ABSTRACT
Despite Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s attempt to examine the supposed changing relations of power in world politics, they surprisingly fail to provide many non-Western examples for their grand theory in Empire. Indeed, there seems to be a sparsity of empirical evidence in general. At the same time, Hardt’s and Negri’s grand narrative continues to exhibit core elements of Eurocentric thought. My goal in this chapter is to provide an examination of Empire through the lens of African evidence. Incorporating African experiences helps us construct a “peripheral” or subaltern perspective on international relations.1 More specifically, incorporating African experiences provides a more nuanced vision of the current global situation than the one proffered by Hardt and Negri and helps avoid many of the presentist claims they make.
