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Introduction

Making Room for War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2023

Katharina P. W. Döring
Affiliation:
Södertörns Högskola, Sweden
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Summary

The introduction puts forward the argument that African military politics are essentially spatial. It provides the precondition to understanding how an African elite of presidents, diplomats, and bureaucrats from regional organizations has been ‘making room for war’ in the Sahel since 2012. We are urged here to move past conventional notions of social space as static and instead conceptualize it as relational and in flux. Space is (re-)created by actors as they shape and alter the relations amongst themselves. It is not a change in space, but a change of space. Based on an analysis of the literature debates on African military deployments, the introduction argues to foreground the politics surrounding these interventions over discussions about effectiveness. Actors negotiate who is ‘close’ or ‘distant’ to a security concern, who is a legitimate intervener, and who is included or excluded in a common military response. They do so by invoking naturalized narratives about space as the analysis shows of the many Sahel strategies or the comparison of the intervention in Mali to that in Afghanistan. From this departure point, the politics around African-led military deployments for the Sahel are analyzed throughout the book.

Type
Chapter
Information
African Military Politics in the Sahel
Regional Organizations and International Politics
, pp. 1 - 33
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Introduction
  • Katharina P. W. Döring, Södertörns Högskola, Sweden
  • Book: African Military Politics in the Sahel
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009362269.001
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  • Introduction
  • Katharina P. W. Döring, Södertörns Högskola, Sweden
  • Book: African Military Politics in the Sahel
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009362269.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Katharina P. W. Döring, Södertörns Högskola, Sweden
  • Book: African Military Politics in the Sahel
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009362269.001
Available formats
×