Region-Building in West Africa

Abstract

Conflicts and civil wars were a major part of the political landscape of the African continent in the 1980s and 1990s.¹ In West Africa, there were major conflicts in Liberia from 1989 to 2003 and in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002 that were infamous for their scale, level of destruction, and brutality. Those conflicts precipitated the growth of war economies that exacerbated the security challenges of the subregion. With those wars, West Africa was turned into a haven for mercenaries, disguised behind the elegant label of “private military companies,” who were basically soldiers of fortune profiteering from the misery and suffering of West Africa’s people. As David Francis noted, “The involvement in the regionalized war economy of all the warring factions, who exploit the dysfunctional formal economy, the shifting alliances during armed conflict, and the long-standing regional political affiliations and informal commercial networks, all create the firm impression of a ‘bad neighbourhood.’”² This perception of a dangerous neighborhood led some analysts to classify West Africa as a “failed region,” the epicenter of the “coming anarchy,” which was of grave strategic danger to the rest of the world.³