1st Edition

The Foreign Policies of East African States

Edited By Jude Kagoro, Julian Friesinger, Klaus Schlichte Copyright 2025
    234 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book analyses the foreign policies of African countries, specifically in the region of East Africa.

    It reveals the regional dynamics and the way in which the international system interacts with these policies and how they are driven by domestic politics versus national visions and vice versa. As such, it provides fine-grained and historically informed analyses of the international relations of these states arguing that foreign policy is always informed by domestic processes and the relations between states and changes within the international system impact on the formulation of domestic politics via foreign policy. Finally, the book argues that East Africa’s foreign policy is not one of militarised action alone but rather a mélange of self-survival strategies stemming from the desire to close the gap with more industrialised states necessitating a variety of trade and diplomatic efforts.

    This book is of key interest to scholars and students of African politics, Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Organisations and more broadly, to comparative politics and international relations.

    Introduction

    Julian Friesinger, Jude Kagoro, and Klaus Schlichte

    1. The Historicity of International Relations in East Africa

    Jude Kagoro and Klaus Schlichte

    2. The “Foreign Relations” of Uganda’s Budget

    Klaus Schlichte

    3. Ensuring Intra-Regional Stability to Enable External Efficiency: The EAC as a Fragile Embryonic Security Community?

    Edward Silvestre Kaweesi

    4. The “Impossible Mission” of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) to Fight the M23 Rebellion in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

    Blaise Muhire

    5. Rwanda-Uganda Relations: Elites’ Attitudes and Perceptions in Inter-State Relations

    Moses Khisa and Gerald Bareebe

    6. “Seductions” of the International? Strategic Propping of Rwanda’s Image in International Society

    Matthew Sabbi

    7. A Shift in Tanzania’s Foreign Policy Towards Israel       

    Leiyo Singo

    8. An Examination of the Central Predicate of Uganda’s Foreign Policy in the Great Lakes Region

    Solomon Muchwa Asiimwe

    9. War as Foreign Policy: Waltzian Imagery and the Great Lakes Region of Africa

    Edward Silvestre Kaweesi

    Biography

    Jude Kagoro is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS), Bremen University, Germany.

    Julian Friesinger works as a Programme Manager for Andreas Hermes Akademie, Germany.

    Klaus Schlichte is a Professor of International Relations and World Society at the University of Bremen, Germany.