ipl-logo

African Union Liberalism

1017 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of Western powers in African

The African Union (AU) promotes a philosophy of “finding African solutions for African problems”. This is a key founding principle to ensure unity amongst the members of the African continent. As part of its objectives the African Union identifies promoting peace, security and stability on the African continent as a primary objective. I will discuss this objective and the establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) as an organ to help achieve this objective. I will discuss how this objective relates to the International Relations theory of Liberalism and justify the importance of finding African solutions for African problems below.
Liberalism is a key theory in international relations, it argues that human beings act in their own …show more content…

I believe that the AU should find African solutions to African problems because if it is left for the United Nations the cultural aspects to many of the issues in Africa, tend to be overlooked or undermined. To substantiate my argument I will make reference to cases where international originations have attempted to come and aid African issues but have failed. The first occurrence I will use is the attempt of the UN to initiate peace keeping in Congo in 1960. The UN Operation of the Congo (UNOC) saw more UN peace keepers lose their lives than in any other UN sanctioned operation due to the lack of understanding the ethnic differences. This disastrous event saw the UN pull out of African issues for almost 25 years (Mays, 2003). Another reason as to why the AU should find solutions for African issues is that the West would only pursue peace operations in Africa when it is in favour of their own interests, a view that goes against a key assumption of liberalism that people consider how their actions affect others and while pursuing their own interest they will consider the best way to make everyone happy (Steans, et al., 2010). An instance of this was when the US and France used their power to keep President Mobutu of Zaire in control even though he was labeled as corrupt, they did this to receive assistance from President Mobutu in the cold war (Mays, 2003). It becomes more and more evident that in order for the African continent to prosper, Africans will have to rely on themselves to solve their problems. If the validity of this statement is still questioned then the case of Rwanda should prove my point. When violence broke out in Rwanda in 1994 there was no particular interest to help from the US. To support this theory here is a comment from the deputy assistant secretary for African affairs James

Show More
Related
349 Words | 2 Pages

COP21 which was held on Nov. 330 th 2015 and lasted two weeks aimed to devise a legally binding agreement to cap global temperature rises to under 2 degrees Celsius, below preindustrial levels. Negotiations and agreements which have been brewing over several years, were finally settled in a time efficient and effective conference, hosting 196 parties which all participated in the agreement to decrease the use of fossil fuels which result in the development of greenhouse gases by 2050. The agreement functions upon the framework that each nation is to establish a conformable and realistic reduction target individually, with no penalty present for countries which fail to abide by their self‐imposed targets. Wealthy developed nations like the United

Read More
839 Words | 4 Pages

Attending to this claim would be British politician Archibald Phillip Primose in his letter to the London Times. (doc 4) Primrose writes about the tasks needed to be done in order to become a leading empire and claiming Africa is considered on that list. Primrose's letter justifies countries looking at Africa as a boost of confidence in their own terms. One would expect a man like Primrose to defend the decisions with excuses such as, Africa being a better place to populate but instead he expresses the truth of the matter that the main motivation behind the acquisition of African colonies was an expansion of their own

Read More
822 Words | 4 Pages

This is all based on document A “ Partition of Africa, 1884-85”. The first point is that there were seven European countries taking parts of Africa and they were the British, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Belgian, and the Spanish. These countries all took a part in this “taking” of Africa. And it was very dangerous for the African community because they were being taking over as if they were a useless community . But the two main countries of this “taking” were the British and French, and they both took about 70-75% of Africa and that is a ginormous number.

Read More
469 Words | 2 Pages

“No African delegates were present. Simply put, the European powers agreed to recognize any areas that were already occupied to being developed by other European nations. Because of this, there was a big push to the interior of Africa by competing European Armies, as they all rushed to establish…legitimate claims on areas not occupied by other European powers.” This really struck me because it shows they didn’t care about the African people at all, in fact they could care less. And that’s what starts rebellions.

Read More
1870 Words | 8 Pages

Liberalism sees the market as a major part of civil society. It claims that people should be able freely to exchange goods of their labor with fellow members of society. Moreover, classical liberalism suggests that for society to remain functional, it must be democratic. Liberalism fears that the granting of power opens the door to corruption and the abuse of those powers. There are certain difficulties and challenges in classical liberalism.

Read More
187 Words | 1 Pages

Liberal Democracy is a political ideology and in which a form of government can elect representatives, have an equal protection in both voice and rights, and much more. Liberal Democracy is also known as western democracy. This is the system of government that the United States of America has implemented for many years as their main form of government. Nicholas Wolterstorff is an American Philosopher that has written many books to brings together politics and faith. In Religion in the Public Square, he talks about the idea of Liberal Democracy along the side with his co-author Robert Audi.

Read More
859 Words | 4 Pages

Africa In World Politics: Engaging a Changing Global Order by John Harbenson and Donald Rothchild gives an analysis of how Africa has changed from being a European ruled colonial nation to a nation that it creating a name for itself in the global sphere. Beginning with Africa’s politics during the colonial era through the present. The book provides not only details about Africa but also how the changing world has affected African politics. The main focus of this book is to show the growth Africa has had since its time of colonization. Africa has grown as the world has changed although it has had to deal with internal conflicts and demands for political change due to its authoritarian regimes.

Read More
1039 Words | 5 Pages

Liberals Ideals constrain the policy makers to settle on balanced choices under circumstances where worldwide participation is required to anticipate worldwide emergency. The decision making process is very mind-opening in the movie. The

Read More
1335 Words | 6 Pages

From these, liberal ideals are portrayed to have two main strands with one founded on liberal nationalism while the other on liberal internationalism (Reitan 43). The rational foreign policy approach that that elite policy-makers can consider when confronted with an international hurdle would be similar to the approach adopted in the film. By first securing themselves, the focus is first given to the maintenance of the national sovereignty and the security of liberal institutions at home. In that case, foreign policy should begin with liberal nationalism. Such was evident in the movie as the United States began by securing itself (Reitan 43).

Read More
1446 Words | 6 Pages

The first Liberal Internationalists, including Wilson, were a very ethnocentric, non diverse group. They had two driving questions that they wanted to have answered from their new ideology. Those questions were, how do we prevent war, and what causes war? When analyzing these questions, liberal internationalists focused on both the domestic and international level. When examined at the domestic level, Liberal Internationalists concluded that illiberal, nondemocratic regimes are to blame for wars, and the only way to prevent wars was by allowing nations self determination through democracy.

Read More
1364 Words | 6 Pages

In American society, there is an ongoing list of political ideologies. These political ideologies range anywhere from the commitment to traditional values (conservatism), to the freedom and openness to change (liberalism). Whether it is authoritarian conservative, anarchism, socialism, progressivism, pluralism, toleration, etc., everyone is entitled to their own views. After doing research on several ideologies, I found myself closely associated with liberalism.

Read More
1483 Words | 6 Pages

There have been various perceptions concerning the history of Africa, and some of these have portrayed Africa in more negative than positive ways. In an attempt to examine the historical aspect of Africa through various lenses, this essay presents an analysis of evidence that have been brought forth towards understanding Africa’s role in world history, as well as reasons and lessons from the negative portrayal of Africa. The history of Africa has been viewed and understood through a variety of lenses in the past few hundred years. To begin with, the origin of the name Africa in itself has drawn a number of controversies that stem from the different perspectives through which the name has been examined.

Read More
1207 Words | 5 Pages

The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the study of International Relations, the book for which E.H. Carr is perhaps most remembered was written just prior to the outbreak of World War Two (WWII). This particular work of Carr’s is primarily a study of the fundamentals of International Relations, which is exemplified especially by the events of the two decades before 1939, the year the book was published. In the Twenty Years Crisis, E.H. Carr explores the interplay of the worldview between Utopians and Realists. Carr’s work examines why the League of Nations and the peace as implemented by the Treaty of Versailles failed, ultimately resulting in WWII.

Read More
1938 Words | 8 Pages

The current work is meant to explain the differences and similarities between the most dominant theories in international relations, Realism and Liberalism, both theories have some similarities and differences but much more important and interesting is to discuss and explain what differs and makes similar both theories. Conflicts and wars, Similarities and differences between Realism and Liberalism: Both Liberalism and Realism believes that there is no world government that can prevent countries to go to war on one another. For both theories military power is important and both Realism and Liberalism can understand that countries can use military power to get what they need or want. Also, both theories are conscious that without military

Read More
996 Words | 4 Pages

Liberal Democracy is a democratic system of government in which individual rights and freedoms are officially recognized and protected, and the exercise of political power is limited by the rule of law. The word democracy is greek, the word “demos” means people and “kratos” means power. The idea of liberalism first began in the 1600’s with John Locke as he believed that the people should be allowed to remove the government currently ruling when they have misused their power for ulterior motives. Although the seed was planted in the 1600’s, liberal democracy only properly took form in the 1840’s in Canada. Australia and New Zealand followed not long after as they began to use the secret ballot system to elect political leaders.

Read More

More about African Union Liberalism

Related Topics

Open Document