Monitoring Great Power Security and Diplomatic Assistance in Africa 1994-2020

Abstract

The UN's system of trusteeship over colonial and non-self-governing states officially concluded in 1994, which coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the decade. Amidst this shifting balance of power, the United States rose as the world's sole superpower. The state-building system that emerged from this transition came in the form of what Fearon and Laitin (2004) call neotrusteeship. It is a system where IGOs, governments, and NGOs collaborate to assist failing states experiencing armed conflict. This paper proposes a unique indicator of neotrusteeship and measures it against the occurrence of peace agreements on the African continent. Peace agreements are split into two separate dependent variables to account for varying diplomatic strategies outlined in the literature on Tracks of Diplomacy theory. The findings of the primary model show that the United Kingdom was the only great power to have provided official T1 diplomatic assistance to its security partners as a policy approach to statebuilding in Africa from 1994-2020. The United States and the United Kingdom were the only two great powers to have provided unofficial T2-T1.5 diplomatic assistance to its security partners as a policy approach to statebuilding in Africa from 1994-2020.