This study examines the African Union's peacekeeping role in managing African conflicts. Based on a qualitative research methodology, it analyses AU peace operations in Burundi and Somalia, and hybrid peacekeeping in Darfur, in order to identify the lessons learned and suggest how future outcomes may be improved.

An examination of how peacekeeping is woven into national, regional and international politics in Africa, and its consequences.

In 1981 the Organization of African Unity (OAU) mandated and fielded the first regional peacekeeping operation since the Arab League's mission in Kuwait 20 years earlier. Battalion-sized contingents from Nigeria, Senegal, and Zaire were joined by smaller observer contingents from other OAU members in an effort to provide a buffer zone between the two main factions in the Chadian civil war. Mays opens his analysis by providing an overview of the concept of peacekeeping. Several definitions are offered to help distinguish between the various types of peace operations. After examining the concept hegemon, he looks at the ways regional and subregional hegemons utilize peacekeeping operations as foreign policy tools as they protect their interests. Mays argues that Nigeria, as a West African hegemon, served as the moving force behind the mandating and fielding of the OAU peacekeeping mission in Chad. Rather than being purely humanitarian in nature, Nigeria's motivation included the removal of French and later Libyan soldiers from a weak state on its border. However, Nigeria could not perform the task alone. France and the United States were instrumental as well in the mandating and fielding process. French and American interests stemmed from concern over Libyan motives in Chad. Nigeria kept the effort to mandate the peacekeeping operation alive for two years; France proved to be the stimulus behind persuading the Chadian government to accept the deployment of OAU peacekeepers and prompting the Senegalese to contribute a battalion to the mission; the United States contributed by keeping France and Nigeria focused on a peacekeeping solution and helping persuade Zaire to join the mission. Mays offers the first comprehensive examination of the OAU peacekeeping mission and reviews the political and military organization of the force as well as its deployment, redeployment plans, logistics, and operations between the Chadian factions. Utilizing an extensive collection of resources, including interviews with participants, diplomats, and government documents, he provdies a detailed examination of every meeting/conference between 1979 and 1981 that discussed a peacekeeping option for Chad. Factors of success in traditional peacekeeping operations are applied to the OAU mission, and he concludes by reviewing the impact of the 1981-1982 OAU operation on current African peacekeeping trends. An invaluable analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with peacekeeping, international relations, and African studies.

Facing threats ranging from Islamist insurgencies to the Ebola pandemic, African regional actors are playing an increasingly vital role in safeguarding peace and stability across the continent. But while the African Union has demonstrated its ability to deploy forces on short notice and in difficult circumstances, the challenges posed by increasingly complex conflict zones have revealed a widening divide between the theory and practice of peacekeeping. With the AU's African Standby Force becoming fully operational in 2016, this timely and much-needed work argues that responding to these challenges will require a new and distinctively African model of peacekeeping, as well as a radical revision of the current African security framework. The first book to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of African peace operations, The Future of African Peace Operations gives a long overdue assessment of the ways in which peacekeeping on the continent has evolved over the past decade. It will be a vital resource for policy makers, researchers and all those seeking solutions and insights into the immense security challenges which Africa is facing today.

Dennis C. Jett examines why peacekeeping operations fail by comparing the unsuccessful attempt at peacekeeping in Angola with the successful effort in Mozambique, alongside a wide range of other peacekeeping experiences. The book argues that while the causes of past peacekeeping failures can be identified, the chances for success will be difficult to improve because of the way such operations are initiated and conducted, and the way the United Nations operates as an organization. Jett reviews the history of peacekeeping and the evolution in the number, size, scope, and cost of peacekeeping missions. He also explains why peacekeeping has become more necessary, possible, and desired and yet, at the same time, more complex, more difficult, and less frequently used. The book takes a hard look at the UN's actions and provides useful information for understanding current conflicts.

This open access book on the state of peacebuilding in Africa brings together the work of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and decision makers to reflect on key experiences and lessons learned in peacebuilding in Africa over the past half century. The core themes addressed by the contributors include conflict prevention, mediation, and management; post-conflict reconstruction, justice and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration; the role of women, religion, humanitarianism, grassroots organizations, and early warning systems; and the impact of global, regional, and continental bodies. The book's thematic chapters are complemented by six country/region case studies: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan/South Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahel/Mali. Each chapter concludes with a set of key lessons learned that could be used to inform the building of a more sustainable peace in Africa. The State of Peacebuilding in Africa was born out of the activities of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie-funded, continent-wide network of African organizations that works with the Wilson Center to bring African knowledge and perspectives to U.S., African, and international policy on peacebuilding in Africa. The research for this book was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.