Gorm Rye Olsen
Europe and Africa’s failed states:
from development to containment
Paper given at the conference on The Global Constitution of 'Failed States': The Consequences of a New Imperialism? / University of Sussex, 18-20 April 2001
Gorm Rye Olsen, Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen, Denmark gro@cdr.dk
Contents:
2001
first press
Introduction
"Unlike other developing regions, Africa’s average output per capita in constant prices was lower at the end of the 1990s than 30 years before – Africa’s share of world trade has plummeted since 1960…In contrast to other regions that have diversified, most countries in Africa are still largely primary exporters. Net transfers from foreign assistance average 9 percent of GDP – equivalent to almost half of the public spending and far higher than for typical countries in other regions….The number of poor people has grown relentlessly, causing Africa’s share of the world’s absolute poor to increase from 25 to 30 percent in the 1990s……The spread of conflict threatens economic and social progress. At least one African in five lives in a country severely disrupted by an ongoing war…." (World Bank, 2000: 7ff).
The World Bank writes like this in a recent analysis of the development challenges facing Africa in the 21st century. According to the Bank, issues such as governance, state building and conflict management have moved to the core of the development agenda of the continent during the past decade. The issues are all related to state and to its lack of capacity. The Bank finds that the current African state lacks capacity in at least three fundamental respects. First it lacks the capacity to maintain nationwide peace, law and order. It also lacks the capacity to secure individual liberty and equality before the law. And thirdly, the African state needs workable checks and balances on the arbitrary exercise of power (World Bank, 2000: 48ff).
The World Bank’s description of the current state of affairs in Africa is interesting for two reasons, at least. First, it is worth paying attention to simply because the Bank is the intellectual leader among the development aid agencies operating in the region (Lancaster, 1999: 191-192, 201; Gibbon, 1993; Woods, 2001: 88ff; Squire, 2000). Secondly, there is considerable agreement between the analysis of the Bank and the analyses found with a number of academic writers on the current development challenges of Africa.
It is the aim of the aim of the paper to analyse the European responses to what can be described as the ‘development failure’ of Africa. This failure can to a large extent be considered as a failure of the states on the continent. The first argument of the paper is that the policy responses can be understood on the background of the European interests in Africa in the post cold war era. The interests can be tangible, i.e. concern economy, politics and security. But they may also be non-tangible such as moral, ethical and humanitarian. Secondly, the paper claims that the shift from a long-term engagement in the fate of the continent towards much more short-term spectacular interventions can be explained by a shift in the interests in Europe. Thus, after the end of the cold war, the European decision-makers became much more preoccupied with ‘soft security’ issues like immigration. That coincided with another development within the European community, namely the efforts to develop a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). Thirdly, the changes towards focussing on security and on the establishment of a CFSP did not reflect a corresponding reduction in the moral commitment of the European’s in the fate of the Africans. The only change that took place during the 1990s was that the moral commitment found a new or an alternative outlet in the conspicuous growth in humanitarian emergency assistance.
Göran Hyden claims that since the early 1980s, one dominating trend in the literature on African development has been the ‘failure of the state’ theory. Its basic message it that the state in Africa has failed to live up to the expectations people had to it after independence (Hyden, 1999: 14ff). An extreme version of this debate argues that the state in Africa is neither African nor a state (Engelbert, 1997). However, Hyden finds that current writings on African development to an increasing extent is being inspired by post-modernist theory and its belief that pre-modern values matter (Hyden, 1999: 16).
Nevertheless, this paper maintains that the core of the academic debate is still on the state and its ‘failure’ or its ‘weakness’ or its ‘fragility’. The current debate may put more emphasis on the strength of pre-modern values and pre-modern patterns of behaviour such as neo-patrimonialism but still, the debate combines this emphasis with attempts to understand the state. This is clearly the case for authors like Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz (1999) and Jean-Francois Bayart et al. (1999). William Reno also focuses on the state which he describes as ‘weak’, while simultaneously he is strongly engaged in studying both wardlordism and the ‘privatisation of politics’ (Reno, 1998, Reno, 1997).
Christopher Clapham explicitly uses the terminology ‘failure’ to describe most African states. Exactly the failure of the state has intensified the problems of mixing personal and state survival which have had devastating consequences for the economic management of the African countries and for their relations with the outside world (Clapham, 1996: 6ff). Clapham also describes the African state as a ‘shadow state’ which has to keep up the façade that it is a ‘real’ state in order to obtain development aid, loans and credits from abroad. The point about the shadow state is that it signals an important duality of the ‘state’ in Africa which has seldomly been understood by non-Africans. In the ‘shadows’ of the formal state apparatuses, there is another ‘logic of behaviour’ or other rules of the game having to do with the strength of pre-modern values such as patron-client relations. The notion of the shadow state clearly underlines the significance of the pre-modern aspects of Africa’s current changes which is found in most writings on Africa (Herbst, 2000; Chabal & Daloz; Hyden, 1986; Clapham, 1996).
In spite of the general agreement to describe the African states as failed or weak, a central argument in the current literature is that the Africans survive. In most cases the official façade of the (shadow) state is upheld too, i.e. ‘Africa works’ in spite of widespread disorder, to quote Chabal and Daloz. So in summary, almost all African states are failures because they are incapable of promoting ‘development’ and incapable of taking care of the most fundamental needs of their citizens.
The radical version of the theory of state failure emphasises that some states in Africa have not only failed, they have simply ‘collapsed’. However, state collapse is a slow process of decay ending in the total break down of centralised law and order and a corresponding movement of power into the periphery, i.e. to clans or tribes, while at the same time the informal economy becomes more and more important (Zartman, 1995). A similar interpretation of failed African states is found with Mark Bowden who ties the concept closely to the situation where "a number of African ailing, autocratic leaders lost control and external support" (Bowden, 2001). The examples given by Bowden are Liberia, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Zaire.
In conclusion, the huge bulk of the literature on African development operates with the terminology state failure or weak states which is so broad that it covers almost all African states, because they are basically incapable of promoting positive economic and social changes. It is also possible to identify a much more narrow conception of state failure that focuses on states which are disintegrating because of war and violent conflict. In this paper, the broader definition of state failure is chosen which, of course does not does not exclude that the Europeans may react to the extreme situation of state failure that is state collapse.
The structure of the paper is as follows. The next section is a presentation of the European interests in Africa during the 1990s where it is important to stress that when the term ‘Europe’ is used in this paper, it covers 16 actors namely the European Union plus the 15 member states. It is significant to keep this complexity in mind as the member states still have the possibility of taking independent foreign policy initiatives and also of having individual bilateral aid programmes in Africa. The discussion on the European interests in Africa is inspired by the reflections of the international society tradition in international relations theory. Then follows a description of the changes in the European aid policy during the 1990s. After that comes the analysis of the adjustments in Europe’s security policy towards Africa, and for obvious reasons this analysis has to touch upon the trend towards establishing a CFSP. The changes in Europe’s policies are finally interpreted on the basis of the theoretical reflections which are presented in the following section.
European interests in Africa’s failed states
The general framework of the analysis is inspired by the reflections of the ‘international society’ tradition in the study of international relations (Bull,1977, Shaw, 1994, Jackson, 1995, Jackson & Sørensen, 1999). It maintains that world politics is anarchic, but also that there are distinctive rules, norms and institutions that decision-makers in the states employ when conducting foreign policy. The argument implies that the foreign policy orientation of states is central in empirical analyses meaning that questions related to the interests involved, the concerns and intentions, calculations and beliefs, and hopes of the decision-markers are highly relevant (Jackson & Sørensen, 1999: 139ff). Within the international society tradition, there are two core concepts that are relevant for the discussion in this paper, one is ‘order’ the other is ‘justice’. Order is considered to be the fundamental issue as "it is a condition for the realisation of other values" (Bull, 1977/1994: 96-97). The emphasis given to ‘order’ is very much in line with realism and neo-realism, thereby stressing that ‘state interests’ - in particular security - are still very important to decision-makers. Contrary to realism, the notion of justice opens up for the possibility that issues like ‘human justice’ (human rights) ‘distribute justice’ (development aid) may also influence decision-makers (Jackson & Sørensen, 1999: 153ff). So, this approach to the study of international relations argues that foreign policy and thus international relations are not just about tangible interests, it is also about norms and values (Bull, 1995: 9-13; Jackson & Sørensen, 1999: 145).
The discussion of the European interests in sub-Saharan Africa is structured by the following two sets of questions related to what is here called tangible and non-tangible interests respectively. First: What are the economic interests, the political interests and the security interests in the region? Secondly: What are the non-tangible interests, i.e. the moral or ethical concerns of Europe in Africa?
Based on international trade statistics, it is obvious that the European Union, defined as the totality of the 15 members countries, has very limited economic interests in sub-Saharan Africa. By the end of the 1990s, the region accounted for less than 2% of Europe’s total import, and likewise Africa accounted for less than 1½ % of the 15 European countries’ total export. Oil is the only African export product of any significance to the European economies, but here it must be remembered that the African oil exporters face fierce competition from a lot of other producers in developing as well as developed countries.
If foreign direct investments (FDI) are included in the analysis, sub-Saharan Africa as a host economy also figures extremely weak. Statistics for FDI inflows into the region, excluding South Africa, underline that Africa is the least attractive region among the developing areas. A few years ago UNCTD concluded "Africa has not participated in the surge of FDI flows to developing countries" (UNCTD, 1997: 56). However, among the very limited number of foreign investors, Western European companies are clearly among the most prominent. In the first half of the 1990s, 80% of all FDI into Africa came from Europe, France and the UK being among the principal countries of origin (UNCTD, 1997, V: xixff).
France is partly an exception from the general picture of extremely limited European economic interests in Africa. Even though Africa cannot be considered a primary economic concern for France, the region still accounts for around 5% of France’s foreign trade and Africa receives something like 20% of France’s FDI which of course is far less than what Eastern Europe and Asia receive (Marchés, 1997). However, in a number of countries, France still has a firm hold on selected but very lucrative sectors, such as mining and not least oil (Yates 1997). French companies hold an average of 20% of selected markets on the continent (Marchal,1998: 360).
Concerning the European political interests in Africa, the picture is more complicated. Generally, non-economic interests in the region are limited. But on an individual country basis, there are differences between the EU member countries. For Britain, sub-Saharan Africa like the rest of the third world have for many years been of marginal significance to its foreign policy concerns (Hill, 1996; Stayn, 1996). During the 1990s, the first priority of the united Germany was to continue the European integration process. Whereas, the second priority was to integrate Eastern Europe into the political and security structures of the West (Engel & Schleicher, 1998). As a consequence of the strong European focus, the third world and especially sub-Saharan Africa for natural reasons came far down the list of German priorities.
Until very recently, Africa has been of surprisingly big political significance to France. After the end of French colonial rule, Africa was the second most important geographical region in the country’s foreign policy, only surpassed by the European Union. The unique status of Africa in French foreign policy can to a large extent be explained by the fact that Paris thinks it has a special global mission, a so-called ‘mission civilisatrice’ which stresses the promotion of French culture and French language overseas. Africa has had a special position in this context, as the region has been one of the most important symbols of France’s global role, and the activist policy on the continent has served to prove that Paris was a great power with a right to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council (Alden, 1996; Martin, 1995; Brüne 1995). In spite of the fact that Douglas Yates calls the French Africa policy a "fantasy of grandeur", he argues that it has to be understood as a "tangible national interest" of the French political class. In a number of instances, this political interest has been so strong that it has outdone the economic interests of the country (Yates, 1997: 2-3; Brüne 1995: 238-239).
The European Union as an individual actor also has political interests in Africa and these may very well differ from the interests of the member states. Thus, from the late 1950s and well into the 1980s, the aid relationship with Africa was considered as one of the ‘corner-stones’ of European integration (Lister, 1997: 22). As late as in 1996, the European Commission described the Lomé Convention covering sub-Saharan Africa as "one of the most important facets of the European Union’s external activities" (Green, 1996). These officially declared interests in Africa have to be seen in the context of the general ambition to develop ‘Europe’ into a significant foreign policy actor which has existed ever since the start of the European Community (Cafruny & Peters, 1998a: 1ff; Cameron, 1998: 20). What is interesting in this context is that the possibilities for realising the aim of the European Union to become an international actor in its own right has greatly increased since the end of the cold war.
Concerning European security interests in sub-Saharan Africa, it is difficult to identify narrow military security interests. "Africa in the 1990s is peripheral to international security and cannot expect its problems to be of vital or lasting concerns outside the continent", it is argued by Keith Somerville (1999: 161). On the other hand, several authors have pointed out that the ending of the cold war changed the security framework of Europe in fundamental ways, as new and ‘softer’ security issues moved to the top of the agenda for foreign policy and security thinking in Western Europe (Eliassen, 1998). Interlinking economic, political and security issues became the order of the day creating a pressure to find new roles and new responsibilities for the Community in ways which "approximated to ‘real’ foreign policy" (Smith, 1996: 250ff; Eliassen, 1998: 5). The new security environment stressed the need for a ‘new’ European policy, which by civilian means, could take into account the non-military threats and challenges which characterised the post-cold war situation in Europe (Schirm, 1998: 76). This ‘intertwining’ of the old civilian agenda of the European Community and the new ‘high politics’ of peace and security (Smith, 1996: 253) is the environment within which both the ‘Petersberg tasks’ of the former WEU and the EU rapid reaction force decided upon at the Helsinki summit in December 1999 have to be seen.
If sub-Saharan Africa is going to be placed on the new European security agenda, it has to be argued that Western Europe and Africa are part of the same so-called ‘security complex’ which Barry Buzan defines as "a group of states whose primary security concerns link together sufficiently closely that their national securities cannot realistically be considered apart from one another" (Buzan 1991: 190ff). If the existence of such a close relationship is accepted, it is obvious that Africa primarily represents a threat to what Buzan calls the ‘societal security’(of Europe). Societal security is about "the threats or vulnerabilities that affect patterns of communal identity and culture. The two issues most prominently on its agenda at the beginning of the twenty-first century in centre-periphery relations are migration and the clash of rival civilizational identities" (Buzan 1991b: 447). According to this definition, Europe may have societal security interests in avoiding massive inflows of migrants from, in this case Africa. Looking at the figures, there is no doubt that Africa is the region of the world that is most affected by refugees and internally displaced people. By the end of the old millennium, 14 million people in Africa were either refugees (3 million) or internally displaced (11 million) (UNHCR, 2000). The British aid organisation, DFID, argues that conflicts and the increasing number of displaced people in Africa is a special problem for Europe. Thus, "Europe in particular has to cope with the consequences of the increasing flows of asylum seekers and economic migrants from Africa" (DFID, 2001: 12).
The view that migrants in big numbers may be a societal threat to Europe can be supported by the political debate in the individual members countries during the 1990s as well as by the debates on migration that took place in Bruxelles. The interest in curbing the flow of immigrants from Africa may manifest itself in a number of different policies. One is stricter border control and more European cooperation and policy coordination on immigration. Another initiative could be to do something about the root causes to the increase in migration. Here aid policies aimed at poverty alleviation could be an obvious answer. A third policy response could be to contain or to try to ‘manage’ the violent conflicts and wars in Africa that produce migrants.
Turning to the non-tangible interests of Europe, it is possible to find support for the importance of moral and ethical concerns in European development aid. William Zartmann stresses that a "sense of obligations remains on the part of the European North…there exists a sense of richesse oblige of the Europeans…. "(Zartmann, 1993: 6). The weight of moral responsibility is most clearly found among the smaller European members states such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden (Stokke, 1989). John Ravenhill argues in line with Zartmann but adds an extra dimension. His basis argument is that the poor countries’ most viable bargaining tactics is their "ability to embarrass the EC by publicizing its lack of generosity". The significance of public embarrassment is related to the fact that "for the (European) member states the material gains from Lomé are limited" (Ravenhill, 1993: 43, 56). Ravenhill also argues that giving aid to Africa makes the Europeans ‘feel good’ (Ravenhill, 1985).
In conclusion, it is the argument of this paper that it is insufficient to understand the policy initiatives of Europe towards sub-Saharan Africa solely based on tangible interests such as economics, politics and security. It is necessary to include moral and ethical concerns of the European countries in order thoroughly to understand the policy changes during the 1990. However, based on the brief discussion of the European interests in sub-Saharan Africa, there is no doubt that the tangible interests in the region and thus in its failed states are quite limited. In principle, this statement opens for the possibility that moral and ethical concerns may have a greater influence on the foreign policy initiatives of Europe. In spite of the limited European interests in sub-Saharan Africa, ‘Europe’ nevertheless had a set of policies towards the region. They will be analysed in the following sections.
During the 1990s, European aid policy towards Africa was characterised by two main trends. On the one hand, there were quite significant cuts in the budgets financing long-term development assistance, whereas on the other hand there was a clear and pronounced European willingness to give emergency aid. Thus, the amount of European humanitarian aid in the second half of the 1990s was more than ten times the amount of emergency assistance given in the latter half of the 1980s.
Compared with the growth in emergency assistance, it is significant that the real value of EU (multilateral) long-term development aid to sub-Saharan Africa was reduced from 2,116,000 US dollars in 1994 to 1,662,000 US dollars in 1998 measured in 1997 prices and exchange rates (OECD, 2000: table 29). This decline becomes more conspicuous when compared to the growing percentage of EU development aid to other regions but Africa. sub-Sahara’s relative share of total EU development aid dropped from 53% in 1987/88 to 32.6% in 1998, whereas aid to other geographical areas increased from 47% to 67.4% in the same period (OECD, 2000: table 29).
The bilateral aid from the EU member states was likewise reduced quite remarkably. Thus, the total net disbursements fell from 7,468,000 US dollars in 1994 to 6,040,000 US dollars in 1998 measured in 1997 prices and exchange rates. In relative terms, the EU member states reduced the share of their bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa from 51.7% of the 15 members’ total aid budgets in 1987/88 to 45.4% in 1997/98 (OECD, 1998: table 33).
The growth in European emergency aid has to be seen on the background that in 1991, the EU decided to establish its own special office ‘ECHO’ with responsibility for humanitarian assistance. There were a number of motives for establishing this new and specialised unit. One of these was simply to give the European Community much more international visibility in a policy field which attracted increasing media attention (interview, Bruxelles).
In spite of the fact that the total amount of European emergency aid fluctuated somewhat during the 1990s, for most years it was close to 700 million ECUs reaching 809 million ECUs in 1999. Within the total amount disbursed by ECHO, Africa received roughly around 40% in the first half of the 1990s. In the second half of the decade, the relative allocations to Africa have been reduced to around 30% (in 1996 and 1998) to reach the absolute lowest point in 1999 with a share of only 17%. No doubt, the year 1999 was an exception from the general picture of the 1990s because of the massive European preoccupation with the situation in Kosovo and in the Balkans in general. No less than 55% of total ECHO aid went to ‘former Yugoslavia’, which consequently appears from the statistics for total aid to Africa (ECHO, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998; Eurostat, 1999).
In an international context, ‘Europe’ became the biggest provider of humanitarian assistance on the average accounting for 53-54 % of global emergency aid disbursements during the 1990s. The aggregate amounts of humanitarian aid from ECHO, ‘other Commission’ (i.e. refugee programmes, emergency food aid) plus the bilateral contributions from the member states gave ‘Europe’ this status. As a separate donor, ECHO accounted for around one third of this amount (ECHO, 1998: 29; ECHO, 2000). In the second half of the 1990s, the share of ECHO assistance tended to stabilise around 14% of total EU aid (OECD, 2000: table 14).
Based on these figures, it seems reasonable to argue that the Union slowly moved its priorities from a long-term commitment in the form of aid towards a much more short-term involvement in sub-Saharan Africa. It seems probable that the reduction in long-term development aid reflects the general lack of tangible, i.e. economic, political and security interests in the region. There is also a considerable amount of information supporting the interpretation that general scepticism has increased among donors regarding the effectiveness of aid to promote social and economic development in Africa. In general, Africa is increasingly being perceived as a particularly difficult case (Riddle, 1999; Walle, 1999; Lister, 1998; Thérien & Lloyd, 2000; World Bank 1998, 2000). Apparently, the decreasing belief in the effectiveness of development aid goes hand in hand with a decreasing moral commitment to the fate of the continent.
However, there is also another interpretation of the changes in the European aid policies and that is that the strong moral commitment to help people in need found an outlet in the increasing emergency assistance that went to Africa and to other regions of the world during the 1990s. Seen in this light, the change in policy focus can be explained by a change in character of the moral commitment to Africa - and not by a shift in the economic and political interests.
Surveys show that a clear majority of the Europeans are in favour of ‘helping the poor’ in the developing world (INRA, 1999: 3, 26-27), but the willingness to help covers that "the rationale for aid in public mind was and remains emergency relief" (Smillie, 1996: 28; INRA, 1999). This is in agreement with observations pointing out that development issues generally rank far behind acute problems affecting people more directly, such as unemployment, pollution etc (INRA, 1995). "Historically when development is compared with other goals of public spending or other preoccupations, its priority is much lower", it is stressed by Randel and German (Randel & German, 1998: 163). But still, around half the Europeans find that ‘Europe’ is the region "best placed to help Africa" (INRA, 1999: 30). And here it is worth noting that there are no indications that the ‘humanitarian appeals’ from NGOs in disaster situations have lost ground in the 1990s (Smillie, 1996: 32; INRA, 1999).
During the 1990s, Africa’s security problems became a special concern of the European Union. According to former EU Commissioner for development aid, Joao de Deus Pinheiro, it was mainly because of the growth in number of violent conflicts (Pinheiro, 1999). The initiative to focus on conflicts and conflict prevention in Africa came specifically from Pinheiro’s General Directorate for development, DGVIII, where the first initiative on ‘Peace-building, conflict prevention and resolution in Africa’ can be traced back to early 1993, i.e. before the real growth in the number of violent internal conflicts became part of the general perception of Africa (Landgraf, 1998: 103).
Parallel to its focus on development aid and conflict prevention, DGVIII aimed at strengthening the African capacity regarding conflict management manifesting itself in a number of initiatives to develop closer relations between EU and the OAU. From the very start, the main theme of the dialogue with the OAU was that conflict prevention and conflict resolution were primarily the responsibility of the Africans themselves. Therefore, the EU summit in Essen in December 1994 called for "an intensive political dialogue between the EU and OAU in particular regarding conflict prevention in Africa" (Landgraf, 1998: 105).
A year later, in December 1995, the European Union Summit in Madrid officially made the security problems of Africa a public concern of Europe (Conclusions, 1995). It is worth noting that at that time in 1995 and parallel to the Madrid Summit declaration, the WEU started to identify national forces that could be available for preventive operations in Africa and for supportive actions (Lenzi, 1995: 48).
In March 1996, the Commission issued a ‘communication’ on conflict and conflict prevention in Africa stressing that the use of development aid and related instruments were considered to be important to the European Union. In June 1997, a so-called ‘common position’ was issued making it clear that conflict prevention was a priority of the EU. The common position contained a reference to "the implementation of the defence implications of EU actions within the initiative on conflict prevention by the WEU" (Landgraf, 1998: 110). A few days later, the Council of Development Ministers agreed upon a resolution that clearly signalled that conflict prevention was now a main concern of the European Community in general (Landgraf, 1998: 110).
The decisions reached at the December 1998 French-British summit in St. Malo (Howorth, 2000: 33-35) were particularly important because both countries at that time recognised that time had come to end the contest for influence in Africa between the two old colonial powers (FT, 10.03.99). In order to show that the two former colonial powers were serious about their intentions to leave behind the past, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hubert Védrine, and the British Foreign Minister, Robin Cook, made a historical trip to Africa in March 1999. Together, the two ministers visited both Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which was seen as an expression of their strong wish to create a "historic new partnership with Africa [...]. Mr. Cook said that the two countries acting together could help Africa to boost trade, reduce debt and find solutions to its conflicts" (Independent, 12.03.99).
In the wake of the Franco-British trip to the Ivory Coast and Ghana, Africa’s potential function as an element in the ambition to establish a European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was pointed out by Ian Black who noted that "Africa provides a handy platform for high-profile cooperation between Europe’s biggest military powers at a time" (Guardian, 12.03.99). The argument was basically in line with the thinking on Africa found within the WEU. According to Guido Lenzi, sub-Saharan Africa was important because the region "is an area for Petersberg missions". Also the region was important because it can contribute to "a global affirmation of the European Security and Defence identity" (Lenzi, 1995: 64 & 63).
It is worth dwelling briefly on why the two old rivals suddenly took steps towards common positions on Africa and also ask why they took a bilateral rather than a common European approach. One answer seems to lie in the hands of technocrats suspicious of sharing influence with countries with little or no history on the continent (FT, 10.03.99). Also, an important common goal for Paris and London was to control or at least to have the upper hand in a potential multilateral policy of the EU towards sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, closer co-operation between the two countries was perceived as a precondition to overcome the traditional reservations of so important European actors as Germany and Italy. Thus, it was the understanding that should a European Security and Defence Policy ever become a reality, an effective Franco-British axis in defence affairs is a prerequisite, if Germany is to play a full part in an ESDP (Clarke, 2000: 733).
Finally, both countries feel some responsibility to address security crises in and around the periphery of Europe. "Given the post-colonial heritage and a large element in the strategic culture of both countries which tries to define an international role, both countries have also become involved in crises in the wider world. And in the military and humanitarian tactics of crisis management and peace support operations there is more evident commonality in the operations of British and French forces, than in many of the operations of British and American forces" (Clarke, 2000: 738).
Changing British and French defence policy
It is striking that there seems to be a considerable identity between the goals for the Union’s defence policy and the goals for the fundamental changes of the French defence policy that have been taking place since 1996. On a national basis, France announced goals for itself similar to the Petersberg tasks. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac declared "We are in an era in which crisis prevention is of capital importance……it is imperative that France be capable of projecting abroad a significant number of men, 50,000 to 60,000…in rapid organised conditions" (Yost, 2000: 117). The professionalization of the French army and the end of national service was passed as law in November 1997, making it clear that the days of French interventionism in Africa is over, which was also declared publicly by Lionel Jospin (Marchal, 1998: 363f).
There are at least two crucial elements concerning the current French military ambitions on the continent. One is prevention, as pointed out by Jacques Chirac, and the other is pre-positioning of forces in Africa. Both code words are expected to maximize the utility and flexibility of French standing forces outside Europe, and the professionalization of the armed forces should permit an increasing number of French troops on different overseas missions. Likewise, the current pattern of spending reveals a prioritisation of France’s remaining bases in Africa, "from which it is safe to deduce an emphasis in the future on prevention within the African continent…..This assessment is in line with France’s stated anxiety about the threats to its interests arising from these quarters", as argued by Shaun Gregory (Gregory, 2000: 446). By using its standing presence and infrastructure to facilitate multi-national operations, France is either assured a leading role in international deployments in much of Africa… or, if other states or organizations are unwilling to act, the chance to reassert a unilateral relevance (Gregory, 2000: 447). In this context, it is probably of crucial importance that in a number of statements made by the Socialist Party, the necessity of a European dimension to French policy towards Africa has been stressed (Marchal, 1998: 370).
Turning towards the current British defence plans, there is as in the French case a striking similarity with the goals for the EU defence plans. Thus in July 2000, the government announced an initiative on international conflict prevention. According to the Foreign Office, it is designed to deliver more effective British interventions overseas involving military operations, Britain’s contributions to the UN and other international peacekeeping missions and also bilateral initiatives to prevent conflict. It is interesting to note that the Department for International Development (DFID) seems to have had considerable influence on these new plans, as it is also stressed that the aim of future British interventions may be to reduce conflict-related poverty and also to deliver stability in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. Whereas DFID has a particular focus on Africa, the FCO (Foreign Ministry) tries hard to resist any appearance of bias towards any particular region of the world (Clarke, 2000: 730-731).
The recent British defence plans have their background in the UK’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review which established that the national objective of British defence was to be able to undertake, simultaneously, two brigade-size operations, one of short duration (involving war-fighting) and the other of a more prolonged crisis-management type. In all the speeches and proposals on enhanced European capacity, the UK similarly emphasises deployability and sustainability (Howorth, 2000: 38). Finally, the British emphasis on smaller, but more flexible armed forces intended for particular expeditionary operations have, at least partly, their background in the significant cuts made in the defence budgets during the 1990s (Rogers, 1997: 655ff).
Does Africa fit into the common defence policy?
During the 1990s, the EU member states agreed upon the Union Treaty and later also the Amsterdam treaty which stated that the aim of the Union was to strengthen its identity in international affairs via the implementation of the CFSP. In spite of the reluctance of many member states to give too much power to the CFSP (Rhodes, 1998; Cafruny & Peters, 1998b: 299), the Maastricht Treaty nevertheless introduced a new element in European foreign policy-making: the system of ‘joint actions’ which opened up for closer co-operation and thus for the possibility of common European foreign policies on selected issues and in areas where the member states share important interests (Piening, 1997: 40-42). For this paper it is particularly interesting that one of the first five joint actions decided upon in 1993 was directed towards Africa, namely South Africa which became "the only out-of-area joint action". The joint actions are closely related to the ambitions to develop the Union into a significant international actor, which makes Martin Holland argue that what was interesting about the joint action on South Africa was that it "offered an opportunity for the new Union to express its global role" (Holland, 1997: 174).
However, it was not until the end of 1998 at the St. Malo meeting that a decisive change in the official European attitudes towards developing the defence dimension of the European Union took place. The crucial decision was the open British support to the plans to establish a European defence followed by the declaration at the EU Summit in Cologne in 1999, which made the formal decision to transfer to the EU the right of the West European Union (WEU) to carry out peace-keeping operations (Andréani, 2000: 81ff). Thus, the Cologne decision meant that the European Union acquired the right to make decisions on the ‘Petersberg tasks’. According to Michael Clarke, this so-called St. Malo process has "implications that go far beyond security policy itself" (Clarke, 2000: 733).
Based on rapid changes towards developing a CFSP, it is hardly surprising that the Portuguese Presidency in January 2000 issued a so-called ‘Reflection paper’ stressing that "development priorities should also be thought in the context of ongoing European dynamics namely those related to the reorganisation of external relations (in the Commission) and the building of a European CFSP, i.e. Common Foreign and Security Policy. Being realistic about development means thinking in a integrated manner about politics, security and trade as well as development aid itself" (Reflection, 2000: 12).
Of course, it remains to be seen whether the Europeans will select relatively modest scenarios for their future defence capability, such as humanitarian and rescue tasks close to home, or whether they will pursue more ambitious aims. Geographical areas of operation remain vague, and therefore it is very much up to the political will of the European Union if future interventions will be within the scope of the Petersberg tasks and also if they will be restricted to areas bordering the European Union.
Until the rapid reaction force is established, we only have the declarations of politicians and other officials. Geoff Hoon, Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence, has argued that the force’s activities in its early stages will be confined to "Europe and its back yard". Hoon also noted that "there is no formal geographical limit". His French counterpart, Alain Richard, argued that the defence initiative "signifies that we are not limiting our zone of influence to our continent alone". Mr Richard used East Timor as an example, while a British official said that "Mozambique, Sierra Leone, even East Timor would also have benefited" (Independent, 21.11.00). In full agreement with these reflections, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin suggested in September 2000 that the EU could intervene in Africa, under UN auspices and in close co-operation with the Organisation of African Unity (Yost, 2000, 113).
On other occasions, British officials have hinted at the possibility that the rapid reaction force will be used for a wide range of tasks. Thus, "British officials say a joint force could be sent to rescue EU citizens from a crisis in an African country or for peacekeeping in Bosnia" (Guardian, 20.11.00). In other words, "the EU will tell its big brother (Nato and thus USA): we have, say some civilians to rescue in Algeria or some light peace-keeping to do in Rwanda; please show us how and, if possible lend us a hand" (Economist, 25.11.00).
The radical changes in CFSP seem to reflect strengthened European ambitions to develop a stronger role for the Union in world politics. The British and the French back the attempts to develop the military capacity of the Union because both counties seek more political and military options under national and/or EU control and thus diminished dependence on the United States. Also, the two countries expect to gain more influence on future NATO strategies by developing a separate European capability (Yost, 2000: 122). For the analysis in this paper, it means that it is primarily European political interests that have been behind the recent changes in the European security policy including the changes in the Union’s relations with sub-Saharan Africa. The actual position of Africa on the overall European security agenda strongly depends on what Britain and France find suitable. Here it is important that both countries are deeply engaged in reforming their national defence systems towards much more mobile forces to be deployed in crisis management operations. It is obvious that smaller, flexible and mobile forces can easily fit into the ambitions contained in the Petersberg tasks, and so can the future EU rapid reactions force.
It is important that the existing official purpose of the European Union’s defence ambitions is limited to the ‘Petersberg tasks’, i.e. exactly the type of low-intensity conflicts characterizing most conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. It is still to be remembered that the rapid reaction force is a minor military unit, which gives it very clear limitations. Nevertheless, "if it is going to be a European army, it will be one in miniature. Yet, small though it may be, it could have critical political effects" (Guardian, 19.01.01).
If the European Union’s rapid reaction force is going to be involved in humanitarian rescue operations in Africa under the Petersberg principles, it will probably depend on two circumstances. One is that the relevant decision-makers within the EU are in a position to convince the European public that the failed states of Africa constitute a threat to the societal security of Europe, mainly because complex humanitarian emergencies produce refugees and migrants. The other precondition for European interventions in failed states in Africa is that there is massive media coverage of humanitarian emergencies being played out there. Media coverage is crucial to inform the public and not least to rouse the humanitarian sentiments which lie dormant in the European public.
Non-tangible reasons for a European policy towards Africa?
As a start, it has to be stressed that there is no firm basis for the existence of a general ‘CNN effect’ (Jakobsen, 2000; Gowing, 1994; Robinson 1999). On the other hand, humanitarian emergencies seem to represent an exception from the general picture. At least, Lionel Rosenblatt claims that "in a narrowly focussed situation such as humanitarian emergencies, the media play a decisive role in informing the public and stimulating action" (Rosenblatt, 1996: 140 & 139). There is considerable support to the point that media coverage is important for promoting political action in relation to humanitarian emergencies (Rothberg & Weiss, 1996; Giradet, 1996; Rosenblatt, 1996) even though it is not to be ignored that Piers Robinson claims that existing research on media influence in humanitarian disaster situations fails "to clarify the significance of media impact on humanitarian intervention decisions" (Robinson, 1999).
If media coverage is important for securing humanitarian assistance from Europe, it has to be stressed that a lot of African crises have not been covered and hardly will be media-covered in the future (Natsios, 1996). This is basically to be explained by the fact that a humanitarian emergency situation must be ‘news’, and here Africa is facing special problems, because generally it is no ‘news’ that Africa experiences yet another humanitarian disaster. If an emergency situation contains no ‘news’ it is absolutely necessary that the news is ‘framed’ in the right way in order to create a public opinion for action (Robinson, 1999; Girardet, 1996: 58). The need for framing is explained by the fact that "media reports do not objectively report on humanitarian crises. Rather, they report crises in particular, and often very different ways" (Robinson, 1999), where sometimes the media tend to ‘advocate’ action, and in other instances they do not. Or as Michael Ignatieff puts it: "We cannot have misery without aid workers. They conjure away the horror by suggesting that help is at hand…..Television coverage of humanitarian assistance allows the West the illusion that it is doing something….." (Ignatieff, 1998: 298).
The differences in ‘media framing’ can explain why the Western powers acted in the cases of Kurdistan and Somalia: it was because the media simply presented it as a ‘necessity’. Most importantly, framing may also explain the lack of action towards a number of humanitarian crises in Africa, such as the ones in Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone during the 1990s. These countries and what happened there were largely pictured as the ‘Heart of Darkness’ (Robinson, 1999).
So, if TV shows human suffering on a massive scale, it creates strong emotional reactions (Ignatieff, 1998: 291ff) which next creates popular expectations and pressure on governments to react in emergency situations. Opinion surveys back policy-makers in taking decisions in such situations that have strong symbolic appeal and strong popular backing and therefore, it is tempting for European policy-makers to pursue this kind of short-term policies. These reflections also apply in situations where the decisions involve deployment of armed forces. Exactly because humanitarian emergencies in Africa very often also are complex political emergencies involving armed groups and considerable civilian casualties, such emergencies may serve as the ideal ‘reasons’ for the European Union to intervene not only with humanitarian assistance, but also with armed forces to support and defend the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The paper started by claiming that most states in Africa can adequately be described as ‘failed’ because they - or rather the decision-makers located within the states - have failed to do anything serious about the fundamental development problems of the continent. The paper then raised two questions. The first was, how did ‘Europe’ react to failed states in Africa during the 1990s? And secondly, how do we explain the policy responses and policy initiatives of Europe? The basic argument of the paper is that the policy responses can be explained by the nature of European interests in Africa, be they tangible or non-tangible.
The first observation was that the European responses to the failures of the African states were not to engage more deeply in solving the problems of development. Rather on the contrary, the Europeans reduced their development aid drastically, while at the same time there was a considerable growth in the transfers of emergency assistance to the continent. Parallel to the growth in emergency assistance, an increasing European preoccupation with security in Africa was identified. During the 1990s the focus on security issues in Africa became closely related to the ambitions to develop a common foreign and security policy for the European Union, which is a crucial element in the old ambition to develop the European Community into a significant international actor. The open question is where Africa fits into this ambition.
The scrutiny of the tangible European interests showed that it is very difficult to find strong economic, political or security interests in Africa. The only possible tangible European interest in Africa is tied to its societal security, which basically consists in keeping down the number of immigrants and asylum seekers. The societal security interests may explain Europe’s increasing emphasis on security in Africa, because conflicts and wars produce refugees. The only means to contain and manage the typical African conflict is by means of smaller, flexible, mobile and highly professional military units. It is exactly this kind of military forces that France, Britain and the European Union are engaged in establishing.
The interests and thus the forces behind this enterprise seem to be on the one hand European political ambitions in developing the EU into a significant international actor. All member states do not necessarily have to support this endeavour, as long as they do not work against it. On the other hand, in more or less all EU member countries there are ‘soft security’ interests in keeping down the level of immigration from Africa into Europe. This concern with societal security can also clearly be identified at the common level, i.e. in Bruxelles.
In summary, the European policy responses to Africa’s failed states have shifted from promotion of development by means of foreign aid towards emergency assistance with the possibility of crisis management by military means. The goal of crisis management is containment of the conflicts on the continent with the aim to keep down the number of potential refugees and displaced persons. This reorientation of policy can basically be explained by reference to tangible European interests such as societal security, possibly combined with the political interests in making the EU an international actor in its own right.
The consequence of this statement is that non-tangible interests such as ‘justice’ are clearly of minor significance in explaining the shifts in policy responses to the failed states in Africa. However, this conclusion must not lead to a conclusion that morality and ethics have no significance for Europe’s policies towards Africa. The incontrovertible existence of a moral commitment to help people in need found an outlet in the growing emergency assistance during the 1990s. The humanitarian attitudes may also play a role in the future if a morally based claim should arise demanding that ‘Europe’ does something about the complex political emergencies and armed conflicts on the continent. If that will be the case, the moral commitment of the Europeans may indirectly support the deployment of military forces on short-term missions in Africa.
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