Paper short abstract:

the paper explores the extent to which the principle of the non-violability of national sovereignty seems to be challenged by emerging complex demands for secession.

Paper long abstract:

'Collective power politics' as a new peace and security paradigm heralded new perspectives on democratization for a nascent African Union (AU). The combination of 'democracy enforcement' and an active external interference in African internal democratic processes raise critical questions about the costs, the implications and the effectiveness of the conceptual and policy shift. This article attempts to show that since its inception, the interventionist policy has proved politically and financially costly for most African states, including regional hegemons, while having limited impact on containing secessionist tendencies across the continent. Contextualising 'enforcement' within the context of the birth of the Southern Sudan, the Casamance secessionist movement and the Ivoirian crisis of 1999--2011, the paper argues that the reified principle of the non-violability of national sovereignty needs to be reassessed with regards to emerging complex demands for secession that rest upon not only the traditional argument of self-government but also on notions of human security, democratisation and the economic governance of collective resources.