https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1523-1605
![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, cooperation on security governance between African regional organisations and the European Union (EU) has been growing. However, despite a steadily growing scholarship, knowledge about the agency of African regional organisations in interregional relations is still very limited, especially when it comes to the so-called regional economic communities officially recognised by the African Union as ‘building blocks’ for continental cooperation and integration. Responding to this research gap, this article studies practices of interregional security governance and space-making between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the EU, emphasising African agency. It argues that based on specific security knowledge and spatial imaginations, transnational security assemblages have emerged, resulting in a complex field of interregional relations, comprising multiple interconnected sites, actors and practices. It begins by mapping the field of ECOWAS–EU interregionalism and studies some of the sites, actors and practices in more detail. In this way, the article contributes to a research agenda that takes the agency of African regional organisations in their relations with the EU more seriously, and advances academic knowledge about their role in global international relations more generally.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am greatly indebted to all my interview partners who dedicated some of their scarce time to my research and shared their rich knowledge and experience. I also thank Toni Haastrup, Rahel Weldeab, Ulf Engel and Elisabeth Skollan Warnck for comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also very grateful to the editors of this special issue for inviting me to join this timely initiative and for their guidance throughout the process, as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 In the following, I use the term ‘(inter)regional’ to emphasise the entanglement of regional and interregional dimensions.
2 ECOWAS was founded by the heads of state and government of 16 West African states. In 2000, the Mauritanian government withdrew from the organisation, leaving 15 member states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. The other officially recognised RECs are the East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Community of Sahel–Saharan States (CEN-SAD), and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). On AU–REC relations more generally and AU–ECOWAS relations specifically, see Herpolsheimer (Citation2023).
3 For example, interview with a representative of the AU partner organisation, Addis Ababa, 4 November 2022; and interview with a representative of the EU member state embassy, Addis Ababa, 22 November 2022.
5 I use the phrases ‘ECOWAS actors’, ‘EU actors’ and ‘actors at … ’ ECOWAS and the EU to sensitise for the fact that these organisations are complex collective actors, where it is impractical or where I am unable to determine the actors more specifically. In that way, I aim to overcome still widespread depictions of ROs as unitary actors, which are reproduced by phrases such as ‘ECOWAS did … ’ or ‘the EU did … ’ one thing or another, without specifying what this means and who exactly it refers to.
6 Even the more specialised research field of EU–Africa relations suffers from the same limitations, and is only beginning to give more adequate attention to African agency involved in interregional relations (Duggan et al., Citation2021; Carbone, Citation2021), despite an expanding literature on African agency in (global) international relations more generally (e.g., Bischoff et al., Citation2015; Coleman & Tieku, Citation2018). A similar state of affairs can be observed in the field of inter-organisational relations, which despite more explicit interest in the practices involved (e.g., Biermann & Koops, Citation2017) suffers from a lack of empirically based, interpretive research on agency from the Global South, despite a few exceptions (e.g., Brosig, Citation2015; Engel, Citation2018; Welz, Citation2018).
7 Other related concepts, proposed to similar ends, are ‘portals of globalization’ (Engel, Citation2017) and ‘transboundary formations’ (Latham et al., Citation2001). For a discussion of these concepts, see Herpolsheimer (Citation2021b, pp. 39ff.).
8 For a detailed and very instructive discussion of different theories on international practices, see Bueger & Gadinger (Citation2018).
9 For a more detailed discussion of these main insights from critical geography, see Herpolsheimer (Citation2021b, pp. 43ff.). For a more general, comprehensive overview and discussion, see Murdoch (Citation2005).
10 Additional interviews were conducted in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (January 2017), Bissau, Guinea-Bissau (March–April 2017), Dakar, Senegal (April–May 2017), and New York, USA (November 2017 and December 2018). Altogether, I have interviewed 43 ECOWAS officers and 30 EU officers, several of them on multiple occasions.
11 On the historical connection of African studies at Leipzig University with German colonialism, see Brahm and Jones (Citation2009).
12 The research fully complies with the ethics requirements of the funding body, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG – German Research Foundation). Interviews for this article all qualify as what is commonly referred to as ‘elite interviews’, that is university-educated international civil servants with established careers working in national governments, international organisations or as international consultants. All interview partners participated voluntarily and on their own conditions (e.g., regarding the time, place, duration and information provided). Informed consent was obtained verbally before the start of the interview. Protection of anonymity was assured, and interview partners were given the opportunity to ask questions if they wanted any additional information.
13 I have reflected in more detail on my methodological approach and the challenges that come with it elsewhere (Herpolsheimer, Citation2021b, pp. 13–15).
14 ‘Spatial imagination’ refers to specific perceptions of space and spatial relations. It does not involve any judgement if these perceptions are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ or if underlying phenomena or dynamics are ‘real’ or not. Instead, it emphasises that the way in which space (including regions and interregional relations) is imagined matters and has effects on people’s life-worlds.
15 For an account of the historical emergence of ECOWAS–EU relations, see Herpolsheimer (Citation2021a).
16 The group of political appointees is often also referred to as ‘the management’, specifically presidents, chairpersons or secretary generals and their deputies, commissioners, heads of specialised agencies, etc.
17 The quotation marks sensitise for the discursive and often contested character of many terms and concepts. Here they alert to the fact that ‘technical’ support rarely ever is merely technical, instead, often also involving politics.
18 ECOWAS seemed to be a special case. Despite a lot of criticism, EU actors and implementing partners often considered ECOWAS as one of the strongest RECs. Steadily growing RIPs, and a lot of projects on peace and security, have reflected significant donor interest in the organisation. ECOWAS staff proudly point to this fact (interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 30 September 2021a).
19 Interview with an EU officer, Brussels, 2 December 2021.
20 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 30 September 2021a; interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 30 September 2021b.
21 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 30 September 2021a.
22 Interview with an EU officer, Abuja, 4 October 2021.
23 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Brussels, 27 April 2021.
24 Interview with a GIZ officer, Abuja, 6 October 2021; interview with a German diplomatic source, Abuja, 14 October 2021.
25 Interview with a GIZ officer, Abuja, 6 October 2021; interview with an EU officer, Abuja, 4 October 2021.
26 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 13 October 2021.
27 PALOP refers to the African countries with Portuguese as an official language.
28 The only exception to this is the work of the ECOWAS representative in Brussels.
29 Interview with an EU officer, Brussels, 3 May 2022b.
30 Interview with an EU officer, Abuja, 4 October 2021.
31 Examples include Expertise France, Transtec (now Cowater International), Human Dynamics (now DAI) and the Instituto Camões.
32 Overall, in late 2021, GIZ employed more than 100 people working directly with ECOWAS on a wide range of projects and activities; interview with a GIZ officer, Abuja, 6 October 2021; personal conversation with a GIZ officer, WhatsApp, 21 June 2022.
33 As a rough indication, in 2016, an official ECOWAS report only listed a total of 727 Commission staff ‘proper’ (Gänzle et al., Citation2018, pp. 88–89).
34 How many ECOWAS staff exactly have been funded in these ways is data are difficult to compile because they are not systematically recorded, neither by the EU nor by ECOWAS.
35 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 30 September 2021a; interview with an EU officer, Abuja, 4 October 2021.
36 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 30 September 2021a; interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja 21 October 2021.
37 For example, interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 5 October 2021; and interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 6 October 2021.
38 Interview with GIZ officers, online, 5 November 2021.
39 Interview with GIZ officers, online, 5 November 2021. Especially the WANEP liaison officer, working from an office in the ECOWAS Early Warning Directorate (formerly within Political Affairs Peace and Security (PAPS), now under the Office of the Vice President of the ECOWAS Commission), has in several cases later moved on to become embedded staff and/or ECOWAS staff ‘proper’.
40 Interview with a GIZ officer, Abuja, 15 October 2021.
41 For example, interview with a GIZ officer, Abuja, 29 September 2022; interview with GIZ officers, online, 5 November 2021; and interview with a GIZ officer, Abuja, 15 October 2021.
42 Interview with an ECOWAS officer, Abuja, 13 October 2021.