Re-Sovereignising Africa in the Context of the New World Order Formation

This article is devoted to an examination of both the theoretical and practical aspects of the strengthening of sovereignty on the African continent. The first part of the article comprises a critical analysis of the ‘conventional’ social sciences, concluding that there is no enough literature addressing the issue of sovereignty. The theoretical part of the article also provides a matrix of conjugations of concepts, both synonymous (sovereignty and security) and antonymous to the former (hegemony and neocolonialism). The article then goes on to present the main classifications of types of sovereignty, hegemony and neocolonialism as interpreted by leading Soviet, Russian, Western and African scholars. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the works of the prominent Russian intellectual V.L. Tsymbursky, who distinguished between ‘sovereignty of fact’ and ‘sovereignty of recognition’, and also divided the political and legal nature of sovereignty. This framework is used to examine both the current situation in the Sahel and the broader African context, and the unprecedented rise in efforts to strengthen sovereignty in Africa that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the peak of the Non-Aligned Movement’s and the UNCTAD’s activities. The author identifies the problem of sovereignty defense (ensuring comprehensive security) in the declarations of the BRICS summits in 2009–2022. Conclusions are drawn about the ‘double evolution’ of the external structures of ‘geopolitical recognition’ that took place immediately after the collapse of the USSR and in recent years, when the erosion of the Western-centric system is observed. The final part of the study draws parallels between the Russian and African approaches to the defense of sovereignty in the current world system and concludes that lessons of the previous attempt to consolidate the ‘Global South’ (1970s–1980s) should be taken into account.