Civilian protection in Africa: How the protection of civilians is being militarized by African policymakers and diplomats

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the protection of civilians is being militarized by African policymakers and diplomats. I draw on practice approaches to analyze what social groups are doing when they claim to “protect civilians.” I show how innovative protection mechanisms can be seen as a function of officials and diplomats coping with the changing circumstances of increasingly militarized politics in Africa. Specifically, accountability mechanisms for unintended and intended civilian harm by African security operations have originated in connection with this development. I argue that these are results of anchoring practices, which means that everyday informal interactions in one context become linked to another context. I argue that these emerging accountability mechanisms represent a new combination of practices, with the potential of changing the routine activities and mutual learning between policymakers and diplomats.

KEYWORDS:

• Protection of civilians
• African security
• practice approaches
• militarization

Acknowledgements

This article draws on previous papers that I have presented at the Workshop “The Practice of Protecting Civilians: Local, Regional and Global Dynamics,” Roskilde University, Denmark, 5–6 October 2015 and at the Conference “Putting the Responsibility to Protect at the Centre of Europe,” Leeds University, UK, 13–14 October 2016. I thank the participants at these events, as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers of this African security forum for engaging and constructive comments. I gratefully acknowledge funding from the Swedish Board of Science “Uforsk” grant and from the Gothenburg Centre of Globalization and Development (GCGD).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Linnéa Gelot is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden, and a Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), Sweden. Her primary field of expertise is the relationship between Africa and the UN on peace and security issues, especially concerning Africa-led peace operations. Research interests also include regionalization, critical security studies, and norms implementation. Her latest publication (co-edited with Cedric de Coning and John Karlsrud) is The future of African Peace Operations: From Janjaweed to Boko Haram (London: Zed books, 2016). She is currently leading the project “AU Waging Peace? Explaining the Militarization of the African Peace and Security Architecture,” in which the concept of militarization and security practice theory are employed to theorize militarizing institutional discourses and practices.

ORCID

Linnéa Gelot http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7634-8394

Notes

1. This claim rests on normative grounds (solidarity with neighbors, acting as “brother’s keeper”) but is also made on functional or rationalist grounds (cost effectiveness, speed, geographic proximity). Jeng (2012, p. 188) similarly refers to an ever more codified “duty to act.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet grant number [2015-03476].