Slippage in AU Partnerships: The US Africa Command

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the application of a different strategy of agency slack called slippage. It examines the AU’s collaborative partnership with the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). It starts with a historical review of engagement in order to trace the causes of slippage in this partnership. The historical reviews also help trace the political and material factors that have caused strain in areas of high-level engagement, institutionalisation, conjoined action and preference divergence and convergence. Thereafter the chapter discusses how the substantive issues in the abovementioned variables have affected African agency such as to warrant slippage. The chapter also discusses how the AU exercises slippage. This includes a brief discussion of the costs of slippage to either party.