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"An unparalleled introduction to the complexities of Africa today"--

In this book Peter Schraeder offers the first comprehensive theoretical analysis of US foreign policy toward Africa in the postwar era. He argues that though we often assume that US policymakers 'speak with one voice', Washington's foreign policy is, however, derived from numerous centres of power which each have the ability to pull policy in different directions. The book describes the evolution of policy at three levels: Presidents and their close advisors; the bureaucracies of the executive branch; and Congress and African affairs interest groups. Most importantly, the evidence presented demonstrates that the nature of events in Africa has itself affected the operation of the US policymaking process, and the substance of US policy. Drawing on over 100 interviews, and detailed case studies in Zaire, Ethiopia-Somalia and South Africa, this book provides a unique analysis of the historical evolution of US foreign policy towards Africa from the 1940s to the 1990s

9/11 and its consequences have pushed the Bush administration to divided Africa into several different zones of interest for its foreign policy. North and East Africa (as well as the Sahel region and the Horn) thus receive greater attention due to the their proximity with the Middle East, thought to be the epicentre of global terrorism. The rest of the continent, with the exception of some petrol-producing countries in the Gulf of Guinea, are far down the list of American foreign policy objectives. (Polit afr/DÜI)