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European Union’s External Action in Peacebuilding and Statebuilding in Africa. Comparative Study Somalia-Mali (2006-2022)
Publication . Franco, Ana Carina Santos; Saraiva, Alexandra Magnólia de Vicente Quirino Alves Dias
The thesis addresses the theme of peace- and state-building through a comparative study
of the intervention of the European Union (EU) in Somalia (Horn of Africa and Mali (Sahel).
The thesis contributes to the emergent post-liberal approach in peace and conflict studies by
putting forward context-based knowledge. It analyses the normative and regulatory role of the
EU as an agent of the liberal interventionary order. The theoretical framework is framed around
the critique of peace as governance and the broader focus of statebuilding associated with
stabilisation. It also analyses the EU’s attempts at growing actorness from a constructivist
perspective, particularly in the post-Lisbon Treaty.
The main objective was to understand and analyse the results of EU intervention under
the stabilisation banner (focusing on statebuilding and support to the security sector) in
countries marked by polycentricity or polycentric governance. Along with relationality, the
context-based approach is a key element of the adopted methodological approach. It recognises
contestation and accommodation between the external intervener (the EU) and local actors
operating along the (non-)state spheres.
Both case studies illustrate territories particularly affected by the activity of Salafijihadist
movements and integrating spaces of limited or contested state sovereignty. The
research explains the extent to which the EU adopted the concept of stabilisation in both
Somalia and Mali. It also aims to understand how such adoption served the purpose of
normalisation within the scope of the liberal interventionary order that ignored, to a large
extent, the complexity of polycentricity and pre-existing (hybrid political, segmentary or
heterarchical) orders.
The thesis explains the extent to which the EU intervention contributed to increasing
the state’s legitimate authority in Somalia and Mali, especially in territories subject to secession
attempts (Northern Somalia and Northern Mali) and in the borderlands (Somaliland/Puntland,
Mandera triangle, and Liptako-Gourma region). It also analysed how, supported by the EU
within the scope of security sector reform processes, the action of the state influenced the
mobilisation capacity of non-state actors, namely Salafi-jihadists, in the territories of both
countries. Finally, the research showed that, despite the promotion of a local turn, there was a
continuity in the dominant processes in line with the liberal interventionary order. Localism or
even resilience was adopted from a utilitarian and pragmatic perspective – a perspective that
allowed the EU to partially detach itself from its more ambitious normative role.
The research sheds light into the normative role of the EU as an agent of the liberal
interventionary order in peace- and state-building. It also contributes to the fundamental
critique of peacebuilding (critical turn), including through societal perspectives on EU
intervention and informing the local turn. By also encompassing the global turn in International
Relations, it confirmed the growing challenge of maintaining a global order based on
multilateral rules and exposed how polycentricity outwitted the EU's normative aspirations.
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Entidade financiadora
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Programa de financiamento
Concurso de avaliação no âmbito do Programa Plurianual de Financiamento de Unidades de I&D (2017/2018) - Financiamento Programático
Número da atribuição
UIDP/04627/2020