Paper short abstract:

This paper assesses the dominant discourse of ‘African solutions to African problems’ from within the African Union. It reveals a contestation between regional and sub-regional narratives on the leadership of peace and security within the continent and proposes ways of dealing with the challenge.

Paper long abstract:

This paper assesses the dominant discourse of 'African solutions to African problems'. African ownership and leadership in peace and security is both promoted and contested in African and Western literature respectively. The paper examines the contestation between regional and sub-regional narratives on African solutions to African problems. It specifically analyses the African Union and Southern African Development Community (SADC) interactions in resolving Madagascar conflicts from 2008 to present. Using the lens of agency theory and social construction the paper argues that African Union expansionist approach to peace and security in the continent is both supported and contested by sub-regional groups like SADC. The paper further argues that African Union narratives on continental governance lacks critical leadership elements in promoting peace and security in the continent. The paper utilises recent primary data collected through interviews with senior African Union and SADC officials and independent peace and security experts at both African Union Headquarters and SADC Headquarters.

The analysis reveals that the contemporary peace and security architecture in Africa is ambiguous on the division of labour and leadership between African Union and sub regional institutions. The paper further reveals that the philosophy of African solutions to African problems that drives the African Union narrative on self-determination in further replicated at SADC sub-regional level and creates competition in steering the African peace and security agenda. The findings raise a question: Does African Union need to sort out the in house competition in order to mitigate African peace and security challenges?

Paper short abstract:

I analyse forms of power unfolding in the AU’s interventions in Madagascar and Burkina Faso. The power of the AU is both compromised and constitutive rather than regulative. It neither emanates from the successful realization of a liberal script, nor can the AU be reduced to mere words on paper.

Paper long abstract:

Since its inception, the African Union (AU) regularly reacts to political crises in its member states in search for more stable and legitimate orders. Such interventions are based on a novel set of norms and practices, which break with the history of non-interference that had shaped continental politics for decades. For some, this shift corresponds to a new form of liberal power, located in the African Union. Thus in this reading, the AU has become a beacon of liberalism. For others, in turn, this is nothing more than cheap talk, without tangible effects in practice. Hence for them, the AU is a mere paper tiger.

Against the background of the AU's interventions in Madagascar and Burkina Faso in the aftermath of political crises, this paper analyses the power that unfolds in these interventions. I argue that the AU's power does not lie in its coercive capacities, nor does it necessarily stem from the successful implementation of liberal norms. Rather, the AU's power is both compromised - i.e. negotiated among multiple actors - and constitutive rather than regulative. The AU's norms provide the scripts with which new roles are constituted and they establish an arena to define how orders are (re)-negotiated and remade both in times of crisis and beyond.

Paper short abstract:

The paper interrogates how certain governance agendas such as the promotion of rule of law and democracy by the African Union should be understood and associated with a process of indigenisation, and how the African Union in the process produces a particular image of Africa.

Paper long abstract:

The objective of this paper is to interrogate how certain governance agendas such as the promotion of rule of law and democracy by the African Union should be understood and associated with a process of indigenisation, and how the African Union in the process contributes to a particular construction of Africa. The paper contributes to an understanding of how international agendas are translated into regional practices. It explores how regional organisations' rationales regarding the promotion of democracy and rule of law emerged, how these rationales are articulated into programmes of intervention, and how these programmes constitute a complex system of mechanisms, knowledges, strategies, techniques and procedures that give effect to the ambitions of the African Union's project. Through an analysis of the complex relation between rationalities and technologies, it will be possible to determine how the African Union borrows, depends upon, adapts and appropriates technologies from other places. More broadly, this approach will add another dimension to the understanding of how certain forms of knowledge contribute to the production of a particular image of Africa. Here, I am particularly concerned with the relationship between the processes within and around the African Union and the (re)invention of Africa.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will introduce the norm contester as conception of Norm Entrepreneurs in order to grasp the variety of norm entrepreneurial actions within the AU and also externally from the African Union itself in the global system.

Paper long abstract:

Research on the African Union consistently states the same results: After more than 10 years since the foundation, the willingness of the member states to integrate their policies on a regional level is low and material capacities of the continental organisation are still weak - too weak to ensure an effective policy-making on a regional level in Africa. But this focus on the inadequacy of the Regional Organisation forgets the strong normative practices and discursive power of the AU itself and its member states. Instead of analysing only the internal dimension, this paper therefore aims at looking beyond this fact by bringing together both the internal and external dimension and exploring the AU as a Norm Entrepreneur. Which norms are constitutive for the AU as a Norm Entrepreneur? How and in which way does the AU as an actor contest norms? And how can the connection between the internal and external dimension be theorized? These leading questions of the paper will be answered with the help of a new and specific conception of Norm Entrepreneurs, which will be introduced: The Norm Contester. On the basis of this reconceptualization, a typology will be elaborated which aims at grasping the variety of norm entrepreneurial actions within the AU and also externally from the African Union itself in the global system. In a second step, the normative fundament of the African Union will be explored and the normative practices in the cases of the Africa-EU negotiations and the APSA will be illustrated.

Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the decision-making calculus of African nondemocratic regimes in establishing regional organizations and formal regional mechanisms to foster constitutional governance, thereby accepting to cede sovereignty.

Paper long abstract:

In assessing the specific nature of nondemocratic forms of cooperation, scholars recurrently hypothesize that authoritarian regimes shy away from entering into legal frameworks that limit their sovereignty (e.g. Erdmann et al. 2013). However, sub-Saharan Africa, where only 9 out of 49 countries are rated "free" by Freedom House, features one of the strongest regional integration projects worldwide. Particularly noteworthy are the African Union and sub-regional organizations such as ECOWAS and SADC's substantial provisions towards good governance, against unconstitutional changes of government, and the regular use of regional sanctions in the context of regional organizations to enforce these rules. To a significant extent, authoritarian regimes have bound themselves, at least as the transfer of power is concerned. Do these provisions only serve authoritarian governments' own interests to stay in power? An analysis of regional organizations and the specific frameworks on good governance in sub-Saharan Africa goes a long way in providing new insights into the nature of - legally binding - authoritarian cooperation and its interrelationship with questions of internally and externally conferred government legitimacy. Based on existing literature (Bellamy and Williams 2011; Witt 2012; Hellquist 2014; Börzel and Hüllen 2015), statistical analysis and original field research, the paper analyzes the decision-making calculus of African nondemocratic regimes in establishing formal regional mechanisms to foster constitutional governance, thereby accepting to cede sovereignty.