African Union security culture in practice: African problems and African solutions AARIE GLAS International Afairs 94: 5 (2018) 1121–1138; doi: 10.1093/ia/iiy116 © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of International Afairs. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com The African Union (AU) and its responses to regional crises are increasingly at the forefront of many of the most pressing international issues. Africa is the site of many of world’s most frequent and deadly armed conflicts and crises. The list of such conflicts is long: the Somali and Eritrean migrants feeding the crisis in Europe; the so-called ‘Third World War’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the failed and weak states of Mali, the Central African Republic and Somalia; and growing concerns over terrorism rising in ungoverned spaces. Increasingly the AU and its wider African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) are at the forefront of response to these crises. Since its foundation in 2001, the AU has established an ambitious interest in preventive diplomacy and conflict management, and has a significant efect on security outcomes across the African continent. Only fairly recently, however, has International Relations (IR) scholar- ship focused attention on the cultural and organizational norms that shape AU responses to regional conflict. 1 Central to this growing literature are works exploring the security culture of the AU, which have tended to do so through reference to the codified norms and principles of the AU itself. 2 Foremost among others, Williams highlights norms of sovereignty, non-intervention, anti- imperialism as reflected in the phrase ‘African solutions to African problems’, uti possidetis, peaceful settlement of disputes, rejection of unconstitutional polit- ical change, and the AU’s right to intervention under particular circumstances. 3 1 Paul D. Williams, ‘From non-intervention to non-indiference: the origins and development of the African Union’s security culture’, African Afairs 106: 423, 2007, p. 255. See also Tim Murithi, ‘The African Union’s transition from non-intervention to non-indiference: an ad hoc approach to the Responsibility to Protect?’, International Politics and Society, 1, 2009, pp. 90–108; Malte Brosig, ‘Introduction: the African security regime complex—exploring converging actors and policies’, African Security 6: 3–4, 2013, pp. 171–90; Matthias Dembin- ski and Berenike Schott, ‘Regional security arrangements as a filter for norm difusion: the African Union, the European Union and the Responsibility to Protect’, Cambridge Review of International Studies 27: 2, 2013, pp. 362–80; Sophie Harman and William Brown, ‘In from the margins? The changing place of Africa in Interna- tional Relations’, International Afairs 89: 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 69–87; Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer, ‘The African Union and the International Criminal Court: counteracting the crisis’, International Afairs 92: 5, Sept. 2016, pp. 1319–42. 2 Williams, ‘From non-intervention to non-indiference’; Walter Lotze, ‘Building the legitimacy of the African Union: an evolving continent and evolving organization’, in Dominik Zaum, ed., Legitimating international organization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Ulf Engel and João Gomes Porto, ‘Africa’s new Peace and Security Architecture: an introduction’, in Ulf Engel and João Gomes Porto, eds, Africa’s new Peace and Security Architecture: promoting norms, institutionalising solutions (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010). 3 Williams, ‘From non-intervention to non-indiference’, pp. 261–2; see also Alex Vines, ‘A decade of African Peace and Security Architecture’, International Afairs 89: 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 89–109; Theresa Reinhold, ‘Africa’s INTA94_5_08_Glas.indd 1121 29/08/2018 16:55