U.S. Training of African Forces and Military Assistance, 1997–2017: Security versus Human Rights in Principal–Agent Relations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite its reputation for global democracy promotion, the United States has developed substantial long-term military partnerships with several African countries that have less than stellar human rights records. While in some instances the United States has chosen to rebuke countries for human rights abuses, it has also elected to continue security partnerships with others in the face of similarly credible accusations. To explain this seeming inconsistency, this article analyzes U.S. security partnerships with six African countries: Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Kenya, finding that a combination of intensity of interest and magnitude of the violation explains when the United States chooses to censure those countries, when it does not, and the intensity of the rebuke. Countries where the United States has significant interest are most often exempted from censure. The comparative weight of interests to values determines the U.S. response to norm violations. Constructivist principal–agent theory explains this finding in terms of a struggle within the U.S. security establishment in which those who believe offending African militaries can be improved through continuous engagement and training wield more influence in security assistance policy than those who assert that the United States should disengage from those militaries and sanction them.