The Epistemology of African Foreign Policy Analysis: Decolonising the Study of Nigerian Diplomacy

This dissertation undertakes a critical epistemological examination of the theoretical and methodological frameworks through which Nigerian and African foreign policy more broadly has been studied, arguing that mainstream foreign policy analysis reproduces Eurocentric assumptions that distort the empirical study of African diplomatic practice and limit the field's theoretical pluralism. Drawing on decolonial theory, African political thought, and post-Western IR, this study first conducts a systematic review of the foreign policy analysis literature as applied to Nigerian cases from 1990 to 2024, identifying the predominant theoretical frameworks, methodological choices, and implicit Eurocentric assumptions. It then develops an original decolonial foreign policy analysis framework grounded in Ubuntu ethics, African communalism, and the concept of relational sovereignty to provide analytical tools better suited to African diplomatic realities. The framework is applied to three cases of Nigerian foreign policy decision-making, including the ECOMOG intervention, Nigeria's OIC engagement, and its COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy, demonstrating its empirical utility. Primary data include qualitative interviews with Nigerian foreign policy scholars at universities in Kano, Enugu, Maiduguri, and Lagos, and documentary analysis of Nigerian foreign policy archives and official philosophy statements. The dissertation makes an original theoretical contribution to decolonial IR by producing the first systematic decolonial foreign policy analysis framework specifically grounded in African intellectual traditions and applied to an African state case study. Keywords: decolonial IR, Nigeria, foreign policy analysis, epistemology, African political thought.