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.