Peacekeeping in Africa

Politics, Security and the Failure of Foreign Military Assistance

Marco Jowell

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786723413
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Peace & Global Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In recent decades, African states have developed an impressive infrastructure for training their peacekeepers. In addition, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and associated areas of conflict resolution have become significant areas of employment. Marco Jowell has spent a decade working in peacekeeping training in East Africa - initially as one of the foreign 'Technical Advisers' at the Peace Support Operations (PSO) training centre in Kenya, the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) and subsequently as a strategic adviser to the Rwanda Peace Academy. Using first-hand experience, he considers how military forces from a variety of African states - with great differences in history, language and political systems and with militaries with different cultures and capabilities - can conduct complicated multinational peacekeeping operations. He shows how regional peacekeeping training centres provide an environment for African elites, predominately military, to interact with each other through shared training and experiences. This process of interaction, or socialisation, improves skills but also encourages cohesion so that future African-led missions will be managed by well-trained officers who are comfortable and willing to work within a regional or Pan-African framework. Jowell shows that part of the aim of peacekeeping training centres is to foster a Pan-African 'outward' looking ideology or disposition as well as improving technical ability. This book will be essential reading for all involved with African military and security studies and analysts of peacekeeping training and operations.

CHAPTER 1

CONCEPTUALISING PEACEKEEPING TRAINING: FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION, PAN-AFRICANISM AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MILITARY IN AFRICA

Introduction

African peacekeeping has taken on a more proactive role with the creation of the African Union. Several peacekeeping missions have been deployed either by the AU or sub-regional organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and there are plans to develop a continent-wide rapid reaction force based in each region to be called the African Standby Force (ASF). Most crucially, the African Union has developed a concept for an African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) as the system to manage African conflict with components for conflict prevention, conflict management and post-conflict reconstruction. In reality, the AU is limited to conflict management and mainly peacekeeping.¹

Peacekeeping training centres are part of this architecture and an element of conflict management. The centres have been developed to meet a Pan-African functional requirement – the training of African soldiers, civilians and police officers for African-led and managed peacekeeping missions under the auspices of the continental body. As regional organisations affiliated to the AU with clear and legal parameters, these centres provide useful insights into African integration in the security field. The centres are symptomatic of some of the issues facing the AU more broadly and so provide useful case studies in understanding African integration dynamics.

This chapter outlines the methodological approach for the study and situates African integration in functionalist theory underscored by Pan-Africanism. In addition, I have sketched out issues pertaining to the role of the military elite in African Politics and a framework to understand issues that have shaped and continue to shape contemporary African defence forces, especially the major African troop contributors to Peace Support Operations. Due consideration is given to African authors and non-Western approaches, after all the institutions analysed are African, run by Africans and addressing African issues.

Research Methods

The methodological approach taken utilises mixed methods in order to maximise validity, reliability and ‘generalisability’. Several methods for collecting data are employed and are predominantly qualitative and I employ basic surveys to complement qualitative analysis where appropriate. Comparative case studies and process tracing are the primary research methods used in the research design relying mainly on participant-observation techniques and a quasi-ethnographic approach.

In addition to primary data, key sources of data are secondary literature, official documents, major media and comprehensive diaries I have maintained as an employee of one of my case studies (March 2008–Sept 2009) and during fieldwork in 2013. I also use data collected during fieldwork from the case studies and relevant other sites. In this study I analyse the aims and strategic goals of the training centres, management and administration of the centres and how training is delivered and supported. This includes an overview of the hierarchy and reporting lines, an examination of donor support and how it is implemented, and an investigation into the relationship between the AU, APSA and the centres themselves. I also analyse courses delivered and then evaluate their relevance for peacekeeping missions. An important part of this research is interviews with students and participants on courses to determine reasons why training is being undertaken.

In order to contextualise my findings and establish best practice I analyse current peacekeeping missions. I aim to understand differences between UN and AU missions, management structures, command, control and doctrine, role of Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs), what tasks are common, how military officers are deployed to peacekeeping missions and identify areas of improvement. A combination of studies of both a UN and AU stand-alone mission, a hybrid AU-UN mission and the development of ASF structures cover the range of authorised missions.

Comparative Case Studies and Process Tracing

Using comparative methods helps to determine causal relationships and to demonstrate theoretical frameworks. I make partial use of Mill's methods of difference, concomitant variation and agreement² as one way of analysing my cases. By identifying and controlling dependent variables the comparative method helps to tease out different factors affecting both cases. Differences responsible for contradictory outcomes will be identified, similar pressures affecting different outcomes can be examined and changing levels of progressiveness in terms if outcomes are used to corroborate or dismiss changing dynamics as hypothesised.³ However, the comparative method alone falls short of rigorous research methods and must be complemented to improve validity.⁴

Process tracing is also employed therefore to achieve further accuracy and research rigour. By employing process tracing techniques I seek to craft and construct an explanatory narrative to complement other data collection methods. As others have noted process tracing is highly compatible with the comparative method.⁵ By using this method a detailed narrative of peacekeeping training centres is produced with common indicators and variables as well as key differences highlighted and explained.

Data Collection: Participant Observation and Interviews

Data collection has been conducted on several sites, with in-depth investigation into specific case studies. In order to complement the comparative method, process tracing and participant-observation techniques have been employed.

Although mindful of the role as the investigator, participant-observation techniques have enabled insights into the social phenomenon under investigation. It has been an on-going process of understanding through shared experiences (as far as an observer can) and has provided an insider's perspective into social and political practices at the centres. Systematic recording of observations is central to successful investigations and a daily diary of observed phenomena has been an invaluable recording method. Open-ended and other interview techniques have been used in parallel.

It is worth noting that I have already been a participant-observer at the institution in Kenya for a year and a half. During this period I was Head of Applied Research at IPSTC in Kenya. In this position I was privy to information disseminated in high-level meetings on the Centre's development. I attended meetings with all the key donors involved with the Centre and I interacted with all the students who were trained at the Centre. I helped to design courses as well as teach. I interacted almost daily with key users of the Centre (such as regional military/peacekeeping organisations and regional economic communities) and I interacted with the staff intimately for 18 months from the Director down to the cleaners. I have maintained detailed diaries of my time at IPSTC as well as an excellent network of interlocutors within the region and beyond. I am mindful of the ethical considerations and of any bias from previous notes, especially too much of the ‘insider’ perspective. The intention is to mitigate any bias through comparative studies.

Different interview techniques have complemented and/or informed other research methods employed. I employed two types of interviews. Firstly, semi-structured interviews with elite level military respondents working on peacekeeping. Secondly, open-ended unstructured interviews with staff and students at peacekeeping training centres such as fluid conversations in informal settings. Interviews have mainly been conducted in English or in French. Full consent was obtained for all interviews.

A final technique building upon the interview and other data collection strategies is the convening of focus groups. Focus groups can be an important method of fleshing out and informal testing of theories and ideas. By providing both a deeper insight and a challenge function, the use of focus groups can help to validate and increase reliability. Focus groups and the natural conversation from group discussions aids in revealing the norms and feelings that underline decisions. Moreover, focus group results surpass the simplistic categorical answers generated by survey questions by generating nuanced, open-ended and sometimes unexpected responses.⁶

In addition to interview techniques and focus groups, I employed a basic survey questionnaire⁷ to ‘track’ students after they had received training at one of the centres under scrutiny, and also to tease out other issues pertaining to their training. Little if any data exists about destinations and deployments of African peacekeepers after training, either by the centres themselves or an external body even though the destination of students should reflect training. I try to complement other data collection methods and provide an insight into where peacekeepers deploy to after training in order to assess the relative effectiveness of the training centres.

Regional Integration and Africa

Before any examination of specifics it is useful to understand the development of functionalist thought as conceived by David Mitrany. Concerned with state-society relations in a changing world system,⁸ functionalism advocated a gradualist approach to international organisation to mitigate future conflict.⁹ States would remain in their state-like form and ‘share sovereignty’ rather than lose it.¹⁰ Authority would be linked to a specific activity and can be aptly summed up by the motif ‘form follows function.’¹¹

Mitigating future conflict certainly chimes with current African integration strategies but pure functionalism fails to fully explain how and why the AU and APSA came into being, especially regarding popular civic participation. Neo-functionalism nuances functionalist thought and has some relevance to Africa.

Neo-Functionalism

The elements of neo-functionalism most relevant to integration in Africa, as defined by authors such as Haas, Lindberg and Sheingold (although they were referring to Europe), centre around the concepts of spillover and elite socialisation.¹²

Spillover occurs when activities in one sector infringe on other areas. It occurs where further action is needed in other connected areas in order to achieve success in the initial task. This logic continues over time, with more and more sectors becoming integrated as a product of functional requirements rather than as a result of any grand design. Spillover therefore centres on the expansive logic of tasks¹³ and the impossibility of maintaining prolonged separability of different issue areas in a complex interdependent policy.¹⁴ Integration of certain tasks therefore leads to problems that can only be solved by integrating yet more tasks.¹⁵

The inevitability of spillover is disputed¹⁶ although spillover in itself is seen as a useful model describing integrative dynamics. Disintegrative dynamics have been attributed to spillover as well.¹⁷ Concepts of ‘spillback’¹⁸ as well as spillaround, buildup, retrench, muddle about, and encapsulate¹⁹ suggest a range of disintegrative as well as integrative dynamics stemming from structural pressures and inter-personal interactions. The ‘zone of indifference’ may well be the most likely scenario for effective integration or spillover as well as the importance of reacting to a crisis in pressuring for further integration.²⁰ Whatever the case areas where the cost-benefit ratio of integration is stacked well in favour of benefits, integration is more likely.

Elite socialisation is a second key feature of neo-functionalism. The interaction of political elites and officials in coordinating regional policy would gradually lead to the transfer of loyalty to supranational bodies. Elites would undergo a learning process, thereby developing the perception that their interests are better served by supranational rather than national solutions. Elites such as government officials, political parties, interest groups and trade unions would eventually see their interests served by a higher body politic.²¹ Groups and individuals would forge links with similar groups across borders creating supranational interest groups. Package deals and backdoor negotiations as well as formal interactions would result in increased personal ties between elites and a sense of corporate identity leading to compromises through integration.²² By gradually ‘learning by doing’ that integration serves their interests, individuals and groups would actively promote integration.²³ The inevitability placed upon the positive aspects of elite socialisation may be overplayed. Interaction between elites and bureaucrats can create a corporate identity and develop personal ties. However, this process is not inevitable and can lead to acrimony if other conditions are not met. National concerns would remain a priority,...