ABSTRACT

This contribution suggests that the quarter of the world’s states that are African can yet contribute to international political economy (IPE) theory and practice as the North enters a period of ambivalence about, if not retreat from, positive global engagement. The diversion away from international order and peace of the US under Trump, the UK under May, and the EU and Europe, the latter characterised by unanticipated immigration and endless eurozone crises, can be positive for ‘African’ agency/development; i.e. if the continent can seize the unprecedented space to advance its own ‘developmental’ states and regionalisms. In doing so, the chapter contends that African IR and IPE theory and policy go beyond traditional ‘Northern’ perspectives like realism and constructivism to issues, factors and frameworks that reflect the continent’s own experiences of and responses to ‘global’ IR.