ECOWAS and the 2016 Post-Election Crisis in the Gambia: Pax Africana or What?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Adeniyi S. Basiru ◽  
Olusesan A. Osunkoya ◽  
Tajudeen I. Adebayo
Keyword(s):  
Cote D'ivoire ◽  
Côte D’Ivoire ◽  
Similar Case ◽  
International Community ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Member States ◽  
External Actors

Abstract President Yahya Jammeh’s volte face, following his earlier acceptance of the verdicts of the Gambians during the 1 December 2016 presidential poll, did not only jolt the international community but, if not for the intervention of external actors, would have set the Gambia on the path of implosion. This article, based on desk analysis, examines the mediatory role of ECOWAS in the resolution of the 2016 post-election crisis in the Gambia. It notes that unlike the previous similar case in Cote d’Ivoire, ECOWAS took the lead in resolving the political crisis and thus demonstrated that Pax Africana is at work in the sub-region. It argues and concludes that ECOWAS with or without the support from outsiders has the capacity to take charge of threats to democracy and peace in member states, by deploying mediatory diplomacy backed with threat of coercion.

On Metaphysics and the Political: A Polemics of Reading Baudelaire in the 1930s

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.

Political Stability in West African States: Problems and Solutions. (Case Studies of Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal)

2018 ◽  
pp. 75-88
Author(s):  
Lyubov Sadovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Cote D'ivoire ◽  
Côte D’Ivoire ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
West African ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Cote D’Ivoire ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Côte D'ivoire

The article presents a new view on the problems of political stability in West African countries. For the first time was carried out a comparative analysis of the sustainability of the political systems of the two Francophone fastest growing countries in West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. The author analyzes the factors negatively influencing political stability social order, and those that reduce conflict potencial in these States. Internal and external threats to the political systems of Senegal and Сôte d’Ivoire are examined. The response of both countries to internal and external challenges is shown. The study proves that while external threats indanger Senegal’s political stability, such as the penetration of religious extremism, the crisis in Casamance, maritime piracy, drug traffic, for Côte d’Ivoire, on the contrary, main risks are internal: electoral, socio-political crises, the split of elites, arms smuggling, banditry. The study demonstrates that the level of social governance in Senegal is higher than in other West African countries, including Сôte d’Ivoire, due to the dualism of the political system: the coexistence of Western-style political institutions with local faiths (tariqas), as well as policy pursued by President M. Sall. aimed at achieving mutual compromise that ensure the peaceful settlement of conflicts and contradictions. The author concludes that a new approach to the development of a security strategy is required.

Department of Political Affairs

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman T. Salton
Keyword(s):  
Secretary General ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leadership Change ◽  
Member States ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Peace Agreements

This chapter assesses the role of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) in the Rwanda genocide. It situates DPA within the Secretariat of the early 1990s, explains the importance given to it by Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, and analyses the department’s reaction to the crisis. The DPA’s role in monitoring the Arusha Peace Agreements and in providing the ‘political’ analysis of the Rwandan context is also reviewed, as is Boutros-Ghali’s desire for a powerful ‘political’ department to be juxtaposed to member states’ preference for peacekeeping and DPKO. The chapter also considers the leadership change of March 1994 when, a month before the genocide, Marrack Goulding took over the whole of DPA.

Côte d’Ivoire

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles T. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Cote D'ivoire ◽  
Côte D’Ivoire ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Cote D’Ivoire ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
International Response ◽  
Côte D'ivoire

This chapter examines the international response to Côte d’Ivoire’s post-election crisis in 2010/11. In particular, it analyses the elements that relate to the responsibility to protect (R2P), including how R2P informed the political and practical responses to the crisis. It identifies the major contentions/issues that the case highlights about the nature and future of R2P. It argues that despite the relative inattention paid to this case in the academic literature to date, the experience of Côte d’Ivoire offers important insights into the opportunities and challenges associated with all three pillars of R2P and recalls debates around the responsibility to rebuild as well as the emergent relationship between the R2P framework and protection of civilians in United Nations peace operations.

Modernity, Autochthony and the Ivorian Nation: the End of a Century in Côte d'Ivoire

Africa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Cutolo
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Cote D'ivoire ◽  
Côte D’Ivoire ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Cote D’Ivoire ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
Côte D'ivoire

ABSTRACTIn the mid-1990s, Côte d'Ivoire witnessed the rise of the ideology of ivoirité, a conception of citizenship based on autochthonous origins. Ivoirité was elaborated by a group of Ivorian intellectuals in the context of the political struggle opposing Henry Konan Bedié to Alassane Ouattara in the succession to the late President Houphouët-Boigny. Through the tactical use of the rhetoric of ivoirité, Ouattara was depicted by his adversaries as a ‘Burkinabé’ trying to rule the country. Going beyond this tactical aspect, the article addresses the ideological relations linking ivoirité to the ‘project of an Ivorian liberal society’ explicitly constructed by the same intellectuals. These relations contributed to the emergence, in the Ivorian public space, of a discourse establishing self-evident, hegemonic connections between notions like autochthony, modernity and nationality, on the one hand, and biopolitical concepts like population, immigration, security and resources on the other. The article uses two complementary perspectives to frame this emergent discourse. One focuses on the historical continuity of the political-economic strategies and population policies implemented by colonial governments and post-colonial elites. The other uses Giorgio Agamben's critical enquiry into citizenship and nationality to bring to light the implication of the ivoirité intellectuals in the construction of a national bios, and thus in the singling out of a paradigmatic form of bare life.

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