Analysing the divide between technocrats and diplomats in international organizations

Abstract

International Relations scholarship has examined how technical knowledge boosts the performance of international organizations, but has found that it could also lead to behaviour undermining their broader goals. Research has not reconciled these contrasting observations by specifying when and how technical proficiency leads to such dysfunction. Addressing these gaps, this article examines the connections among Communities of Practice (CoPs) within the organization in linking technical knowledge with other forms of knowledge, actors and tools crucial to address the larger environment, enhancing performance. To illustrate this, the article examines the role of two CoPs, namely, the technical CoP and the diplomatic CoP, in developing and deploying African Mediation Support Structures. The research uses qualitative analysis of official documents, reports, scholarly works and semi-structured expert interviews of officials, partners and analysts. It finds that disconnections among relevant CoPs foster an excessive focus on specific sets of knowledge and tools, particularly technical knowledge, at the expense of engaging others also crucial in addressing the IOs' operating environment, leading to dysfunction. Connections among CoPs promote a holistic response to the environment, enabling the organization to function according to its mandate.

International Relations (IR) scholarship offers different approaches to understanding the performance of international organizations (hereafter ‘IO performance’), broadly defined as IOs' ability to fulfill their mandate efficiently and effectively.¹ Indicators include process and outcome aspects such as decision-making ability, compliance, and goal attainment.² Explanations of IOs' ability to implement their mandate and obtain compliance examine autonomy, control³ and organizational pathologies.⁴

Two vantage points are prominent in analysing IOs' challenges in performing their mandate. On the one hand, member state-focused explanations examine states reneging on their previous commitment to the mandate they delegated to the IO due to particularistic national interests. One recommendation which may help to overcome this challenge is enhancing technical expertise and non-state networks to build autonomy from states.⁵ On the other hand, explanations focused on IOs examine the environment surrounding the IOs and their internal culture that may hinder them from fulfilling their mandate. From this vantage point, an IO's fixation on rules and systems can undermine the IO's wider goals, indicating pathology.

While these explanations are not mutually exclusive, the two vantage points differ on the role of technical knowledge in IO performance. Defined as the specialized expertise required to perform specific tasks and gained through training and professional experience, technical knowledge is embodied in formal knowledge systems and experts representing objective factual information.⁶ The ‘length and specificity of the training needed to develop policies’ indicate high levels of technical knowledge or technical complexity.⁷ State-focused explanations point to technical complexity as a source of autonomy that protects IOs from member states' reneging on their commitment to the collective mandate. Meanwhile, IO-focused explanations note that both their focus on embodying technical rationality and controlling such information can distance them from the wider environment. The former advocates for furthering technical complexity, while the latter cautions about its excesses. Two important research gaps remain: when does IOs' technical proficiency become pathological, and how do IOs reach such a tipping-point?

Addressing these questions, this article employs the concept of communities of practice (CoPs) as a third vantage point to analyse IO performance. CoPs are ‘like-minded groups of practitioners who are bound, both informally and contextually, by a shared interest in learning and applying a common practice’.⁸ The article analyses IO performance in terms of the connections and knowledge exchanges among CoPs, where cooperation across relevant CoPs fosters IOs' ability to respond more holistically to their environment and execute their mandate, enhancing their performance. Disconnections among relevant CoPs can foster an excessive focus on technical knowledge at the expense of the broader goal, leading to dysfunction. The CoP vantage point links and builds on state-focused and IO-focused analyses. Engaging with member state-focused analyses, CoP members can include delegates from member states who may prioritize national interests. Building on IO-focused explanations, a CoP-based analysis considers the environment and internal culture of the IO. In contrast to the two vantage points, a CoP-based analysis focuses on the actors making sense of their environment, cultivating the knowledge and tools to respond to it. This vantage point explains IO performance through the interaction of these various actors and kinds of knowledge with the environment and each other.

Through CoPs, the article traces how the theorized conditions for IO pathology can foster dysfunction. It argues that different CoPs can emerge, reflecting various aspects of the ambiguous environment theorized in the world polity theory grounding research on IO pathology.⁹ Technical complexity fosters pathologies when it fails to connect to these other CoPs. As an illustration, the article analyses the underutilization of mediation support structures (MSS) in Africa and the role of two CoPs, a technical CoP and a diplomatic CoP, which prioritize different knowledge and tools in the practice of peace mediation. MSS are agencies within IOs and state governments mandated to assist mediators through research, advice, and supporting the management of mediation processes. Despite rapid institution-building in the past decade, African MSS are infrequently deployed in actual peace processes and focus on research, debriefing, and capacity-building activities.

The article details how inherent contradictions in the peacemaking environment and peace mediation's partial transition from diplomacy to technocracy cultivated the two CoPs. The extensive role of the technical CoP in the development of African MSS facilitated their focus on technical activities, but at the expense of distancing them from the diplomatic CoP, which continued to be salient in actual mediation processes. This lack of cooperation resulted in high levels of activity on the part of African MSS in non-operational mediation support activities such as training, research and network-building, but also in their under-deployment in supporting actual mediation processes, which is their primary mandate.

The empiric data for this article draws on a comparative study tracing the development of African MSS that employed qualitative content and discourse analysis from archival research and semi-structured interviews with 32 policy officials, advisers and academics, conducted between 2016 and 2021. While the wider project aims to analyse the development of MSS historically and through different approaches in IR institution-building,¹⁰ this article focuses on data pertaining to challenges facing MSS.

After this introduction, the first part of the article conceptualizes the framework for analysing IO performance through CoPs. The second part traces the under-deployment of African MSS from their technical upbringing and the weak connection with the diplomatic CoP. It explains cases of actual MSS utilization as successfully bridging the two traditions. The third part discusses this article's implications on relevant IR and peace research topics, and the fourth part offers some conclusions.

Conceptual framework

This article specifies when (the conditions) and explains how (the process) technical knowledge contributes to pathologies, which are current gaps in the research on IO performance. It draws on research on CoPs, a concept in organizational studies introduced in IR, to address these gaps and build its main argument.

Research on IO performance

IO performance has been variously measured by the efficiency of processes, their effectiveness in fulfilling goals, or a spectrum incorporating both.¹¹ Classifications for performance range from effectiveness, where IOs can act, elicit compliance from members and/or achieve target results, to dysfunction, marked by behaviour on the part of IOs that undermines their own stated objectives.¹²

Explanations for IO performance generally focus on two vantage points. On the one hand, explanations such as that put forward by Lall are premised on member states' pursuit of particularistic national interests that may come at the expense of solving the collective action problem that states delegate to IOs in the first place. To protect IOs from such ‘moral hazard’ in states,¹³ technical complexity generates ‘information asymmetries between IOs and states’ that discourage the latter from proposing new policies and that force states ‘to cede agenda-setting powers to [IO] officials’. Technical complexity also prevents states from fully understanding the consequences of policy options, encouraging continued support for the IO and empowering it to offer specialized products and advice as an independent source of revenue.¹⁴

On the other hand, there are explanations which focus on IOs' internal and external culture. Most notably, Barnett and Finnemore examine IOs' use of legal–rational authority in classification, routinization, and norm diffusion, which could promote fixation on the rules and other processes rather than fulfilling the mandate, leading to pathologies.¹⁵ IOs' legal–rational authority and control of technical expertise can result in routinizing processes that distort IOs' means–ends rationality. Routinization, specialization and compartmentalization can ‘limit [their] field of vision and create subcultures’ that are distant from the wider environment.¹⁶ This paradigm attributes IOs' dysfunctional behaviour to the variation and even contradictions among functional, normative and legitimacy standards, and the ambiguity of the mission in the environment surrounding IOs.

Apart from differences in the units of analysis employed, the two vantage points diverge in their assessment of technical expertise. Member state-based explanations find technical knowledge as an indicator of autonomy, which, along with non-state networks, has a positive relationship with IO performance. In contrast, IO-focused explanations point to an excess of technical expertise. While acknowledging the merits of IO-focused explanations, Lall argues that they ‘fail to explain why only some IOs are able to acquire sufficient autonomy to engage in deviant behaviour that undermines performance’.¹⁷ While scholarship on IO dysfunction, following the world polity theory, points to contradictions in the IOs' wider environment as a condition fostering dysfunction, these ambiguities and contradictions are widely observed in the international environment. Hence, under this general condition, performance variation among IOs, especially within the same IO at different times, has yet to be fully explained. In short, when and how such contradictions can lead to dysfunction remains to be analysed.

Employing the CoPs concept to address the gap in IO performance

In organizational studies, CoPs are groups of individuals characterized by a defined domain of practice, a community or group, and tools such as ideas, language, information and other terminologies.¹⁸ From organizational studies¹⁹ into IR,²⁰ the concept of COPs has been used to refer to a group of individuals spanning geographic locations and formal organizations that reify and also change practices.

Individuals within a CoP share ‘not only a practice and an identity, but also (and because of them) a sense of what is the right time, the right place, and the right thing to do’.²¹ As such, CoPs not only cultivate knowledge on a domain of practice but also embody an authority on determining the standard conditions and way of performing the practice. CoPs thus promote a certain approach to the practice in using and developing tools and establishing standards that influence which knowledge and tools to prioritize, and when and how to use them.

Using CoPs to detail the process towards dysfunction, the article argues that contradictions in the environment, as identified in IO-focused explanations, enable the contestation of norms and practices, which may cultivate multiple CoPs in the same field. While individuals may be part of multiple CoPs, CoPs can vary in terms of differences in the kinds of knowledge and tools they prioritize in performing the practice. For example, international intergovernmental organizations have other CoPs apart from technical experts. Most prominent is a CoP of diplomats that represent member states in these IOs. Diplomacy requires less technical knowledge in the form of issue-based themes and objective standards, but prioritizes context-specific, actor-specific and relationship-based knowledge.

Connections among CoPs cultivating diverse knowledge and tools help take IOs closer to the wider environment. Disconnections among these CoPs can cultivate subcultures which exhibit behaviour that undermines IOs' wider goals. Therefore, the proposed point of dysfunction for technical knowledge is when it operates in isolation and remains generally disengaged from other kinds of knowledge. Links among CoPs—or, conversely, the lack of such links—can facilitate or inhibit the interaction among the different kinds of knowledge and tools actors use in performing the practice.

In summary, the CoP concept enables an analysis of the cultures and subcultures of practitioners using and promoting different knowledge and tools. This concept connects the theorized scope conditions of ambiguities and contradictions in the IOs environment with processes that contribute to IO dysfunction. Cooperation among CoPs provides a wider set of tools and knowledge that make IOs more holistically responsive to the environment and enhance their ability to perform their mandate. IOs' focus on one CoP at the expense of engaging with other CoPs relevant in the field can inhibit such responsiveness and undermine performance.

Peace mediation and the under-deployment of mediation support structures in Africa

To illustrate its argument, the article draws on a comparative study of the MSS of four regional security organizations in Africa. The research employed qualitative methods involving archival research and interviews; it analysed formal documents, activity reports accessed privately or online, publications from scientific journals and think tanks, and semi-structured interviews with 32 policy officials, advisers and academics, conducted between 2016 and 2021. For this article, the research mainly used qualitative content analysis of the above documents and interview transcripts to determine the concentration of activities, inactivity and prominent actors in MSS institution-building. Moreover, the research employed discourse analysis to analyse challenges facing MSS within the context of the peace mediation environment. Out of the 32 respondents for the wider study, 15 were key informant interviews and thus most relevant for this article.

This section is subdivided into five parts. It first shows how the peace mediation environment's inherent contradictions paved the way for two approaches to peace mediation—namely, the diplomatic and technical approaches—and two CoPs of peace mediation that focus on each approach. Second, this section examines the prominent role of the technical CoPs in developing African MSS and, third, the high levels of technocratic activity in African MSS. Fourth, this section explains their dysfunction, which is their underemployment in actual mediation processes, through their disconnection from the diplomatic CoP in mediation that prioritize a domain of knowledge, grouping and tools that these MSS consider to be political, and outside of their technical toolkit. Member states have thus continued to resort to the diplomatic CoP outside the MSS to address these dimensions, which are crucial in ongoing peace processes. Finally, the fifth part of this section explains cases of actual MSS deployment in terms of the ability of MSS to connect with the diplomatic CoP and engage with the knowledge, grouping and tools prioritized in the diplomatic approach.

Ambiguities and contradictions in the peacemaking environment and the emergence of two CoPs

Peace research has extensively explored varying perspectives on what the peace mandate means and how to achieve it.²² For regional organizations, the norms of subsidiarity and regional ownership in peace processes are paramount. The subsidiarity norm upholds the primary role of the subregional organization experiencing the conflict as the first responder.²³ Given demographic and geographic connections, the premise is that regional neighbours are exposed to high levels of risk that a conflict will spill across their borders. Given this, matters of international peace intertwine with national interests. Since member states see themselves as stakeholders, they can justify their commitment to the peace mandate while pursuing national interest, making Lall's ‘moral hazard’ more of a dilemma as to which pathway they must take towards the collective cause. Multiple pathways towards peace have cultivated two approaches to peace mediation that, while supposedly complementary, prioritize different kinds of knowledge, actor groups and tools.

Convergne and Nathan describe mediation as a field between diplomatic practice and specialized activity.²⁴ From the mixed traditions emerge both a CoP that focuses on a diplomatic approach and a CoP that emphasizes a technical approach to peace mediation. On the first CoP, mediation has been practised historically by foreign service officials of states where diplomatic skills are required to rally consent.²⁵ The diplomatic approach values context-specific knowledge of actors, complex relationships, and multiplicity of interests and perspectives. The community generally comprises state actors, political bureaus, geographic desks of IOs, and their liaison offices on the ground and within in-country networks. In this paradigm, mediation, as diplomacy, is seen as an art rather than a science that can be taught.²⁶ The tools in this approach aid in managing various actors, perspectives and relationships. The toolkit includes negotiation, communication, and facilitation tools, as in diplomacy. Discussions happen in formal venues and informal channels, leveraging both formal assets and interpersonal relationships.

On the second CoP, as international attention began to engage beyond interstate wars to include intrastate conflicts, the complexity of the conflict issues expanded beyond those which were responsive to the diplomatic toolbox to require a multidisciplinary team comprising specialized capabilities.²⁷ The peace agreements designed to address these complex conflicts now incorporate multiple issue-based provisions,²⁸ requiring thematic expertise across areas such as constitutional reform, transitional justice and wealth-sharing. Mediation support has thus diversified into these thematic areas, in addition to diplomatic skills.

This second development in peace mediation reflects the ‘technocratic turn’ in the broader peacebuilding environment, defined as the ‘gradual but persistent trend towards the application of technocracy in the framing of conflict and approaches to it’.²⁹ Mac Ginty argues that the technocratic approach is not only facilitative but constitutive. It has become ‘a major factor in determining the nature of the peacebuilding process, the actors involved, and the “peace” that it produces’.³⁰ It promotes specific kinds of knowledge, actors and tools.

Regarding knowledge, technocracy in peacebuilding favoured conflict resolution based on evidence over engaging competing claims, and established bureaucratic processes over ad hoc approaches. Its advocates claim that with objective decision-making criteria, the technocratic approach is ‘value-free and neutral’,³¹ relying on and resulting in knowledge that is free from the ‘distorting influence of politics, identity and sentiment’.³² With respect to the prominent group of actors, technical experts serving as ‘peace professionals’ have thematic expertise (democracy, human rights, etc.) gained across different contexts. Actors able to transcend specific contexts have ‘western and bureaucratized’ expertise.³³ Their tools promote bureaucratization and administrative efficiency, applying them to peacebuilding activities. The direction of the transfer of knowledge is generally from the international to the local through training and professionalization, research and network-building.³⁴

While not necessarily problematic, the focus on technocracy in peacebuilding has arguably left out other kinds of knowledge, actors and relations, such as competing claims, the plurality of meanings, local actors and their context-specific expertise,³⁵ and ad hoc conflict resolution strategies.³⁶ Although recent developments in peace mediation reflect the technocratic turn in peacebuilding, non-technocratic approaches remain an important tool for mediators. Convergne observes that this transition from the diplomatic tradition to technocracy ‘has not yet been fully realized’.³⁷ As such, managing diverse actors, perspectives and relationships remains integral to peace processes, alongside the increasing need for more specialized skills and thematic expertise.

The deliberate move to technocracy and the role of the technical CoP in the development of African MSS

A common rationale for establishing all four African MSS is the contestation of the diplomatic approach to mediation as states called for general knowledge, standards, systems and standing institutions that can retain lessons learned and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of future mediation processes. The African Union (AU)'s 2014 African Peace and Security Architecture assessment study identified the need for sustained professional support to envoys, coordination within the AU and other actors, and systematized preventive diplomacy system.³⁸ The meeting on the operationalization of the AU Mediation Support Unit (AU MSU) convened by the AU Commission in 2016 recommended increasing the MSU's capacity in research and analysis, documentation, training and communication, and in coordination to provide technical support.³⁹

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) commissioned a review of the shortcomings of recent mediation missions that provided the immediate impetus to develop its MSS. ⁴⁰ In particular, the 2012 Mali crisis reflected the lack of professional mediation skills,⁴¹ slow decision-making, insufficient cooperation among directorates and non-systematic coordination with the mediator.⁴² Acting upon the review's recommendations, the ECOWAS Directorate of Political Affairs launched the Mediation Facilitation Division (MFD) in June 2015.

The MSU of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was born out of the desire to learn from IGAD's peacemaking experience in the peace process in Somalia and that between Sudan and South Sudan.⁴³ In a meeting in 2007, IGAD member states agreed on the need to move from an ad hoc, member state-led approach to develop more systematic and institutional responses to conflict management.⁴⁴ In the case of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the complexity of the issues in the conflicts in Lesotho and Zimbabwe challenged its existing institutional capacities. In Lesotho, SADC supported church and civil society actors to revive the peace process and address the issues around the electoral system. In Zimbabwe, SADC brokered a power-sharing agreement and assisted in drafting the new constitution. These missions required specialized expertise in inclusivity, elections and national constitutions.⁴⁵

After member states agreed on the need for an MSS, the UN and international NGOs provided financial support, agenda advice and research towards their establishment.⁴⁶ NGO actors include the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre), Conciliation Resources, Berghof Foundation, Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and the Folke Bernadotte Academy.⁴⁷ Together with academics and development partners, ⁴⁸ these actors form the technical CoP that pioneered the development of professional in-house mediation capacity and technical expertise within the four organizations.

For example, the AU Commission cooperated with the HD Centre's Mediation Support Project, which specializes in assisting regional organizations in developing practical tools and training.⁴⁹ For ECOWAS, international and regional NGOs keen to offer their services lobbied for the MFD's establishment, drove the needs assessment, and drafted initial instruments,⁵⁰ with international development partners such as the Danish International Development Agency offering financial support.⁵¹ The HD Centre assisted with the needs assessment and drafted the MFD's initial guiding instruments. Its key documents were supported by CMI and the German Corporation for Development Cooperation and received substantive input from the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), as well as other NGOs.⁵²

The ECOWAS establishment experience was distinct from that of other IOs because of its early and intensive engagement with regional NGOs, in addition to their international counterparts.⁵³ For example, WANEP fed into preliminary discussions, given its experience in facilitating mediation training and Track III processes.⁵⁴ WANEP also rolled out a regional training programme with the assistance of development partners.⁵⁵ Nevertheless, while West African NGOs gave input in workshops, western NGOs primarily designed the ECOWAS mediation support instruments.⁵⁶

In relation to the IGAD MSU, the UN and the EU were essential partners in its establishment, conducting exchanges, IGAD staff training and funding.⁵⁷ The IGAD Strategic Guidelines for Mediation were developed in consultation with various mediation technical experts,⁵⁸ similarly to how the AU had worked with its partners. In the SADC, international mediation actors provided the main thrust in institutionalizing mediation support. In 2010 the Centre for Mediation in Africa and the UN assisted the SADC secretariat in drafting the SADC's mediation infrastructure concept, with financial support from the German Agency for International Cooperation.⁵⁹

MSS activities' technocratic focus: standardization, professionalization and generalized knowledge creation

With a mandate from their member states for more systematic mediation processes and with various support from the international technical CoP, African MSS promoted the technical approach through activities (institutional capacity-building, training and research) that promote standardization, professionalization and generalized knowledge creation from specific experiences. The technical focus helped the MSS to distinguish themselves from the geographic and political desks and distanced them from conflict-specific issues considered politically sensitive.⁶⁰

Institutional capacity-building through guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures

All four MSS studied here built institutional capacity that systematized processes and identified their roles vis-à-vis pre-existing agencies within their respective organizations. African MSS also set up rosters of standby mediators and technical experts to make highly trained individuals available at short notice. For example, the AU MSU's Standard operating procedures for mediation support aim for an efficient and transparent mediation by formulating guidelines for appointing mediators, listing technical skills for deployment and outlining templates for training.⁶¹ These were also the goals for the ECOWAS mediation guidelines of 2018⁶² and the IGAD MSU's Strategic guidelines on mediation for IGAD mediators.⁶³ The SADC's Concept for mediation, conflict prevention, and preventative diplomacy has provided the mandate for the SADC MSU, has distinguished its role in SADC's regional architecture and has paved the way for creating the Mediation Reference Group (MRG) and the Panel of Elders.⁶⁴

Documents also standardized guidance for mediators and emphasized technical knowledge as an important component of mediation missions. The AU's Mediation support handbook identified the need for thematic expertise on inclusivity, human rights and democracy, among others.⁶⁵ The ECOWAS MFD Dialogue and mediation handbook is ‘the result of a dedicated strategy to professionalize mediation within ECOWAS’.⁶⁶ Along with the IGAD MSU's Strategic guidelines on mediation for IGAD mediators, such documents identified several fundamental principles for mediators to understand the general expectations during actual missions.⁶⁷

Professionalization through training

The above standards were taught in training that focused on thematic issues and that facilitated the flow of knowledge from the international level to the regional and local levels. The AU's Peace and Security Department developed training manuals for mediation personnel, focusing on inclusion, power-sharing and natural resource management themes.⁶⁸ A facilitator's guide complemented the existing mediation support guidelines in disseminating these thematic skills.⁶⁹ The IGAD MSU organized workshops and training for mediators and technical experts on the roster,⁷⁰ starting in 2014 with the first high-level mediation course.⁷¹ For SADC, the MSU worked with consultants and the MRG to develop a mediation and dialogue training curriculum that was piloted in training workshops in July 2016. Exceptions that combine general and specific knowledge are seminars held by IGAD for women and youth in Sudan⁷² and ECOWAS NGOs' efforts to contextualize international standards to the regional contexts.

Distilling general knowledge from specific mediation experiences through research and debriefing

Debriefing and research activities on the part of MSS reflected the specific-to-general direction of knowledge, and were aimed at strengthening thematic expertise, standards and future processes. The AU MSU initiated ‘fireside chats’ with special envoys, special representatives, and the commissioner. These were focused on deriving lessons learned from experience gained in mediations in the Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan and Sudan, to inform the AU MSU's thematic expertise and institutional development.⁷³ At the 2nd International Young Women Mediation Forum in 2020, AU mediators and FemWise representatives exchanged experiences with young women on the theme of community dialogues.⁷⁴ The ECOWAS MFD organized and participated in thematic workshops to exchange experiences between MSS and think tanks.⁷⁵ In September 2018, the IGAD MSU convened a high-level retreat for mediators on the roster, special envoys, members of the AU Panel of the Wise, and representatives of other Regional Economic Communities to exchange experiences on the themes of reconciliation and dialogue in peace processes.⁷⁶

To generate and retain mediation knowledge, the AU MSU worked with the UN to research and document lessons from past mediations. Similarly, the ECOWAS MFD published policy briefs on mediation and mediation support in ACCORD periodicals.⁷⁷ IGAD also commissioned an assessment of previous mediations and guidelines in collaboration with expert NGOs,⁷⁸ with plans to replicate the activity for the Somali and Sudan–South Sudan peace processes.⁷⁹ These activities conclude with common observations and recommendations for future processes.

The point of dysfunction: clashes between the two CoPs

The technocratic focus equipped African MSS with standardized processes and expertise applicable across multiple contexts. However, along with the increasingly complex thematic issues, mediation processes continued to feature ad hoc processes, overlapping mandates with other regional and national offices, and the appointment of political figures as lead mediators, characteristic of the knowledge domain, actor group and tools of mediation's diplomatic CoP. The inability of MSS to engage with these contrasting dimensions hindered their deployment in actual peace processes.

Ad hoc processes and competition with political offices

The AU MSU faced resistance from entrenched practices whereby there was a reliance on states' foreign affairs offices or the AU's political desks. As such, it constantly needed to convince mediators and other AU offices of the added value of the AU MSU's support.⁸⁰ The lack of coordination between the MSU, the political desks, and teams of mediators posed challenges in coherent conflict analysis and in developing strategies and plans.⁸¹ In 2017 the Kagame Report (named for its author, Rwandan President Paul Kagame) pointed to the problem of functional overlaps and compartmentalization that rendered it difficult for the AU MSU to operate successfully within its niche.⁸²

The ECOWAS MFD most frequently supported mediation missions among all four MSS, including in Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Burkina Faso.⁸³ It assisted ECOWAS missions to The Gambia in the latter's 2016 post-election crisis, election-related missions to Liberia and Sierra Leone and the ECOWAS president's mission to Togo in 2018.⁸⁴ The MFD conducted conflict analysis, identified stakeholders, developed mediation strategies and projected scenarios. It provided technical and logistical assistance during missions, drafted negotiation agendas and agreement provisions, and took charge of reporting.⁸⁵ Key to the MFD's utilization is its standing relationships with WANEP, which it readily taps to identify local stakeholders in scoping missions and for consultations by mediators.

Nevertheless, in contravention of transparency requirements and systems recommended in manuals and ‘lessons learned’ reports, mediators were often reluctant to share information that was necessary for analysis, or to accept advice outside their hand-picked teams.⁸⁶ An MFD staff member noted the role of backchannels, informal networks and other resources outside the MFD that make mediation a ‘craft’⁸⁷ instead of a series of institutionalized steps.⁸⁸

The IGAD MSU faces challenges with standing political desks and ad hoc-turned-permanent specialized offices for specific peace processes, such as the IGAD Special Mission to Somalia and the Office of the IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan, designed to provide context-specific advice and process support. The IGAD MSU assisted in conflict analysis and process design at the beginning of the IGAD mediation in South Sudan. However, its involvement diminished over time as IGAD completed the arrangements for the Office of the IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan.⁸⁹

To varying degrees, the SADC MSU supported diplomatic missions to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Lesotho, but rarely supported mediations. While giving limited support to a high-level team to facilitate dialogue in the Malawi–Tanzania border dispute, the MSU mainly assisted in pre-election assessments. Since election observation in 16 member states absorbed the secretariat's human resources,⁹⁰ SADC sent mediation officers into election support activities instead of mediation support.⁹¹

Technocratic selection procedures clash with political appointees in the diplomatic CoP

The appointment of sitting presidents or other high-profile political figures as mediators was the prominent entrenched practice all four MSS encountered. This selection, according to the respondents, was at the expense of technical mediation skills and established criteria. When deployed, the AU MSU carried out a range of support tasks, including the conceptual and administrative planning of missions, analytical work, communications with mediators and envoys, setting up meetings and handling diplomatic communications, giving logistical support prior, during, and after mediation missions, and writing briefing notes and reports. However, the team found that these outputs were poorly integrated into the decisions, as high-level mediators were accompanied by their own teams, who provided more direct advice, as happened in the AU mediation in Sudan.⁹²

ECOWAS was most active in actual mediation. However, lead mediators were not drawn from the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, which had its set procedures for selection, but from ECOWAS heads of states' deliberations. The selection remained opaque, and the criteria for standby technical experts and resources were unresolved.⁹³ As such, the MFD needed to coordinate with the staff of former presidents, who need not have undergone MFD training.⁹⁴ While there was an understanding of the value of the political clout that high-profile mediators have, there were instances where the ‘fit’ of the appointees was questioned—for example, in the case of the appointment in 2021 of Alassane Ouattara, the president of Côte d'Ivoire, to mediate in Guinea. Ouattara's selection raised issues around the question of restoring the constitutional order in Guinea, as the Ivorian constitution had recently been changed to permit Ouattara to run for a third term in office.⁹⁵ The possible rationale for Ouattara's appointment was his access to elites in the military regime in Guinea,.⁹⁶

Appointed in 2013, the IGAD Special Envoys in the mediation in South Sudan, headed by Ethiopia's Seyoum Mesfin, brought their teams to what became the Office of the Special Envoy for South Sudan. Other members of the mediation team included the generals Lazaro Sumbeiywo and Mohammad Al Dhabi, who, like Mesfin, had been prominently involved in South Sudan's history before independence. Contrary to the technical approach, which favours impartiality and distance from the conflict, the IGAD Heads of State saw such previous experiences and relationships with the parties as helpful in keeping the parties engaged.⁹⁷ The deployment of technical mediation expertise, whether from the IGAD MSU or from the broader international community, depended on the mediator's invitation, which was absent in several phases of the mediation processes, particularly in crucial deliberations of the heads of state.⁹⁸

Bridging diplomacy and technocracy to realize MSS deployment in on-going processes

In cases where the AU MSU was deployed, it worked with AU liaison offices on the ground and with national offices in the conflict context. For example, the AU MSU worked with the Special Representative for the CAR in 2018 and 2019 to contribute to programmes relating to the country's peace process and to support high-level mediation on the ground. Since AU liaison offices play a key role in assisting mediation processes, the MSU made it a priority to convene their heads to assess their needs.⁹⁹ Such lateral coordination also facilitated a channel for outreach to local civil society groups that had longstanding relationships with the in-country AU liaison offices.

ECOWAS's early engagement with national and local actors in the establishment phase contributed to its more frequent deployment for operational mediation support. The ECOWAS MFD collected context-specific knowledge from other ECOWAS offices and NGOs on the ground to conduct conflict analysis, identify stakeholders and develop mediation strategies for ongoing mediation processes. The MFD's collaboration with WANEP in conflict analyses and stakeholder mapping helped the MFD to organize visits, draft negotiation agendas and agreement provisions, and report. In addition to local consultations that facilitate bottom-up knowledge transfer, the MFD also holds consultations with decision-makers within the regional organization and assists member states in developing national infrastructures for mediation and conflict prevention.¹⁰⁰ These lateral forms of cooperation and knowledge exchange with offices within the organization and member states helped to maintain the MFD's involvement in mediation missions.

The IGAD MSU sees these horizontal collaborative activities as a viable pathway toward effective operational mediation support in the future.¹⁰¹ The IGAD MSU's national-level consultations with state- and non-state actors culminated in 2016 in an assessment of the national conflict-prevention architecture in the Horn of Africa.¹⁰² In further consultations, national representatives reviewed the 2016 assessment and their home countries' institutional capacity for mediation, to plan the way forward.¹⁰³

In cases where the IGAD and SADC MSUs (the two least activated MSS) were deployed, a common enabler was the decision of high-profile political figures to deploy the MSU. These personalities oscillate between the technical and diplomatic CoPs. Management support and coordination with the lead mediator, advisers and the MSU aligned with the envisaged system when the SADC appointed former Mozambican president and SADC Chair Joaquim Chissano as the mediator in Madagascar in 2009, drawing from the Panel of Elders.¹⁰⁴ However, Chissano's assets go beyond his technical expertise and include his considerable political clout. Chissano's greater seniority, compared to the UN and AU-mandated mediators, enabled the SADC to be the de facto lead mediator and regain control of the peace process.¹⁰⁵ In other processes on behalf of the UN and AU, Chissano's networks with established think tanks and foundations¹⁰⁶ and his embeddedness in SADC as its former chair opened the process to technical expertise and its MSU.

Mesfin, who remained as IGAD lead mediator in South Sudan until 2017, benefited from his status as a political stalwart in Ethiopian history, his resources in the think tank he had founded—the Centre for Research, Dialogue and Cooperation (CRDC)—and his relations with the international diplomatic community as Ethiopian minister for foreign affairs.¹⁰⁷ Mesfin allowed the involvement not only of the IGAD MSU in the early stages of the peace process but also that of experts in international mediation, democracy and other specialized topics, to structure the negotiations and draft the agreement.

IGAD acknowledged the political dimension of staffing mediation rosters in elaborating its process of assembling its standby team of mediation experts. In contrast to UN MSU procedures, IGAD's selection criteria go beyond technical mediation expertise and include nationality in the IGAD member state and appointment by their government. Member states' endorsement of the standby mediators and technical experts increases the likelihood that the member states would deploy roster members.¹⁰⁸ Similarly, in the SADC, the Panel of Elders and the MRG comprise high-profile political personalities—such as former heads of state and government, and former ministers with ‘reputable and demonstrable political and technical expertise in conflict resolution, preventive diplomacy and mediation’.¹⁰⁹

Contributions to research and policy

IO performance

Current research on IO performance focuses on formal structures and institutional features, with recent research examining the role of temporality through ad hoc coalitions.¹¹⁰ CoPs provide an analysis of IO performance based on interactions among various kinds of knowledge and more fluid actor groups that transcend formal organizations. The article contributes to the research on IO performance by proposing a third vantage point that incorporates the dynamics in state- and IO-focused analyses of IO performance.

While the world polity theory in IO-focused analysis has identified contradictions and ambiguities in the IO environment as a condition for IO dysfunction, the article, through the CoP concept, shows the process of how these conditions can lead to pathologies. This research locates the point of pathology where technical knowledge undermines IOs' wider goals in the disconnection of technical knowledge and actors from other actors and kinds of expertise in the wider environment. In addition, this article also explains cases of deployment of the same IO mechanism in terms of successful connections among diverse knowledge, actors and tools through CoPs. This allows an analysis of performance variation across IOs in the same mission environment, but also within the same IO across time.

Communities of practice

Given its relatively recent incorporation in IR theory, the potential analytical utility of the CoP concept remains to be maximized.¹¹¹ Addressing this gap, the article illustrates the usefulness of CoPs as a unit of analysis for studying the effectiveness or pathology of international mechanisms. The CoP concept allows a knowledge-and-actor-based analysis of IOs and a closer observation of the connectedness of IOs to the wider operating environment.

Moreover, going beyond only one CoP, this article examines the interaction of the different CoPs and this dynamic's effect on IOs. This research's ability to explain phenomena through CoPs and their interactions contributes to and aims to encourage further studies that explore CoPs as part of the building blocks of the international order.

Peacebuilding scholarship and policy

Going beyond the critique of the technocratic turn in peacebuilding, the article has detailed the process of how the technocratic turn has distanced international cooperative mechanisms from the realities of the peacebuilding field. The CoP concept explains how the technocratic turn has cultivated one form of actors and knowledge, promoting a specific form of peacebuilding, and lacks connection with other CoPs.

In explaining how connections among CoPs contribute to successful IO deployment, the article supports efforts to bring CoPs in closer collaboration and cooperation. Critical peace research has elaborated widely on the importance of local and indigenous forms of peacebuilding to balance the international bias in the technocratic turn.¹¹² The article illustrates the importance of context-specific knowledge, attesting to the continued need for bottom-up approaches. Moreover, this study also highlights the crucial role of lateral coordination among regional and national agencies to realize peacebuilding policies based on context-specific knowledge and best practices learned from across contexts.

African regionalism research and policy

Current studies on African MSS have provided in-depth accounts of events and documents leading to their establishment,¹¹³ have mapped their existing capabilities and roles in conflict prevention,¹¹⁴ and have assessed their current state vis-à-vis their aspired institutionalization.¹¹⁵ Current research has rarely compared these African MSS to examine common drivers behind their establishment and identified challenges.¹¹⁶ Moreover, existing research has yet to explain the fuller phenomenon in African MSS: the persistent stated demand for MSS, their high levels of activity in select areas of mediation support, and, simultaneously, their underutilization in operational support.

This research has explained why African MSS are underutilized in actual peace processes despite the rapid institution-building in the past decades. The article argued that, while developing high levels of technical proficiency has enabled African MSS to develop within their organizations and remain active in non-operational support, this focus hinders their deployment in ongoing mediation processes, which continue to involve ad hoc processes, competing claims, and influential personalities that require more than technical expertise. With a level of success, African MSS address these challenges by bridging the communities of diplomacy and technocracy through strengthening relations with member states and offices within the regional organization, incorporating local, context-specific knowledge and engaging personalities with both technical expertise and diplomatic clout.

For policy, the findings point to an imbalance in the current capacities of African MSS and the need to foster balance by diversifying the kinds of knowledge and partnerships MSS cultivate. While mediation benefits from technocracy, dimensions requiring diplomatic skills remain essential. The research encourages further discussion on how MSS can engage with such dimensions, particularly ad hoc, informal processes and interpersonal relationships in specific contexts.

Conclusions

Contributing to the research on IO performance, the article has employed the CoPs concept to specify when and how the ambiguities and contradictions in the IO's operating environment can make high technical proficiency an inhibiting factor for enhanced performance, rather than being conducive to it. The article illustrated that such an environment can cultivate multiple CoPs focusing on different kinds of knowledge and tools in performing the same practice. IOs' development of technical proficiency in a way that is disconnected from other types of knowledge and tools valued by other CoPs can distance the IO from the environment and hinder performance. As a third vantage point to explain IO performance, the CoP concept enabled a more extensive examination of performance based on variation in the kinds of knowledge, more fluid actor groups, and practices, which are units of analysis less attended to in both state- and IO-based vantage points that focus on formal structures and processes. While the conceptual framework of this article built on IO-focused explanations of pathology, incorporating state-appointed actors and practices within CoPs has shed light on the interaction between these two explanations.

States and intergovernmental organizations alike have technical experts and political desks. However, the risk of pathology can be especially acute in intergovernmental organizations when technocracy becomes these bodies' raison d'être, highlighting their added value and establishing their niche from state delegations and geographic offices. Such niche-building need not come at the expense of closing doors for collaboration and cooperation with other practitioners. Given the continued role of diplomatic practices in IOs, technical expertise emphasized by technical CoPs can be insufficient and needs engagement with relations- and context-specific expertise generally held by political offices, geographic desks and national governments. Successful cases in the comparative study show that collaboration, not competition with other CoPs, enables IO mechanisms to be employed.

In addition, contrasting with its claimed objectivity, the technical approach has a constitutive effect on what and whose knowledge and tools to develop in analysing and managing conflicts. The claims of neutrality risk overlooking the priority given to administrative efficiency and general knowledge over harnessing context-specific knowledge and relationships. While this chosen priority can be justified, downplaying the technical approach's constitutive effect undermines the need for reflexivity in making and remaking this choice in response to changes in the dynamic conflict context. Moreover, technical experts' aversion to engaging with these other aspects conceals these choices more deeply and can create barriers towards a holistic approach to resolving conflicts.

International peace mediation is only one field in which concentration on technical capacity development has inhibited responsiveness to the operating environment. The peacebuilding and development fields have fixated on log frames, routines and manuals that sideline informal negotiations, various interests, and realpolitik at the core of conflict contexts. Critiques pointing out that programmes for greater inclusion, human rights and transitional justice adopt a ‘textbook’ or ‘cookie-cutter’ approach attest to the marginalization of context-specific knowledge and other non-technical dimensions of the conflict. Substantiating the critiques of these approaches, the article has detailed when and how technical concentration in IOs can undermine engagement with a broader spectrum of knowledge, actors and expertise, thereby losing sight of the overall goal.

Footnotes

Author notes