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Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court

African states have been divided in their relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite these divisions, the literature on this relationship has focused on withdrawal behaviour to the neglect of other types of behaviour, such as support for the ICC. Consequently, it is unable to exp...

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Main Author: Rubin, Maxine
Other Authors: Seegers, Annette
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Political Studies 2023
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access_status_str Open Access
author Rubin, Maxine
author2 Seegers, Annette
author_browse Rubin, Maxine
Seegers, Annette
author_facet Seegers, Annette
Rubin, Maxine
author_sort Rubin, Maxine
collection Thesis
description African states have been divided in their relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite these divisions, the literature on this relationship has focused on withdrawal behaviour to the neglect of other types of behaviour, such as support for the ICC. Consequently, it is unable to explain what influences the diverse behaviour. This dissertation adapts Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (EVL) model into an International Relations model to categorise the different types of behaviour by African states and, subsequently, guide an explanation of the behaviour. Primary evidence of each African State Party's official policy position toward the ICC consisted of 208 country statements delivered between 2008 and 2018 at relevant United Nations and ICC forums. The study used discourse analysis to interpret satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the ICC in the statements and, consequently, categorise the states into one of the three behaviour groups for each year and forum. The country statement data are complemented by key informant semi-structured interviews, academic literature, news articles, and grey literature to explain the major factors influencing the behaviour of each state. Five explanatory variables were prevalent as explanations of African states' behaviour in relation to the ICC – head of state interests, domestic factors, regional politics, reputational factors, and economic factors. It was found that behaviour was caused by combinations of these variables. Broadly, exit and voice were primarily influenced by head of state interest and regional politics, whereas loyalty was influenced by reputational factors and/or economic factors. The results of this study have important implications for the study of Africa's international relations. The findings about the influence of the head of state variable demonstrated the relevance of the personalisation of power and how this affects the production of foreign policy. The heterogeneity of behaviour also challenges the usefulness of ‘Africa' as a category and highlights issues of essentialism and reductionism with the treatment of ‘Africa' as an indivisible unit of analysis, at least, regarding the withdrawal debate.
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2023
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/37747 Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court Rubin, Maxine Seegers, Annette Jolobe, Zwelethu political studies African states have been divided in their relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite these divisions, the literature on this relationship has focused on withdrawal behaviour to the neglect of other types of behaviour, such as support for the ICC. Consequently, it is unable to explain what influences the diverse behaviour. This dissertation adapts Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (EVL) model into an International Relations model to categorise the different types of behaviour by African states and, subsequently, guide an explanation of the behaviour. Primary evidence of each African State Party's official policy position toward the ICC consisted of 208 country statements delivered between 2008 and 2018 at relevant United Nations and ICC forums. The study used discourse analysis to interpret satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the ICC in the statements and, consequently, categorise the states into one of the three behaviour groups for each year and forum. The country statement data are complemented by key informant semi-structured interviews, academic literature, news articles, and grey literature to explain the major factors influencing the behaviour of each state. Five explanatory variables were prevalent as explanations of African states' behaviour in relation to the ICC – head of state interests, domestic factors, regional politics, reputational factors, and economic factors. It was found that behaviour was caused by combinations of these variables. Broadly, exit and voice were primarily influenced by head of state interest and regional politics, whereas loyalty was influenced by reputational factors and/or economic factors. The results of this study have important implications for the study of Africa's international relations. The findings about the influence of the head of state variable demonstrated the relevance of the personalisation of power and how this affects the production of foreign policy. The heterogeneity of behaviour also challenges the usefulness of ‘Africa' as a category and highlights issues of essentialism and reductionism with the treatment of ‘Africa' as an indivisible unit of analysis, at least, regarding the withdrawal debate. 2023-04-14T13:46:24Z 2023-04-14T13:46:24Z 2022 2023-04-14T13:43:37Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37747 eng application/pdf Department of Political Studies Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle political studies
Rubin, Maxine
Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
title_full Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
title_fullStr Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
title_full_unstemmed Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
title_short Exit, voice, and loyalty: an analysis of African states' behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
title_sort exit voice and loyalty an analysis of african states behaviour in relation to the international criminal court
topic political studies
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37747
work_keys_str_mv AT rubinmaxine exitvoiceandloyaltyananalysisofafricanstatesbehaviourinrelationtotheinternationalcriminalcourt