Resource mobilization in security partnerships: Explaining cooperation and coercion in the EU’s partnership with the African Union
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221147785 |
| Author | Ueli Staeger |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221147785
Cooperation and Conflict
2023, Vol. 58(4) 502 –521
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367221147785
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Resource mobilization
in security partnerships:
Explaining cooperation
and coercion in the EU’s
partnership with the
African Union
Ueli Staeger
Abstract
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.
Keywords
African agency, African Union, EU foreign policy, international organizations, resource
mobilization, security partnerships
The European Union (EU) plays a paradoxical role in African security. It has provided
considerable support for African security initiatives since 2004, with over €2.7 billion
spent between 2004 and 2017 through the African Peace Facility (European Commission,
Corresponding author:
Ueli Staeger, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
Email: ueli.staeger@unige.ch
1147785CAC0010.1177/00108367221147785Cooperation and ConflictStaeger
research-article2023
Article
Staeger 503
2019: 10) and over 60% of the EU’s current military and civilian missions are taking place
on the African continent. Yet African media and citizens regularly accuse Europe of neo-
colonial influence in the continent’s regional institutions. At the African Union (AU),
although the EU is by far the biggest funder of peace and security initiatives, its impor-
tance is concealed by showcasing less resource-rich partnerships with other actors. In
short, there is a contradiction of expectations in the EU–AU partnership: large contribu-
tions suggest considerable EU influence, yet there is a perception of little influence in EU
circles, to the extent that the EU argues that it must ‘stop being a payer and start being a
player’ (Interview EU 6).
To address this puzzle, I ask: what explains variation in how the EU shapes the agency
of the AU Commission (AUC) in peace and security? Drawing from the literature on
security partnerships, funding of international organizations (IOs) and post-coloniality, I
argue that the design and management of resource mobilization contracts affect the
agency of the recipient. My argument focuses on the organizational outcomes of security
partnerships and the inter-organizational dynamics that cause them.
My theoretical argument (Figure 1) builds on the definition of recipient agency as ‘the
capacity to act intentionally’, which orients two main causal mechanisms through which
external partners (such as the EU) can shape the agency of an IO secretariat (such as the
AUC): first, agenda-setting captures how the purpose of a financing agreement shapes
the secretariat agenda; and second, and potentially in parallel, capacity-building describes
how financial management provisions in a financing agreement shape secretariat
capacity.
Partnerships that provide external funding can either diminish or increase recipient
agency. To capture this variation in agency outcomes, I theorize two ideal-typical inter-
action modes that capture the dyadic relationships between external partners and IO
secretariats: cooperative, whereby the partnership enhances the recipient’s agency; and
coercive, whereby a partner imposes a change against the recipient’s will, thereby lower-
ing the recipient’s agency.
The empirical section operationalizes this theory using the case of the EU’s peace and
security partnership with the AU by systematically applying the two mechanisms and
two interaction modes. This results in a highly nuanced assessment of how the EU influ-
ences the AUC’s agency. The analysis reveals that the EU’s security partnership with the
Figure 1. Theoretical argument.
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