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Abstract
The buzzword ‘inclusion’ has taken peace research by storm and seeped into studies on the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and peace processes facilitated by African regional organisations. Apparently resonating with the normative preferences of donors and researchers, inclusion has taken root in policies on peace and security. However, the understandings of inclusion in peace processes remain diffuse in research and policy, and the research discourse seems far removed from the praxis of ‘peace deal-making’ in Africa. Therefore, this chapter turns the focus from APSA’s pillars to its peace processes and (self-)critically reflects on the concepts, methods and merits of researching inclusive peace-making. Focusing on policy discourses, actor groups and mechanisms for inclusion in peace processes, the chapter discusses the practice of civil society inclusion in peace-making in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and Southern African Development Community (SADC), focusing on the peace processes facilitated by the two organizations in South Sudan and Zimbabwe, respectively.
Abstract
This chapter analyses the contribution of the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia) as a norm entrepreneur to the discourse on ‘African solutions to African problems’ (AfSol). Conceptually, the chapter combines an international practice perspective with the literature on norm contestation. Empirically, it scrutinises the practices that actors at the IPSS have employed to shape norms, policies, and strategies related to the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). In particular, the chapter focuses on key IPSS publications on AfSol, to illustrate the discursive norm contestation of AfSol as an APSA norm. It interrogates the extent of problematisation of AfSol in these publications and the extent to which they refer to the various AfSol pillars designated by the IPSS, namely ownership and commitment, leadership, and shared values. The chapter argues that despite the rhetorical appeal of the idea, the ideal of AfSol has not yet been critically explored. After examining the epistemic limitations of the extant approaches, the authors propose a much more concentrated discursive contestation of AfSol with regard to the meaning, validity, and applicability of this emergent norm in African peace and security policies.
APSA Inside-Out
This edited volume offers new insights into the inner life of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and introduces scholars of African security dynamics to innovative epistemological, conceptual and methodological approaches. Based on intellectual openness and an interest in transdisciplinary perspectives, the volume challenges existing orthodoxies, poses new questions and opens a discussion on actual research practice. Drawing on Global Studies and critical International Studies perspectives, the authors follow inductive approaches and let the empirical data enrich their theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools. In this endeavor they focus on actors, practices and narratives involved in African Peace and Security and move beyond the often Western-centric premises of research carried out within rigid disciplinary boundaries.
Contributors are Michael Aeby, Yvonne Akpasom, Katharina P.W. Döring, Ulf Engel, Fana Gebresenbet Erda, Linnéa Gelot, Amandine Gnanguênon, Toni Haastrup, Jens Herpolsheimer, Alin Hilowle, Jamie Pring, Lilian Seffer, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Antonia Witt, Dawit Yohannes Wondemagegnehu
Contributors are Michael Aeby, Yvonne Akpasom, Katharina P.W. Döring, Ulf Engel, Fana Gebresenbet Erda, Linnéa Gelot, Amandine Gnanguênon, Toni Haastrup, Jens Herpolsheimer, Alin Hilowle, Jamie Pring, Lilian Seffer, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Antonia Witt, Dawit Yohannes Wondemagegnehu
APSA Inside-Out
This edited volume offers new insights into the inner life of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and introduces scholars of African security dynamics to innovative epistemological, conceptual and methodological approaches. Based on intellectual openness and an interest in transdisciplinary perspectives, the volume challenges existing orthodoxies, poses new questions and opens a discussion on actual research practice. Drawing on Global Studies and critical International Studies perspectives, the authors follow inductive approaches and let the empirical data enrich their theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools. In this endeavor they focus on actors, practices and narratives involved in African Peace and Security and move beyond the often Western-centric premises of research carried out within rigid disciplinary boundaries.
Contributors are Michael Aeby, Yvonne Akpasom, Katharina P.W. Döring, Ulf Engel, Fana Gebresenbet Erda, Linnéa Gelot, Amandine Gnanguênon, Toni Haastrup, Jens Herpolsheimer, Alin Hilowle, Jamie Pring, Lilian Seffer, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Antonia Witt, Dawit Yohannes Wondemagegnehu
Contributors are Michael Aeby, Yvonne Akpasom, Katharina P.W. Döring, Ulf Engel, Fana Gebresenbet Erda, Linnéa Gelot, Amandine Gnanguênon, Toni Haastrup, Jens Herpolsheimer, Alin Hilowle, Jamie Pring, Lilian Seffer, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Antonia Witt, Dawit Yohannes Wondemagegnehu
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Abstract
This chapter uses the concept of ‘informal international practices’ (IIPs) to explore the relational nature and origins of the African Peace and Security Architecture. It argues that ‘outinsiders’, actors who have one foot outside the door of public offices and the other foot inside official circles, have used IIPs to develop the specific elements of APSA and to get the leadership of the African Union, in particular African Heads of State and Government, to accept them as the main African peace and security framework. More specifically, the chapter describes how, on the one hand, African leaders have found appeal in and helped to shape a collectivist trait of the informal relational order underlying APSA. On the other, it analyses how outinsiders have used informal channels to introduce, adapt and consolidate specific norms and procedures. The chapter argues that, although tensions sometimes have existed (and continue to do so) between the primary objectives of the two groups of actors, the results have been narratives, policies, and practices that while influenced by larger, global discourses clearly reflect African agency with an impact on discourses beyond the continent. The chapter therefore offers a telling example of the importance of informality in international affairs.