft power is used by African countries to help drive global influence. Selecting four of the countries most associated with soft power across the continent, this book delves into the currencies of soft power across the region: from South Africa’s progressive constitution and expanding multinational corporations, to Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry and Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme, Kenya’s sport diplomacy, fashion and tourism industries, and finally Egypt’s Pan-Arabism and its reputation as the cradle of civilisation. The book asks how soft power is wielded by these countries and what constraints and contradictions they encounter. Understandings of soft power have typically been driven by Western scholars, but throughout this book, Oluwaseun Tella aims to Africanise our understanding of soft power, drawing on prominent African philosophies, including Nigeria’s Omolúwàbí, South Africa’s Ubuntu, Kenya’s Harambee, and Egypt’s Pharaonism. This book will be of interest to researchers from across political science, international relations, cultural studies, foreign policy and African Studies. The Open Access version of this book, available athttp://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ 9781003176022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This book investigates the ways in which soft power is used by African countries to help drive global influence. Selecting four of the countries most associated with soft power across the continent, this book delves into the currencies of soft power across the region: from South Africa’s progressive constitution and expanding multinational corporations, to Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry and Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme, Kenya’s sport diplomacy, fashion and tourism industries, and finally Egypt’s Pan-Arabism and its reputation as the cradle of civilisation. The book asks how soft power is wielded by these countries and what constraints and contradictions they encounter. Understandings of soft power have typically been driven by Western scholars, but throughout this book, Oluwaseun Tella aims to Africanise our understanding of soft power, drawing on prominent African philosophies, including Nigeria’s Omolúwàbí, South Africa’s Ubuntu, Kenya’s Harambee, and Egypt’s Pharaonism. This book will be of interest to researchers from across political science, international relations, cultural studies, foreign policy and African Studies. The Open Access version of this book, available athttp://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ 9781003176022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license