The European Union's Africa policies: norms, interests and impact, by Daniela Sicurelli, Farnham, Ashgate, 2010, 212 pp., £55.00 (hardback), ISBN 9781409400981
This is a well-researched and insightful book that covers a number of significant aspects of EU–Africa relations. The book begins with an outline of the theoretical framework employed in the analysis. Three empirical chapters then follow that focus on key areas of the relationship: conflict management, trade and development, and environmental protection. The analysis of each issue follows a similar structure. Firstly, a historical review of Europe–Africa relations in the specific area, informed by an awareness of wider global debates, is provided. Then a specific case study is introduced within each issue area (Darfur for conflict management, Economic Partnership Agreement [EPA] negotiations for trade and development, and global climate change negotiations for environmental protection). The final section of each chapter provides analysis of the European policymaking process and, in particular, assesses the complex dynamics between different EU institutions. Primary research in the form of 35 formal interviews with relevant policymakers provides much of the basis of this analysis of policymaking. The concluding chapter then assesses the EU's Africa policies with specific reference to the promotion of regional integration in all three issue areas.
Sicurelli adopts a sociological institutionalist approach to understanding EU–Africa relations. Put simply, this suggests that norms are embedded within institutions and that, as a result, a ‘logic of appropriateness’ shapes the behaviour of actors within an institution. Consequently the book focuses on the normative agenda of the EU and the policymaking process within the EU. By doing so it reminds us that in our analysis of Europe's external relations the EU should not be understood simply as a unitary actor. It also provides a convincing critique of the realist approach, which suggests that the EU's Africa policy can be reduced to the sum of the strategic interests of the member states. Sicurelli's analysis suggests that there are competing normative agendas within, and between, both the Council and the European Commission. For example, in the chapter on trade and development it becomes clear that the Directorate-General for Trade (DG Trade) and the Directorate-General for Development (DG Development) within the European Commission have competing views about what the priorities of EPAs should be. DG Trade has ultimate responsibility for negotiating with its African partners compared with the secondary role of DG Development. This goes some way to explaining the strong focus on trade liberalisation within the EPA negotiations and the refusal to accept a proposal from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states for an adjustment fund in addition to European Development Fund money. Divisions between member states are also apparent in a number of cases. For example, Sicurelli argues that different positions emerged during the debate over whether to implement a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) operation to support African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. The UK, Italy and the Netherlands initially opposed an ESDP operation and were in favour of a NATO operation instead, whereas France was particularly keen on the idea of a European operation.
In the concluding chapter Sicurelli suggests that this sociological institutionalist approach reveals aspects of EU–Africa relations that a normative approach, such as neo-Gramscianism, does not. This thesis partly rests on the claim that the EU's approach is not always reducible to a neoliberal framework. The book often contrasts EU policy to Africa with that of the US in attempting to demonstrate this. Whilst these contrasts are useful, and in areas such as climate change, differences between the EU and US do clearly exist, it is questionable to what extent they represent an approach that departs from a broadly conceived neoliberal agenda. Sicurelli does highlight one significant difference between the EU and US approaches to Africa. This is the promotion of regionalism within Africa, which informs the EU's policies in all three issue areas considered in the book. As Sicurelli notes at a more general level, ‘the representation of the EU as an example for African integration dominated the negotiations for the creation and development of the AU’ (p. 152).
The book also adds another key dimension to the analysis by considering how African elites respond to the norms being promoted by the EU. This is a particularly significant issue given that in recent years China has increased its interest in the continent and the so-called Beijing Consensus does offer an alternative development path for African policymakers. As the author acknowledges in the introductory chapter, by only focusing on the views of representatives of African regional organisations we do get a rather limited assessment of the response of Africa to EU policy. It might have been interesting to contrast these responses with those of civil society organisations, who, whilst not being directly involved at the level of negotiations, may well have an opinion on EU policy. In essence, by seeking to steer a course between both rationalist and critical approaches, Sicurelli is naturally reticent to discuss the potential consequences of the EU's policies for the development and security of African populations.
In sum, the claims by European institutions themselves and many in the academic literature that the EU is a ‘good international citizen’ are, to some extent, problematised by the contradictions revealed in the various case studies discussed by Sicurelli. Therefore, the book prompts a reconsideration of the idea of ‘normative power Europe’. In doing so there might still be a need to consider both the material basis of the norms that inform the EU's policies towards Africa and the wider ideational contours of the contemporary global political economy. This book provides a key contribution to both theoretical debates about how to understand the EU as an actor in international relations and our empirical knowledge of its policies towards Africa.