Are Women Agents? Reading ‘Gender’ in Africa’s Rights Frameworks

Expert Content on Why Africa's return to pan-Africanism and quest for gender equality needs feminis

Mapping Perspectives on the EU as Mediator

Research on the European Union’s role as a meditator is nascent. It predominantly focuses on case studies or is cursorily embedded within wider research on the European Union (EU) as a crisis manager. Moreover, there is a significant disconnect between the established studies on mediation based in Conflict Analysis Studies and the EU’s foreign and security policy situated in Security Studies. Thus, there is a dearth of systematic engagement on the issue of EU mediation, although the EU often uses the language of mediation as a key component of its external commitments to conflict prevention, transformation and resolution. While advancements in mediation research suggest that there are certain determinants of mediation, and highlight key features that support and impede actors during conflict, this has not been systematically applied to the EU. Consequently, a key task of this workshop was to establish conceptual clarity and practical information about on the EU’s mediation roles. As a starting point, this workshop took stock of EU mediation knowledge from the perspective of different actors including academics, civil society and policy practitioners. In particular, it explored the limited academic engagement with this particular aspect of EU foreign and security policy. Additionally, the workshop critically interrogated how the EU understood its role in international mediation practice by exploring its capabilities and infrastructure and thereby locating opportunities and constraints to it performance. By bringing together various perspectives these discussions generated critical insights into where the remaining gaps in knowledge lay and the possibilities of academic partnerships with practitioners and policymakers to create new knowledge for Security and Conflict Analysis Studies

Regionalising Global Crises: The Financial Crisis and New Frontiers in Regional Governance

How are global crises, such as the current financial crisis, responded and dealt with? What are the consequences? Are there any links between regionalism and global crises in terms of stimuli, processes, and consequences? This edited volume brings together a range of examples to illustrate the development and importance of regional actors in the global governance of the political economy. Regionalising Global Crises highlights the regional level dynamics that exacerbate or contribute to solving the global economic crisis. It also explores the potential for change in the governance of the global political economy and international financial architecture by assessing the current and past financial crises through regional lenses. In particular, it addresses the debates that have emerged on the roles of regions and regional actors by undertaking empirical investigation of the impact of the crises on Africa, Europe, BRICS, and East Asia and their reactions to those events. As such it will provide an important empirical and methodological resource for students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in regional actors, comparative regionalism and international political economy

Gender and Queer Perspectives on Brexit

In Gender and Queer Perspectives on Brexit, editors Moira Dustin, Nuno Ferreira and Susan Millns bring together contributors to offer explicitly feminist and queer approaches to Brexit that broaden the scope of theoretical and policy debates. This is an important collection that tells a different story of the possible implications of Brexit, writes Toni Haastrup.Output Type: Book Revie

The undoing of a unique relationship? Peace and security in the EU–South Africa Strategic Partnership

When the European Union (EU) and South Africa acceded to a strategic partnership, they expanded into new areas of partnership. One of these areas was peace and security, which is the focus of this article. The article argues that, although there appears to be a shared understanding of what security means, the strategic partnership has not been utilised significantly to further this understanding in practice. This is largely due to the EU's preferences for a continental, multilateral approach over the bilateralism of a strategic partnership. At the same time, South Africa sees its strategic partnership with the EU as being outside of its broader commitment to regional security. As a result the peace and security element of the strategic partnership has not been leveraged effectively despite several entry points for action. The article thus concludes that both the EU and South Africa need to re-think the current arrangement. © 2017 The South African Institute of International Affairs

Reflections on the Africa-Europe Valletta Summit on migration and mobility

Was the recent Valletta Summit successful in ensuring that African perspectives are no longer marginalised on issues such as migration and mobility? Toni Haastrup analyses the outcome

Brexit Beyond the UK’s Borders: What It Means for Africa

The result of the United Kingdom’s referendum on leaving the EU, which was held on 23 June 2016, has profound geopolitical, economic, and social implications for Africa. This is all the more the case given the bilateral UK–Africa relationship and interregional Africa–EU relations

Brexit will blow a hole in EU-Africa relations

First paragraph: In the flood of debate and opinion which followed the UK’s Brexit referendum, journalists and scholars alike have focused on the economic impact on Britain, the future of trade agreements and the effect on the rest of the EU. With a few exceptions, implications outside of Europe are often ignored. Africa barely gets a look in, but the shockwaves here could be deeply damaging.https://theconversation.com/brexit-will-blow-a-hole-in-eu-africa-relations-6592

Is it really that difficult to find women to talk about the EU Referendum?

The significant absence of expert women’s voices from media debates and academic events related to the EU Referendum has been widely reported. Roberta Guerrina, Toni Haastrup, Katharine Wright share a list of women EU experts and argue there are in fact many women voices on these issues and they are not difficult to find. More work needs to be done by political institutions, campaigns, and the media to engage women experts and their contributions in a mature and meaningful way