Undoing Coups: The African Union and Post-coup Intervention in Madagascar (Politics and Development in Contemporary Africa)

Since the beginnings of independence, a number of African nations have been plagued by repeated coup d'états. Within the African Union (AU), there has been a concerted effort to break this cycle through the official adoption of an ‘anti-coup norm’, by which the AU is mandated to suspend a member state and restore constitutional order following a coup. Supporters of this stance see it as strengthening democracy in Africa, while critics argue that it has served to prop up existing regimes. But there has been little analysis of what the AU’s attempts to ‘restore constitutional order’ have meant for individual African states. In this book, Antonia Witt looks at the legacy of the AU’s intervention in Madagascar following the 2009 ‘Malagasy crisis’, one of the increasingly relevant yet under-researched cases of non-Western intervention in Africa. The book looks at the ways in which international intervention reconfigured the political order in Madagascar, how it facilitated the power struggle within the Madagascan elite and prevented more profound political change. It also considers what the example set by the Madagascan intervention means for the wider international order in Africa and the powers attributed to African international actors such as the AU. Front Cover Series Page Half Title About the author Title Page Copyright Contents List of illustrations List of abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction Return to what? What we know so far Introducing the case The argument in brief Methods and data Outline of the book 1: Norms, intervention, and the making of orders Legitimate authority, the international, and the constitution of orders International organizations and the dissemination of legitimacy principles Intervention as transboundary formation: spaces of politics and power 2: Crafting an African anti-coup manual Early experiments: from anti-imperialism to ‘the people’ Writing an anti-coup manual The Charter project: contesting and expandingthe manual ‘Zero tolerance’: strengthening the manual, strengthening the AU Expansion and claims of the African anti-coup manual 3: What ‘crise malgache’? 2009: whose ‘crise malgache’? 4: The intervention scenario The four mouvances The international interveners The mediation team(s) The politics of unconstitutional changes of government 5: The logic of intervention Reordering what? Transition as executive politics Reordering with whom, for whom? Faking inclusivity Reordering how? Between pressure and evasion 6: Reproducing old, legitimating new orders Reordering Madagascar Reordering the international 7: Politics and power of post-coup interventions Madagascar in the bigger picture Implications So, what to do? Notes References List of interviews Index Since the beginnings of independence, a number of African nations have been plagued by repeated coup d'etats. Within the African Union (AU), there has been a concerted effort to break this cycle through the official adoption of an 'anti-coup norm', by which the AU is mandated to suspend a member state and restore constitutional order following a coup. Supporters of this stance see it as strengthening democracy in Africa, while critics argue that it has served to prop up existing regimes. But there has been little analysis of what the AU's attempts to 'restore constitutional order' have meant for individual African states. In this book, Antonia Witt looks at the legacy of the AU's intervention in Madagascar following the 2009 'Malagasy crisis', one of the increasingly relevant yet under-researched cases of non-Western intervention in Africa. The book looks at the ways in which international intervention reconfigured the political order in Madagascar, how it facilitated the power struggle within the Madagascan elite and prevented more profound political change. It also considers what the example set by the Madagascan intervention means for the wider international order in Africa and the powers attributed to African international actors such as the AU An in-depth analysis of international intervention in Madagascar following the 2009 coup, and what it means for African 'anti-coup' efforts.