Emmanuel Balogun is an assistant professor of political science at Skidmore College. His new book, “Region-Building in West Africa” (Routledge, 2022), examines the important role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in regional governance, particularly with respect to security.
I spoke with Balogun after the Dec. 4 announcement by ECOWAS leaders that they would create a regional peacekeeping force to restore security and constitutional order.
Kim Yi Dionne: The ECOWAS announcement strikes me as an important move given your analysis for TMC on why the ECOWAS responses to recent coups in West Africa raise questions about the credibility of their commitment to constitutional order. But what does your book tell us about how policy decisions like this are actually implemented?
EB: These kinds of decisions are typically made at the Authority of Heads of States level — i.e., the leaders of the 15 ECOWAS member nations. These decisions are flashy, and they get the headlines. But it’s important to know how ECOWAS leaders got to this moment. My book talks about the incremental processes of how practitioners helped formulate and eventually implement these decisions made by the heads of states.
Don’t expect regional organizations to rein in coups
Practitioners are the workers that are close to the ground. They identify and incorporate key stakeholders. But critically, they articulate ECOWAS’s normative standards, and they determine how ECOWAS will respond to issues. And so practitioners can discern the feasibility of these kinds of decisions and how capable ECOWAS is in implementing interventions, and then match the feasibility and capability with the institution’s norms and values.
KYD: Who are these ECOWAS practitioners — and are they from all of the ECOWAS countries?
EB: They are subject matter experts who are part of the civil service, and they come from many different backgrounds. They are not just political appointees from the member countries. ECOWAS has a procurement process through which they hire and staff the headquarters in Abuja and throughout West Africa. Most of the time, staff come from ECOWAS countries, sometimes on loan from national governments. They are former lawyers, former government bureaucrats in ECOWAS members, perhaps former military personnel — and people who have worked for other international organizations like the United Nations, and not just in Africa.
KYD: Can you talk about loyalty? ECOWAS bureaucrats represent their respective home countries, no? To what extent do they serve the interests of their home country governments, especially if those interests aren’t aligned with broader West African goals?
EB: Actually, this is one of the biggest misconceptions about the role of practitioners. Practitioners see themselves as implementers and agents of ECOWAS policies — not as agents of their home governments. And so while practitioners come from particular member nations, they’re often driven to the broader work of the organization, thinking, “How do we solve this problem that faces ECOWAS? How do we help our region develop economically? How do we stop coups from happening?”
Can ECOWAS convince Burkina Faso to return to civilian rule?
And so the realpolitik that may exist among different West African leaders is not often present at the practitioner level. If it was, it would constrain the ability for practitioners to actually move any ideas forward. What I found in my research — listening to the practitioners — is that the work is too hard and too consequential to engage in parochial bidding.
Now, this is not to say that national elements don’t exist in terms of work culture. For example, there are perceptions about distinct work cultures based on whether people are from Anglophone or Francophone countries. But practitioners are focused on the work. They see themselves as implementers of policies first and foremost, not as people representing the interests of, say, Nigeria or Senegal.
KYD: Given what you’ve learned in your research on ECOWAS peace and security initiatives, how do you imagine this proposed new force might be different from the existing ECOWAS peacekeeping force? And how long might it take to get this new peacekeeping force up and running?
EB: ECOWAS already has a standby force that’s hosted in Abuja, Nigeria. There’s also several ECOWAS peace support operations, notably right now in Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Historically ECOWAS has supported a number of peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions. So this is not new territory.
Don’t miss any of TMC’s smart analysis! Sign up for our newsletter.
I wonder how this latest effort will differ from what already exists, and why at this juncture there’s a need to create a new force, rather than using the standby force or other existing mechanisms.
Instituting this new force will take some time — it will likely involve a lot of other peace and security stakeholders, potentially including civil society groups who are also invested in the peace and security process.
And my research suggests this approach would align with ECOWAS practices aimed at developing mechanisms that are inclusive of multiple stakeholders in the region to solve peace and security problems.
KYD: You’ve served as a fellow for Bridging the Gap, which helps researchers produce policy-relevant work. What do you think is the big policy takeaway from “Region-Building in West Africa”?
EB: Any policymaker thinking about ECOWAS, or regional organizations in Africa more generally, should think about them as conduits and agents of change in Africa. The unique thing about African regional organizations, and ECOWAS in particular, is that they operate in one of the only regions in the world to set up mechanisms to facilitate democracy and good governance — and facilitate a regional response to things like coups.
And I think policymakers have to understand that even though “economic” is in the name, ECOWAS engages in a wide range of work. Governments can also view these bureaucracies as entities that they can engage with, again, beyond the economic mandate. Other countries might start to think of ECOWAS as a bilateral partner the same way they think about individual countries like Nigeria or Senegal in foreign relations. If other countries and international organizations can engage with African regional organizations this way, they might be able to think more creatively about how to engage in shared partnerships with Africans.