The Importance of Africa to The World System After 9/11 Attacks: War on Terrorism or Integration for Sustainable Development

1.2 Problem Formulation and Hypothesis:

The realist’s tradition of Morgenthau, state self interests in economic negotiations, and state avoid triggering retaliation actions from other states to avoid harming domestic producers, consumers and national economic interests. Norms inscribed and defended by international institutions for global governance, such as the respect for the right of others to engage in free trade enshrine in the operating credo of the WTO, and a commitment to liberalizing financial flows and open capital account of the IMF, and WB inline with the provision of the Convention 102 of the ILO, a specialize organ of the UNO, basic ‘’minimum norm’’ for social security, as defined by the ILO and enshrine in the framework of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights and the African Charter of Peoples and Human Rights, ratified by members countries and to which all countries in the Gulf of Guinea are signatory, is a way by which social inclusion and economic development can take place.

Capitalism assumes a system in which markets for goods and services allow the forces of demand to influence what is produced, so that innovation in products and processes and the application of capital to the means by which they are produced is rewarded (strange 1994: 64). The shift from state to market trend of management strategies, changing technology, political decision making in national economies, multilateral agreement on trade and money by industrializing countries, the role played by the US, leading to an increasingly open world market economy, the growing importance of Diplomacy between states and Transnational Corporations for the future of peoples and their government for world peace and market economy to effectively continue to function because of structural changes, the wish to make the world economy safe and welcoming to American capital, political and economic liberalism to build free trade and movement of capital, the desire to build a free world and the search for a global governing structure amobg others (Block 1977; Diebold 1980; Maddison 1982; Kindleberger 1987; in strange 1994: 78-80)

But looking at the security reality of the Gulf of Guinea after 9/11, the political, economical, social, conflicts and wars, situations between states and markets, hegemonic influence, while civil strife and social unrests, hunger misery and poverty, diseases and pest, inaccessible road networks, the lack of free movement of goods and persons within this region, out migration, lack of capital to exploit resources, and the regional geo strategic rivalry for hegemony , within and between countries of the region (problems within Africa) and externally the interests of the great power countries and their multinationals of the north to contain terrorism and beyond terrorism, the interests for energy resources, trade, welfare, and transport, the US eager to build a geopolitical zone of influence in this region, the search for a global institution and governance for a better world, globalization, the fall of the second world USSR, the rise of the Asian tigers, the desire to get the states and market right, the break down of the Breton wood institutions, the rise of international organisations and multinational corporation and the retreat of the state as actor in IR, global financial crisis and more crisis now, climate change, rising oil prices and the free floating of the dollar, the war in the gulf of Persia and the expansion of Europe,( the assertion that Europe exist a problem for Africa). Yet internal or external factor not withstanding, the geo strategic aspect of the size and weakness of Africa, climate change and ecology, environmental hazards, depletion and extinction of natural resources (blaming nature).

This paper support the hypothesis that, it is due to turbulence in the world system that has led to a shift from Keynesianism to neo-liberal global market economic integration and heightened global interdependence of the production, finance and knowledge structures interacting with the security structure that has led to the regain of importance of Africa Gulf of Guinea to the world system.

Whether this has made Africa an object in IR and its resource security a curse or a blessing, further extend the argument into North-South relations in areas of politics as well as economics issues, through the security lens, making it interesting for investigation and the main research question is;

Why the regain of importance of Africa Gulf of Guinea after 9/11 attacks to the world system, what impact may this have on the security realities in the countries of the sub region?

Beside the main research question, the study also seeks to answer the following sub questions;