Abstract
The paper conceptualizes acquiescence as a strategy bureaucrats adopt to deal with contestation between themselves and political leaders. The literature on bureaucratic politics argues that policy outcomes result from a game of bargaining between bureaucrats and political leaders. These actors employ diverse strategies like bargaining for more authority, exploiting loopholes, challenging the political class, and, at other times, using the threat of resignation to implement their preferred priorities. However, we advance the above argument by introducing another strategy that bureaucrats use, acquiescence. We analyze African Union (AU) bureaucratic politics through speeches, press releases, and secondary materials. The paper argues that rather than opting for standard bureaucratic strategies, AU bureaucrats acquiesce because the institutional structure, material resources, and the AU solidarity norm make it difficult for them to do otherwise. Acquiescence is the reluctant acceptance of decisions in bureaucratic politics in the form of silence or an absence of protest. We show examples of AU institutional reform and the Burundi crisis debates, where acquiescence can explain decision-making outcomes in the organization. We conclude that acquiescence is a relevant conceptual tool in explaining the outcomes of bureaucratic politics in the AU and can be generalized to investigate institutional politics in other international organizations within and outside of the continent.
1 Introduction
This paper situates itself within the discourse of bureaucratic politics by theorizing how African Union (AU) bureaucrats respond to contestation. It proposes a heuristic approach through which decision-making outcomes can be explained and understood from an African International Organization (IO) perspective. Bureaucratic politics is a theoretical approach emphasizing internal bargaining within states and their institutions. Although this literature has primarily theorized bureaucratic politics in the context of states’ foreign policymaking, we move beyond that to explore bureaucratic politics within IOs, in this case the AU.
Member states of international organizations often task bureaucrats to provide technical direction for the organization and implement endorsed by the political leaders. In the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the AU, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government (founders and the highest decision-making organ of the organizations) gave similar responsibilities to their Secretariat, headed by the Secretary-General and the Commission, led by the Chairperson, respectively (AU 2000; OAU 1963). However, there have been instances of contestations between bureaucrats and the Assembly. These include cases where the two disagree over which issues the organizations should prioritize, what directions they should take, and how things should be done. In many instances, the bureaucrats have had to consent to what politicians want despite the former’s strong convictions about their preferences and visions. Bureaucrats consent not because they lack agency (Welz 2020). Rather, they consent because they know that certain organizational factors make it difficult for them to challenge the authority and undermine the preferences of the political leaders. This form of consent is what we conceptualize as acquiescence.
Our approach here is to heuristically define acquiescence and outline some conditions under which the AU staff might choose it over other options. We draw from legal theory to conceptualize acquiescence as the form of silence or absence of protest in circumstances that reasonably call for objections. In cases where an individual stands by without raising any objections to the possible infringement of their rights by someone who makes a claim to their rights, they are said to have consented due to their inaction. Thus, silence is equated to acquiescence. We borrow this premise and define acquiescence as the reluctant acceptance of decisions in bureaucratic politics in the form of silence or an absence of protest.
We argue that institutional structure, material resources, and the African solidarity norm are some conditions that drive continental bureaucrats to consent. Member states control these conditions, thus making it difficult for bureaucrats to contest effectively. Unlike in legal theory, acquiescence in international relations (IR) is intentional and not due to the actor’s inaction or ignorance of their rights. We also argue that acquiescence could be employed as a bureaucratic strategy to avoid conflicts or retreat to challenge another day. However, the main crux of the paper is that bureaucrats opt for acquiescence due to the institutional structure, material resources, and solidarity of the AU, which make it difficult to contest issues further. By exploring bureaucratic politics from an African IO perspective, we aim to provide heuristic pointers to a topic that needs further exploration.
Ultimately, we aim to expand debates and contribute theoretically and empirically to the field by arguing that bureaucrats opt for acquiescence because certain IO conditions limit them from employing other methods. This does not mean they are passive participants in the decision-making processes, but they opt for acquiescence because organizational conditions limit their access to resources that are necessary for mounting successful challenges to the preferences of the political leaders. The response is employed intentionally in other cases to keep the peace and maintain the normal functioning of the organization, though sometimes bureaucrats reengage in contestation when they feel better positioned. The literature on bureaucratic politics focuses on the state while we move the debate to IO decision-making processes.
The following section presents an overview of the literature on bureaucratic politics, considering the field’s meso- and macro-level analysis. The third section develops acquiescence as an institutional response, drawing from the legal theory. The fourth section shows instances where bureaucrats have opted for acquiescence in institutional bargaining. These instances are as follows: in the 1990s, political leaders ignored Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim’s proposals for organizational reforms and the adoption of a norm of intervention in members’ affairs. Under the AU, the failed intervention in Burundi in 2015 and the difficulties in reforming the organization for financial self-sufficiency provide instances of contestation between the Commission and the Assembly and acquiescence by the former. The fifth section infers from the cases to explains under what conditions bureaucrats opt for acquiescence in IO bureaucratic politics. The last section concludes with a summary of the argument and the possible implications for the functioning of the IO.
The special issue aims to theorize based on African cases and propose theories that are both unique to African realities and potentially generalizable to other cases. In this paper, we do the latter. We do not argue that acquiescence is unique to African regionalism. However, we develop acquiescence from African cases. We find acquiescence to be a relevant conceptual tool in explaining the outcomes of bureaucratic politics in the AU and can be generalized to other IOs with similar features beyond Africa.
2 Bureaucratic Politics in International Relations
Theoretically, acquiescence advances the explanation of the bureaucratic politics model (BPM) because it introduces a strategy yet to be explored in the field. Bureaucratic politics argues that policy outcomes result from a game of bargaining between governmental actors. As a result, these actors employ various strategies to implement their preferences. (Allison 1969; Allison and Halperin 1972; Jones 2017). Bureaucracies are created by politicians who often appoint the people who work in such institutions. This is the case in many international organizations, including the AU, its predecessor, and other African IOs. Bureaucracies exist mostly to carry out the wishes of the political class. For instance, the OAU Secretariat was initially headed by an Administrative Secretary-General whose only duty was to lead other officials to implement the decisions of the Assembly (Polhemus 1974; OAU 1963). However, from the literature on bureaucratic politics, we understand that as bodies of professionals and motivated individuals, bureaucracies often have their ideas of how an organization should function, what it needs to prioritize, and the pace of change that should be adopted (Allison and Halperin 1972; Jones 2017). This literature also suggests that in the international system, bureaucracies shape the foreign policies of their states and international organizations (Halperin, Clapp, and Kanter 2006). In some instances, bureaucracies take a life of their own, becoming powerful forces in domestic and international politics (Barnett and Finnemore 2012). In addition to states and political leaders, any understanding of states’ international behavior must pay attention to the influence that bureaucracies may have on the formation of policy, translation into action, and the impact of their conduct on political actors. Bureaucracies in and of themselves are complex and multilayered systems of decision-making processes. In this paper, we specifically focus on bureaucratic politics in the context of interactions between bureaucrats and political leaders in IOs.
Bureaucratic politics analysis evolved within the field of public administration to systematically study the role of public servants and other bureaucrats in public and foreign policy making (Jones 2017). Allison’s work “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis” (1969) was an early research that focused on the decision-making process and its impact on foreign policy and theorized the BPM as a framework of analysis for explaining bargaining relationships between bureaucrats and politicians. BPM is based on the premise that policy outcomes result from a game of bargaining among diverse governmental actors with a central contention that policy decisions are not made from rational, collective, and cohesive process but through conflict, negotiation, and bargaining between members of the bureaucracy, politicians, and other interested parties (Allison and Halperin 1972). These actors approach decision-making processes with various preferences, capabilities, and positions of power and choose strategies and policy goals based on outcomes which serve their interests and preferences. Although this literature mostly remained US- and state-centric, international relations scholars since the 1970s have increasingly applied the model to analyze foreign policies of states and decision-making within international organizations.
However, IR scholars started with a sharp awareness of the model’s weaknesses (Krasner 1972; Holsti 1972; Nathan and Oliver 1978), including descriptive inaccuracies, the complex nature of the model, and its lack of serious potency to explain causal mechanisms. These criticisms have propelled theories that strive to explain bureaucratic politics in the context of the principal-agent model. BPM scholars explore negotiations that lead to foreign policy formation along with institutionalist scholars who explain the relationship between institutions and their human agents (March and Olsen 1998; Moe 1984). They focus on the constraining and enabling effects of formal rules created by member states (principals) and how such rules shape and determine the behavior of bureaucrats (agents) who are supposed to drive principals’ priorities.
Building on the use of the BPM in IR, we explore how bureaucrats and political leaders in African international organizations interact with one another. We aim to push the agenda on theory building to focus on how bureaucrats in the AU respond when their proposals are rejected by the political leaders representing the member states. Within international organization studies, BPM helps explain how bureaucrats who work in international organizations play their politics when interacting with member states. Thus, bureaucratic politics is primarily driven by contestation between member states and the bureaucrats who work for them in IOs.
In IO studies, most literature has focused on the states’, not the bureaucrats’ strategies. Hirschmann’s (2021) work is one of the rare ones that engage with the strategies of bureaucrats from an IO perspective. She presents three responses that international organizations can adopt when their authorities are challenged from within:—a “no” response, adaptation, and resilience building. First, she argues that IOs sometimes do not respond to contestation for strategic reasons or merely ignore challenges and stick with IO routines. Second, IOs can respond through adaptation by “introducing institutional changes to maintain the support of the challenging member state(s)” (Hirschmann 2021, 1966). Third, IOs respond through resilience-building by developing organizational infrastructure that cushions or discourages contestation. Resilience is built through naming and shaming offending states, networking with like-minded states, and further professionalizing the organization’s operations.
Although these studies on bureaucratic politics involving states and bureaucrats provide interesting ways of explaining decision-making outcomes and responses to contestation, they do not engage much with processes within African regional organizations. Instead, studies examining bureaucratic politics in Africa have done so from a public policy perspective—which mainly examines bureaucrats’ role and outcomes in policy processes that differ from IR interests (Montgomery 1986; Igbokwe-Ibeto 2019). Therefore, rather than test these BPM theories on African ROs, we engage with bureaucratic politics within the AU and initiate a theorizing exercise based on how AU bureaucrats and member states interact.
As advanced in this paper, we introduce acquiescence as an additional response that actors within organizations adopt in response to contestation. Much of the research on African regionalism has often focused on the politicians or the bureaucrats separately. These studies have primarily paid attention to the behavior of the AU (Söderbaum 2004; Witt 2019a; Glas and Balogun 2020) on contestations among member states on issues where actors have diverged preferences (Witt 2019b), or between the AU and other IOs (Han and Rosenberg 2021). However, little attention is given to how the relationship, especially contestations over priorities and vision between bureaucrats and member states unfold- the institutional responses employed by AU staff to assert their preferences, and under what conditions these happen. We would also like to emphasize that we do not assume that because bureaucrats sometimes acquiesce they lack agency (Welz 2020; Tieku 2021), but that the intentional use of acquiescence exhibits the agency of AU staff in contestation situations.
AU bureaucrats are active agents in the policy-making processes within the IO (Tieku 2021). However, we argue that politicians sometimes hinder the ability of their bureaucrats to influence decisions. There are also instances where bureaucrats do not have much power or authority to implement their preferred vision. This has especially been the case in the Organization of African Unity, AU, and other African IOs, where the position of Secretariats or Commission is limited to the implementation of the decisions of the politicians and with virtually no room for innovation to implement their visions. According to the literature, bureaucrats adopt two key strategies in such cases. First, they can improve their positioning within the organization by bargaining for more authority from the political leaders, or they can implement all or part of their preferred agenda by exploiting loopholes within the institutional setup to their advantage (Krylova 2018). Other potential responses include situations where bureaucrats openly challenge the political class. In contrast, others who no longer feel convinced about their roles in the organization may voluntarily exit or be dismissed (Allison and Halperin 1972). In other words, the bureaucrats may adopt several responses to resolve contestation between themselves and member states. Some of these strategic responses may mimic how member states respond to their own dissatisfaction.
Based on cases from the OAU and the AU, we present acquiescence as another response that bureaucrats adopt to resolve contestation with politicians. Our position is that while African bureaucrats can adopt the four strategies depending on the context, acquiescence explains how many continue to function in their positions. This is especially when they do not bargain for more authority, fail to exploit loopholes, no longer challenge the political class, and do not resign from their positions.
3 Acquiescence as an Institutional Response
The scholarship on bureaucratic politics has put forward actors’ responses in state and IO-level decision-making processes. Nonetheless, none of the strategies evolved from an African lens. Therefore, we contribute to the literature by taking a bottom-up approach and providing an additional response that bureaucrats within the AU employ. This perspective of theorizing bureaucratic politics brings theoretical and empirical benefits to the study of bureaucratic politics. It introduces acquiescence as an institutional response or strategy often chosen by bureaucrats over the rest. Empirically, it points to a series of events that, despite demanding analysis, are often ignored in favor of member-state politics. We argue that AU bureaucrats adopt acquiescence as part of their approach to politics within their organization and that certain conditions drive their choice of this strategy.
Acquiescence has already been developed extensively within the international legal theory. The term has its roots in Anglo-American Law (acquiescence) and French procedural Law (acquiescement), although its extrapolation into international law differs to some extent (Marque Antuness n.d.). The dictionary meaning of acquiescence is the reluctant acceptance of something without protest (Cambridge Dictionary 2022). In international law, it is further conceptualized within the action-reaction paradigm as the inaction a state adopts in a situation constituting a threat to the infringement of its rights (MacGibbon 1954; Wass 2017). Acquiescence thus occurs in the form of silence or absence of protest in circumstances that generally call for an active reaction signifying objection (MacGibbon 1954). In recent studies, acquiescence has become a popular concept in customary law. It has been applied to international border disputes to stabilize or adjudicate friction (Yan 2021; Chan 2004; Woodman 1971). The idea of reluctant consent is one that we find useful for this analysis, especially when power dynamics come into play.
Acquiescence in legal theory is an agreement to do what someone wants or acceptance of what they do even though one may disagree. It is a situation whereby an individual stands by without raising any objections to the possible infringement of their rights by someone who unintentionally, without malice or forethought, makes a claim to their rights. Therefore, in this case, silence is equated to consent. As a result, the person whose rights are infringed upon loses the ability to make a claim against the infringer (Wass 2017). In legal theory, consent to a rule takes the form of silence instead of an active objection to the rule. The absence of protest means agreement. Failure to react in a reasonable time can serve as evidence of consent, provided that the individual/state did not respond. Silence in a situation that infringes on the rights or position of an individual or state is considered acquiescing. When an actor’s rights are infringed upon, a response is needed to clarify their position. In this case, inaction is interpreted as acceptance.
Legal scholars argue that an awareness of legal rights is essential in recognizing the options available to the silent party. Thus, in situations where the party is not knowledgeable about these rights, then they are more likely to take actions that appear as consent. Besides, knowledge of legal rights motions to the individual/state of a possibility of the other party employing their silence as consent. When an actor knows the outcome of inaction, they are more likely to contest because silence can be equated to acquiescence (Chan 2004; Wass 2017). Overall, while international law has been concerned with the causal mechanisms for acquiescence, we, on the other hand, are more interested in exploring the conditions under which bureaucrats opt for acquiescence and no other options.
Based on the application in law, we define acquiescence as the bureaucrats’ reluctant acceptance of the decisions and position of member states in the form of silence or an absence of protest. The starting point of acquiescence in an IR context is contestation. Consequently, issues are not ruled as consent due to inaction, but actors opt for acquiescence due to failed contestation. We contend that acquiescence is intentionally employed by AU staff when they realize that contestation is unsuccessful—when they have already failed in challenging. On the contrary, in legal theory, acquiescence can be held against someone when they have failed to defend their rights (Wass 2017). In IR, consent is intentional, while in Law, acquiescence is not. Therefore, the action-reaction paradigm in IR does not have to do with notifying a party about a decision and receiving a “no”-response, but one of contesting an issue and acquiescing because the challenger lacked the capability to challenge successfully. For IR theory, we argue that any inaction on the part of the bureaucrats is acquiescence, when decisions implemented were policies initially contested.
4 Case Studies
4.1 Intervention in Burundi Case
The Burundi crisis was a clear case of contestation between the AU Commission, the bureaucratic body, and the Assembly, the political leaders. The events following the announcement by Pierre Nkurunziza in 2015 that he would run for a third term portrayed how divergent opinions were within the AU on how to handle the crisis. With that announcement, Burundi was thrust into violence and instability as most Burundians contested Nkurunziza’s eligibility (Ncube 2019; Vandeginste 2015). Preferences in dealing with the country’s downward spiral into violence diverged and caused one group to acquiesce.
The AU Commission (AUC) chairperson at the time, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, took more targeted and assertive steps in dealing with the problem, especially since the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recorded 333,700 refugees already displaced at the beginning of the crisis. Zuma delegated power to the East African Community (EAC) to monitor and address issues from the ground (AU Press Release 2015). Initially, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the Peace and Security Department (PSD) were concerned with the AUC’s tough stance on the issue. However, as tension heightened, they were persuaded by the severity of the situation. Thus, they made a more concerted effort to address the problem (Jobson 2016). For the first time in the history of the PSC’s reaction to conflict, the PSC authorized the deployment of an African military contingent, a 5,000-strong African Prevention and Protection Mission (MAPROBU).
This authorization, said the PSC, was meant “to prevent any deterioration of the security situation, [to] monitor its evolution and report developments on the ground [and] to contribute, within its capacity and in its areas of deployment, to the protection of civilian populations under imminent threat” (AU PSC communiqué 2015). However, the AUC needed Burundi’s consent to deploy, but the Burundian government turned down the request. Following this announcement, Nkurunziza’s government was given 96 hours to consent. With the failure to do so, the PSC stressed that it would invoke Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act, which allows intervention in cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.
To invoke Article 4(h) and forcibly intervene in Burundi, the AUC needed to overcome two potential hurdles. According to Dersso (2016), the AUC is required to produce the necessary data and analysis to convince the Assembly that attempts have failed to avert violence, and thus intervention is essential. Besides, the AUC also needed to persuade political leaders and trigger the Assembly’s political will to approve the proposal. But this had to be contested when you have an AU Assembly prioritizing sovereignty and solidarity. Hence, it was not surprising that when the proposal to sanction the MAPROBU mission came to the Assembly, it was instantly declined endorsement.
The Burundian crisis shows a clear divergence of preferences between the AUC and the Assembly. From the perspective of the AUC, it found the Nkurunziza government’s human rights abuses basis enough to sanction an intervention, while the Assembly, on the other hand, was not convinced of the severity of the situation and hence rejected the proposal to intervene. Rather, the Assembly asked the AUC to seek less aggressive approaches (Jobson 2016). Therefore, the AUC consented to withdraw its proposal to intervene.
The AU’s institutional design, the AUC’s lack of capability to prepare and present the data, and the member state’s solidarity norm are all plausible explanations for the AUC’s decision to consent. Although the AUC is delegated to administer and influence decision-making processes within the AU, its proposals must convince the Assembly of the validity of their recommendation. In situations where it fails to do so, the preferences of the Assembly prevail. Yahya Jammeh, President of Gambia at the time, responded to the debate on intervention with the sovereignty argument (Dersso 2016). He contended that the Burundian government remained elected by the people. Thus, the AU must respect Burundi’s sovereignty and perceive the crisis as internal.
Even if the AUC received the approval for intervention, it still lacked the capabilities to intervene. Analysts pointed to the fact that the Commission is understaffed and underfunded and, therefore, was incapable of taking on the deployment task (Crisis Group 2016; Dersso 2016). The Burundi case is an instance of acquiescence driven primarily by the power imbalance between AU bureaucrats and political leaders as created by the institutional design of the organization. As an organ mainly tasked to implement the decisions of its creators, the Commission had no power to consistently challenge the Assembly, let alone to overrule its reluctance to sanction and intervene.
Additionally, the Commission, understaffed and stretched thin, did not have the luxury to dedicate staff to continue persuading the member states to change their position. It was rather more productive to channel their energies into ventures as allowed by the institutional design and resource availability. The Commission, therefore, reluctantly surrendered because it lacked the necessary resources to contest effectively. The implications of acquiescing, in this case, is that less sovereignty-threatening solutions to problems are more likely to be adopted over expert recommendations, which may prove to be more effective in crises. Bureaucrats play a crucial role in policy-making, but this can be limited when opinions diverge between bureaucrats and politicians, and the former are pressured to consent.
4.2 Salim Ahmed Salim’s Proposal for Intervention
Besides political questions, continental bureaucrats show high levels of acquiescence regarding institutional reforms. Discussions to reform regional organizational structures started in the 1970s when the OAU had just crossed its first decade. However, it was only in the 1990s that bureaucrats, under the leadership of Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim, made their most forceful argument for the OAU to be reformed. In 1990, Salim released the “Report of the Secretary-General on the Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World and Their Implication for Africa” in which he tasked the continent’s political leaders to reform the OAU, give it more supranational power, mobilize resources to be financially self-sufficient, and prepare the organization to drive Africa’s development in the twenty-first century (OAU 1990).
Another pivotal reform proposal was that the leaders abandon their policy of non-interference that had seen the organization do very little while civilians were harmed in many parts of the continent’s conflicts (OAU 1990). He and the Secretariat were convinced that the most effective way for the organization to deliver on its promise of economic development and political stability was to be interested in the internal affairs of member states, monitor how they treat their citizens, and implement continental policies.
In the 1990s, many political leaders were dismayed about the OAU’s failure to deliver public goods to African citizens. Yoweri Museveni, who for four years had become the leader of Uganda after a bloody war in which hundreds of thousands died, and Isaias Afewerki, who in 1991 led Eritrea to independence from Ethiopia after years of war, both agreed that their organization’s policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states almost certainly gave rogue leaders a blank check to oppress their citizens (Museveni 1986, Kioko 2003).
Like Salim, these leaders saw an adequately authorized and resourced OAU as the only possible entity to protect citizens from governments that cannot or would not protect them. In short, the proposal to reform the OAU and introduce the norm of interference in member states’ internal affairs, in principle, enjoyed support among some political leaders.
However, at this point, Salim’s proposal for intervention clashed with the politics of African leaders, who did not want the organization to have a say in members’ internal affairs, even those that gave their rhetorical support. It is noteworthy that rather than direct articulated opposition to the proposals, the Secretariat encountered an obstacle: indifference from the Assembly (Cilliers 2014, Kioko 2003, Deng et al. 1991). One would, therefore, rarely find a specific condemnation from the political leadership. Rather, the Assembly failed to approve Salim’s reform proposals and failed to comment on or push them forward. Much later, when the political leaders were interested in reforms like the transition from the OAU to the AU and the reform of the AU, they appointed committees to discuss and make recommendations on reform proposals. However, in the 1990s, the leaders’ lack of interest in institutional reforms at the time meant that they did not adopt this approach.
Evidence of acquiescence can be identified from this study in two ways. First, after encountering indifference, Salim and the Secretariat minimized their push for change. Although Salim continued to be the Secretary-General for about 10 more years and eventually saw through the transition from the OAU to the AU, the debate regarding a supranational OAU took a backseat. However, had the political leaders approved his plan, this change would have occurred in the 1990s when Salim’s Secretariat wanted the change. The Secretariat acquiesced to the initial indifference and the slow pace of change that the political leaders wanted, hence delaying the creation of the AU by at least a decade. The AU’s creation became possible only when the political leaders actively took an interest in and drove the process.
4.3 Financial Reforms
Another instance of acquiescence is the debates regarding institutional reform in the AU. For decades, the AU has dealt with the constant dependence on external resources. Only about 33 percent of AU funding comes from within, and the rest comes from foreign donors like Canada, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, China, and Turkey, as well as organizations such as the World Bank and European Union. The organization, therefore, has a long-standing desire to reform its financial status to get member states to pay more (Boateng 2017).
One of the first attempts in recent history over AU reforms followed the summit in Accra, Ghana, in 2007. At the time, the Assembly of the AU appointed a panel chaired by Adebayo Adedeji, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), to supervise the first High- Level Panel on the Audit of the African Union in 2007 (Bedzigui 2017). They were tasked with auditing the various organs of the AU and proposing recommendations. Subsequently, the panel made 172 recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the AUC, among other things. However, the document was contested because the AU Commission was transitioning between Alpha Omar Konaré of Mali and Jean Ping of Gabon. At the time, “Konaré’s Commission argued that neither the Commission nor any other AU institution involved in the audit had an opportunity to comment on the recommendations and did not provide details on some of the information the panel had received from other sources” (Bedzigui 2017). The report, with its recommendations which included financing reforms, was postponed to the 10th summit in Addis Ababa 2008. However, no consensus was reached, and the reform died a “natural death.”
The actors involved here were the Audit Committee, the Commission, and the Assembly. As observed, the issue raised was regarding AU institutional reforms; in this case, the Audit Committee clarified why the institution needed reforms. However, the Commission push backed its recommendations because the document did not account for its opinion, although it was the outgoing Commission at the time. With the initial contest, we can argue that the Committee acquiesced because the proposal got a second chance at the 2008 summit. Nonetheless, it ultimately did not get the approval of the Assembly, which also caused the Committee to acquiesce. This reform debate is a precise instance of surrender to a more powerful actor within the AU. When decisions reach the Assembly, they have the final say on what will be or not be adopted. Political leaders have higher bargaining power because of the institutional structure of the AU and the leaders’ control over material resources.
5 Acquiescence in the African Union
Based on the three cases, we propose that bureaucratic acquiescence in the AU has certain characteristics. Fundamentally, acquiescence is a response that bureaucrats adopt as part of their politics in international organizations like the AU. From the three cases, interactions start with the bureaucrats and political leaders holding divergent positions. For instance, while the Commission wanted the AU to intervene in Burundi, the politicians did not want this. The bureaucrats, however, did not have any institutional provision to support continuous bargaining, neither were they equipped to override decisions of the Assembly. The PSC, therefore, was dissatisfied and reluctantly accepted decisions by member states. But this came only after the bureaucrats had proposed their options and attempted to convince the political class but got rejected. That is, the bureaucrats’ reluctant acceptance came after they contested the political leaders’ position but had no choice but to go along with decisions that political leaders made despite the bureaucrats’ dissatisfaction with them. Both cases of institutional reforms followed similar patterns; bureaucrats and political leaders started with different positions; both wanted the other to support their visions, but political leaders ended up having their way. Bureaucrats, therefore, acquiesced to the wishes of member states.
Besides the fundamental reluctance to accept that is central to acquiescence, attention must be paid to the conditions under which it happens. Here, we propose four main conditions that can be detected from the three cases. First, bureaucrats opt for acquiescence when the institutional design of the IO makes it impossible to contest. The OAU structure, at its creation, constrains bureaucrats in their bid to implement their favored decision as experts. From the creation of the OAU to its transition to the AU, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government remains the “Supreme Organ,” the highest decision-making and policy body of the organizations. Despite the transition from the OAU to the AU, the preeminent position of the Assembly as the supreme authority in continental integration has not changed (Akokpari, Ndinga-Muvumba, and Murithi 2008; Karbo and Murithi 2018). The Assembly has the final say on AU’s policies, priorities, finances, programs, and the allocation of the organization’s resources. The Assembly also monitors the implementation of its policies and decisions by the bureaucrats (AU 2000; Yihdego 2011). This means that policies and programs must gain member states’ support and approval before adoption and implementation. Consequently, it is more unlikely for such decisions to be adopted when programs are initiated by bureaucrats but not supported by member states.
It follows that bureaucrats in the PSC are there to implement the decisions of the political leaders. The design of the AU ensures that bureaucrats in the PSC and the Commission at large, despite their innovations, have minimal room to get their preferred ideas and projects implemented by the organization. Political leaders often prefer their ideas and visions to take precedence over any ideas from the bureaucrats. Ultimately, therefore, the power to adopt the final decision belongs only to the Assembly, as the three cases show. Although bureaucrats tried to collaborate with member states, none of the expert opinions garnered the desired support.
Relatedly, AU staff are likely to opt for acquiescence when they lack support and, as a result, the material resources to proceed with their preferred vision. The fundamental assumption of this proposition is that dependence on critical and vital resources influences institutions’ actions—in this case, bureaucrats (Nienhüser 2008; Pfeffer 2005). Therefore, the decision by the PSC, the Salim Secretariat, and the Commission to reluctantly consent can be explained by the fact that they depended on politicians for resources. Fundamentally, funds are controlled by the Assembly whose preferences often differ from those of the experts who administer the IO. Hence, financial dependency constrains the capability of AU staff to sustain contestation if they want. Additionally, time as a resource can be a constraint on bureaucrats. This is especially when staff do not have time to mobilize, attend meetings, build a coalition, and sustain contestation against political leaders over long periods. For instance, even if the PSC or Salim had the institutional power to challenge the politicians, sustaining this over a month, let alone for years, would have been difficult. Rather, the PSC, Salim, and the Commission were “forced” to return or stick to their regular jobs of carrying out the wishes of politicians.
Another resource constraint on the bargaining ability of bureaucrats is the limited number of staff at the Commission. It has been found that since the time of the OAU, the continental institution has been understaffed, with the proportion that this affects every aspect of the organization’s work (Lotze 2013; Amate 1986). This results in bureaucrats being overworked and forced to prioritize issues and rationalize their efforts and resources. Because understaffing has been a systemic challenge in both the OAU and the AU, it is reasonable to propose that in its interactions with politicians, the bureaucrats significantly lack the numbers to match diplomacy with the politicians. However, beyond this systemic view, there is evidence that during the Burundi crisis, the PSC was severely understaffed, limiting its ability to quickly plan and respond to the demands of the politicians, let alone to contest the latter, and sustain an agitation for their own visions (International Crisis Group 2016). Since understaffing has been a systemic problem, Salim’s efforts in the 1990s also certainly suffered from this problem (Cilliers 2014). This lack of adequate human resources had meant that even when they wanted to contest political leaders’ decisions, the bureaucrats, especially when expected to implement projects rapidly, would not have the additional staff who can consistently dedicate themselves to convincing political leaders to change their minds and positions.
Even a properly mandated and resourced bureaucrat may still be unable to get its way because of the norm of solidarity that persists among member states. Since the OAU days, AU decisions have been driven by a Pan-Africanist agenda centered on the values of unity, solidarity, cohesion, and cooperation among the people of Africa and African states (Murithi 2016). The solidarity norm explanation argues that groups of individuals act in solidarity to contribute voluntarily and unconditionally to a public good (Tranow 2019; Baurmann 1999; Dirar 2016). This follows Tieku’s (Tieku 2021) argument of a relational governance approach in the AU context. He argues that the relational governance approach can be observed in the African humanist core ideal of ubuntu and its understanding of the person, which translates to “I am because we are, and because we are therefore I am” (Mbiti 1969).
According to ubuntu philosophy, African societies are seen as collectivist groups, not individualist entities. Hence, decisions are reached through dialogue to cater to the preferences of that whole. In all the cases, the fact that the AU politicians prioritized collectivist decisions over individual state preferences regardless of disagreements compels bureaucrats to opt for acquiescence. For instance, states refrain from criticizing one other in public (Abrahamsen 2020; Tieku 2012). And even when they disagree, political leaders are more likely to stick together on important issues that may differ from what the bureaucrats want. In this sense, bureaucrats in the PSC, under Salim, and in the recent reformist attempts would see themselves going against not just a more unified front from the member states but also against a core value of Pan-Africanism.
Any forced opposition to member states’ indifference or unified active positions would have sent the bureaucrats on a coalition course with the political leaders. That is, Pan-Africanist solidarity demands an almost unflinching loyalty to a group ideology, regardless of how disagreeable some individuals might find it. This makes it almost sacrilegious to oppose this sort of togetherness. That is, because of this emphasis on collectivity and solidarity, bureaucrats who want to challenge the member states may risk being dismissed and ostracized from continental public service. For instance, during the 1970s and 1980s, the Assembly often reminded Secretaries-General who were deemed to be overstepping their authorities to keep in line and focus on their core mandate of implementing the decisions of member states (Amate 1986). In this sense, when bureaucrats “go against the collective,” member states can see them not as promoting democratic participation but as obstructing group unity. Therefore, bureaucrats hesitate to risk their careers and reputation and may end up acquiescing in the process.
These instances show that acquiescence to the preferences of politicians takes place in an environment of asymmetric institutional powers, resource constraints, and normative limitations that are nearly impossible for the bureaucrats to overcome without significant institutional reforms. Therefore, it is almost always predictable that bureaucrats, regardless of how long and intense they contest member states’ positions, will end up acquiescing. While institutional reforms, crisis periods, and transitional eras throw organizations into flux, various actors, including bureaucrats, take advantage to advance their preferences. However, the cases show that bureaucrats are not always successful. In the AU case, they can even be forced by institutional and normative structures to abandon that pursuit altogether. The case on humanitarian intervention also shows that bureaucrats can take the chance to remind member states to implement their own decisions and values that they have committed to, in this case, the norm of intervention. However, this also comes against resistance from member states. Hence bureaucrats have little to do than go ahead to do what member states want.
Overall, it is easier for change to occur in the AU if initiated by political leaders or member states than for such change to succeed if created by bureaucrats without support from member states. This, however, does not mean that bureaucrats cannot drive change or get their preferences adopted by the organization. Chances of change are possible mainly under the condition that political leaders have already endorsed the bureaucrats’ proposals. These changes happen when one or a group of member states adopt the proposals from bureaucrats and push them in the Assembly, or by coincidence, bureaucrats and member states agree on the same priorities. Under these conditions, the chances of contestation are low and almost eliminated, and the prospect of collective change is higher. In such cases, the institutional, resource, and normative limitations, even if unchanged, do not limit the bureaucrats, and acquiescence is almost certainly eliminated.
Our aim in this paper has been modest, to point to acquiescence as a relevant strategic response in African international organizations. This heuristic exercise has directed attention to a neglected issue and an analysis of African international relations that preoccupies itself with states and less so with bureaucrats. Beyond the specific point of being a strategic response, bureaucratic acquiescence holds the potential to help us understand institutional change and organizational dynamics in new ways. For instance, given the AU’s institutional, resource, and normative setup, we can better understand why certain policy proposals are more likely to succeed. Relatedly, we can understand why and the conditions under which change occurs or does not occur depending on what these three factors allow at the time. Additionally, attention to acquiescence means that bureaucrats, the technical people in charge of running the administrative arms of organizations and implementing programs, have expertise that may be heavily constrained and underutilized by organizations. Thus, there is the need to create room for more innovation. As the AU, regional economic communities, and member states orient themselves to the goals of continental integration by 2063, bureaucrats will play a central role, and the current constraints on them must be recognized and addressed.
6 Conclusion
Our objective in this paper has been to heuristically point to acquiescence as a strategic response that African continental bureaucrats adopt when bargaining with their member states. We have argued that staff at the AU headquarters engage in bureaucratic politics to get their preferences adopted and implemented by the organizations. However, they are often unsuccessful because the institutions are not designed to favor them; they do not have adequate financial, time, and human resources; and the normative prominence to solidarity limits the prospects of dissent. All these mean that after short periods of challenging political leaders, African continental bureaucrats often keep quiet and go along with what the politicians want because there is usually no option. It is only in cases where politicians approve of the priorities of the bureaucrats that the latter can get their visions accepted and implemented. This paper is an initial step toward developing acquiescence into a concept that helps us understand bureaucratic politics in African and non-African international organizations. For now, it helps us understand how change does or does not occur, who leads the process, and who gets to prioritize their preferences. Overall, the paper draws attention to African politics not just through the lens of politicians but also from the perspective of the bureaucrats in charge of the daily functioning of the organization. When their creativity is adequately harnessed and directed into organization evolution, projects like Agenda 2063 have higher chances of succeeding.
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