Management of Interface Conflicts in African Security Governance

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Security issues in global governance are shaped by different spheres of authority and the interaction between multiple political actors on different levels. Legally, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has the supreme political authority to take decisions on the use of military force. However, overlapping memberships of states in the UN(SC) and in various regional (security) organizations enhance the potential for norm conflicts across and within several spheres of authority. One such regional organization is the African Union that was set up in 2002 as successor to the Organization of African Unity and that has established itself as a significant collective security provider. Many violent intra-state conflicts are located within the geographical sphere of the African Union and several military interventions justified with references to human rights norms take place in Africa. Today, African security governance constitutes a dense web of interactions between international, regional, sub-regional and national actors, with the African Union being the regional key actor in this web. In this configuration interface conflicts are likely to occur. The project analyzes seven cases of military missions in Africa as settings for interface conflicts, addressing the following questions: How do key actors within the emerging African security governance architecture articulate and manage vertical interface conflicts in the context of military deployments? Which norms do these actors invoke, and how can the variety in responses to such conflicts be explained? What are the effects of different forms of conflict management?