The Political Economy of African Foreign Policies: Marginality and Dependency, Realism and Choice

Abstract

The extraordinary changes in the structure of world politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the equally profound changes in the structures and nature of production have transformed the international environment and global markets in many ways disadvantageous to African states. Okolo and Shaw in their introduction, and others in their studies of specific countries, have assessed the structural positions and options of many West African political economies in the light of the recent past and these fundamental changes in the international divisions of labour and of power. And they are pessimistic regarding the possibility for West African states to develop economically and to make major decisions regarding development policies and strategies and other foreign policies free from the domination of the great powers and the IFIs through which they maintain financial hegemony, the IMF and IBRD. The world economy and structures of power are, it is argued, operating in a manner that marginalises African states in terms of a role or capacity to act, yet African states have become more fundamentally dependent upon the world economy and great power institutions than previously.¹ Many African leaders feel robbed of any autonomy — in reality, not just in rhetoric.