Description
This panel is a contribution to the debate on the future of international studies where international relations are no longer concerned only with Nation- States and their inter-actions. In fact, Nation-States have been facing a changing world for almost twenty years since the end of the Cold War. Therefore, we will base our study on some African cases to highlight key disruptions caused by old and new “threats” in the political and social landscape of African States. The issue of the future of International studies is increasingly emerging in the literature dealing with the future of international relations defined traditionally as relations of peace and conflicts among Nation-states. This literature, far from being recent, has brought to the surface the decline of Nation-States. In fact, today, many threats emerge and destabilise nation-states at both the infra-national level and the supra-national level and upset the basis of nation- states. African states are privileged grounds for the observation of these mutations. The most important of these transformations include the powerful digital tools of communication in a cyber world: internet, Facebook, Twitter, Whatssap, etc. These digital new tools of communication are considered as “threats” for African States. In fact, African States are the most vulnerable preys of these digitalization of the world that “internationalize” the national level.
While once African people could not express their claims, today, internet, Facebook, twitter, Whatsapp, etc., allow them to openly challenge their governments and make allegiance to these modern tools of communication which escape the African governments and contribute to the further weakening of African States. Therefore, this panel aims to answer the following two research questions: (1) to what extent the term “international relations” is still relevant in such a changing world? ( 2) Which nations for which relations?
Thus, papers of this panel will concentrate on, but no be limited, to the country-cases experiences of Cameroon, Tunisia, Sudan, South Africa, Mali, Sahelian African States, etc.)
Each paper will propose a case study with an added value: an interdisciplinary approach (using both transnational and Realism theories of international relations) to assess the consequences of these threats on the future of African states. Specifically and in the light of specific case studies, the aim of our panel is to analyse new challenges of International Relations in a world where the national and global scales tend to converge under the information technologies transformation.
Keywords: International studies, African State, digitalization of the world, conflict, terrorism, migrations.
