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    The Dilemma of International Relations in Africa: Theory and Practice in the Cases of Ghana and Nigeria
    (Selçuk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, 2021) Mohammed, Ishmeal; Çalış, Şaban Halis
    African academics accused current International Relations (IR) theory and scholars of exclusivism, discriminatory, and selective in the study of IR. They argue that IR theory in the African context is far from explaining states behavior and international relations in Africa. The Western response is that States in Africa are weak, patrimonial, and traditionally theocratic and lack basic features of a normal state. However, emerging trends in international politics which highlights the sudden changes of major transition in geopolitics from unipolar to a gradual multipolar world coupled with environmental crisis, disease, terrorism, immigration crisis, gender, racism, other identity crisis, drug and human trafficking, cosmopolitanism, transnationalism and nationalism, Islamophobia, democratization and cyber issues in the world have widened the debates to include other units-actors. Thus, there is the need to reexamine the theory and practice in International Relations in Africa. There is an unending debate in International Relations (IR) which has made many scholars to describe the area as the discipline of debates. After a catalogue of disciplinary debates one would have thought the discipline has had enough of its puzzle in terms of history, theory and methodology. In fact, there is a progressive debate between competing claims of Western and non-Western (peripheral) apologists amidst sudden dynamics and transformation of the international space in international relations. This new debate raises the question of IR lacking ‘internationality’ due to the argument of deficiency in theory and practice especially in relation to the non-western world. Africa which falls into the category of the non-western world had little contribution to the discipline until the 1980s. Although, works around this subject area is gray, scanty and scattered, interestingly, the scope of argument on IR in Africa as advanced by scholars in this field does not provide a well-defined African international relation. In this context, this work seeks to provide a framework for understanding International Relations (IR) and African International Relations (AIR) in Africa taking into consideration examples from Ghana and Nigeria. The dilemma is that how do one justify the existence of African International Relation? What is the nature of African International Relations? How does African philosophy contribute to theoretical development in African IR? Why is African experience examples lacking in mainstream IR studies? What is the state of IR studies in Africa? And how relevant is the African experience critical to IR theory in global politics. This work provides an avenue to express a vivid discussion on the development, nature, and the state of IR in Africa. The study adopts a case study approach with a qualitative emphasis on African internationalism, using critical discourse, and content analysis in analyzing both primary and secondary data. The study finds that the nature of discourse in mainstream IR affects research in Africa, and that the integration of African concepts which are related to African philosophies and world-views may enrich IR theories.