Abstract
This chapter analyzes the European Union’s (EU) development initiatives in Africa. The relationship between the EU and Africa dates back to the inauguration of the EU in the 1950s and has since undergone different iterations as a paragon of Global North and Global South development interactions. The analysis includes the Joint Africa-Europe Strategy, because of its sui generis approach as a framework for development. In addition to normative power Europe theory, the discourse employs neoliberalism and neorealism to explicate the enduring relationship. The chapter demonstrates that the relationship between the EU and Africa is still profoundly asymmetrical, notwithstanding the rhetoric to the contrary, and that the EU’s development policies toward Africa are positioned somewhere between its normative ideals and the realities of competing emerging alternative frameworks.
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Notes
- 1.
Please note that this discourse will employ the European Union (EU) to refer to Union as an entity, despite the fact that the coinage did not emerge until the 1993 Treaty of Maastricht. However, where applicable and salient, the discourse will employ previous names of the Union, such as the European Economic Community (EEC).
- 2.
Other countries of North Africa were already independent at the time.
- 3.
Of the Mediterranean partners, only Syria has not concluded an association agreement with the EU.
- 4.
Given the economic prowess of China as the second largest economy or the largest in purchasing power parity in 2017, and given that it is the largest exporting country, including it in the global South group could be distorting.
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Babarinde, O. (2019). New Directions in EU-Africa Development Initiatives. In: Beringer, S.L., Maier, S., Thiel, M. (eds) EU Development Policies. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01307-3_7
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