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This paper introduces the Special Issue that grew out of a research project at the African Leadership Centre, which was supported by the Canadian International Centre for Development Research (IDRC...

This paper does not directly engage the state-formation, political settlement and state-building debates in Africa but it foregrounds the notion of conversation as the lens through which to examine...

This paper systematically maps the field of scholarly works on the theme of youth and violent conflict in Africa. It reviews the evidentiary base of the nexus between youth and violent conflicts in...

This article offers reflections on the meaning of peace and peace-building in Africa and proposes a reframing of the state-building problematic. It argues for a shift in analytical lens by providin...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the need for states to strike a delicate balance between implementing measures to curb the spread of coronavirus, and respecting the rights and dignity of the popu...

By 2000, ‘radicalisation’ had become a major global issue. Although ‘9/11’ was still a year away, the American Embassies in East Africa had been bombed in 1998 and violent conflicts simmered in many parts of the world. At just about the same time, bitter civil wars, resource-centred conflicts and intra-ethnic strife raged in West Africa. Against the background of research being undertaken at King's College London,1 the mutually reinforcing links between ‘radicalisation’ and ‘violence’ (potentially sensitive terms, discussed below) in West Africa became clearly obvious and a successful application to investigate this was submitted to the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).2 This Special Issue contains articles emerging from that work, with a set of country studies complemented by overarching synthetic analysis.

While other regions of Africa have had their share of crises, the challenge of meeting numerous security threats has been particularly arduous in West Africa. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable signs that, through its collective regional integration instrument, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the sub-region is beginning to awaken fully to the need to tackle its security crisis. This article makes two interrelated arguments. First, although the creation of democratic spaces in democratizing states, or complete rebuilding of collapsed states, provides greater opportunities for security sector reform (SSR), the relationship between democratization and democratic governance of the security sector is less clear. Second, a combination of norm setting at the sub-regional level as well as activism in the non-governmental sector across the region is driving the move (even if slow and seemingly uncoordinated) toward improved governance, including in the security sector at the national leve...

This article charts the course of regional crisis in West Africa since 1999 and assesses the extent to which the United Nations (UN) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) succeeded in preventing an escalation of crisis in that sub‐region. It argues that although windows of opportunity existed for preventing the escalation of conflict and attention was sometimes paid to warning signs, the UN and ECOWAS had limited success largely because the regional dimensions of the conflicts were not recognized earlier. Additionally, while there has been increased collaboration between the UN and ECOWAS in response to regional crisis, these efforts are hampered by the absence of a systematized base of operations. This paper discusses the experience of the last five years and concludes that ECOWAS has not only become more responsive but has developed an evolving political framework for early action which could be greatly improved with coordinated and targeted support from the UN.

To the residents of the target community, humanitarian intervention connotes an act of benevolence, which will ease their suffering and ensure the protection of human rights. However, such interventions and the eventual conduct of troops, no matter how well meaning, rarely produce this outcome. Liberia and Somalia are just two examples. This article, through an analysis of the ECOMOG intervention in Liberia, examines the human rights issues brought about in ‘humanitarian missions’, particularly in instances of peacekeeping and peace enforcement. It argues that there are inherent contradictions in peace enforcement operations and efforts to protect human rights and that the institutional set‐up of the organisation authorising these operations will determine the extent to which human rights violations can be curbed. The article discusses the impact of the ECOMOG operations on human rights in Liberia and how the institutional values of the parent organisation, ECOWAS, affected the conduct of the troops. It c...

The end of the Cold War altered the perspective of conflict resolution globally. One such alteration is the transformed nature of the tasks performed by the military in operations designed to control violent conflicts. Some of the most significant changes have occurred in Africa, where peacekeeping has escalated beyond traditionally accepted principle to include enforcement in a bid to control destructive internal conflicts (e.g., Liberia and Somalia). This article argues that the decline in Africa's strategic importance has compelled Africans to take greater responsibility for the resolution of conflicts in their region, and to employ more severe strategies in dealing with these conflicts. It also analyzes Africa's major peacekeeping operations, and contrasts the traditional peacekeeping strategy employed by the OAU force in Chad with the more severe strategy employed by ECOWAS in Liberia.

As Ball's paper underscores, democratic governance of the security sector plays a crucial role in attaining a secure and peaceful environment in which states and peoples can seek prosperity. As par...