Against Diffusion: Power and Institutions in African–European Relations

Abstract

Four centuries of precolonial diplomatic, economic, and military African–European relations have been neglected in international relations. Refuting common presumptions about European dominance, before, during, and after the heyday of the Atlantic slave trade, African rulers and merchants were generally in a position of equality or superiority in their relations with Europeans. Contrary to expectations that long-term interaction promotes homogenization via institutional diffusion from core to periphery, Africans generally eschewed European political, economic, and military models such as the Westphalian state, the corporation, and the salaried standing army. Instead, they utilized external opportunities in ways that reinforced evolving local differences, or adopted institutions from the Islamic world; Europeans in Africa were more likely to adopt African models than vice versa. That African polities held out against European dominance longer than larger, richer, and more militarily powerful Asian polities, and that stateless African societies held out longest of all, brings into question fundamental assumptions about survival under international anarchy.