ABSTRACT
In view of the divisions and differences discussed in ‘Part I’, this chapter discusses the realist view of African international politics. This entails looking at African international politics from the perspective of realism (classical realism and neo-realism) and then examining the validity of such perspective. The chapter particularly interrogates the validity of the structuralist claim that African states are prone to conflicts. Structuralists claim that African actors, in their respective conflict zones, are constrained to behave in accordance with the warring nature of their zones. This structuralism explains the contexts within which the actors in African state system act and how the contexts determine their actions. It claims that although the separate actors are only parts of the whole system, in their interactions they form a whole whose characteristics are greater than and different from the mere summation of the characteristics of its constituent parts. Although the structuralist claim that African states are prone to conflicts may be contentious, however, one cannot deny that approximately the claim seems to reflect a post-colonial history of the continent. Therefore, when examining the validity of the realist view of African international politics, this chapter pays attention to the proneness to conflict claim.
