The Emerging Peace and Security Regime in Africa: The Role of the EU

This article focuses on the role the European Union (EU) is playing in peacekeeping and conflict prevention in Africa. In this article, it is argued that the EU’s peacekeeping approach is not only shaped by the interests of European Member States or EU institutions to deploy and maintain peacekeepers but is responsive to an emerging African peace and security regime. The majority of peacekeeping operations on the continent build upon some kind of inter-organizational arrangements between the United Nations (UN), the EU, and the African Union (AU) or in some cases other regional African organizations. This article will show how the existing forms of inter-organizational interaction between international organizations (IOs) in Africa impact on the EU’s engagement in peace operations in the continent. This article demonstrates the EU’s role in the multi-actor game of peacekeeping in Africa and how the EU’s involvement in these emerging international cooperation structures influences its peacekeeping strategy for Africa.