Although there is enormous literature on peace and security in Africa there are inadequate studies on the challenges and progress made towards promotion of sustainable peace and security in Africa. This article is a comparative analysis of the old security paradigm and the emerging security architecture of the African Union (AU). It argues that the Organization of African Unity (OAU), for most part of its existence, could not effectively deal with security problems on the continent because of strict adherence to the idea of absolute sovereignty and state-centric security policy. In contrast, the article demonstrates that AU’s move towards ‘responsible sovereignty’, integration of state and human security and institutionalized collective security framework has helped stabilized the continent and enhanced its development prospects. Despite this progress the article shows that the AU faces some challenges in its conflict prevention and resolution management processes and offers some thoughts on how to address them.

In a quest to understand not only the precipitating factors of insecurity but also Africa’s direction in international relations, one contends that the peace and security strides of the Africa Union (AU) can be explained using a constructivist approach, the hypothesis behind which is that states are a social construction bound by norms, rules and institutions of their own creation. This paper maintains that the constructivist approach goes beyond the liberal institutionalism and neorealism theories, and thus providing a better epistemological approach to those with a penchant for analysing Africa’s peace initiatives. The point of departure is that although Africa’s approach to peace and development is influenced by co-operation based on social constructivist’s hermeneutics, the very same progressive moves are threatened by Africans. A noble approach such as Agenda 2063 requires commitment from the leadership of the continent and the general populace.

The 2011 crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Libya and 2008 Zimbabwe crises provide grounds that contextualize the true nature of the African Union’s (AU) legitimacy claim. Several scholars who either argue for or against AU’s legitimacy claim often augment their diverse positions with nearly plausible rationales. However, there has been little exploration of the underlying factors that might have informed the diversity in positions. In other words, this paper will tend to identify the foundation that necessitates alleged doubts on the AU’s legitimacy. We argue that questions on the legitimacy of AU stems from lack of grassroots participation in various countries that subsequently form the Union. Isolated conception of AU’s legitimacy is incomplete without thorough evaluation of the legitimacy of its constituent members.

This paper examines the principles of communalism underlined in Pan-Africanism that was given institutional expression in the Organisation of African Unity. It conceptualizes the phenomena on one hand, and contextualizes it on the other through an empirical examination of some of the challenging moments in post-independence era when its solidarity was withheld by exogenous and endogenous factors. We contend that communalism appeared more of a selfish instrumentalist project. The study illustrates these sordid historical moments with some cases of political instability in the continent in the early decades of independence, and the economic crises of the 80s, among others. It attributes this development to the absence of ‘community’ either at the micro level of the component states, or macro-continental level, and concludes that part of the contemporary ethical breakdown in the continent arises from failure of the OAU to institutionalize communalism.