ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the more specific aspects of the management of Africa’s political order. It discusses domestic conflicts, analyses the military dimensions of managing the continental order; focuses on the external aspects of its management; and examines the Organization’s role in structuring Africa’s politics. The chapter shows how the Assembly summit in Libreville was unable to affect developments in the Shaba crisis, which was characterized by extra-African intervention, disagreement among member states about the role of non-African powers and, in the background, East-West rivalry. It analyses the ways in which the OAU has sought to activate the leverage mechanism, implicit in its Pan-African cadre, to strengthen the continent’s global influence. The chapter also focuses on the perceptions concerning this mechanism and the views held on the potential power that the continent could generate and its repercussions for the state of inter-African politics.
