African Non-Military Conflict Intervention Practices

Ever since the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) was initiated in the early 2000s, political and research interest has tended to focus on its military components, rather than the more quantitatively important non-military interventions.

This book scrutinizes the enactment and effects of African non-military conflict interventions from a range of different perspectives and contexts. Research suggests that non-military interventions through the African Union and Regional Economic Communities are highly impactful, despite being typically under-resourced and less institutionally embedded within APSA. This book provides a comprehensive empirical mapping of the many mostly informal practices of non-military interventions, and the complex interfaces between the African Union and Regional Economic Communities, their external ‘partners’, as well as national and local actors. Covering various cross-cutting themes such as the involvement of civil society and the role of African special envoys in non-military interventions, the book considers the variation and dynamics of such practices across time and space, as well as their intended or unintended effects.

This timely new assessment of African non-military conflict interventions will be an important read for peacebuilding practitioners and think tanks, as well as researchers working across African international relations, peace, and conflict studies.

Author Biography

Antonia Witt is Head of the Research Group ‘African Intervention Politics’ at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and Principal Investigator in the research network ‘African Non-military Conflict Intervention Practices (ANCIP)’. Her research focuses on African regional organizations, legitimacy and authority in international politics, African interventions in response to coups and political crises, as well as societal perspectives on the AU and ECOWAS.

Christof Hartmann is Professor of Political Science, in particular International Relations and African Politics at the Department of Political Science, and Director of the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He is also Principal Investigator in the research network ‘African Non-military Conflict Intervention Practices (ANCIP)’.

Ulf Engel is Professor for ‘Politics in Africa’ at the Institute for African Studies at Leipzig University, Germany and Principal Investigator in the research network ‘African Non-military Conflict Intervention Practices (ANCIP)’. He is also a visiting professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and a professor extraordinary in the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.