African Diplomacy-Global

This course examines diplomacy as a tool in crisis response, and in particular how African states use the Security Council, the architecture of the AU Peace and Security system, bilateral relationships, and ad hoc mechanisms as leverage. The cases are the Ethiopian civil war in Tigray, the displacement of African nationals due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the disruption of African food and fertilizer supply lines during the Ukraine and Strait of Hormuz crises. Practitioners with direct experience of these crises will join the class to offer firsthand accounts of how events unfolded and decisions were made from multiple vantage points. The course treats crisis diplomacy as a bargaining process over agenda control, legitimacy, and operational access, rather than as a sequence of formal decisions. Having examined how diplomacy operates across existing institutional channels, the course questions what Africa's agency and its exposure in these crises reveal about the continent's readiness for a more central role in global security, and whether Security Council reform as demanded in the Ezulwini Consensus would meaningfully change the outcomes.