A Study Of The Exit Mechanism Of The African Union Peacekeeping Operations

Over the past two decades,the African Union(AU)peacekeeping operations(PKOs)have been played a significant role in promoting peace and security in Africa.But there’s a wide variation among the exit processes of all the AU PKOs.On the hand,some of the PKOs are expected at the end to hand over from the AU to the UN,while some of them are not expected to do so.On the other hand,some of the AU PKOs have been taken over by the UN in a very short period of time,while some of them have been stuck in the host countries for a long time.Though the previous studies to analyze the exit of PKOs are from three mainly perspectives,namely exit strategies,exit norms and exit pathways,the variation above has not been explained yet.So what are the exit processes of the AU PKOs like? What are the contributors to the variations of the identity of the takeover and of the duration of their exit processes?This paper has built an analytical framework to discuss the causation,which includes two essential parts: firstly,the exit processes of the AU PKOs follow a special exit mechanism that consists of the mutual interaction of peacekeeping responsibilities between handover and takeover;secondly,the core hypothesis of this paper is that the exit outcomes of the AU PKOs rely heavily on the interactions between the exit mechanism and the AU’s peacekeeping capacities,which determines the identity of the takeover,and rebel tactics,which could influence the duration of their exit processes.It’s important to note that rebel tactics could be a contributing factor only in the context that the AU’s peacekeeping capacities is relatively insufficient,and tactic selections are bound by terrorism,foreign support and a rebel organization’s mobilization capacity.Based on the method of “semi-negative case comparison”,this paper has separately examined the AU PKOs in Burundi,the Comoros and Somalia to test the core hypothesis.The three cases show that the exit mechanism is essential to the exit of the AU PKOs and the AU’s peacekeeping capacities and the tactics of rebel organizations are two important variables to determine whether the mechanism operates or not.That is to say,when the AU’s peacekeeping capacities is relatively sufficient,the exit mechanism could not operate and the AU doesn’t need to interact with the UN,thus the security responsibilities will hand over to the host countries’ government;when the AU’s peacekeeping capacities is relatively insufficient,the exit mechanism could operate and the AU has to interact with the UN,which will take over the security responsibilities from the AU.Simultaneously,when the rebel force compromise with the host government and the AU peacekeeping missions,the exit mechanism operates smoothly and the PKOs will,within a short period of time,hand over to the UN and withdraw from host counties;when the rebel force is resistant to the host government and the AU peacekeeping missions,the exit mechanism will be restrained and it’s difficult for the PKOs to exit from host counties within a short period of time.To explore the causality above helps not only to reveal the casual mechanism of the exit processes of PKOs,but also to identify some significant factors to the exit outcomes of PKOs.In terms of practical significance,this study will help us to understand the actual predicament of the AU PKOs and will provide the AU some inspirations for promoting peace and security in Africa better.