UNDERSTANDING MULTILATERAL COOPERATION IN AFRICAN PEACE OPERATIONS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE UN-AU-EU PEACE SUPPORT TRILATERAL COOPERATION NEXUS

Abstract: Literature on peace operations has revealed that since the end of the Cold war, especially since the early 2000s, there has been a rapid increase in the number of peacekeeping missions around the world, accompanied by an increase in multidimensionality. This development is said to have led to the most prominent organization involved in peacekeeping, the UN, along with others like the AU and EU, to experience an overstretch of their resources, thereby making cooperation between these three organizations necessary in this endeavor. However, the asymmetry of resources between these three organizations and the impact it has on convergence and divergence in their cooperation has not been thoroughly analyzed. This study therefore, utilizing resource exchange theory, attempts to understand the implications and actual impact of resource asymmetry between the UN, AU, and EU in their emerging trilateral cooperation nexus in peace operations in Africa. This study is based on Somalia as a case study, whereby, the goal is to understand how resource asymmetry - owing to assumed resource scarcity - has affected convergence and divergence between the UN, AU, and EU, as well as the roles and functions the organizations are playing in the operation. The findings reveal that resource asymmetry has both an enhancing and an impeding effect on convergence and cooperation as it can lead to efficient division of labor and avoidance of duplication and competition, whilst at the same time provoking divergence and invoking challenges by reinforcing dependence, capacity substitution, and mutual suspicion. The study also concludes that resource scarcity and asymmetry, leading to the leveraging of comparative advantages between the three studied organizations, is not the only influence in determining convergence and divergence in cooperation. Other factors such as political, historical, and economic factors play significant roles in determining convergence and divergence in multilateral peace operations. Key words: Peace operations, resource asymmetry, Somalia, cooperation, international organization, conflict, UN, AU, EU