1 00:00:02,850 --> 00:00:11,520 She's a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt, which is interested in African peace and security issues, 2 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:18,060 as well as legitimacy and authority debates about the Doherty in international relations. 3 00:00:18,060 --> 00:00:25,230 Now, military coups became an alarming fixture in the years following Africa's independence from colonial rule. 4 00:00:25,230 --> 00:00:32,850 Today, coup frequency has greatly declined in Africa, and many scholars Soiree, Tickle Cow, amongst others, 5 00:00:32,850 --> 00:00:41,910 point to the African Union's post 20 to anti-coup regime is one of the factors that has resulted in the decline of coup frequency in Africa. 6 00:00:41,910 --> 00:00:52,350 However, we know very little about the ways in which this anti-coup regime impacts politics in individual African states that have undergone coups. 7 00:00:52,350 --> 00:01:00,570 And this is where with where it comes in, she's going to tell us about down what restoring constitutional government 8 00:01:00,570 --> 00:01:07,380 actually looks like on the ground in individual states that have undergone coups. 9 00:01:07,380 --> 00:01:11,500 So with that said, I will hand it over to you. 10 00:01:11,500 --> 00:01:19,590 It's all yours. Thank you very much, miles, and thank you everyone else for joining. 11 00:01:19,590 --> 00:01:24,720 I will share my presentation and I hope that it will work. 12 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:30,990 If not, you just give me a shout that should work now. 13 00:01:30,990 --> 00:01:35,970 So, yeah, once again, thank you very much for the invitation to present my work here. 14 00:01:35,970 --> 00:01:39,810 Here, here is now a virtual space. 15 00:01:39,810 --> 00:01:46,890 I'm still in my office in Frankfurt, but I present my work at the Oxford University African Studies seminar, 16 00:01:46,890 --> 00:01:52,630 and I'm really looking forward to our discussion after my talk. 17 00:01:52,630 --> 00:02:00,940 Now, I would like to start my talk with this picture, which is actually also a starting point of the story of my book. 18 00:02:00,940 --> 00:02:09,410 What you see on this picture is called the Lomé Declaration of the Organisation of African Unity over you. 19 00:02:09,410 --> 00:02:19,220 The OAU was the continental organisation that worked for the African continent, and it is the predecessor of today's African Union. 20 00:02:19,220 --> 00:02:27,350 Now this Lomé declaration was adopted by the summit of the Organisation of African Unity in the year 2000 in the city of Lomé. 21 00:02:27,350 --> 00:02:35,930 That's my name. Now, the idea of this declaration was to make an end to Africa's long history of coup d'etats 22 00:02:35,930 --> 00:02:40,970 and what the organisation of African unity called unconstitutional changes of government. 23 00:02:40,970 --> 00:02:48,610 But is any attempt to reverse sitting government presidents by unconstitutional means? 24 00:02:48,610 --> 00:02:50,230 I mean, this Lomé declaration, 25 00:02:50,230 --> 00:03:00,250 African heads of state and government condemned coups as an anachronistic act and declared the unconstitutional takeover of governments unacceptable. 26 00:03:00,250 --> 00:03:06,130 They also defined what what counts as unconstitutional change of government or importantly, 27 00:03:06,130 --> 00:03:10,630 they mandated the continental organisation to work for the re-establishment 28 00:03:10,630 --> 00:03:15,040 of constitutional order in situations where this order has been interrupted. 29 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:24,390 It is, as I call it, to end coup d'etats through diplomacy, mediation and, if necessary, sanctions. 30 00:03:24,390 --> 00:03:29,490 Now, what you see on this picture is text on a piece of paper. 31 00:03:29,490 --> 00:03:37,560 I want to use this talk to demonstrate that the Lomé declaration is much more than just text on a piece of paper, 32 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:43,830 namely that it is indeed that indeed serves to reconfigure power relations and political orders, 33 00:03:43,830 --> 00:03:49,860 both within African qualities and within the international realm. 34 00:03:49,860 --> 00:03:57,330 I structured my talk in five parts of first south by explaining my research interests and situate it a bit 35 00:03:57,330 --> 00:04:04,620 within the existing literature and then my own approach or my own analytical perspective on this issue. 36 00:04:04,620 --> 00:04:09,550 I then go on to explain what lectures my guess is the situation in Madagascar 37 00:04:09,550 --> 00:04:15,610 just before the what came to be called unconstitutional change of government. 38 00:04:15,610 --> 00:04:20,580 Oh, then go on and present some of my main findings. 39 00:04:20,580 --> 00:04:29,630 That is, the rescue intervention in Madagascar was an effective process of ordering both in Madagascar and beyond. 40 00:04:29,630 --> 00:04:38,750 I will then in the fourth part, I'll take a bit of a broader perspective and look at the effects of the anti-coup policy of 41 00:04:38,750 --> 00:04:43,520 the African Union more generally beyond the individual case of Madagascar and trying to 42 00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:49,190 answer the obviously pressing questions question of whether what I observe in this particular 43 00:04:49,190 --> 00:04:54,800 case is also somehow generalisable to other situations of particular interventions. 44 00:04:54,800 --> 00:05:00,690 And then I'll conclude. Now. 45 00:05:00,690 --> 00:05:07,620 Let me start by saying a little bit about the African antique who bought. 46 00:05:07,620 --> 00:05:16,620 Now, with the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union in 2002, the antiquarian became binding continental law. 47 00:05:16,620 --> 00:05:25,640 And it was since then implemented by a increasingly intrusive set of institutions at regional and subregional level. 48 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:31,310 Since 2004, and that's what you see on the on the map, on the slide since 2004, 49 00:05:31,310 --> 00:05:37,880 this anti-coup norm has been invoked in 13 cases in an altogether 11 different African countries, 50 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:44,000 and you see the list of countries of the particular situations on the slide. 51 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:55,070 Now what we see is a relatively automated, almost sort of technical set of practises off that that starts after a situation 52 00:05:55,070 --> 00:05:58,910 in a member state has been declared as unconstitutional change of government. 53 00:05:58,910 --> 00:06:08,990 So this automatic is really something that is that's quite crucial in the way the African Union so far reacted to these situations. 54 00:06:08,990 --> 00:06:14,300 Now, why are the declaration defines what counts as unconstitutional self-government? 55 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:19,100 It does not define what it means to re-establish constitutional order. 56 00:06:19,100 --> 00:06:25,070 It is what aims are tied to the undoing of coups and on what grounds the African 57 00:06:25,070 --> 00:06:31,450 Union would recognise a successful re-establishment of constitutional order. 58 00:06:31,450 --> 00:06:41,020 Now, when we look at the existing literature, we see two broadly competing narratives about the African anti-coup norm and especially the 59 00:06:41,020 --> 00:06:48,220 prospects of how how are the anti-coup norms will affect politics and life in African states. 60 00:06:48,220 --> 00:06:52,770 On the one hand, you have what I call Afro optimists. 61 00:06:52,770 --> 00:07:01,380 We see the anti-coup norm as an expression of a liberal, normative shift amongst African states towards democratic principles and human rights. 62 00:07:01,380 --> 00:07:10,030 And their expectation would would be that the norm contributes to further consolidate illiberal norms and democratic values in Africa. 63 00:07:10,030 --> 00:07:16,600 Every behind what I call Afro pessimists are pointing to the fact that actually many of those who adopted the 64 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:24,630 lamented expression did not actually meet the democratic or constitutional criteria enshrined in this article. 65 00:07:24,630 --> 00:07:35,140 So, so the expectation there is that the then African president adopted the norm to maintain the grip on power and to support each other again, 66 00:07:35,140 --> 00:07:41,250 in fairness. Now, in this case, it will be regime stability rather than democracy. 67 00:07:41,250 --> 00:07:47,690 So that is the sort of expected outcome of the anti-coup regime. 68 00:07:47,690 --> 00:07:54,470 Now, the problem with both these approaches is that they reflect the expectations of the respective scholars, 69 00:07:54,470 --> 00:08:05,200 much more so than an empirical analysis of what the intellectual norm actually does on the ground as months and which said in the in the introduction. 70 00:08:05,200 --> 00:08:13,960 So, in fact, until now, such an analysis of of the sort of empirical developments one scientific norm is invoked is still missing 71 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:20,140 from the from the literature and also actually maybe more importantly and most of the existing literature, 72 00:08:20,140 --> 00:08:24,640 the normative assessment of the research as a given much more weight than the 73 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:33,460 voices and experiences of those who were actually affected by the African. 74 00:08:33,460 --> 00:08:41,880 Sir, my own research. I therefore try to take a bit of a different route to this issue. 75 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:46,770 My aim was to sort of follow the African Union's anti-coup policy to the locals 76 00:08:46,770 --> 00:08:51,990 in which it is acted and where its consequences can be studied empirically. 77 00:08:51,990 --> 00:09:00,640 So I therefore started with a rather broad question namely, what does it mean to establish constitutional order? 78 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:01,420 But concretely, 79 00:09:01,420 --> 00:09:11,230 I wanted to understand how the application of the African Union Anti War affects the reconfiguration of power relations and political orders. 80 00:09:11,230 --> 00:09:25,470 And I did so by zooming into one particular case, namely the close to intervention in Madagascar that ran from 2009 to 2014. 81 00:09:25,470 --> 00:09:32,720 Now, empirically, the book is based on several months of field research. 82 00:09:32,720 --> 00:09:37,740 It's actually different sites that were crucial for them. 83 00:09:37,740 --> 00:09:42,030 I'm doing the unconstitutional change of government in Madagascar. 84 00:09:42,030 --> 00:09:48,090 So following the policy in this case actually meant going to a very different sites in my case. 85 00:09:48,090 --> 00:09:53,400 This was obviously Metgasco spent several months and conduct field research, 86 00:09:53,400 --> 00:09:57,890 but also the rules Addis Ababa, where the headquarters of the African Union. 87 00:09:57,890 --> 00:10:04,560 And as to how broken into the headquarters of the Southern African Development Community and other subregional 88 00:10:04,560 --> 00:10:13,650 organisation that was influential and in this regard to Johannesburg because South Africa played an important role. 89 00:10:13,650 --> 00:10:18,090 And then obviously also to the context of Paris, 90 00:10:18,090 --> 00:10:29,040 because France is a former colonial power and had an important role to play as well in the rebuilding of constitutional order in Madagascar. 91 00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:35,340 Now, in all these cases, I conducted more than 100 interviews with Malagasy negotiating parties, 92 00:10:35,340 --> 00:10:42,810 civil society representatives, translators, journalists, representatives of a regional or international organisations, 93 00:10:42,810 --> 00:10:47,970 diplomats and support staff to the international mediators and his interview 94 00:10:47,970 --> 00:10:53,220 spread and complemented by strategy papers from the Malagasy negotiating parties, 95 00:10:53,220 --> 00:11:02,940 correspondences between them and the mediators. Official documents as well as I see newspaper reports. 96 00:11:02,940 --> 00:11:09,050 Welcome to the second part, the trees make us. 97 00:11:09,050 --> 00:11:13,600 And the situation in Madagascar in early 2009. 98 00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:24,620 An early 2009 science of Malagasy is drawing a rather broad protest movement that was organised against then President Valimai. 99 00:11:24,620 --> 00:11:29,630 The protest movement drew on very different segments of Malagasy society, 100 00:11:29,630 --> 00:11:37,640 and it was led by the then mayor of Madagascar's island, the island's capital. 101 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:49,700 Sorry. And some are even so, as I demonstrate in the book, this evolving is my gosh, it is, as it came to be called, was a situation of multiple, 102 00:11:49,700 --> 00:12:02,000 complex and overlapping experiences of and exposures to crisis, which went far beyond the mere dissatisfaction with a particular government in place. 103 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:11,390 It was as social anthropologist Lauren Hinson described it, a general crisis of confidence in the institutions of the state, 104 00:12:11,390 --> 00:12:16,910 and it had an important dimension of socio economic exclusion and suffering to it. 105 00:12:16,910 --> 00:12:27,860 This socio economic aspect mainly referred to question about acquisition and use and consequences of extractive industries and agro farming, 106 00:12:27,860 --> 00:12:32,630 use poverty and unemployment to just give you an idea about this. 107 00:12:32,630 --> 00:12:38,350 This sort of dimension to the crisis or two crises in general. 108 00:12:38,350 --> 00:12:42,100 In March 2009 and driven by the protest movement, 109 00:12:42,100 --> 00:12:52,240 the army arrested a man of the president and installed on threats when the area of 110 people is president of the transition. 110 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:59,180 Alabama was the president, 10, fled into exile to South Africa. 111 00:12:59,180 --> 00:13:07,610 Now viewed from Addis Abeba from the headquarters of the African Union, this situation was an unconstitutional change of government. 112 00:13:07,610 --> 00:13:14,600 And so she's my gosh became an issue for the African Union's Peace and Security Council. 113 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:18,410 In the choreography prescribed by the anti-coup norm, 114 00:13:18,410 --> 00:13:27,180 the Peace and Security Council decided to suspend Madagascar's membership and demanded the immediate restoration of constitutional order. 115 00:13:27,180 --> 00:13:28,110 At first, 116 00:13:28,110 --> 00:13:36,300 there was great divergence amongst international and regional actors with regard to how to interpret the situation on the island and in particular, 117 00:13:36,300 --> 00:13:43,560 so how to respond to it. Don't assume everyone aligned initially with the African Union a very strong, 118 00:13:43,560 --> 00:13:50,350 very strict condemnation of the city of the of the situation as as unconstitutional changes. 119 00:13:50,350 --> 00:13:58,660 But after a while, like most of international and regional actors actually converge on the demand for an inclusive and new position, 120 00:13:58,660 --> 00:14:09,820 as they call it, leading to elections and a altogether speedy return to constitutional order, which was the second idea. 121 00:14:09,820 --> 00:14:15,490 Now, what followed from this for almost five years of collective international efforts to re-establish 122 00:14:15,490 --> 00:14:21,940 constitutional order on the island involved in these efforts was a large number of national, 123 00:14:21,940 --> 00:14:36,010 regional and international actors, and I've tried to illustrate this in them and this figure, I think the numerous actors involved in this process. 124 00:14:36,010 --> 00:14:41,260 So let me just say a few words about this and in particular, the centre. 125 00:14:41,260 --> 00:14:46,090 You see the full Malagasy parties that were negotiating. 126 00:14:46,090 --> 00:14:55,120 So that is already so the also president, but just president, if you want to call it that. 127 00:14:55,120 --> 00:15:03,760 And then the two former presidents, did you write about Saffi, who were actually the only former presidents still alive at that time? 128 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:08,840 So amongst these who move answers are movements. 129 00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:16,180 The the negotiations about the return to constitutional order were supposed to take place and then you had 130 00:15:16,180 --> 00:15:23,410 four international mediators at the beginning from four different international or regional organisations. 131 00:15:23,410 --> 00:15:32,050 After a while, I came to sample the former president of Mozambique became the lead mediator in the in the name of SADC, 132 00:15:32,050 --> 00:15:37,870 the Southern African Development Community. So the three others step and step back. 133 00:15:37,870 --> 00:15:44,740 But still, you have this and then regional organisations, obviously the African Union, SADC, 134 00:15:44,740 --> 00:15:50,290 but also organisations like the Indian Ocean Commission or the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, 135 00:15:50,290 --> 00:15:56,080 and playing a role that had international and non-African regional organisations like the European 136 00:15:56,080 --> 00:16:03,010 Union and the International Organisation of the United Nations played an important role. 137 00:16:03,010 --> 00:16:06,070 World Bank and IMF, obviously, too. 138 00:16:06,070 --> 00:16:16,870 And then bilateral partners Madagascar's main and international donors are France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States of America, 139 00:16:16,870 --> 00:16:27,400 but also and Madagascar's neighbours, who and especially a later point, play an important diplomatic role the Seychelles and Mauritius. 140 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:41,360 So this is what I call in my book the intervention scenario that is the really multiplicity of actors involved in returning to constitutional. 141 00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:45,050 Now, practically it is five years of re-establishing constitutional order. 142 00:16:45,050 --> 00:16:51,560 Involved several rounds of mediation and negotiations amongst these four and Malagasy parties. 143 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:56,060 Initially, several agreements signed and Trump, 144 00:16:56,060 --> 00:17:06,020 each from an international contact group to bring together all these various international actors targeted sanctions applied by the African Union, 145 00:17:06,020 --> 00:17:14,890 as well as quite substantive international financial and technical support to organise transitional elections. 146 00:17:14,890 --> 00:17:22,240 But somewhat surprisingly, re-establishing constitutional order turned out to be much more difficult than 147 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:27,670 maybe initially envisaged by the African Union when the Lomé Declaration, 148 00:17:27,670 --> 00:17:35,230 I envisage this to be a process of a few months. And as I said, in the end, it took almost five years. 149 00:17:35,230 --> 00:17:39,040 Reasons for this are. To a certain extent, 150 00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:45,040 the resistance by Malagasy actors to sort of really follow suit on this demand to a speedy return to 151 00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:51,130 constitutional order difficulties to bring Malagasy actors to actually agree on a transitional roadmap, 152 00:17:51,130 --> 00:18:03,310 but also these conflicts within the international between or amongst the international actors on how to interpret and how to forge the situation. 153 00:18:03,310 --> 00:18:04,450 So if you want Madagascar, 154 00:18:04,450 --> 00:18:14,860 the case of Madagascar is really a sort of prime example of the politics involved and in returning a country to constitutional order. 155 00:18:14,860 --> 00:18:24,690 It was early in late 2013 that transitional elections and with the inauguration of a new office, newly elected government, 156 00:18:24,690 --> 00:18:35,220 the African Union's Peace and Security Council in early 2014 then declared that constitutional order had been successfully restored. 157 00:18:35,220 --> 00:18:42,720 And this is sort of after the African Union at the end of this intervention. 158 00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:49,940 Now I'm coming to the third part of the main part of my presentation. 159 00:18:49,940 --> 00:18:52,430 I would like to present, as I said, 160 00:18:52,430 --> 00:19:03,410 some of the some of the main findings of my study and I will concentrate on the findings with regard to Madagascar to the re-ordering of Madagascar. 161 00:19:03,410 --> 00:19:08,060 People cannot undermine these efforts to restore constitutional order. 162 00:19:08,060 --> 00:19:12,050 Actually did, as I mentioned at the beginning, 163 00:19:12,050 --> 00:19:22,820 and I did so by reconstructing the concrete practises as well as the overall logic with which constitutional order was restored in Madagascar. 164 00:19:22,820 --> 00:19:31,320 And as I said, I would now like to briefly summarise some of the insights with regard to Madagascar. 165 00:19:31,320 --> 00:19:34,320 Go on now with regard to Madagascar, 166 00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:45,250 the main sort of confusion on what this intervention actually did is that the rescue intervention ultimately serve to religious black, 167 00:19:45,250 --> 00:19:53,370 religious to make the ideal of the liberal polity and to hinder more profound political transformation from taking place. 168 00:19:53,370 --> 00:20:00,970 And I will now go on and explain what I mean with this, with this conclusion. 169 00:20:00,970 --> 00:20:07,300 And from the very first day on the collective efforts to re-establish constitutional order ultimately 170 00:20:07,300 --> 00:20:15,530 focussed on reinstalling an internationally recognisable government more or less democratic elections. 171 00:20:15,530 --> 00:20:24,860 And this has had important consequences for which and whose crises became addressed or not during the transition. 172 00:20:24,860 --> 00:20:30,530 In essence, this time, the transition constitutional order into a technocratic, 173 00:20:30,530 --> 00:20:44,950 executive driven process with early aim was to organise elections as quickly as possible, so transition became almost an organisation of Connexions. 174 00:20:44,950 --> 00:20:55,060 And politicise the situation in Madagascar that had led to it also boasts a prison men in the first place. 175 00:20:55,060 --> 00:21:05,050 I demonstrate this in my book with regard to, amongst other things, two issues in particular, but the role of the executive during the transition, 176 00:21:05,050 --> 00:21:13,560 which actually outperformed the competencies of any other president in the history of Madagascar. 177 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:18,990 A secondly show it with changes in the meaning of reconciliation, 178 00:21:18,990 --> 00:21:29,480 which was increasingly reduced to enshrine these bargains rather than a collective process of healing and justice. 179 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:32,330 I also show that over the course of time, 180 00:21:32,330 --> 00:21:40,100 the efforts to resolve the Malagasy political crisis increasingly moved away from negotiations amongst Malagasy actors 181 00:21:40,100 --> 00:21:48,200 towards securing support for a roadmap to constitutional order that was already written by the international mediators, 182 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,830 and I would like to share a quote with you on that. 183 00:21:51,830 --> 00:22:00,150 It is a quote one of my interviews from one of his great moments, but I doubt that he. 184 00:22:00,150 --> 00:22:08,580 And he goes on and says every time he episodic, mediate drunken Chissano arrives here, he consults everyone. 185 00:22:08,580 --> 00:22:14,190 But they have never been direct dialogues between the parties ever to enter the room. 186 00:22:14,190 --> 00:22:18,720 They collect your ideas. The 11 entities enter one by one. 187 00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:28,080 The 11 entities are 11 parties or 11 parties that were later on became the signatories of the office, right? 188 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:32,190 So the 11 parties enter one by one. It collects their ideas. 189 00:22:32,190 --> 00:22:40,680 Afterwards, they do their own thing and then they say, Here are the results of the consultations or consultations are only four states. 190 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:48,530 It was already written. It's the end goal of the transition. 191 00:22:48,530 --> 00:22:52,540 And what's happened since the elections for Madagascar's political elite? 192 00:22:52,540 --> 00:22:59,480 The transition became a matter of political life or death of being in or being at. 193 00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:12,560 Many Malagasy political actors, therefore, were confronted with this with a chance of either playing them or becoming politically excluded. 194 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:20,990 Now, this approach to resolving Latrice, my gosh, particularly benefited parts of the Malagasy political elite. 195 00:23:20,990 --> 00:23:26,750 They're the main means in their hands. Was the setting up of political parties, 196 00:23:26,750 --> 00:23:37,180 which became when their vehicles to inscribe themselves into the internationally demanded inclusive and consensual transition to constitutional order. 197 00:23:37,180 --> 00:23:45,940 In 2011, shortly before the signing of this document, the roadmap that officially paved the way to transitional elections, 198 00:23:45,940 --> 00:23:51,380 the number of registered political parties tripled to more than 300. 199 00:23:51,380 --> 00:23:58,410 Half of the parties who actually signed up in the end have been established just months before. 200 00:23:58,410 --> 00:24:05,610 Negotiation rounds of peace agreements became an opportunity to participate in the future institutions of the state, 201 00:24:05,610 --> 00:24:11,440 and this opportunity was willingly responded to by large parts of the Malagasy political elite. 202 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:20,370 And I would like to share a cartoon with you that I think depicts the situation quite quite nicely. 203 00:24:20,370 --> 00:24:25,740 It's a cartoon by Mummy Andrenosoma, who is one of the, I think, 204 00:24:25,740 --> 00:24:35,500 most famous cartoonists in Madagascar and who has his pieces in several newspapers and. 205 00:24:35,500 --> 00:24:48,730 And who actually had it was a great chronicler of the of the of the situation and the and the political situation just by by means of his cartoons. 206 00:24:48,730 --> 00:24:56,230 So what you see on this on this cartoon is a an aircraft waiting there. 207 00:24:56,230 --> 00:25:06,850 And I don't know how many, but really many people queuing up to still become to still be able to board the aircraft. 208 00:25:06,850 --> 00:25:13,840 The aircraft is going through [INAUDIBLE], but on it, as we've become aware, 209 00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:27,250 one of the meetings was supposed to take place to negotiate this roadmap and to sort of set a few final stones to add to it. 210 00:25:27,250 --> 00:25:33,760 So what you see on this on this picture is a long queue of minor gases. 211 00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:44,200 In this case, party leaders are both female queuing up and waiting to still get their seats on this on this aircraft. 212 00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:55,570 And what you see is this great attraction that the opportunity of peace talks or or negotiations actually happened. 213 00:25:55,570 --> 00:26:00,070 And you also see someone else shouting from within the aircraft. 214 00:26:00,070 --> 00:26:09,670 It is probably someone from the mediation team who says, don't worry, those will not be able to embark today. 215 00:26:09,670 --> 00:26:26,490 They will be admitted to the to the court, to the list of agreement so that they're at their agreement to will be there will also be said to. 216 00:26:26,490 --> 00:26:31,950 So what you see, I think were this cartoon really visualise is, on the one hand, 217 00:26:31,950 --> 00:26:43,560 this this great attraction that that the mediation or the the opportunity to participate actually had for the Malagasy particularly. 218 00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:53,250 And then, on the other hand, the approach by the mediators to take as many as possible and on board and if any as possible, 219 00:26:53,250 --> 00:26:58,470 the opportunity to present themselves as playing along. 220 00:26:58,470 --> 00:27:09,320 At. International demand for an inclusive transition, so inclusivity really at its at its best. 221 00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:16,190 Now, officially, this sort of spontaneous establishment of political parties that I mentioned. 222 00:27:16,190 --> 00:27:24,260 And the willingness of many states to implement the international demand, a transition was presented as a solution. 223 00:27:24,260 --> 00:27:30,010 I guess you might guess so, but I guess the driven solution and that was by the time. 224 00:27:30,010 --> 00:27:36,520 So legitimation that the international mediators had fought for this great inclusion, 225 00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:44,170 but who these parties actually work and who they represented was not an important question to the international interveners. 226 00:27:44,170 --> 00:27:50,170 And I would like to share another quote with you, this time from media treasure, I can discern. 227 00:27:50,170 --> 00:28:00,550 And one of his reports true to the summit, Acheson writes, the road map has garnered wide support from political parties, 228 00:28:00,550 --> 00:28:04,060 most of them having expressed their willingness to be positive. 229 00:28:04,060 --> 00:28:12,820 It is true that many may have been motivated by the possibility of having their members integrated into the transitional institutions, 230 00:28:12,820 --> 00:28:16,990 but they argue that having the opportunity to participate in the process. 231 00:28:16,990 --> 00:28:22,390 What was their sufficient incentive? 232 00:28:22,390 --> 00:28:29,860 The point that I'm trying to make here is that this de-politicize transition was not an imposition from the outside, 233 00:28:29,860 --> 00:28:39,940 but a process of actually ordering that is a Christian built on the end of the collaboration and agency of Malagasy actors, 234 00:28:39,940 --> 00:28:52,650 as much as it was framed and shaped by the norms and practises of international and regional institutions. 235 00:28:52,650 --> 00:28:57,750 Now, what this process ultimately ended up doing was, as I said at the beginning, 236 00:28:57,750 --> 00:29:05,190 the read to mention of the ideal of the liberal polity and an institutional framework to politics based on, 237 00:29:05,190 --> 00:29:12,130 though empirically unmet ideals of popular sovereignty and democratic participation. 238 00:29:12,130 --> 00:29:19,510 And this idea of the liberal quality in fact, nourished the political struggle amongst the Malagasy political elite and placed 239 00:29:19,510 --> 00:29:24,340 even more focus on the fight for access to the institutions of the state. 240 00:29:24,340 --> 00:29:33,220 For instance, every accord a roadmap to end the crisis and to ever lodge a number of posts and transitional institutions. 241 00:29:33,220 --> 00:29:42,070 The number of seats in the legislative institutions, for instance, rose from one hundred sixty two more than 500 during the transition. 242 00:29:42,070 --> 00:29:44,800 So apart from organising elections, 243 00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:56,720 the primary means to conflict resolution at work here was granting access to and inclusion into the institutions of the state. 244 00:29:56,720 --> 00:30:03,560 Now, what did get lost in this technocratic transition, what were the blind spots of this approach? 245 00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:13,220 I think the two main issues on the one is it's quite obvious that the office that went missing, 246 00:30:13,220 --> 00:30:24,310 it's space to search and debate to find solutions in the first place, to problem at times or to politicise. 247 00:30:24,310 --> 00:30:32,800 The transition, in fact, was never meant to be open ended process, but the end was already defined once. 248 00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:42,460 But she's my gosh, became subject to the African Union's and Typekit regime, and this had quite profound consequences. 249 00:30:42,460 --> 00:30:44,770 It also meant, and that is the second point, 250 00:30:44,770 --> 00:30:51,850 that many issues relevant at the beginning of the crisis were left entirely unaddressed in the transition. 251 00:30:51,850 --> 00:30:59,620 In particular, there is a striking mismatch between the socioeconomic dimension of crime in Madagascar and early 2009, 252 00:30:59,620 --> 00:31:03,610 which I mentioned at the beginning and the obsession of the intervention with 253 00:31:03,610 --> 00:31:10,950 formal political processes at the institutions of the of the liberal polity. 254 00:31:10,950 --> 00:31:18,630 Now to at this point, the almost five years of post-war intervention left an important imprint in politics and order in Madagascar, 255 00:31:18,630 --> 00:31:24,410 even though actually because much seemed to have stayed the same. 256 00:31:24,410 --> 00:31:30,530 The intervention did not just re-establish constitutional order that is the rule of law, 257 00:31:30,530 --> 00:31:35,540 it crucially sought to re legitimise the ideal of the or in fact, 258 00:31:35,540 --> 00:31:46,190 the myth of the liberal polity and how all those who were in the position to find the moment to use it for their own benefit. 259 00:31:46,190 --> 00:31:54,380 Now, the power of this intervention was not its substantive prescriptions, but it's usually. 260 00:31:54,380 --> 00:32:07,400 The defective hindrance to more profound reforms and to debate, to politicise and to problem what was at stake and post-truth, I think it's. 261 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:17,840 Now, both this is not the effort to come up what the African Union bid or the African Union implement its anti-colonial instead, 262 00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:21,560 and that's an important argument that I'm trying to make. 263 00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:27,200 The reordering of Madagascar is the outcome of a collective transnational interaction in which 264 00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:34,390 none of the actors involved was actually able to effectively dominate or steer the across. 265 00:32:34,390 --> 00:32:41,830 With regard to the African Union in particular, I show in my book an ambiguous society of Free and coercion, 266 00:32:41,830 --> 00:32:49,840 on the one hand, an absence and denial of the organisation's own involvement and responsibility for the situation. 267 00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:58,600 On the other? Are you also showing an informational disconnect from what was actually going on on the ground and an 268 00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:06,950 incapacity to engage the Malagasy actors due to a lack of legitimacy or cultural and linguistic knowledge? 269 00:33:06,950 --> 00:33:12,910 But all of this, what I described, would not have been possible without the African Union's anti-communism, 270 00:33:12,910 --> 00:33:20,020 which set the terms for how to handle elections and provided a legitimisation for that the 271 00:33:20,020 --> 00:33:28,390 implication of the many international and regional actors in finding a solution to this crisis. 272 00:33:28,390 --> 00:33:36,030 Now, turning back to the competing narratives in the literature that I mentioned at the beginning of my book. 273 00:33:36,030 --> 00:33:45,460 What I just outlined clearly contradicts the gloomy expectations of a pessimist, namely that the anti-coup NA merely says regime stability. 274 00:33:45,460 --> 00:33:48,420 This obviously was not the case in Madagascar, 275 00:33:48,420 --> 00:33:55,140 but the weight of international sovereignty norms and the need for states to have an internationally recognisable 276 00:33:55,140 --> 00:34:02,610 government explains a lot of the oppression and the deep politicisation that took place in Madagascar. 277 00:34:02,610 --> 00:34:10,800 Afro optimists and 10 were definitely too positive about the democracy democratising effects of the turmoil because, 278 00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:18,320 as I have argued, its application effectively hindered more profound political reforms. 279 00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,840 But the ideals of popular sovereignty, 280 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:29,630 inclusion and participation are still crucial to understanding just how the situation in Madagascar was thought to be resolved. 281 00:34:29,630 --> 00:34:39,260 So while none of these two narrative narratives captures the contradicting and ambiguous consequences the post-coup intervention had on Madagascar 282 00:34:39,260 --> 00:34:51,220 a burst onto two important logics behind the collective efforts to re-establish constitutional order that were simultaneously at work. 283 00:34:51,220 --> 00:35:00,260 And it will now turn to the second part of my expectations, namely that reordering the international. 284 00:35:00,260 --> 00:35:05,660 So apart from reordering or not, the Madagascar quality, 285 00:35:05,660 --> 00:35:12,320 the rescue intervention also contributed to reconfigure orders and power relations internationally, 286 00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:19,040 and it continues to expand the reach of the international both in Madagascar and beyond. 287 00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:25,100 So concretely, identify two processes that took place. 288 00:35:25,100 --> 00:35:33,990 The first is. Identify new spaces of intervention of international intervention. 289 00:35:33,990 --> 00:35:39,810 Many of the problems and issues that international into the Beatles identified during the transition, 290 00:35:39,810 --> 00:35:45,090 but that were then postponed to a time after the official return to constitutional order. 291 00:35:45,090 --> 00:35:54,030 Many of these issues were later on turned into future international aid and support projects and programmes scope. 292 00:35:54,030 --> 00:36:04,230 Reconciliation, for instance, is one of the most famous case, I think security sector reform or, in fact, the diet's socio economic situation. 293 00:36:04,230 --> 00:36:09,240 Opposed to intervention and the presence of many international and regional actors, in fact, 294 00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:17,730 sharpened the international gaze for the problematic aspects of politics and society and international intervention, 295 00:36:17,730 --> 00:36:23,190 something more enduring for the time, for the years to come. 296 00:36:23,190 --> 00:36:32,650 The second mechanism that I identify is exploring new realms of action for international and regional organisations. 297 00:36:32,650 --> 00:36:40,030 Several of the international and regional actors involved in re-establishing constitutional order in Madagascar, in fact, 298 00:36:40,030 --> 00:36:49,070 use the intervention to explore new fields of competence based on the role of parties, in particular issue areas. 299 00:36:49,070 --> 00:36:54,200 For instance, the organisation of the Indian Ocean Commission. 300 00:36:54,200 --> 00:37:01,730 For the Indian Ocean Commission, the crisis in Madagascar was the starting point for more elaborate profile cooperation, 301 00:37:01,730 --> 00:37:08,950 including also the promotion of democratic norms and confidence amongst its member states. 302 00:37:08,950 --> 00:37:17,800 Well, the African Union to the situation in Madagascar became the laboratory for its new post-conflict reconstruction and development policy. 303 00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:23,800 So these examples point to an expansion of the capacities and former priorities of international 304 00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:29,050 and regional organisations that have a profound effect on the shape of the international, 305 00:37:29,050 --> 00:37:34,150 much beyond the specific situation in Madagascar. 306 00:37:34,150 --> 00:37:43,030 So although the second part now of my observations is much, much shorter, especially now in the presentation and the first part, 307 00:37:43,030 --> 00:37:50,710 it is still my aim to stress that when we look at or when we are interested in understanding what post-war interventions really do, 308 00:37:50,710 --> 00:37:56,440 that is kind of down that order, transforming or generating consequences. 309 00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:03,670 It is not enough to just look at the pompous politicians that are officially targeted by these interventions, 310 00:38:03,670 --> 00:38:15,330 but to really look at the broader international or transnational transformations that have taken place as a result of these interventions. 311 00:38:15,330 --> 00:38:20,370 And with this, I'm coming to my fourth airport and a short one. 312 00:38:20,370 --> 00:38:25,980 And that is the look beyond Madagascan. 313 00:38:25,980 --> 00:38:33,960 Now, one crucial question is obviously how singular our general observations on the press corps intervention really are, 314 00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:39,230 especially with regard to the outcomes that I observe. 315 00:38:39,230 --> 00:38:44,430 Now, everyone looks at those at the other cases of rescue intervention under the African immigrants, 316 00:38:44,430 --> 00:38:50,450 and one complains trying to catch them the way the EU and others react. 317 00:38:50,450 --> 00:38:59,450 Such situations and I've brought you this table, which lists all the situations of post-war interventions since 2004. 318 00:38:59,450 --> 00:39:03,150 What is the data from the Peace Security Council was established. 319 00:39:03,150 --> 00:39:16,470 Family friendly institutional setting was and was in place that since then implements the African Union's action regime. 320 00:39:16,470 --> 00:39:22,660 Now, what you see on this on this table is a pattern that revolves around the promotion like America, 321 00:39:22,660 --> 00:39:27,750 stop of an inclusive transition leading to elections as quickly as possible, 322 00:39:27,750 --> 00:39:36,900 and you see that here in the middle that with very few exceptions, this has been the dominant answer to undoing. 323 00:39:36,900 --> 00:39:39,150 And unlike the Afro pessimists argument, 324 00:39:39,150 --> 00:39:47,490 suggests that the U.S.A. crooner is not used to reinstate all the presidents or to mutually secure a grip on power. 325 00:39:47,490 --> 00:39:55,050 You see that he's see that such situations did OK there, but there was exceptions. 326 00:39:55,050 --> 00:40:00,950 They did happen. Nevertheless. But this is surely not the pattern. 327 00:40:00,950 --> 00:40:07,640 One can also see if one, maybe not so much of its time, but if one studies the processes, 328 00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:14,840 they want to see that the return to constitutional order in most countries was heavily contested, 329 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:22,470 in particular revolving around this question of how and what should be included in the road constitutional order. 330 00:40:22,470 --> 00:40:27,980 So in the however defined transition and this and in these situations, 331 00:40:27,980 --> 00:40:35,710 it's not least shown in the in the duration that re-establishing constitutional order. 332 00:40:35,710 --> 00:40:49,320 On average was a little less than 20 months, so. Two years, which is an stark difference to what the innovative approach envisage such processes at. 333 00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:59,110 Any time. So the argument that I'm making is that because the African Union treats quite unique situations in similar fashions, 334 00:40:59,110 --> 00:41:06,700 it is likely that price interventions in other countries may have similar effects to those air times for Madagascar, 335 00:41:06,700 --> 00:41:14,140 which is really decimating the ideal of the liberal polity through inclusive transitions and elections. 336 00:41:14,140 --> 00:41:19,990 And by this providing new opportunities because of the political elite and deep politicising 337 00:41:19,990 --> 00:41:26,950 the situation that had led to the unconstitutional change of government in the first place. 338 00:41:26,950 --> 00:41:33,480 And with this, I would like to come to my conclusion. 339 00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:43,010 I started my talk with this text, a piece of paper, which is what my declaration or the African Union's anti-coup law. 340 00:41:43,010 --> 00:41:49,720 And it said that I wanted to show that it is more than just text on a piece of paper. 341 00:41:49,720 --> 00:41:58,800 Maybe then you thought, well, this is a somewhat lame conclusion. Who would have expected this to be just takes on a piece of paper anyway? 342 00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:06,300 But I think all too often the African Union is still considered to merely produce text to be a paper tiger. 343 00:42:06,300 --> 00:42:11,500 Quite natural to not really having any effect. 344 00:42:11,500 --> 00:42:15,670 This is also true for political science and international relations scholarship, 345 00:42:15,670 --> 00:42:23,440 but still prefers studying the effects of global international organisations or Western states on politics and order in Africa, 346 00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:34,170 but less so those of African regional institutions. I want to demonstrate with my research that this assumption is a great mistake. 347 00:42:34,170 --> 00:42:38,610 I certainly do not want to diminish the impact of global international organisations 348 00:42:38,610 --> 00:42:44,320 or Western states and their impact on politics and ordered evacuated. 349 00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:52,000 But reducing our understanding of the international in Africa to such outside actors fails to reflect the crucial 350 00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:59,320 institutional transformations admit to the rise of what I call an African international African international. 351 00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:04,270 I mean a set of structured relations beyond the state based on the definition 352 00:43:04,270 --> 00:43:11,670 and sedimentation of norms to govern particular issues of life like Britain's. 353 00:43:11,670 --> 00:43:20,520 The African Union's and tycoon Ahmed is just one example demonstrating this transformation and their effects on African politics. 354 00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:31,050 With the adoption of a Lomé declaration, the EU has become an important site for the definition of what counts as legitimate order in African states. 355 00:43:31,050 --> 00:43:39,790 And this has allowed the promotion of a particular idea of political order to resolve conflicts within its member states. 356 00:43:39,790 --> 00:43:44,530 Now, even though the effects of all this might not be as wished or hoped, 357 00:43:44,530 --> 00:43:53,600 especially not if one takes the position of all those, like many Malagasy who had hoped for a more profound change to come. 358 00:43:53,600 --> 00:44:00,830 But these effects are nevertheless tangible, and they have important consequences for politics and order and Africa. 359 00:44:00,830 --> 00:44:07,460 That's what I was interested in studying or shaping them in the future. 360 00:44:07,460 --> 00:44:17,980 And with this, I want to thank you for your attention, and I'm really looking forward now to our discussion. 361 00:44:17,980 --> 00:44:19,840 And.