Undoing Coups. Antonia Witt
turn, installed Andry Rajoelina as President of the Transition. The AU, SADC, and most of Madagascar’s international donors condemned this act as an unconstitutional change of government and demanded the rapid restoration of constitutional order (AU PSC 2009b; SADC 2009b). They decided to suspend Madagascar’s membership and cut development funds. In the following weeks, several mediators and special envoys were sent to Antananarivo in order to engage Rajoelina and his High Authority of the Transition (Haute autorité de la transition, HAT) to relinquish power and organize elections. Despite varying international interpretations of what constituted ‘la crise malgache’ and how to end it, a consensus soon emerged around the demand for a ‘consensual and inclusive transitional period’ and an ‘inclusive, transparent and credible dialogue’ (AU PSC 2010b: 1; SADC 2010a: 3). It was decided that this ‘dialogue’ to effectuate the re-establishment of constitutional order should be held among the so-called quatre mouvances – the four movements – referring to the groupings around Rajoelina, Ravalomanana, and the two former presidents, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy. Several rounds of negotiations in Antananarivo, however, ended without result. In additional negotiations in Maputo and Addis Ababa in August and November 2009, respectively, under the auspices of SADC mediator Joaquim Chissano, the parties decided on a power-sharing agreement. But fundamental questions about the division of posts and the role of the two protagonists remained unsettled. In late 2009, Rajoelina therefore declared the negotiations suspended. In March 2010, the AU PSC applied targeted sanctions against 109 members of the HAT government and demanded implementation of the agreements mentioned above (AU PSC 2010a). Yet the sanctions did not have the expected effect. In September 2011, the so-called SADC Roadmap for Ending the Crisis (SADC 2011a) was signed by eight political parties and two of the former mouvances, paving the way for an ‘inclusive’ transition. It was also decided that neither Rajoelina nor Ravalomanana would run for office in transitional elections. After a tumultuous transition, presidential and legislative elections were held in December 2013 and were won by Hery Rajaonarimampianina, who had run as Rajoelina’s replacement. Following the inauguration of the newly elected president, the AU PSC in January 2014 officially declared that constitutional order had been successfully restored (AU PSC 2014a).
This book follows an inductive and exploratory approach. The selection of Madagascar as case study was therefore driven less by theoretical than by research-pragmatic criteria (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow 2012: 70). Nevertheless, this choice crucially influenced what kind of insights this book presents, and thus it requires transparency and reflection. Chapter 7 will discuss in more detail to what extent the case can be regarded at the same time as unique and as part of a larger pattern of post-coup interventions. There were three reasons that made studying the case of Madagascar particularly advantageous when I started researching for this book in 2011. First, the fairly long duration of re-establishing constitutional order in Madagascar and the high number of international, regional, and national actors involved in this process meant that there was an abundance of empirical material to be gathered in textual form but also in the form of direct accounts of the protagonists involved. This made the case particularly suitable for single-case research. Madagascar is also one of the few cases that was dealt with twice under the AU’s anti-coup policy (in 2001/2002 and 2009), allowing for a historical comparison but also for reflection on how preceding experiences shape both interveners’ practices and perceptions and trust on the part of local parties, as I explain in Chapter 4 in more detail. Second, unlike some other countries that have experienced African regional post-coup interventions, in Madagascar there was neither a situation of violent conflict (as in Mali or the Central African Republic) nor was the country affected by the Ebola crisis (as Guinea later was). In short, not only the abundance, but also the accessibility, of empirical material was crucial. Third, and most importantly, the choice of Madagascar allowed for studying post-coup interventions synchronically (i.e. while the intervention happened). Concretely, this meant, for instance, that my field research in Madagascar (see further below) coincided with the official re-establishment of constitutional order, which made it possible to gather conclusive narratives about the parties’ experiences with and assessments of the almost five years of re-establishing constitutional order in the country. It also allowed me to participate in events such as press conferences of international election observers and the first meeting of the international contact group on Madagascar after the official return to constitutional order. These were events of collective interpretation and assessment of what had happened since March 2009, which also allowed for observing and encountering interveners on the ground. So, apart from availability and access, the expected quality and comprehensiveness of the empirical material also played a crucial role for choosing the case of Madagascar.
The argument in brief
This book offers an empirically rich and methodologically rigorous analysis of the effects of the African anti-coup norm, based on a reconstruction of the processes, protagonists, and rationalities that played a part in re-establishing constitutional order in Madagascar (2009–2014). The book demonstrates that the post-coup intervention was a consequential moment of reordering both within the Malagasy polity and beyond. In Madagascar, what the intervention essentially served to do was to restore the ideal of a liberal polity, even though realities on the ground proved the opposite. Although it did not necessarily succeed in establishing a more democratic order, the intervention did (re)configure power relations. It did so by narrowing the re-establishment of constitutional order down to a technical transition based on default international peacebuilding cures such as power-sharing and elections. This approach was undoubtedly effective in depoliticizing the search for solutions and gradually excluding all actors and voices who believed more profound change was needed if ‘la crise malgache’, as it came to be known internationally, was to be resolved. At the same time, however, the intervention opened up opportunities for sections of the Malagasy elite to use the international demand for an ‘inclusive’ and ‘consensual’ solution in order to regain access to state institutions. By upholding the myth of the liberal polity, the intervention thus both re-legitimated old and established new power relations – belying both Afro-optimist and Afro-pessimist expectations. The reason for this lies in a merger between international norms on sovereignty and on popular legitimacy that underpin internationalized efforts to undo coups and by consequence heavily shape the realm of possible action for all those involved in this process.
Even more revolutionary were the order-constituting effects that the intervention had beyond Madagascar. Although the international interveners were in favour of the narrow, depoliticized, technical interpretation of transition, they also began to plan development programmes to tackle hitherto unaddressed ‘problems’ once constitutional order was restored. Many of the international and regional organizations involved in ‘assisting’ Madagascar’s return to constitutional order used this experience as an opportunity to experiment with new norms and practices, and thus to gradually extend their spheres of responsibility – a development of relevance well beyond the actual locus and time of the intervention. Crucially, the post-coup intervention in Madagascar thus also contributed to the creation and expansion of regional and international orders as it expanded the reach and changed the fabric of the international.
All this, the book shows, is not what the AU does. Also, it is neither mediation nor mere policy implementation. Rather, I use the conceptual lens of ‘transboundary formations’ (Latham et al. 2001: 5) in order to show that the re-establishment of constitutional order is in fact the result of a complex and contested interaction between a variety of international, regional, and national forces that all seek to define what re-establishing constitutional order ultimately entails. The AU and other internationals are neither merely assisting, nor are they bystanders to this process; they are active parties in negotiating and setting the terms for how constitutional order is restored. However, this transnational interaction would not have been possible if AU heads of state had not decided in Lomé that coups should be outlawed and constitutional order preserved. The various reconfigurations of power relations through almost five years of post-coup intervention in Madagascar are thus proof of the tangible effects of an AU norm and the emergence of an African international that affects politics and order in AU member states.
In developing this