Ecowas Diplomacy and Political Conflict Management in West Africa: Lessons from the Gambia, and Côte D’ivoire.

Conflicts over contested elections and power transitions have been significant challenges to democracy, peace and regional stability in West Africa. The study was a comparative analysis of the Gambia's 2016-2017 political crisis compared to Côte d'Ivoire's 2010-2011 post-election crisis, on the theme of ECOWAS diplomacy and political conflict management in West Africa. In particular, it reviewed and explored the nature, causes and dynamics of the conflicts, the nature of the diplomatic strategies used by ECOWAS, African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) and determinants of successful and unsuccessful diplomatic attempts in both situations. The study was of a qualitative research design and adopted the Conflict Resolution Theory as a theoretical framework. Secondary data were obtained from peer-reviewed journals, books, policy reports, and official ECOWAS, AU and UN documents from bases like Google Scholar, JSTOR, ResearchGate and Semantic Scholar. Qualitative content analysis and thematic categorization were used to analyzed the data. Fundamentals revealed that in the Gambia, there was an absence of ethnic polarization, coordinated regional response, sensitive mediation process, and conflicting geopolitical interests contributing to the non-militarized nature of the conflict; whereas, the Côte d’Ivoire conflict was triggered by such conditions as ethnic polarization, incoordinated regional response, weak mediation processes and disparate geopolitical interests, leading to the militarization of the conflict. The research also identified several benefits of ECOWAS's success in The Gambia, including strong regional consensus, constitutional validity and beneficial international partnerships. But these efforts were hindered in Côte d'Ivoire by divisions that went within the diplomatic community, as well as by slow action taken to prevent a crisis and counter-disabilities in enforcement. The study, therefore, proposed to increase the implementation of preventive diplomacy in the region, increase coordination between ECOWAS, AU and the UN actors, and enhance the status of democratic institutions to minimise political conflicts within the region.

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