Description
Since the 1980s, the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been identified as key elements of African regional integration and have been critical parts of the African Union (AU)'s work. The Abuja Treaty and the AU Constitutive Act mandate the relationship. It is guided by the 2008 Protocol on Relations between the RECs and the AU and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the AU and RECs. Moreover, Article 33 of the Protocol makes clear that it shall enter into Force when signed by the Chairperson of the AU Commission and by the Chief Executives of at least three RECs, as it did on 10 November 2021, and accordingly, no ratification is required. In contrast, the MoU makes clear that peace, security, and integration matters should be handled by the lowest, most local competent authority—primarily RECs—before being escalated to the continental level. How does the partnership work in a contested political environment? Drawing on case studies across the African continent, the paper argues that while the intervention by the AU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the surface appears to be timely and designed to eradicate any forms of democratic backsliding, interventions across Africa are marked by challenges which stem from the principle of subsidiarity remaining vaguely defined during the intervention processes and between the two actors. Despite the matter of subsidiarity being clear in the principles, coordination between the AU and ECOWAS remained uneven, vague, at times duplicative, and national ownership insufficiently embedded in the reform process.