Regional Organizations in Peace and Security

Ulf Engel (SFB 1199 & Leipzig U) & El-Ghassim Wane (Addis Ababa)

ABSTRACT

This article is discussing how the peace-building practices of the African Union have distinct ordering and space-making effects. Taking a socio-spatial perspective, it is argued that the peaceand security projects through which the African Union, as a spatial entrepreneur, is addressing the scourge of‘terrorism and violent extremism’are geared towards (re-)establishing sovereignty that member states have lost in the past over their territories. While the African Union is favouring a spatial format that could be called ‘multiple networked regionalism’, the actual socio-spatialorders that are emerging around Africa’s transregional conflicts are far less clear cut.