The African Union ─ Addressing the Challenges of Peace, Security, and Governance

Fully revised and updated, the second edition of The African Union continues to offer the most comprehensive overview of the work of the African Union (AU), with special emphasis on its capacity to meet the challenges of building and sustaining governance institutions and security mechanisms.

This new edition seeks to:

• Re-examine the African Union at the historic moment of the golden jubilee of the OAU, its predecessor. It examines the AU’s efforts in its first decade, points out some of the organization’s weaknesses, and posits options for addressing more effectively the challenges of peace, security, and governance in coming years.
• Critically review several arrangements and initiatives, including the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
• Analyses performance of key institutions and programmes of the AU, including the Commission, the Executive Council, the Assembly, and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) as well as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). This will entail revising and updating all the chapters.
• It includes two new chapters that reflect the widening agenda of the AU, including new international partnerships and its participation in the debates on new issues and interests, such as climate change and global financial governance.

The authors argue that instability and insecurity on the continent are consequences of bad governance and the lack of strategic leadership, while the second is that the lack of a clearly articulated ideology undermines the implementation of the AU agenda.

Samuel M. Makinda is Professor of Security Studies and International Relations at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia.

F. Wafula Okumu is the Head of African Security Analysis Programme at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, South Africa.

David Mickler is Assistant Professor in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the University of Western Australia, Perth