Symbolism and Substance: How Geopolitics, Organisational Design, and Continental Coherence Shape Africa's Multilateral Reform Aspirations

What factors shape African agency in global multilateral reform processes? Rather than a supposed pawn of geopolitical competition, Africa's proactive diplomacy for multilateral reforms is garnering increasing interest. Yet we know surprisingly little about variation in the pursuit of African agency by the African Union (AU) and African Groups in different global multilateral negotiations. Amid growing frustrations over stalled multilateral reforms, rising geopolitical competition complicates the picture. It increases incentives for symbolic concessions to Africa, while simultaneously lowering great powers' readiness for substantial reforms. This article develops a theory of African agency in multilateral reform processes. Continental coherence of African actors, the (in)formal organisational design attributes of multilateral organisations, and the geopolitical permissibility of African reform demands shape the exercise of African agency. In particular, these three factors shape the interplay of symbolism and substance as co‐constituted dimensions of African reform diplomacy. Through plausibility probes on United Nations Security Council reform and the AU's G20 membership, the paper finds that great powers' separation of symbolism and substance hinders Africa's reform ambitions. The article contributes to moving the study of African agency from a structurally deterministic approach to a relational and agentic account of African and global strategies in multilateral reforms.