This paper seeks to investigate why did ECOWAS’s AFISMA fail to resolve the Malian conflict between 2012 and 2013. The idea is not to go over the different challenges that ECOWAS faced in handling the Malian conflict but to instead establish the single main challenge that inhibited ECOWAS from achieving its desired goals in resolving and managing the crisis in Mali. This thesis employed the theoretical framework of neoliberal institutionalism. Methodologically, this thesis has utilised critical discourse  analysis method.  The paper will analyse data from both primary sources (i.e ECOWAS’ policy documents, United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on the Mali crisis, AU documents, Mali’s government documents, speeches and reports) and secondary sources (i.e news articles and media reports). This paper is arguing that the reason why ECOWAS’s AFISMA failed to resolve the Malian conflict with regards to its conflict management quest in Mali is the community’s lack of ownership of its military intervention initiative in the country. In agreement with its hypothesis the paper concluded by positing that indeed the ‘reason why ECOWAS’s AFISMA failed in its conflict management quest in Mali is the community’s lack of ownership of its military intervention initiative in the country’.

In recent years, some scholars have turned their attention towards the problem of multiple simultaneous peace operations (MSPOs), but with little focus on state motivations for their initiation. This thesis examines the case of the conflict in Mali and the high amount of operations deployed there by different actors. It does so through an instrumental case study of the establishment of these operations and of the French role in this process. The thesis finds that France was at first eager to deal with the conflict by supporting regional actors, but with the crisis deteriorating, becoming ever more involved. Next to its own intervention, it led various international organizations to operate alongside it in order to share the conflict management burden while remaining critically influential and securing its goals. This approach allowed France to balance the interests of its domestic audience, western allies, as well as those of the governments in the region. Based on the analysis, the thesis suggests that the proclaimed logic of division of labor between different organizations deploying MSPOs might be a justification for primarily generating as much resources as available while reducing various kinds of costs, although without any explicit evidence for it being a conscious effort of using the...