The African Union, France, and Conflict Management in Mali: Preferences, Actions, and Narrations

ABSTRACT

During the Malian crisis of 2012, French president Hollande ruled out French boots on the ground and preferred an African intervention. The African Union (AU) was predestined to lead conflict management. Yet in early 2013, Hollande authorized a French operation, thereby outmaneuvering the AU. Using ‘explaining-outcome process-tracing,’ I seek to uncover the underlying causal mechanisms that explain how the AU could be sidelined. Specifically, I scrutinize the preferences and actions of the AU and French actors and the narrations that elucidated these preferences and actions because as I argue, they are crucial to understand the marginalization of the AU.

KEYWORDS:

• Mali
• African Union
• France
• preferences
• narrations

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of the article has been presented at the 2021 convention of the German Political Science Association. The author is grateful to the participants of the panel “Legitimizing Interventions in Global/Regional Governance,” Linnéa Gelot and Simone Schnabel in particular. He also likes to acknowledge the constructive feedback of Penny Harper and the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Interview with a senior UN official (DPKO), New York, April 2015.

2 There were various Islamist groups operating in Mali. For the purposes of this paper, it is sufficient to summarize them as Jihadists.

3 Telephone interview with a former senior AU official, 22 February 2021.

4 Telephone interview with a former senior AU official, 22 February 2021.

5 Interview with a senior French military working for the EU Commission, November 2015.

6 Interview with a senior UN official (Office to the AU), Addis Ababa, February 2014.

7 Interview with a senior UN official (DPKO), Addis Ababa, February 2014.

8 Interview with a senior official at the United States Department of Defense, Washington, July 2015.

9 Telephone interview with a former senior AU official, 22 February 2021.

10 Telephone interview with a former senior AU official, 22 February 2021.

11 Interview with a UN official, New York, 23 April 2015.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Stiftung Friedensforschung.

Notes on contributors

Martin Welz

Martin Welz is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg. His research concentrates on inter-organizational relations, conflict management in Africa, and Africa's role in the world. He is the author of “Africa since Decolonization: The History and Politics of a Diverse Continent,” published with Cambridge University Press.