Description
Africa has been the site of some of the largest and longest-running peace operations in the world and Africans have been pivotal actors in peacekeeping on the continent. Some of the leading personnel contributors to UN peacekeeping operations are African, while the largest contemporary peace operation – the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) – is African-led. Indeed, peacekeeping has increasingly become a key dimension of foreign policy for some African states, and even an aspect of domestic politics. Drawing on a forthcoming book, this paper will explore, discuss and interrogate this changing character of African peacekeeping – understood as contributions to peacekeeping, within and beyond Africa, by African actors, as well as African actors’ influence on peacekeeping debates and policies. Key questions to be addressed include: what is the relationship between African peacekeeping, foreign and national policy and state-building? To what extent has the character of African peacekeeping changed in recent years – and how far do different regime types approach the phenomenon differently? What determines whether African states participate in UN- versus AU-/regional organisation-led operations, and how significant is domestic opinion in explaining different African approaches to peacekeeping?
