The Sahel as an unintended region: competing regionalisms and insecurity dynamics

The current geopolitical dimension of the African Sahel was delineated at the beginning of 2000s, as a result of the new intersection of international, regional and local dynamics. In this context, various actors have initiated different regional projects in an attempt to reframe the area according to their interests and ideas, and to impose the form of order that better fits with their goals. This discursive, normative and material struggle is having obvious effects on security and conflict, furthering regional instability. By employing and expanding the concept of “bifurcated regionalism”, this chapter disentangles the different region-building initiatives at work in the area by identifying three groups of actors advancing a specific project around the Sahel, namely: (1) the external security deliverers; (2) the jihadist insurgent groups and (3) the regional ruling elites. The chapter shows that the Sahel can be considered as the dysfunctional and unintended result of a competing process of interregionalism. The outcome of these combined processes is a region “condemned” to instability.