Africa: Sanctions, Elites and Sovereign Development

Africa: Sanctions, Elites and Sovereign Development.
Resp. editor: corresponding member RAS, Doctor of Economics, Professor L.L. Fituni
Moscow IAfr RAS. 2021. – 368 с.
ISBN 978-5-91298-270-5

This monograph is devoted to one of the most pressing issues in the study of such fields as international relations, global governance, legal regimes of multilateral interaction between states and individual segments of societies - the issue of using international sanctions as a tool of geopolitics and economic expansion. The topic is of fundamental and practical importance for understanding the current stage of the evolution of the world order in the post-coronavirus era. An important characteristic of this stage is the gradual loss of exclusive positions by the previously dominant “old players” (the United States and some other Western countries), which they, nevertheless, try to maintain by force and whenever possible by non-violent means. Use of sanctions belong to the non-violent methods of coercion. When using them, a large role is assigned to the work with the national elites of "rising" powers – the "new players" claiming significant positions in the polycentric world, as well as simply strategically or geopolitically important countries in Africa, the Middle East and the post-Soviet space.

The use of international sanctions has become especially widespread since the end of the Cold War and the establishment of a unipolar world customized to the dictates of the United States.

Sanctions against sovereign countries and representatives of national elites pose significant risks to societies, the economies, and system of public administration. Globally, the existing legal, political, economic, cultural and humanitarian foundations of international relations are being undermined. The mutually agreed instruments and institutions of global coexistence and interaction of states, which were long and difficult to build, are crumbling. The situation of global instability is growing, fraught with catastrophic international consequences.

All this has a particularly hard effect on the relatively young sovereign states of Africa, the region chosen as the geographical area of our study. African economies, as a rule, are underdeveloped and very vulnerable to negative external influences. African societies are not fully consolidated, their institutions are immature, elites are few in numbers, and the bulk of the population is very young and has an insufficient level of education.

As far as we know, the book offered to the reader's attention is the first ever comprehensive monographic study specifically devoted to the impact of sanctions on the states and peoples of Africa - the vast macroregion of the world, which, despite all the diversity of country differences, is characterized by a high degree of similarity of specific economic, political and social conditions and the reasons for the emergence of sanctions pressure on governments, organizations and citizens, as well as the response to such pressure.

The content of the book can be roughly divided into three structural components. The first two chapters are devoted to a theoretical and empirical analysis of various aspects of national sovereignty, decolonization, the formation of modern statehood in Africa, the place of elites and leadership in the modern power structure in them, the role of external pressure and sanctions coercion as a tool for constructing social and political processes on the continent. Chapters from three to six examine the history, practice and technology of the use of sanctions against African countries by the United Nations, the African Union and Western countries.

The final chapter is devoted to the impact of sanctions mechanisms on the socio-economic development of the countries of the continent that fell under them. At the same time, special attention is paid to the so-called particularly vulnerable economies. This chapter also explores alternative options for countering sanctions and reducing the harm they cause to victim countries.