African peace and security architecture : A case for preventive diplomacy as a critical tool for conflict management

Abstract

The African continent has been plagued with armed conflicts, civil wars, and ex-tended periods of regional instability right from the mid-20th century (Swart and Sol-omon, 2004:1). These conflicts are usually between sub-national centrifugal forces (like ethnic nationalism, religious intolerance, insurgencies, terrorism); and supra-national centripetal forces (like regional integration or cooperation, free trade area, customs union, common market, single market, monetary union). This can be seen in the increase of illicit flow of weapons in exchange of resources, such as dia-monds, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These have resulted in high death tolls, displacements, and the destruction of infrastructure. The African Union (AU) has adopted the mantra “prevent the crises of conflict before they arise”. Hence, preventing these disputes before they escalate into armed conflict is para-mount. However, the international community often takes time in responding to re-gional instability on the continent, due to the changing and unpredictable nature of conflicts.

There has been a growing debate and a great deal of work done in the field of con-flict prevention. This is despite semantic differences over preventive diplomacy, conflict prevention, norms, rules, and institutions related to preventive actions. The topic of conflict prevention has seen an increase in popularity among academics, diplomats, and policymakers. In addition, there has been an increase in the im-portance and relevance of adapting policy that can help prevent conflicts before they escalate. The aim of the study is to investigate the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) efforts pertaining preventive diplomacy, as a critical tool for conflict management. The APSA document represents key mechanisms with the promotion of peace, security, and stability for the AU.

Drawing on other region`s success, there is evidence of how preventive diplomacy can bear fruit to prevent regional conflict, nonetheless the AU has little to no suc-cess in applying preventive diplomacy in a timely manner. There is a vacuum that exists between the promise of conflict prevention and its more deliberate pursuit (Lund, 2009:288). This can be seen in the lack of understanding and improving the contribution of the APSA document to the management of conflict in Africa. Rather, the continent is still riddles with conflict and the AU often reacts to ongoing conflicts rather than acting in a timely manner before then arise. This research will analyse and explore this challenge. It is within this background that the aim of this research is focused on contributing to preventive diplomacy as a critical tool in conflict man-agement in the region. One of the core arguments that this research paper seeks to answer is that by drawing on the successes from other regions, namely the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the region can offer lessons for Africa. The paper focuses on three case studies namely, Burundi (2015-2016) and Kenya (2017). The two case studies represent internal conflicts while the third case study, the border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand (2008-2011) represents regional disputes. The aim of investigating two case studies in Africa, and one in the Southeast Asian Region is to focus on improving the AU`s ability to apply the APSA document in a timely manner before conflicts arise.

The significance of this research is that its results seek to deepen the AU and APSA conflict management on the continent. Importantly, the findings of this study aim to assist the AU in its attempt to effectively manage and prevent conflict on the conti-nent. Moreover, the research supports the growing literature, such as the Interna-tional Peace Institute, Crises Group, Institute for Strategic Studies, and the United Nations` (UN) Policy papers, that preventive diplomacy must be used as a critical tool on the African continent in conflict management to resolve intrastate and inter-state conflicts.