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ABSTRACT
After the Cold War, not only the United Nations (UN) but also regional organisations began to engage in the internal conflicts of their member states. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has long intervened in West African conflicts, and institutionalised its approach to interventions in 1999. Since then, member states have maintained and even increased their commitment to managing conflicts in West Africa regionally – a willingness that implies their ownership of interventions. This article argues that ECOWAS member states share ownership because they have developed a common understanding about intervention. The development of this common understanding is analysed with a focus on the origin and evolution of ECOWAS, that is, on the multi-level process of generating consensus and on the principle and practice of sharing the costs of resource mobilisation. I will show that, in practice, these processes led each state to perceive an enhanced sense of ownership in ECOWAS interventions. Case studies of ECOWAS interventions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Cote d’Ivoire in the 1990s and the 2000s, the period when the organisation’s interventions became institutionalised, support the argument.
Notes on contributor
Sanae Suzuki is Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She received a Ph.D. in international relations at the University of Tokyo. Her research interests include comparative analysis of regional organisations and conflict management, regional security in Southeast Asia, and ASEAN. Her publications include ‘Exploring the roles of the AU and ECOWAS in West African conflicts’ South African Journal of International Affairs, 2020 and ‘Why is ASEAN not intrusive? Non-interference meets state strength’ Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, 2019. In addition, numerous referred articles have appeared in Japanese journals, and several chapters in Japanese books.
Notes
1 Diehl and Cho, ‘Passing the Buck’.
2 Shaw, ‘Conflict Management in Latin America’; Zartman, ‘Regional Conflict Management in Africa’.
3 Söderbaum, ‘“Whose Security?”’
4 Diehl, ‘Conclusion: Patterns and Discontinuities’; Zartman, ‘Regional Conflict Management in Africa’.
5 De Coning, ‘Adapting the African Standby Force’; Söderbaum, ‘“Whose Security?”’; Musah, ‘ECOWAS and Regional Responses’, 151–64.
6 Afolabi, ‘ECOWAS and Conflict Mediation in West Africa’, 171.
7 Koga, Reinventing Regional Security Institutions, 106–18.
8 See for example Obi, ‘Economic Community of West African States’; Mortimer, ‘From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II’; Afolabi, ‘ECOWAS and Conflict Mediation’.
9 ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to Mutual, Article 4.
10 ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to Mutual.
11 ECOWAS, Economic Community of West African States.
12 ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to the Mechanism.
13 IPSS, The APSA Impact Report, Annex I.
14 Fearon, ‘Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation’, 297–8.
15 Weber, Cooperation and Discord in U.S.-Soviet Arms Control, 11.
16 Adebajo, Liberia’s Civil War, 43–54.
17 Aboagye and Bah, ‘Liberia at a Crossroads’, 88–9.
18 Adeleke, ‘The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacekeeping’.
19 Francis, Uniting Africa, 151.
20 Inegbedion, ‘ECOMOG in Comparative Perspective’.
21 West Africa, 13–19 August 1990, 2280.
22 West Africa, 13–19 August 1990, 2280.
23 Adibe, ‘The Liberian Conflict’.
24 Adebajo, Liberia’s Civil War, 61–5.
25 Adeleke, ‘The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacekeeping’, 572.
26 Adeleke, ‘The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacekeeping’, 580.
27 Adebajo, Liberia’s Civil War, 89.
28 Berman and Sams, Peacekeeping in Africa, 97.
29 Francis, ‘The Economic Community of West African States’.
30 Meister, ‘Sierra Leone’.
31 Bundu, Democracy by Force?, 90–4.
32 African Research Bulletin, June 1–30, 1997, 12733; Africa Confidential, 6 June 1997, Vol. 38, No. 2, 1.
33 Meister, ‘Sierra Leone’. It was reported that the rebel fighters were helped by helicoptered shipments of arms from Charles Taylor in Liberia and Blaise Compaore in Burkina Faso (Africa Confidential, 11 September 1998, Vol. 39, No. 18, 8).
34 Africa Confidential, 6 February 1998, Vol. 39, No. 3, 7.
35 Bundu, Democracy by Force?, 91–3.
36 Later Liberia was added as the fifth member. Africa Confidential, 12 September 1997, Vol. 38, No. 16, 5.
37 Africa Research Bulletin, July 1–31, 1997, 12768.
38 Africa Research Bulletin, August 1–31, 1997, 12798.
39 ECOWAS, Final Communique.
40 Bundu, Democracy by Force?, 78–9, 107.
41 Francis, Uniting Africa, 111–6.
42 Africa Research Bulletin, October 1–31, 1997, 12868.
43 Africa Confidential, 7 November 1997, Vol. 38, No. 23, 4.
44 The operation was supported by Sandline, the British private military company, which was closely associated with the British Secret Intelligence Service and British High Commissioner to Freetown (Africa Confidential, 23 October 1998, Vo. 39 No. 21, 1).
45 Berman and Sams, ‘The Peacekeeping Potential of African’, 35–77, 47.
46 Ofuantey-Kodjoe, ‘Sierra Leone’.
47 Berman and Sams, Peacekeeping in Africa, 128.
48 Africa Research Bulletin, June 1–30 1998, 13134.
49 UN Document S/1998/638.
50 Africa Research Bulletin, September 1–30 1998, 13260.
51 UN Document S/1998/1028; African Research Bulletin, October 1–31 1998, 13295.
52 Berman and Sams, ‘The Peacekeeping Potential of African’.
53 Africa Research Bulletin, 1–30 September 2002, Vol. 39, No. 9, 14993.
54 Africa Research Bulletin, 1–31 January 2003, Vol. 40, No. 1, 15158.
55 Hara and Yabi, ‘Côte D'ivoire, 2002–2011’, 150.
56 Africa Research Bulletin, 1–30 September 2002, Vol. 39, No. 9, 14994.
57 Africa Confidential, 11 October 2002, Vol. 43, No. 20, 3.
58 Hara and Yabi, ‘Côte D'ivoire, 2002–2011’, 151.
59 Africa Research Bulletin, 1–31 October 2002, Vol. 39, No. 10, 15048.
60 UN Document S/RES/1464(2003); Africa Research Bulletin, 1–28 February 2003, Vol. 40, No. 2, 15179–15182.
61 Hara and Yabi, ‘Côte D'ivoire, 2002–2011’, 152.
62 ECOWAS, Treaty of the Economic Community.
63 ECOWAS, Economic Community of West African States.
64 ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to the Mechanism.
65 Interview with an official at the ECOWAS Commission by the author, May 21, 2018.
66 For argument and practice of the policy, see Gelot, ‘African Regional Organizations’.