ECOWAS protocol on Democracy and good governance: an analysis of response to the 2021 Guinean Coup D'état

Abstract

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) aims to counter the economic, political, social, and security challenges of its sub-region. The aim is embedded in the fact that it is only an economically vibrant, politically stable, socially harmonious, and environmentally secure sub-region that can promote “collective self-sustenance”. The pursuit of this mandate led to the creation of several protocols; one of which mandates the organisation to uphold democracy and good governance within its member states. ECOWAS attempts at fulfilling this obligation often suffer setbacks. This research aims to provide answers to the following questions: 1. Why did ECOWAS respond to the 2021 coup d’état in Guinea the way it did? 2. What is the impact of ECOWAS response to the 2021 coup d’état in Guinea on the perception of member-states? The article deploys the qualitative methodology of a single case-study of the 2021 coup d’état in Guinea, to examine ECOWAS capacity of fulfilling its mandate on democracy and good governance. For this purpose, data were sourced through secondary sources, and the descriptive and historical approaches are applied to examine the content and context of ECOWAS response. Furthermore, the concept of democratic backsliding is used as an analytical framework because it provides elucidation for the political development of African states. In the final analysis, it is observed that ECOWAS capacity for political or military intervention in “democratically troubled” member-states may be constrained by both the organisation’s internal contradictions and the member-states’ lack of resolve to strengthen ECOWAS.