Structure, agency and Africa in the international system: donor diplomacy and regional security policy in East Africa since the 1990s

Abstract

Recent scholarship on Africa has sought to reject the notion that aid dependence precludes the securing of agency by many African states. This article seeks to support and develop this argument through exploring the relationship between aid ‘structures’ and African agency. Contending that structures and agents are mutually-constituted, it is argued that African governments' interactions with one such structure provide considerable room for agency. The ‘rationale’ upon which donor support for particular regimes is based, for example, can be reshaped and managed by African governments through the latters' diplomatic efforts. In doing so, these regimes can secure considerable agency in relations with donors by ‘validating’ narratives which encourage continued support and undermining those which do not. To establish this point, the diplomatic activities of four African states—Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda—will be analysed. All four have received donor assistance as a result of their perceived role as regional forces for stability and security. All four have also been faced with scenarios where these rationales have been challenged and undermined by their own policies.

Notes

^1. See Brown, ‘Sovereignty Matters’, 263–266, for a recent critique of this literature.

^2.Ake, Political Economy of Africa, 136; Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, 118–148.

^3.Djikstra, ‘Effectiveness of Policy Conditionality’; Killick, Aid and the Political Economy of Policy Change, 101; Mosley et al., Aid and Power, 168–171.

^4.Clapham, Africa in the International System, 201–204.

^5.Bayart, ‘Africa in the World’, 219–220; Whitfield and Fraser, ‘Negotiating Aid’, 40–41.

^6.Mawdsley and McCann, India in Africa; Woods, ‘Whose Aid? Whose Influence?’.

^7. On budget support, see Barkan, ‘Rethinking Budget Support for Africa’. On peacekeeping and military co-operation, see Williams, ‘Keeping the Peace in Africa’, 315–319 and Beswick, ‘Peacekeeping, Regime Security and “African Solutions to African Problems”’, 740–748.

^8.Brown, ‘A Question of Agency’, 1890; also Fisher, ‘International Perceptions and African Agency’, 52–56.

^9. See, for example, Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, 79; Carlsnaes, ‘Agency-Structure Problem’, 246; Cerny, ‘Political Agency in a Globalizing World’, 436–439; Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method, 121.

^10. See, for example, Harrigan and Wang, ‘New Approach to the Allocation of Aid’; Hoeffler and Outram, ‘Need, Merit or Self-Interest?’; Lumsdaine, Moral Vision; Schraeder et al., ‘Clarifying the Foreign Aid Puzzle’; Woods, ‘Shifting Politics of Foreign Aid’.

^11.Harrison, ‘Post-Conditionality Politics’, 672–673; Lancaster, Foreign Aid.

^12.DFID, Bilateral Aid Review, 5; CIDA, ‘CIDA's Aid Effectiveness Action Plan’, 6; Ministry for Foreign Affairs, ‘Focused Bilateral Development Cooperation’.

^13.DFID, Bilateral Aid Review, 5; Ministry for Foreign Affairs, ‘Focused Bilateral Development Cooperation’, 5.

^14.Chandler, ‘Security-Development Nexus’; Johnson, ‘Glimpses into the Gems of American Intelligence’, 354–356.

^15. Interview with former senior US Africa official, Washington DC, 8 May 2012.

^16. Interviews with current and former US State Department Africa Bureau officials, Washington DC, April–May 2012 and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, London, March 2009–April 2011.

^17. There is insufficient space to explore the role of lobbying firms in African ‘image management’ processes in any depth in this article. For a more detailed exploration of this and other ‘image management strategies’ see Fisher, ‘International Perceptions’, 149–161; ‘Managing Donor Perceptions’, 411–413; and ‘“Image management” in East Africa’.

^18. Budget support—both general and sectoral—has been provided to Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda (but not Eritrea) since the early 2000s.

^19.Booth and Golooba-Mutebi, ‘Developmental Patrimonialism?’; Hauser, ‘Ugandan Relations with Western Donors’; Ottaway, Africa's New Leaders.

^20.Tangri and Mwenda, Politics of Elite Corruption.

^21. Dear Jeannie and John Njoroge, ‘Donors Cut all Direct Aid to Government until 2013’. Sunday Monitor, 4 December 2012.

^22. ‘When Aid Darlings Lose their Shine’. Economist, 10 November 2005.

^23. As noted above, US military support to Rwanda has recently been reduced owing to concerns over alleged Rwandan support for a Congolese rebel movement, M23.

^24. Interviews with UK, US and European officials, London, Washington and Kampala, March–November 2009.

^25. James McKinley, ‘Clinton in Africa: The Region; A New Model for Africa: Good Leaders Above All’. New York Times, 25 March 1998; Beswick, ‘Peacekeeping, Regime Security and “African Solutions to African Problems”; Fisher, ‘Managing Donor Perceptions’; Smyth, ‘Africa's New Bloc’; Ottaway, Africa's New Leaders.

^26. Ibid.

^27.White House, ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.

^28. Interviews with UK, US, World Bank and European officials, London, Washington, Kampala and Addis Ababa, March 2009–May 2013.

^29. GDP data taken from World Bank database, available at: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD/countries [Accessed 1 July 2013]; aid flows data taken from OECD, Geographical Distribution of Financial Flows.

^30.Fisher, ‘“Some More Reliable than Others”’, 8–15 and 24–26.

^31. Ibid., 19–23; Fisher, ‘“Image Management” in East Africa’.

^32.Whitaker, ‘Soft Balancing’.

^33. Harrison, ‘Post-Conditionality Politics’.

^34. Though see Tripp, Museveni's Uganda, 151–156, for a survey of localised Ugandan insurgencies extant in the late 1980s and 1990s.

^35. Ibid., 32.

^36.Dolan, Social Torture, 97; Omach, ‘Democratization and Conflict Resolution’, 19.

^37. Ibid.

^38. Dolan, Social Torture, 55–56.

^39.Branch, ‘Political Dilemmas of Global Justice’, 185; Branch, ‘Uganda's Civil War’, 180–190; Finnstrom, Living with Bad Surroundings, 155.

^40. Ibid. These sentiments were also expressed to the author by several senior UK officials in interviews held in London between November 2008 and July 2009. A senior Ugandan diplomat further claimed—in an event held in Paris in May 2013 attended by the author—that the Ugandan government purposefully avoided defeating the LRA for a number of years in the 1990s.

^41.Amnesty International, ‘Uganda: Government should Address Attacks on Civilians’.

^42.Amnesty International, ‘Uganda: The Full Picture: Human Rights Violations’; ‘Uganda: The Full Picture: Uncovering Human Rights Violations’. The organisation has also, of course, produced numerous reports which recount and condemn LRA atrocities since the early 1990s.

^43.Human Rights Watch, ‘LRA Conflict in Northern Uganda’.

^44. Interview with former US diplomat, Washington DC, 16 October 2009; Fisher, ‘“Some More Reliable than Others”’, 16–19.

^45. Interview with Michael Poffenberger, founder of Uganda Conflict Action Network and Executive Director of Resolve (since 2005), Washington DC, 4 November 2009; interview with former US Senate staffer, by telephone, 17 August 2012.

^46.Gersony, Anguish of Northern Uganda, 110–111 and Annex.

^47. Interview with former US diplomat, Washington DC, 10 November 2009.

^48.ICC, ‘President of Uganda’; Schiff, Building the International Criminal Court, 198–199.

^49. Invisible Children, ‘KONY2012’. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = Y4MnpzG5Sqc [Accessed 1 July 2013].

^50.Scribe Strategies, ‘Registration Statement’; interview with Aubrey Hruby, Managing Director, The Whitaker Group (since 2005), Washington DC, 12 November 2009.

^51. Interview with former US Senate staffer, by telephone, 17 August 2012.

^52. Interview with former senior UK official, by telephone, 9 June 2010.

^53. Interview with former White House official, Washington DC, 19 November 2009; interview with UK Foreign Office official, London, 19 March 2009.

^54. Interview with US official, Washington DC, 16 October 2009. The replacement of former Ugandan Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi by former Security Minister Amama Mbabazi in May 2011, however, has raised the profile and influence of the ministry in Kampala.

^55. Interview with Michael Poffenberger, founder of Uganda Conflict Action Network and Executive Director of Resolve (since 2005), Washington DC, 4 November 2009.

^56. Ibid.; interview with US congressional staffer, Washington DC, 29 October 2009.

^57. Ibid.

^58. ‘Obama Sends 100 Troops to Combat LRA Troops in Uganda’. Guardian, 14 October 2011.

^59. Invisible Children, ‘KONY2012’. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = Y4MnpzG5Sqc [Accessed 1 July 2013].

^60. The Republic of Zaire formally became the Democratic Republic of Congo in May 1997.

^61. Stephen Buckley, ‘Authority's Changing Face in Africa: Enlightened Leaders or Savvy Strongmen?’. Washington Post, 2 February 1998.

^62. Jim Hoagland, ‘Back from the Edge of Inferno: Central Africa's Leaders Must Now Replace Vision of War they Used to Oust the Despots and Killers’. Washington Post, 23 October 1997.

^63. ‘Waiting for the Rebels’. Economist, 8 March 1997; interview with former European diplomat based in Kampala in the late 1990s, London, 25 June 2009.

^64. ‘The Shine Fades on Museveni's Uganda’. Economist, 29 April 1999; Judith Achieng, ‘Museveni Ill-equipped to be Regional “Sheriff”’. Inter-Press Service, 31 August 1998.

^65. Hrvoje Hranjski, ‘Rwanda Routs Ugandan Forces’. Associated Press, 11 June 2000; Lara Santoro, ‘Behind the Congo War’. Christian Science Monitor, 16 August 1999; Cliff Taylor, ‘Congo Wealth Lures Africa's Power-Players’. Independent, 31 October 1998; UN, Report of the Panel of Experts.

^66. ‘Star Pupil No More?’. New African, 1 September 1999; Ian Mader, ‘State Department Official Warns of African “World War” over Congo’. Associated Press, 21 October 1998.

^67. Interview with Tom Butime, State Minister for International Cooperation (2001–2005), Kampala, 12 February 2010.

^68. Interview with former Clinton Administration official, Washington DC, 22 October 2009; interview with former senior UK official, London, 27 November 2008; interview with former US diplomat, by telephone, 12 November 2009.

^69. Ibid.; interview with former senior UK diplomat, London, 20 July 2009.

^70. Interview with former US diplomat, by telephone, 12 November 2009; interview with former senior US official, Washington DC, 5 November 2009.

^71.Hayman, ‘Rwanda: Milking the Cow’, 175–176; Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, Ten Years On’, 199–200; Uvin, ‘Reading the Rwandan Genocide’, 179.

^72. Interview with former senior US official, Washington DC, 10 November 2009; Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, Ten Years On’, 207.

^73. Interview with former European diplomat based in Kampala in the 1990s, London, 25 June 2009.

^74.Council on Foreign Relations, ‘Freedom from Fear’.

^75. Ibid.

^76.Burston-Marsteller, ‘Exhibit A’.

^77. Harry Dunphy, ‘Uganda Claims that Sudan Supports Rebels’. Associated Press, 13 June 2003.

^78. Council on Foreign Relations, ‘Freedom from Fear’.

^79. ‘DRC Needs the Region's Support’. Daily Monitor, 9 August 2012; interview with Ugandan diplomat, Washington DC, 6 November 2009; interview with former senior US official, Washington DC, 5 November 2009; interview with former White House official, Washington DC, 19 November 2009.

^80. Moses Mulondo, ‘Uganda to Quit Somalia’. New Vision, 2 November 2012.

^81. John Masaba, ‘Mbabazi Responds to Opposition M23 Concerns’. New Vision, 12 April 2013.

^82. See Fisher, ‘Managing Donor Perceptions’ and ‘Limits—and Limiters—of External Influence’ for more detail and background on Uganda's intervention in Somalia as part of AMISOM and the effect of this upon donor-Ugandan relations.

^83. Interview with former White House official, Washington DC, 19 November 2009.

^84. Tabu Butagira, ‘Corrupt Ministers Must Resign’. Sunday Monitor, 16 January 2011.

^85. Risdel Kasasira, ‘UN Clears Government on M23 links’. Daily Monitor, 2 July 2013.

^86.Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda, 171.

^87. Ibid.; Woodrow Wilson Center, ‘Speech by His Excellency Paul Kagame’.

^88.International Peace Institute, ‘President Kagame’.

^89. ‘UN Report Denounces Rwanda's Support of Tutsi Rebels’. AFP, 13 February 2008.

^90.Hayman, ‘Rwanda: Milking the Cow’, 175–176; Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda: Ten Years On’, 199–200; Uvin, ‘Reading the Rwandan Genocide’, 179.

^91. Interview with European diplomat formerly based in Kigali, Kampala, 20 May 2009.

^92.Hayman, ‘Rwanda: Milking the Cow’, 175–176.

^93.Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, Ten Years On’, 206–207. Other examples of Short's ‘protection’ of the Kigali regime within DFID have been provided to the author in interviews with a former Foreign Office official, London, 1 May 2009 and a senior NGO official who dealt with DFID during the early 2000s, London, 12 August 2009.

^94. Beswick, ‘Peacekeeping, Regime Security and “African Solutions to African Problems”, 748–750; Beswick, ‘Political Risk’.

^95. Chris McGreal, ‘US Support for Rwanda Wanes Amid Concern over Violence in Congo’. Guardian, 1 August 2012.

^96. Edmund Kagire, ‘Rwanda Off the Hook for its DR Congo Peace Stand’. East African, 7 June 2013.

^97.Connell and Smyth, ‘Africa's New Bloc’, 80–94.

^98. Ibid.; White House, ‘Executive Order 13067’.

^99.Human Rights Watch, Horn of Africa War, 4.

^100. James McKinley, ‘Clinton in Africa: The Region: A New Model for Africa: Good Leaders Above All’. New York Times, 25 March 1998; ‘Assistant Secretary Rice on Eritrea and Ethiopia’. PBS Newshour, 16 June 1998; Evans, ‘Acting Assistant Secretary of State’; interview with former senior US diplomat, Washington DC, 2 November 2009.

^101. Evans, ‘Acting Assistant Secretary of State’; interviews with former senior US diplomat and US official, Washington DC, 2 and 10 November 2009; interview with former senior Ethiopian official, Addis Ababa, 1 May 2013.

^102.Connell, ‘Eritrea and the United States’, 137–138, 145; Mesfin, ‘Eritrea-Djibouti Border Dispute’, 3–4; interview with senior US official, Washington DC, 18 November 2009; interview with former White House official, Washington DC, 19 November 2009.

^103.Mesfin, ‘Eritrea-Djibouti Border Dispute’, 3–4; Wrong, I Didn't Do It For You, 382.

^104. NPR Morning Edition, ‘Interview: Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’, 12 September 2000; interviews with senior US official and former White House official, Washington DC, 18 and 19 November 2009.

^105.Zemi Communications, ‘Exhibit A’, 4; Dewey and LeBouef, ‘Exhibit A’, 3; Hunton and Williams, ‘Exhibit A’, 4.

^106.Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, FAST Update, 6.

^107.Connell, ‘Eritrea and the United States’, 137, 139–140, 144–145; ODI, Political Conditionality in Africa.

^108.Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, FAST Update, 6; ODI, Political Conditionality in Africa.

^109. Connell, ‘Eritrea and the United States’, 138–139; US Federal News Service, ‘Ethiopia: PM Meles says Motive of Eritrea Destabilizing Horn of Africa’, 3 August 2006; Jason McClure, ‘Meles Zenawi: An Impatient Ally’. Newsweek International, 12 April 2008.

^110.Wrong, I Didn't Do It For You, 382.

^111. Chris Tomlinson, ‘Ethiopia Prime Minister’. AP, 12 May 2005; Stephanie McCrumen, ‘Interview with Meles Zenawi’. Washington Post, 13 December 2006; Jason McClure, ‘Meles Zenawi: An Impatient Ally’. Newsweek International, 12 April 2008; interview with senior US official, Washington DC, 18 November 2009.

^112. Connell, ‘Eritrea and the United States’, 137–138; Maher Chmaytelli, ‘Eritrea Rejected US Military Demand for Red Sea Base’. Gulf News Reports, Bloomberg, 23 April 2010; Jane Dutton, ‘Interview with President Isaias Afwerki’. Al-Jazeera, 20 February 2010.

^113. Connell, ‘Eritrea and the United States’, 138–140; BBC News, ‘Self-Reliance Could Cost Eritrea Dear’, 5 July 2006; Jeevan Vasgar, ‘Eritrea Expels UN Observers Along Border with Ethiopia’. Guardian, 8 December 2005; interview with former senior Ugandan official, Kampala, 24 April 2013; interview with former White House official, Washington DC, 19 November 2009.

^114. Interview with former senior US diplomat, Washington DC, 2 November 2009; interview with Ethiopian official, Addis Ababa, 2 May 2013; Connell, ‘From Resistance to Governance’, 4–10; Mesfin, ‘Eritrea-Djibouti Border Dispute’, 4–5.

^115. Fisher, ‘“Some More Reliable than Others”’, 10–15; Fisher, ‘Limits—and Limiters—of External Influence’, 481–482.

Jonathan Fisher is a Lecturer in the International Development Department, University of Birmingham. His work focuses on donor-African engagement and Africa in the global system. He is particularly interested in African security and has written several articles on this subject, including in African Affairs and Journal of Modern African Studies.