Framing Power: Discursive Contestations and the Influence of External Actors in the African Union’s Key Issue Areas

Alice Musabende Framing Power: Discursive Contestations and the Influence of External Actors in the African Union’s Key Issue Areas. ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the dynamics of the power relationship between the African Union and non-African external actors. For many authors, this relationship is understood in terms of a donor-recipient dynamic: the AU is in a permanent and continuous negotiation with more powerful extra-regional actors over the funding of its activities across a broad range of policies and political programmes. As such, external actors are seen as having influence over processes and outcomes. This conventional view is however increasingly contested: a growing number of scholars argue that while AU actors may have limited control over the financing, they are still able to exert significant influence and lead on issues. This thesis reconsiders how to theorize this relationship, and asks the following question: How should the influence of external actors in key issue areas of the African Union be characterised? The thesis analyses the dynamics of interactions between external actors and AU actors in three issue areas: peace and security; migration; and human rights. It does so in a manner which enhances our understanding of external involvement beyond donor dependency, by focusing on discourse, framing and the role of ideas. In the AU issue area of peace and security, the dissertation analyses military intervention and civilian protection; in the migration issue area the analysis focuses on the treatment of migrants; and in the issue area of human rights, the dissertation analyses the rights of sexual minorities. This thesis argues that an important element in the relationship between the AU and external actors is the discursive struggle over the ways in which contemporary African issues should be framed. A focus on discursive contestations therefore helps us better understand African and non-African agency within the African Union. Thus, this dissertation expands our understanding of ideational and discursive interactions between African and non-African actors in the AU, as well as the nature of the contestations and inevitable frictions which arise from them.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Musabende, Alice

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Curtis, Devon

• International Relations
• African Agency
• African Union
• Discourses
• AU-EU Relations
• AU-UN Relations
• Regionalism
• African Regionalism

Licence

• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.86676

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/339268