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ABSTRACT This article formulates the conceptual framework for a special issue on Africa's evolving security architecture. It argues that security governance in Africa can be understood as an emerging regime complex that is characterized by partially converging actors such as the United Nations, European Union, African Union, African Regional Economic Communities, and single lead nations. Center stage is the analysis of converging security policies. We distinguish between five convergence types that vary in terms of depth and efficacy. Theoretically the special issue makes a contribution to theory building on regime complexes and international organizations interplay by developing a theoretical typology. This introductory article primarily serves to introduce concepts and categories. Keywords: Regime complexitytheory buildingconvergence Acknowledgments This research has been funded by the EU Jean-Monnet Programme for Lifelong Learning and by the University of the Witwatersrand SPARC fund. Special thanks go to Marie Gibert, Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, and Annemarie Peen Rodt who have been critical in organizing two workshops in South Africa and Nottingham in preparation of this special issue. I would also like to thank the contributors to the special issue for insightful and inspiring comments during our two meetings. Last, I am indebted to the editor of African Security, Jim Hentz, who supported this special issue from the beginning. Notes 1. Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 2. Ibid, p. 48. 3. Thomas Gehring and Benjamin Faude, “The Dynamics of Regime Complexes: Microfoundations and Systemic Effects,” Global Governance 19 (2013): 120. 4. Kal Raustiala and David Victor, “The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources,” International Organization 58, no. 2 (2004): 277–278. 5. Gehring and Faude, “The Dynamics of Regime Complexes,” 121, 127. 6. Amadine Orsini, Jean-Frédéric Morin, and Oran Young, “Regime Complexes: A Buzz, a Boom, or a Boost for Global Governance?” Global Governance 19 (2013): 29. 7. Sebastian Oberthür and Thomas Gehring, “Institutioal Interaction Ten Years of Scholarly Development,” in Managing Institutional Complexity, eds. Sebastian Oberthür and Olav Schram Stokke (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 47–48. 8. Ibid., 47. 9. Sebastian Oberthür and Olav Schram Stokke, “Conclusions Decentralized Interplay Management in an Evolving Interinstitutional Order,” in Managing Institutional Complexity, eds. Sebastian Oberthür and Olav Schram Stokke (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 322, 332. 10. Examples outside the trade and environmental area are: Karen Alter and Sophie Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” Perspective on Politics 7, no. 1 (2009): 13–24; Malte Brosig, ed., “The Interplay of International Organizations in Africa,” special issue, South African Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 2 (2011). 11. One exception is the analysis by Chenai Mukumba and David Hornsby, “The International Food Safety Complex in Southern Africa: Cooperation or Competition?” South African Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 2, 235–256. 12. Oran Young, “Institutional Linkages in International Society: Polar Perspectives,” Global Governance 2 (1996): 1–24; Oran Young, The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay and Scale (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 111. 13. Thomas Gehring and Sebastian Oberthür, “The Causal Mechanisms of Interaction between International Institutions,” European Journal of International Relations 15, no. 1 (2009): 125–156. 14. Daniel Drezner, “The Power and Peril of International Regime Complexity,” Perspectives on Politics 7, no. 1 (2009): 67. 15. Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 235. 16. United Nations, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All, Report of the Secretary-General, March 21, 2005 (New York: UN, 2005). 17. Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and the Coordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of Eastern Africa and Northern Africa (Addis Ababa: African Union, 2008). 18. For a comprehensive overview of regional IO capacities in security governance, see Rodrigo Tavares, Regional Security: The Capacity of International Organizations (London: Routledge, 2009). 19. Michael Pugh and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu (eds), The United Nations and Regional Security (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003). 20. At the time of writing the AU is planning to take over a peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic. 21. For a full list of all running and completed EU operations, see http://consilium.europa.eu/eeas/security-defence/eu-operations?lang=en. 22. Malte Brosig, “The Multi-actor Game of Peacekeeping in Africa,” International Peacekeeping 17, no. 3 (2011): 327–342. 23. Sarjoh A. Bah and Bruce D. Jones, Peace Operations Partnerships: Lessons and Issues from Coordination of Hybrid Arrangements (New York: Center on International Cooperation, New York University, 2008). 24. Antonia Witt, “A Constructive Engagement? The European Union's Contributions to Mediating Coups D'etat in Africa,” in New Mediation Practices in African Conflicts, ed. Ulf Engel (Leipzig: Leipzig University Press, 2012) 211–236. 25. Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams, Understanding Peacekeeping (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 153–298. 26. UN Capestone Doctrine, 2008, p. 53. 27. Carmen Gebhard and Per Martin Norheim Martinsen, “Making Sense of EU Comprehensive Security Towards Conceptual and Analytical Clarity,” European Security 20, no. 2 (2011): 221–241. 28. Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, “The Regional Roots of the African Peace and Security Architecture: Exploring Centre–Periphery Relations,” South African Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 2 (2011): 169–189. 29. Malte Brosig, “Overlap and Interplay in International Relations: Theories and Approaches” South African Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 2 (2011): 147–167. Howard Loewen, “Towards a Dynamic Model of Interplay between International Institutions,” GIGA Working Papers 17 (2006), 1–28. Sebastian Oberthür and Thomas Gehring, “Conceptual Foundations of Institutional Interaction,” in Institutional Interaction in Global Environmental Governance: Synergy and Conflict among International and EU Policies, eds. Sebastian Oberthür and Thomas Gehring (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 19–51; Olav Schram Stokke, The Interplay of International Regimes: Putting Effectiveness Theory to Work, Report 14 (Oslo: Friddtjof Nansens Institutt, 2001); Oran Young, “Institutional Linkages in International Society: Polar Perspectives,” Global Governance 2 (1996): 1. 30. Joseph Galaskiewicz, “Interorganizational Relations,” Annual Review of Sociology 11 (1985): 281–304; Christine Oliver, “Determinants of Interorganizational Relationships: Integration and Future Directions,” Academy of Management Review 15, no. 2 (1990): 241–265; Andrew Van de Ven and Gordon Walker, “The Dynamics of Interorganizational Coordination,” Administrative Science Quarterly 29 (1984): 598–621; Andrew Van de Ven, “On the Nature, Formation, and Maintenance of Relations Among Organizations,” Academy of Management Review 21 (1976): 24–36. 31. Ulf Engel and Gomes Porto, eds., Africa's New Peace and Security Architecture: Interfaces, Practices and Challenges (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013); Ulf Engel and Gomes Porto, eds., Africa's New Peace and Security Architecture: Promoting Norms, Institutionalizing Solutions (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010); Hany Besada, ed., Crafting an African Security Architecture Addressing Regional Peace and Conflict in the 21st Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010); John Akokpari, Angela Ndinga-Muvumba, and Tim Murithi, eds., The African Union and its Institutions. (Johannesburg: Fanele, 2008). 32. Stephen Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” in International Regimes, ed. Stephen Krasner (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), 2. 33. Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, “Interests, Power, Knowledge: The Study of International Regimes,” Mershon International Studies Review 40, no. 2 (1996) : 177–228. 34. Orsini, Morin, and Young, “Regime Complexes,” 29, 37. 35. Gorm Rye Olsen, “The Africa-Europe (Cairo Summit) Process: An Expression of “Symbolic Politics,” in Interregionalism and International Relations, eds. Heiner Hänggi, Ralf Roloff, and Jürgen Rüland (London: Routledge, 2006), 199–214. 36. Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, “The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations,” International Organization 53, no. 4 (1999): 704.
Malte Brosig (Mon,) studied this question.