Justifying interventions in Africa: (De)Stabilizing sovereignty in Liberia, Burundi and the Congo

Abstract

Nina Wilén's book is a bold effort to tackle the complex notion of ‘sovereignty’, by pursuing what appears at first glance to be a rather straightforward inquiry: ‘how to stabilize a country through external intervention without destabilizing its sovereignty’ (p. 1). From a theoretical standpoint, the study aims to contribute to the discussion on how justifications for interventions stabilize or destabilize the concept of sovereignty, and how this affects the exercise of sovereignty in a target state (the concern of her first two sub-questions). Its empirical contribution is an analysis of how sovereignty is interpreted by the external actors in charge of reinforcing it, and the consequences of their interpretation (her second two sub-questions). She pursues her lines of inquiry through analysing regional and international interventions in Liberia, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Wilén does an excellent job of problematizing sovereignty, recognizing it as both changing and absolute. She also provides a commanding overview of three very different African conflicts. Furthermore, she introduces a useful framework for justifying interventions, considering the interpretive community, domestic community, and logic of representation, through which she aims to ‘analyse how the interpretation of sovereignty changes through interactions and discourses between actors’ (p. 26). Finally, she makes a commendable effort to look at both regional and international interventions, which has the potential to produce rich discussion and analysis.