France and the economic community of West African states: peacekeeping partnership in theory and practice

ABSTRACT

Since the late 1990s, French policy-makers have promised an indirect approach to African security in partnership with regional organisations. Yet this shift towards capacity-building, Africanisation and multilateralisation has not necessarily been followed, and forceful French military interventions in Africa have still taken place. This article thus aims to assess whether, to what extent, and why the theoretical convergence of France’s African security policy and the peacekeeping aspirations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) does not necessarily translate into practice. Through the analysis of the evolution of France’s African security policy and ECOWAS’ peacekeeping record, the French capacity-building efforts in West Africa, and the roles of France and ECOWAS in the Ivorian and Malian crises, this article will show that convergence in practice depends on the nature of an individual crisis, as well as the political, strategic, and economic interests of both France and ECOWAS member states.

KEYWORDS:

• Peacekeeping
• ECOWAS
• France
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Mali

Acknowledgment

The author is very grateful to Dr Ann Schreiner for proofreading the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Marco Wyss is Lecturer in the International History of the Cold War at Lancaster University, an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He gained his PhD from the Universities of Nottingham and Neuchâtel, and currently works on Britain’s and France’s postcolonial security roles in West Africa. Marco is co-editor of the ‘New Perspectives on the Cold War’ book series (Brill), and the scientific editor of the International Journal of Military History and Historiography. He is, among other works, the author of Arms Transfers, Neutrality and Britain’s Role in the Cold War (Brill, 2013), and co-editor of Peacekeeping in Africa (Routledge, 2014), Neutrality and Neutralism in the Global Cold War (Routledge, 2016), and The Handbook of European Armed Forces (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). His articles have been published in such journals like the Journal of Contemporary History, International History Review, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and Cold War History. He can be reached at: [email protected]