Empowering Africa: normative power in EU-Africa relations

Scheipers, Sibylle, and Sicurelli, Daniela. (2007) Empowering Africa: normative power in EU-Africa relations. In: UNSPECIFIED, Montreal, Canada. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

[From the introduction]. In this article, we will focus on two cases in which the EU attempts to advance its values internationally. First, the EU promotes the International Criminal Court (ICC) within the framework of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), thereby emphasizing its commitment to human rights. Secondly, the EU aims to disseminate the norm of environmental protection by supporting the Kyoto Protocol. We will provide empirical evidence that in both cases, the EU made efforts to empower Sub-Saharan African countries on three levels. The identity level seems to be most crucial in that support for both international institutions on the part of African states increases their recognition in the eyes and in the rhetoric of European officials. Second, at the knowledge level, the EU supports Sub-Saharan African states by providing legal and technical expertise in order to enable them to participate in international negotiations and to implement international agreements. Finally, the EU provides material incentives (material level) within the framework of conditionality arrangements. However, whereas the first two levels are part of the EU’s official self-portrayal, it tends to keep quiet about the provision of material incentives, since they seem to contradict its rhetoric of EU-Africa relations as a partnership on an equal footing. The reminder of this article is structured as follows: the next section is devoted to a critical discussion of the concept of normative power with a particular view to the modes of identity construction it involves. We will then move on to our case studies on the ICC (part 3) and on the Kyoto Protocol (part 4). In the fifth part, we will summarize our findings and discuss what insights the investigation of EU-Africa relations offers with respect to our understanding of the EU as a normative power.

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