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ABSTRACT
This article argues for a shift in researching African interventions: from a top-down study of African regional norms and institutions towards a view ‘from below’ on the actual practices of intervention and how they play out on the ground. Such a view is important in order to understand the contested politics of African interventions as well as disconnects between grand regional architectures and their imprints on the ground. In doing so, this article also seeks to link research on African interventions to the academic debate on peacebuilding and peacemaking interventions more generally. While this literature has increasingly taken the ‘local’ into account, such a localisation in terms of researching African interventions has yet to take place. This article suggests three dimensions in which a view ‘from below’ could be translated into the research agenda on African interventions.
Acknowledgements
This special issue is the result of a workshop organised and financed under the Program Point Sud of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), held in January 2017 at the Centre pour la gouvernance démocratique Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou. The author would like to thank the Program Point Sud, the co-organisers of the workshop – Augustin Loada and Ulf Engel – the Centre pour la gouvernance démocratique Burkina Faso, and all participants for their very inspiring contributions and lively discussions on African interventions seen ‘from below’. She also thanks two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on this manuscript.
Notes on contributor
Antonia Witt is a postdoctoral researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany. Her research interests include African regional interventions in times of political crises and local perceptions on African interventions, as well as legitimacy and authority of regional organisations.
Notes
1 This understanding of ‘from below’ is evidently different from other usages of the term which understand ‘below’ mainly as taking the point of view of subaltern actors who are marginalised or entirely excluded from peacebuilding processes or as voices of ‘local’ actors that are contrasted to foreign, international ones (see for instance contribution by Hagberg in this special issue). Such an understanding may generally be part of but not conclusive of a deeper understanding of the actual agencies, interactions and practices of peacebuilding on the ground as the term is understood here. Yet rather than presuming different actors as powerful/powerless or local/international from the outright, the term is conceptually more open and investigates these questions as empirical ones. In this sense, scrutinising the interactions between African regional mediators and national civil society, for instance, may in the end show that the latter rather than the former are more powerfully determining peacebuilding outcomes, and that those being sent as regional envoys have – contrary to their colleagues at headquarters – a much more ‘local’ understanding of the problem than their official designation as ‘regional’ actors may suggest.
2 Desmidt S & V Hauck, Conflict Management under the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA): Analysis of Conflict Prevention and Conflict Resolution Interventions by the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in Violent Conflicts in Africa for the Years 2013–2015. ECDPM discussion paper no. 211. Maastricht: ECDPM, 2017, p. 18.
3 IPSS (Institute for Peace and Security Studies), APSA Impact Report 2016: Assessment of the Impacts of Intervention by the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in 2016 in the Frame of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Addis Ababa: IPSS, 2017, p. 27.
4 See for instance the special issue of African Security, 2.2–3 (2010) on ‘Regional Organisations in African Security’ edited by Fredrik Söderbaum and Rodrigo Tavares, a special issue of the Journal of International Peacekeeping, 17.3–4 (2013) on ‘Alternative Perspectives on African Peacekeeping’, edited by Thierry Tardy and Marco Wyss, and the special issue of African Security Review, 26.2 (2017) on ‘African Peace Missions and Security Sector Reform’, edited by Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe and Alex de Waal. See also Badmus I, The African Union’s Role in Peacekeeping: Building on Lessons Learned from Security Operations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; de Coning C, Gelot L & J Karlsrud (eds), The Future of African Peace Operations: From Janjaweed to Boko Haram. London: Zed Books, 2016; Brosig M, Cooperative Peacekeeping in Africa: Exploring Regime Complexity. New York: Routledge, 2015; Williams PD, ‘Reflections on the evolving African Peace and Security Architecture’, African Security, 7.3, 2014, pp. 147–62.
5 Curtis D, ‘The contested politics of peacebuilding in Africa’, in Curtis D & GA Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012, p. 3.
6 Ibid.
7 AU (African Union), Constitutive Act of the African Union. Lomé: OAU, 2000; AU, Protocol on the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council. Durban: AU, 2002; AU, Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and the Coordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of Eastern Africa and Northern Africa. Addis Ababa: African Union, 2008.
8 AU, 50th Anniversary Solemn Declaration. Addis Ababa: African Union, 2013, Article E.
9 See for instance ACCORD (African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes), Silencing the Guns, Owning the Future: Realising a Conflict-free Africa. A Report on the Fifth African Union High-level Retreat on the Promotion of Peace, Security, and Stability in Africa, 21–23 October 2014, Arusha, Tanzania. Durban: ACCORD, 2015.
10 See for instance Engel U & JG Porto (eds), Africa’s New Peace and Security Architecture: Promoting Norms, Institutionalizing Solutions. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010; Engel U & JG Porto, ‘Imagining, implementing, and integrating the African Peace and Security Architecture: The African Union’s challenges’, African Security, 7.3, 2014, pp. 135–46; Vines A, ‘A decade of African Peace and Security Architecture’, International Affairs, 89.1, 2013, pp. 89–109; Basada H (ed.), Crafting an African Security Architecture: Addressing Regional Peace and Conflict in the 21st Century. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
11 See for instance Williams PD, ‘From non-intervention to non-indifference: The origins and development of the African Union’s security culture’, African Affairs, 106.423, 2007, pp. 253–79; Witt A, ‘The African Union and contested political order(s)’, in Engel U & JG Porto (eds), Towards an African Peace and Security Regime. Continental Embeddedness, Transnational Linkages, Strategic Relevance. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 11–30.
12 See for instance Porto JG & YK Ngandu, ‘The African Union, preventive diplomacy, mediation, and the Panel of the Wise: Review and reflection on the Panel’s first six years’, African Security, 7.3, 2014, pp. 181–206; Hardt H, ‘From states to secretariats: Delegation in the African Union Peace and Security Council’, African Security 9.3, 2016, pp. 161–87; Williams PD, ‘The Peace and Security Council of the African Union: Evaluating an embryonic international institution’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 47.4, 2009, pp. 603–26.
13 IPSS, APSA Impact Report 2016: Assessment of the Impacts of Intervention by the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in 2016 in the Frame of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Addis Ababa: IPSS, 2017, p. 26; see also Desmidt S & V Hauck, Conflict Management under the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA): Analysis of Conflict Prevention and Conflict Resolution Interventions by the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in Violent Conflicts in Africa for the Years 2013–2015. ECDPM discussion paper no. 211. Maastricht: ECDPM, 2017, p. 21.
14 Ibid.; in 2016, the share declined slightly, although the overall number of conflicts eligible for intervention was higher than the years before, see IPSS, APSA Impact Report 2016: Assessment of the Impacts of Intervention by the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in 2016 in the Frame of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Addis Ababa: IPSS, 2017, p. 26; GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), APSA Impact Report: The State and Impact of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in 2015. Eschborn: GIZ, 2016, p. 34.
15 Debiel T & P Rinck, ‘Rethinking the local in peacebuilding: moving away from the liberal/post-liberal divide’, in Debiel T, Held T & U Schneckener (eds), Peacebuilding in Crisis: Rethinking Paradigms and Practices of Transnational Cooperation. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016, pp. 242–3.
16 However, it must be recognised that long before critical peacebuilding research re-discovered ’the local’ peace theorists like John Paul Lederach or Adam Curle had criticised any top-down attempt to build peace and instead argued that long-term peace can only be established through, by and on the terms of those affected by conflict. See also Leonardsson H & G Rudd, ‘The “local turn” in peacebuilding: A literature review of effective and emancipatory local peacebuilding’, Third World Quarterly, 36.5, 2015, pp. 825–39.
17 Mac Ginty R, ‘Where is the local? Critical localism and peacebuilding’, Third World Quarterly, 36.5, 2015, p. 847.
18 Ibid., pp. 845–8; Hughes C, Öjendal J & I Schierenbeck, ‘The struggle versus the song – The local turn in peacebuilding: An introduction’, Third World Quarterly, 36.5, 2015, p. 818.
19 Simons C & F Zanker, Questioning the Local in Peacebuilding. Working Paper of the Priority Programme 1448 of the German Research Foundation, No. 10. Leipzig/Halle: SPP 1448, 2014, p. 3.
20 Ibid., 14.
21 See for instance Heathershaw J, Post-conflict Tajikistan. The Politics of Peacebuilding and the Emergence of Legitimate Order. London: Routledge, 2009; Bliesemann de Guevara B (ed.), Statebuilding and State-formation. The Political Sociology of Intervention. London: Routledge, 2012.
22 Kappler S, ‘The dynamic local: Delocalisation and (re-)localisation in the search for peacebuilding identity’, Third World Quarterly, 36.5, 2015, pp. 875–89.
23 Björkdahl A et al., ‘Introduction: peacebuilding through the lens of friction’, in Björkdahl A et al. (eds), Peacebuilding and Friction: Global and Local Encounters in Post-Conflict Societies. London: Routledge, 2016, pp. 1–16; see also Simons C & F Zanker, Questioning the Local in Peacebuilding. Working Paper of the Priority Programme 1448 of the German Research Foundation, No. 10. Leipzig/Halle: SPP 1448, 2014, pp. 10–12.
24 See for instance Mac Ginty R, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011; de Heredia M, ‘Resistance and challenges to liberal peace processes’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 42.2, 2014, pp. 515–25; Björkdahl A & K Höglund, ‘Precarious peacebuilding: Friction in global–local encounters’, Peacebuilding, 1.3, 2013, pp. 289–99.
25 Richmond OP & A Mitchell, ‘Peacebuilding and critical forms of agency: From resistance to subsistence’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 36.4, 2011, p. 327.
26 See for instance Mac Ginty R & P Firchow, ‘Top-down and bottom-up narratives of peace and conflict’, Politics, 36.3, 2016, pp. 308–23; Uvin P, ‘Human security in Burundi: The view from below (by youth)’, African Security Review, 16.2, 2007, pp. 38–52; Pouligny B, Peace Operations Seen from Below: UN Missions and Local People. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press, 2006, pp. 96–154.
27 Björkdahl A et al. (eds), Peacebuilding and Friction: Global and Local Encounters in Post-Conflict Societies. London: Routledge, 2016; see generally Tsing AL, An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
28 Björkdahl A et al., ‘Introduction: Peacebuilding through the lens of friction’, in Björkdahl A et al. (eds), Peacebuilding and Friction: Global and Local Encounters in Post-Conflict Societies. London: Routledge, 2016, p. 5; see also Heathershaw J, Post-conflict Tajikistan: The Politics of Peacebuilding and the Emergence of Legitimate Order. London: Routledge, 2009.
29 Björkdahl A et al., ‘Introduction: Peacebuilding through the lens of friction’, in Björkdahl A et al. (eds), Peacebuilding and Friction: Global and Local Encounters in Post-conflict Societies. London: Routledge, 2016, p. 9.
30 Autesserre S, ‘Going micro: Emerging and future peacekeeping research’, International Peacekeeping, 21.4, 2014, p. 495.
31 Autesserre S, ‘Hobbes and the Congo: Frames, local violence, and international intervention’, International Organisation, 63.2, 2009, pp. 249–80; Hellmüller S, ‘The power of perceptions: Localizing international peacebuilding approaches’, International Peacekeeping, 20.2, 2013, pp. 219–32; Koddenbrock K, ‘Recipes for intervention: Western policy papers imagine the Congo’, International Peacekeeping, 19.5, 2012, pp. 549–64.
32 Autesserre S, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 6.
33 Ibid., pp. 13–14.
34 Curtis D, ‘The contested politics of peacebuilding in Africa’, in Curtis D & GA Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012, p. 17.
35 See also Wodrig S, Regional Intervention Politics in Africa: Crisis, Hegemony, and the Transformation of Subjectivity. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016, p. 4.
36 See also on Madagascar Witt A, ‘Mandate impossible: Mediation and the return to constitutional order in Madagascar (2009–2013)’, African Security, 10.3–4, 2017, pp. 205–22.
37 See for instance Hagberg S & G Körling, ‘Socio-political turmoil in Mali: The public debate following the coup d’état on 22 March 2012’, Africa Spectrum, 47.2–3, 2012, pp. 111–25; Frère MS & P Englebert, ‘Briefing: Burkina Faso – The fall of Blaise Compaoré, African Affairs, 114.455, 2015, pp. 297–8; Witt A, ‘Mandate impossible: Mediation and the return to constitutional order in Madagascar (2009–2013)’, African Security, African Security, 10.3–4, 2017, pp. 205–22.
38 Curtis D, ‘The contested politics of peacebuilding in Africa’, in Curtis D & GA Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012, p. 17.
39 Hagberg S & G Körling, ‘Socio-political turmoil in Mali: The public debate following the coup d’état on 22 March 2012’, Africa Spectrum, 47.2–3, 2012, p. 117.
40 Ibid., pp. 117–19.
41 Sampson PR, ‘Conceptual shifts in multi-track mediation in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Engel U (ed.), New Mediation Practices in African Conflicts. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2013, pp. 238–9.
42 Ibid., p. 239.
43 See also Banégas R, ‘Putsch et politique de la rue au Burkina Faso. Quand les étudiants débattent du régiment de sécurité présidentielle’, Politique africaine, 139, 2015, pp. 147–70.
44 See also Bonnecase V & J Brachet, ‘Les “crises sahéliennes” entre perceptions locales et gestions internationales’, Politique africaine, 130, 2013, pp. 5–22.
45 See for instance Autesserre S, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014; see also Bliesemann de Guevara B & R Kostić, ‘Knowledge production in/about conflict and intervention: finding “facts”, telling “truth”’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 11.1, 2017, pp. 1–20.
46 See for instance Uvin P, ‘Human security in Burundi: The view from below (by youth)’, African Security Review, 16.2, 2007, pp. 38–52; see also Bonnecase V, ‘Sur la chute du Blaise Compaoré: Autorité et colère dans les derniers jours d'un régime’, Politique africaine, 137.1, 2015, pp. 151–68; Hagberg S et al., Vers une sécurité par le bas? Étude sur les perceptions et les expériences des défis de sécurité dans deux communes maliennes. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2017.
47 See also Lie JHS, ‘The knowledge battle field of protection’, African Security, 5.3–4, 2012, pp. 142–59.
48 See for instance Apuuli KP, ‘The African Union’s notion of “African Solutions to African Problems” and the crises in Côte d’Ivoire (2010–2011) and Libya (2011)’, African Journal of Conflict Resolution, 12.2, 2012, pp. 135–60; see also more generally Curtis D, ‘The contested politics of peacebuilding in Africa’, in Curtis D & GA Dzinesa (eds), Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012, p. 15.
49 See for instance Schia NN, Gjelsvik IM & J Karlsrud, ‘Connections and disconnections: Understanding and integrating local perceptions in United Nations peacekeeping’, Conflict Trends, 1, 2014, pp. 28–34; UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support, Understanding and Integrating Local Perceptions in Multi-dimensional UN Peacekeeping. New York: UNDPKO, 2013.
50 For an exception see Sabrow S, ‘Local perceptions of the legitimacy of peace operations by the UN, regional organisations and individual states – A case study of the Mali conflict’, International Peacekeeping, 24.1, 2017, pp. 159–86; see also International Refugee Rights Initiative, ‘They Say They are Not Here to Protect Us’. Civilian Perspectives on the African Union Mission in Somalia. New York: IRRI, 2017.
51 IPSS, APSA Impact Report 2016: Assessment of the Impacts of Intervention by the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in 2016 in the Frame of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Addis Ababa: IPSS, 2017, p. 10.
52 Ibid., p. 47.
53 Ibid., p. 48.
54 Ibid., p. 26; see also GIZ, APSA Impact Report: The State and Impact of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in 2015. Eschborn: GIZ, 2016, p. 36.
55 Tavares R, Regional Security: The Capacity of International Organisations. London: Routledge, 2010, p. 13; Sabrow S, ‘Local perceptions of the legitimacy of peace operations by the UN, regional organisations and individual states – A case study of the Mali conflict’, International Peacekeeping, 24.1, 2017, p. 167.
56 Sabrow S, ‘Local perceptions of the legitimacy of peace operations by the UN, regional organisations and individual states – A case study of the Mali conflict’, International Peacekeeping, 24.1, 2017, p. 175.
57 Hagberg S & G Körling, ‘Socio-political turmoil in Mali: The public debate following the coup d’état on 22 March 2012’, Africa Spectrum, 47.2–3, 2012, p. 120.
58 Vines A, ‘A decade of African Peace and Security Architecture’, International Affairs, 89.1, 2013, pp. 106–8; Vanheukelom J, The Political Economy of Regional Integration in Africa: The African Union. Maastricht: ECDPM, 2016, p. 2; AU, African Peace and Security Architecture APSA Roadmap 2016–2020. Addis Ababa: AU, 2015.
59 See also Wodrig S, Regional Intervention Politics in Africa: Crisis, Hegemony, and the Transformation of Subjectivity. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
60 See for instance Mac Ginty R & OP Richmond, ‘The local turn in peace building: a critical agenda for peace’, Third World Quarterly, 34.5, 2013, p. 763; Lidén K, Mac Ginty R & OP Richmond, ‘Introduction: Beyond Northern epistemologies of peace: Peacebuilding reconstructed?’, International Peacekeeping, 16.5, 2009, pp. 587–98; Kühn F, ‘The peace prefix: Ambiguities of the word “peace”’, International Peacekeeping, 19.4, 2012, pp. 396–409.
61 Acharya A, ‘Global International Relations (IR) and regional worlds: A new agenda for international studies’, International Studies Quarterly, 58.4, 2014, pp. 647–59.
62 See for instance Comaroff J & J Comaroff, Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa. London: Routledge, 2012.
63 Hughes C, Öjendal J & I Schierenbeck, ‘The struggle versus the song – The local turn in peacebuilding: An introduction’, Third World Quarterly, 36.5, 2015, p. 818.