by Vahid Nick Pay and Ronny Gitonga-Mutethia
Abstract
Challenging the predominant tendency of political economy scholars and practitioners to rationalize the evolution towards unprecedented US-African bilateral Free Trade Agreements almost exclusively through the lens of US interests and global geoeconomic rivalries—and rarely from the perspective of deliberate and calculated intentions of African countries—this article establishes that the progressive recalibration of the US-Kenya economic diplomacy between 2001-2020 has been shaped in equal measure by two separate but complementary mechanisms. The first is a systemic mechanism that arises from the US neorealist balance-of-threat responses to the global geoeconomic realignment. The second is a reductionist agential mechanism from the Kenyan side that is exhibited through the constructivist-reimagining by the State of its identity within its regional structures, as well as a series of interventions by high profile state-based actors and an influential Kenyan business sector. The article exposes vital but unheralded factors that impact asymmetric US-Africa economic diplomacy and challenges the ostensible notion that Kenya and other African states are merely ‘acted-upon’ peripheral actors in the ongoing global trade policy reformulation.
Vahid Nick Pay is lecturer in International Politics and Research Methods at the Diplomatic Studies Programme, University of Oxford. He is a member of the Management Board at Diplomatic Studies Programme, a Member of the Management Committee at the Centre for International Studies, a Fellow of Kellogg College and a Fellow of Higher Education Academy.
Ronny Gitonga-Mutethia is a researcher of African Politics and an alumnus of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford (Diplomatic Studies Programme). He is Assistant Director for Foreign Service (First Counsellor) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya.