Punching above Weight: How the African Union Commission Exercises Agency in Politics

Tieku, Thomas Kwasi

doi:10.1177/0002039721990394

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…through its annually rotating Chairperson) and the group of African states at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. The AUC’s ability to shape African and global politics enables it to exercise agency beyond theoretical expectations based on ‘templates from elsewhere in the world’ (Tieku, 2021: 267). While fully concurring with Tieku’s analysis, my argument emphasizes the AUC’s agency not in global politics, but in its core business of shaping the programme delivery of the AU.…”

Section: A Theory Of Agency Outcomes In Security Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource mobilization in security partnerships: Explaining cooperation and coercion in the EU’s partnership with the African Union

Staeger¹

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

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Security partnerships between unequal partners walk a fine line between mutually beneficial cooperation and coercion. This article theorizes resource provision in security partnerships in which a funder substantively supports a recipient organization. Specifically, I develop an argument concerning the effect of principal–agent interactions in security partnerships on the recipient’s agency through mechanisms of agenda-setting and capacity-building. The European Union’s (EU) peace and security partnership with the African Union (AU) illustrates the contentious politics of resource mobilization in security partnerships, and how these politics affect the secretariat of the recipient organization. The article arrives at the rather optimistic conclusion that the EU is a generous partner with an explicit goal of cooperative engagement. Furthermore, opportunities for coercion are minimized by the EU’s internal bureaucratic obstacles, the AU’s strategic sequencing of the resource mobilization process, and the overarching post-coloniality of the partnership. However, occasional episodes of coercive EU behaviour have led to considerable tensions in the partnership. These findings add important contrast to postcolonial critiques of AU funding: the AU Commission exercises considerable organizational agency, which relegates the EU – despite being a large payer – to the role of a small player, particularly when it comes to directly influencing the AU.

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Section: A Theory Of Agency Outcomes In Security Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource mobilization in security partnerships: Explaining cooperation and coercion in the EU’s partnership with the African Union

Staeger¹

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

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“…from rationalist or constructivist perspectives) regarding the potentially distinct preferences principals and agents bring to the delegation relationship ( Snidal and Tamm, 2018 : 139). Considering IGO secretariats’ frequent involvement in institutional design ( Johnstone, 2013 : 271; Tieku, 2021 : 257), scholars have theorized how IGO bureaucrats’ preferences can impact the design of international institutions, where they can insulate IGO progenies from state control ( Johnson, 2014 ; Johnson and Urpelainen, 2014 ). There can be similar but distinctly “legalized” PA dynamics when states delegate authority to non-state legal actors to design international institutions.…”

Section: Designing International Legal Institutions: From State-centr...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fitting its common practice, the AUC hired an external consultant for this mandate. First drafts of most AU legal agreements are developed by the AUC Office of the Legal Counsel (OLC), as the AU’s in-house legal expertise, or by AUC-hired consultants ( Tieku, 2021: 260 ). Here, the OLC’s significant workload and lack of expertise in international criminal law drove the decision to outsource (Deya, 2019).…”

Section: Evidence From the Design Of International Criminal Legal Ins...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hidden figures: how legal experts influence the design of international institutions

De Silva,

Holthoefer

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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Whose preferences influence the design of international institutions? Scholarship on the legalization of international politics and creation of international legal institutions largely adopts a state-centric perspective. Existing accounts, however, fail to recognize how states often delegate authority over institutional design tasks to independent legal experts whose preferences may diverge from those of states. We develop a principal–agent (PA) framework for theorizing relations between states (collective principals) and legal actors (agents) in the design process, and for explaining how legal actors influence the design of international institutions. The legal dimensions of the PA relationship increase the likelihood of preference divergence between the collective principal and the agent, but also create conditions that enable the agent to opportunistically advance its own design preferences. We argue that the more information on states’ preferences the agent has, the more effectively it can exploit its legal expertise to strategically select and justify design choices that maximize its own preferences and the likelihood of states’ acceptance. Our analysis of two cases of delegated institutional design concerning international criminal law at the United Nations and the African Union supports our theoretical expectations. Extensive archival and interview data elucidate how agents’ variable information on states’ preferences affects their ability to effectively advance their design preferences. Our theory reveals how independent legal experts with delegated authority over design tasks influence institutional design processes and outcomes, which has practical and normative implications for the legalization of international politics.

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Die Afrikanische Union und internationale Politik

Welz¹

2022

Handbuch Internationale Beziehungen

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Punching above Weight: How the African Union Commission Exercises Agency in Politics

Cited by 13 publications

References 28 publications

Resource mobilization in security partnerships: Explaining cooperation and coercion in the EU’s partnership with the African Union

Resource mobilization in security partnerships: Explaining cooperation and coercion in the EU’s partnership with the African Union

Hidden figures: how legal experts influence the design of international institutions

Die Afrikanische Union und internationale Politik

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