Evaluating a Contemporary Institution: EU-Africa Relations

Abstract

The contemporary understanding of EU-Africa relations relies on the merging of new conceptual paradigms, including regionalism and New Institutionalism. This is particularly true of new security cooperation. From the regionalist perspective, the view is that ‘the regional level stands more clearly on its own as the locus of conflict and co-operation of states and at the level of analysis for scholars seeking to explore contemporary security affairs’ (Lake and Morgan, 1997, pp. 6–7). The value of New Institutionalist approaches in EU-Africa relations, particularly historical institutionalism, stems from the context within which contemporary EU-Africa relations have evolved. The historically narrow development, it is argued, has been instrumental in the method through which security cooperation has developed in EU-Africa relations. Consequently, this chapter is developed using these mutually reinforcing perspectives of EU-Africa relations. In essence, it suggests an institutionalist frame through which to understand contemporary EU-Africa relations.