Problematizing Regional Organizations in Africa Security

The African continent is plagued by some of the most brutal and violentconflicts in the world. At the same time that warfare is changing, so has the state’scapacity to provide security and political stability to its citizens. In this context, whatis the role of new conflict management actors, in particular regional organizations?This article starts out by situating conflicts and peace operations on the African conti-nent. It then moves on to problematize the role of regional organizations in Africansecurity with emphasis on three key topics: (1) the advantages and disadvantages of African regional and subregional organizations vis-à-vis other security mechanisms, inparticular UN peace operations; (2) the official and unofficial reasons to intervene; and(3) whether security is actually protected by the peace activities carried out by theregional organizations.