Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. “Obama’s Africa Policy: The Limits of Symbolic Power.” African Studies Review 56, no. 2 (2013): 165–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43904934.

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-descended president of the United States in 2008 was greeted with euphoria in the U.S. and around the world, including Africa. Little, however, changed in the substance of U.S.–Africa relations. This underscores the limits of the symbolic politics of race and presidential personalities in the face of the structural imperatives of U.S. power and foreign policy in which African interests remain marginal and subordinate to U.S. interests. The article explores the structural contexts of foreign policymaking in the United States and what might be expected from the second Obama administration.

Source: Article's abstract