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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how the foreign policies of African states track elite narratives about national liberation and national development over time; narratives about development have become more important over time and have guided changes the foreign policies of several African states.

Paper long abstract:

Emergent African elites in the 1950s and 1960s achieved the liberation of their respective nations through either armed struggle, (mostly) non-violent political struggle, or amiable dialogues about what post-colonial arrangements would be most amenable to both sides. These elites developed distinctive narratives for the popular consumption of their national constituents corresponding to these modes of national liberation. After independence, these narratives persisted in the national political dialogues of various countries, and largely served as the ideological foundation of the foreign policies of African states. As the case of Guinea-Conakry illustrates so well, these narratives often trumped existential national economic needs in foreign policy orientations. In opposite cases, like that of Côte d'Ivoire, cooperative narratives of liberation led to dependent, even subservient, international relationships with former metropoles. As "founding" national regimes were supplanted over time through the death of national leaders, coups d'état, and (rarely) national elections, liberation narratives were gradually replaced by narratives about national development. These follow-on discourses had an equally powerful influence over foreign policies as did liberation discourses; many African countries completely re-oriented their foreign policies in keeping with these new discourses. The re-emergence of China as a major player on the African continent, and as an alternative model of development, has more recently led to yet another round of "discourse reorientation" and corresponding changes in African foreign policies. This paper traces the changes in select African national narratives and foreign policies over time.