“Agency does not exist in itself!” Practices, Geography, and the Foreign Policy of Nigeria

In the last couple of years, scholars working on African affairs have addressed some of the shortcomings within mainstream IR theory: How to conceptualise units of analysis, for example states, global norms or informal non-state actors, productively? Why are theories based on European experiences and a mere state-centrism in the analysis problematic? Critics called for a modification of existing theories or specific ones for Africa. Yet, even the more recent scientific representations of African agency in IR are often misleading, since they establish rather inevitably essentialist ways of seeing Africa(n politics and states) and reproduce the discipline as a frequently either-or between rationalist and ideational approaches. Assuming the non-existence of an exceptionalist African agency in the politics in and beyond the continent, we can always observe – following the work of Adler and others – combinations of practices, i.e. actors use different options in varying contexts. The latter shape their behaviour at the very same time. There is no predefined all-encompassing culture of handling external relations. Reviewing and using ideas based on the geo-philosophical reasoning of Henri Lefebvre, the paper tries to advance the ongoing discussion on practices in IR. His work shows, in principle, how state-society-complexes generate via their specific social surroundings unique forms of time-space conditions, where abstract social processes and structures get concrete and, thus, real. States are defined here as structural effects of discourses among actors. Discourses are social practices articulating negotiations about basic societal questions. Practices are knotted to relations of power in varied locations. To exemplify the theoretical assumptions, the paper examines how foreign policy narratives concerning the Arab Spring are produced in the hybrid political orders of Nigeria.