Africa's Soft Power: Philosophies, Political Values, Foreign Policies and Cultural Exports

This book explores how African countries use soft power to gain global influence, focusing on South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt. It Africanizes the understanding of soft power by drawing on African philosophies and seeks to understand how it is wielded and what constraints and contradictions exist.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 226 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book investigates the ways in which soft power is used by African countries to help drive global influence.

Selecting four of the countries most associated with soft power across the continent, this book delves into the currencies of soft power across the region: from South Africa’s progressive constitution and expanding multinational corporations, to Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry and Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme, Kenya’s sport diplomacy, fashion and tourism industries, and finally Egypt’s Pan-Arabism and its reputation as the cradle of civilisation. The book asks how soft power is wielded by these countries and what constraints and contradictions they encounter. Understandings of soft power have typically been driven by Western scholars, but throughout this book, Oluwaseun Tella aims to Africanise our understanding of soft power, drawing on prominent African philosophies, including Nigeria’s Omolúwàbí, South Africa’s Ubuntu, Kenya’s Harambee, and Egypt’s Pharaonism.

This book will be of interest to researchers from across political science, international relations, cultural studies, foreign policy and African Studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at

http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ 9781003176022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Weight: 420g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032008363