From Rhetoric to Reality: Analyzing the Structural and Financial Constraints of the African Union Silencing the Guns Initiative

This article offers a rigorous institutional, structural, and financial evaluation of the African Union’s (AU) flagship initiative, "Silencing the Guns in Africa," within the broader socio-economic transformation matrix of Agenda 2063. Despite progressive normative shifts from the Organization of African Unity’s (OAU) rigid Westphalian principle of non-interference to the AU's robust posture of non-indifference, the strategic milestone to eliminate conflicts has suffered from recurring implementation paralysis, forcing an operational timeline extension from 2020 to 2030. Integrating Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler’s Greed and Grievance model, Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace theory, and Ted Robert Gurr’s Relative Deprivation framework, this study examines the deep systemic bottlenecks that impede continental collective security operations.
Methodologically, this inquiry deploys a qualitative content analysis and institutional audit triangulation, referencing macro-regional dynamics within the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Trans-Sahelian Corridor, and the Horn of Africa. The findings reveal that the initiative is heavily constrained by three systemic pathologies: the Subsidiarity Gridlock (jurisdictional turf wars between Addis Ababa and regional bodies), the Sovereignty Paradox (the strategic deployment of Westphalian sovereignty to block early prevention against legalistic autocratization), and severe Financial Constraints (chronic external funding dependency for Peace Support Operations). The study concludes that kinetic reductionism focusing on hardware symptoms like tracking small arms cannot suppress violence while demand-side software drivers like horizontal inequalities remain unaddressed. It recommends codifying absolute legal operational hierarchies, institutionalizing independent human security review panels, and fully capitalizing the AU Peace Fund through internal revenue mechanisms to achieve a sustainable positive peace.

Silencing the Guns, APSA, Sovereignty Paradox, Subsidiarity Gridlock, Financial Sovereignty, Positive Peace.

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