David Styan

The security of Africans beyond borders: migration, remittances and London's transnational entrepreneurs

This article provides an overview of selected aspects of how the economic security of growing numbers of Africans is linked to international migration. It first examines the emergence since 2005 of a new international policy discourse emphasizing the positive economic benefits of migration through remittance flows, the transfer of ideas and inward investment by migrants. The article outlines European policy responses to the recent upsurge in illegal Africa migration across the Mediterranean and examines the reaction of African governments and the Africa Union to increased migration and the enhanced dependence of African economies on remittance flows. The final section highlights the way in which the accelerated settlement of Africans in the UK prefigures longer term changes in the UKs relationship with Africa.

Jacques Chirac's ‘ non ’: France, Iraq and the United Nations, 1991–2003

This article narrates selected aspects of the background to Frances threatened use of its UN Security Council veto in March 2003. The article suggests that, although far from inevitable, Chiracs ‘non’ of 10 March arose from a policy framework established by September 2002. Decision‐making therefore had a coherence and continuity largely ignored in English‐language reporting of French diplomacy in the run up to war. This framework was informed by principles long central to French foreign policy, including the primacy of the UN Security Council as a source of international legitimacy. The text examines the range of diplomatic and commercial interests behind the revival of Franco‐Iraqi relations during the 1990s. Ties with Baghdad are in turn related to aspects of Frances broader Arab and Middle Eastern policy, with Paris both echoing and harnessing regional unease with and opposition to sanctions on Iraq by the later 1990s.

EU power and armed humanitarianism in Africa: evaluating ESDP in Chad

This article analyses the European Unions (EUs) largest European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) military mission outside Europe to date; Eufor Tchad/RCA was a 3700-strong force involving personnel from 23 states, deployed to Chad and the Central African Republic for 12 months from March 2008. Far from this mission achieving EU ‘supremacy’ or projecting an ‘imperial’ reach, an evaluation of its objectives and achievements reveals acute limitations in the EUs ability to project power. The article analyses the context in which Eufor was conceived and deployed. It notes that the missions weaknesses, like those of the United Nations mission to whom the EU transferred its security role in 2009, reflected its convoluted origins and objectives. Finally, the article examines whether the EU as a unitary actor has the desire or the ability to ‘replace’ individual European nations—in this case France—in their post-colonial military and ‘humanitarian’ roles in sub-Saharan Africa.

Djibouti: small state strategy at a crossroads

Abstract Geography and politics indicate Djibouti would be a particularly weak and ineffectual ‘small state’. Located on a bridgehead between the poorest parts of Africa and Arabia, it is continental Africa’s smallest state by population and is devoid of natural resources. The text demonstrates that Djibouti has been able to transform weakness and liabilities stemming from its geo-strategic location, sandwiched between large neighbours and key maritime shipping lanes, into a lucrative ‘resource’. This has been achieved via creative diplomacy, fostering ties with a diverse range of states, translating acute dependence into economic and diplomatic capital. The text focuses primarily upon diplomatic strategies, while addressing broader concerns of small states’ energy, infrastructure and development policies.

All at sea? Maritime dimensions of Europe's relations with Africa

The article examines three dimensions of Europe’s maritime relations with Africa: first, the notion that Europe’s strategic maritime frontiers are linked to Africa; second, the coherence or ‘actorness’ of the European Union’s (EU) anti-piracy force operating off the Horn of Africa; and third, the relationship between the EU’s own military and naval objectives and its wider regional policies in Africa. While the EU adopted a ‘Maritime Security Strategy’ in 2014, the article notes that, in practice, the EU’s strategy at sea has focused on two groups of ‘non-state actors’: the Africans who are ‘pirates’; and the migrants crossing the Mediterranean, who are the object of the EU’s Frontex patrols. As such, the initial question examined charts the somewhat fluid notion of the sea as a maritime frontier: where do Europe’s strategic interests in terms of its maritime frontiers lie? Is the EU’s anti-piracy mission defending them? Is this first-ever maritime mission a more tangible manifestation of EU’s common foreign and defence policy than some of the other shorter and smaller military and policing missions in Africa?

Chad’s political violence at 50

Book synopsis: France’s presence on the African continent has often been presented as ‘cooperation’ and part of French cultural policy by policy-makers in Paris – and quite as often been denounced as ‘the longest scandal of the republic’ by French academics and African intellectuals. Between the last years of French colonialism and France’s sustained interventions in former African colonies such as Chad or Cote d’Ivoire during the 2000s, the legacy of French colonialism has shaped the historical trajectory of more than a dozen countries and societies in Africa. The complexities of this story are now, for the first time, addressed in a comprehensive series of essays, based on new research by a group of specialists in French colonial history. The book addresses the needs of both academic specialists and those of students of history and neighbouring disciplines looking for structural analysis of key themes in France’s and Africa’s shared history.

Introduction: Sami Zubaida, modernity, politics and a social Middle East

This special section of Economy and Society is a tribute to Sami Zubaida. He was one of the journals original founders and has been its longest serving editorial board member. As with several other intellectual ventures whose birth he has assisted, ES all but one are edited versions of texts first presented at a conference convened jointly by Economy and Society and Birkbeck College in December 2010. This sought to evaluate and celebrate his work in equal measure. The conference brought together scholars, critics, friends and students, with many in the audience having embraced each of these relationships across the decades. The papers and debates of that winter day partially traced the impact of this work on the study of political sociology, above all in the study of the societies and states of the Middle East. Each paper presented here engages with an aspect of social and political change in that much misunderstood region, illustrating intellectual and political legacies that Samis substantial body of work continues to provide. The tributes are complemented by a new text from Sami himself, situating the tumultuous events of 2011–2012 in Arab states within his longer-term analytical framework. This introduction presents each of the papers, noting their context relative to themes from Samis biography and major works. It then draws attention to other key aspects of Samis oeuvre, several of which were centre-stage in the conference debates, but which - due to the vagaries of academic deadlines and editorial commitments - are absent from this collection. The most obvious omission from this intellectual menu is his erudition and works on the history and cultures of food.