Description
Contemporary transformations in global governance increasingly challenge state-centric and Westphalian understandings of sovereignty. This paper examines how the ECOWAS intervention in conflict management reflects the emergence of regionally mediated forms of political authority within postcolonial Africa. While existing scholarship often frames intervention through liberal peacebuilding or humanitarian governance, this paper argues that ECOWAS represents a distinct form of postcolonial regional governance grounded in democratic legitimacy and multilateral coordination, facilitating regional political consensus.
Drawing on postcolonial theory and critical constructivism, the paper conceptualises this development as “regionalised sovereignty”: a governance formation in which sovereign legitimacy is negotiated through layered regional and international structures rather than territorial autonomy alone. The paper explores how legitimacy is constructed between competing actors including ECOWAS and wider international institutions. The paper argues that ECOWAS demonstrates the emergence of decentralised forms of multilateral governance in which regional organisations increasingly exercise forms of authority traditionally associated with universal global institutions. In doing so, the paper contributes to wider debates surrounding conflict, cooperation, and institutional transformation by highlighting how postcolonial regionalism is reshaping contemporary global political order.