How African Regional Interventions are Perceived on the Ground: Contestation and Multiplexity

ABSTRACT Although African regional interventions have tangible effects on politics and order in African states, we know little about how people living in the countries concerned experience and evaluate these interventions. The assumption in the literature is that African interventions are generally perceived as legitimate due to the interveners’ cultural proximity to the contexts of intervention. Based on interview and focus group research, we present firsthand and systematically generated empirical data on local perceptions of AU and ECOWAS interventions in two African states: Burkina Faso (2014/15) and The Gambia (2016/17). Contrary to the assumption in the literature, we demonstrate that (1) AU and ECOWAS interventions are locally more contested than often assumed, but that (2) local perceptions are at the same time multiplex. In both countries, we find (3) a marked difference between elite perceptions on the one hand and those of ‘everyday citizens’ on the other, which reflects variegated experiences with and exposures to the regional interventions resulting from different social, political, and spatial positionalities. These findings extend existing research on local perceptions of interventions by a perspective on non-Western interveners; and they have important implications for understanding both the legitimacy and effectiveness of African regional interventions.


Introduction
With the 'local turn' in peace and conflict research, the question of how people living in societies subject to intervention experience and perceive these endeavours is receiving increasing attention from both practitioners their cultural and ideological proximity to the contexts of intervention.When mediating conflicts, African third parties are said to 'possess a social status that (…) provides them with a high degree of legitimacy' due to 'a common African commitment to the norm of African solutions to African challenges'. 10They are said to be perceived as 'an insider' 11 and to 'share the same cultural background [and therefore] are likely to be more in tune with a conflict at hand'. 12Contrary to this argument, African regional organizations are also often portrayed as merely serving the interests of incumbent political elites, which would make them interested and partial third parties. 13n this article, we therefore explore how African regional interventions are perceived locally and what explains these perceptions.In so doing, we present first-hand and systematically gathered data on local perceptions of two African regional interventions by AU and ECOWASin Burkina Faso and The Gambiaand with this provide evidence to nuance both assumptions hitherto prevalent in the literature.In both countries, AU and ECOWAS intervened in response to political crises in order to re-establish constitutional order and to defend African regional political norms, which is the most dominant form of African intervention practice today. 14While the regional intervention in Burkina Faso was based on mediation, negotiations, and the application of targeted sanctions, the one in The Gambia also included a military component, the ECOWAS Mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG), which continued to be deployed even after the initial crisis was resolved.
In order to reconstruct local perceptions of these two interventions, we draw on empirical insights generated in two phases of field research between 2020 and 2022, in which we conducted more than 20 focus groups and more than 150 interviews with elites and 'everyday citizens' in different parts of both countries. 15ased on this wealth of empirical data, we demonstrate that, first, African regional interventions are locally more contested than suggested in the literature, but that, second, perceptions of these interventions are at the same time more multiplex than often assumed.With multiplexity, we mean the simultaneous existence of various forms of relating to, experiencing, and evaluating an intervention both at the individual and the societal level.Thirdly, and connected to that, in both countries we find a marked difference between elite perceptions on the one hand and those of everyday citizens on the other.With this, this article also extends previous research on local perceptions of regional interventions based on media reports, which reflects elite perspectives, but is largely unable to capture those of everyday citizens. 16Altogether, the multiplexity of perceptions points to variegated experiences with and exposures to regional interventions, which are a result of people's different social, political, and spatial positionality, and which in turn shape how these interventions are (differently) perceived.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows.In the next section, we define what we mean by perceptions and elaborate on our methodological approach to study them.We then give some background to the AU and ECOWAS interventions in Burkina Faso and The Gambia before presenting our main findings on elite and everyday citizens' perceptions of both interventions.Based on this, the fifth section explains what contestation and multiplexity mean for understanding perceptions of African interventions.In the conclusion, we summarize our argument and discuss implications for both the conduct and the study of African regional interventions as well as for intervention research more broadly.

Researching Local Perceptions
While perceptions have become an important subject for both scholarly analysis and policy practice, it is less often clear what perceptions actually are and why they matter for a particular issue at hand.In this article, we use the term perceptions to denote individuals' understanding and interpretation of concrete experiences. 17Perceptions are therefore by definition subjective, for they are shaped by individual experiences in concrete social contexts.However, perceptions also draw on and generate collective and intersubjective meanings.While perceptions are not necessarily equal to the realities on which they are based, they can have real effects in that they shape people's behaviour and thus create realities. 18This is particularly important in the field of international interventions, since externally promoted strategies to build peace and change orders necessarily require support and active participation from the societiesor at least parts of themin which change is supposed to take place.People's perceptions are therefore 'an essential building block to peace'. 19If interveners are seen as external occupation, 20 as pursuing hidden agendas,21 only following their own interests, 22 or as not fulfilling their mandate, 23 cooperation with them is likely to be low and trust in the intervening actors can be permanently damaged.Such a situation might increase societal conflict in the countries concerned and can, in turn, lead to withdrawal from or outright resistance to the intervention.
The study of perceptions is therefore linked to but also distinct from studying the legitimacy of a given intervention.While studies on the legitimacy of interventions are usually interested in measuring a level of support and local willingness to cooperate, often evaluated on singular, external yardsticks, analysing perceptions records people's own sense-making, allowing a better understanding of just how and why support or critique is articulated. 24erceptions can therefore be considered as the meanings that nourish particular understandings of legitimacy.
In order to make perceptions understandable for practical empirical research, this article builds on two analytic specifications generated from the existing literature.The first relates to the object of perceptions, that is, what is perceived.As several authors have pointed out, local perceptions might differ starkly on whether debate is about the structure of an intervention, that is its aims, mandate, etc., whether it is the conduct of an intervention that is at stake, i.e. the behaviour of mediators, peacekeepers, decisions by the respective organization, etc., or the intervention outcomes. 25Against this background, we examine perceptions with regard to all three dimensions: (1) the structure, (2) conduct, and (3) outcomes of an intervention.
The second analytic specification relates to the subject of perception, that is who perceives and in what way.As argued by Andrea Talentino, interventions are a 'perceptual minefield' 26 in which 'different categories of people are likely to see things differently'. 27Difference in perceptions is for instance attributed to individuals' diverging roles during the preceding conflict, 28 to different socio-economic and educational backgrounds, 29 or to locality and different spatial experiences of interventions. 30n order to operationalize the multiple subjects of perception, we distinguish between two broad categories of actors: elites and everyday citizens.
With the term 'elites', we refer to people in influential positions, which includes the political realm (political elites), but also the broader social realm (societal elites).While elites are also citizens, we use the term 'everyday citizens' to describe what is otherwise often referred to as 'non-elites' or 'ordinary citizens', hence members of the general public that do not hold any influential position. 31ur empirical data consist of more than 20 focus group discussions and over 150 interviews conducted between 2020 and 2022 in different parts of Burkina Faso and The Gambia. 32Contrary to alternative methodological approaches such as media analysis, focus group and interview research allows going beyond the elite-bias of most media outlets; and other than survey research, they capture people's own narratives rather than merely registering predefined opinions. 33mong the research participants were 200 political and societal elites as well as 163 everyday citizens (see Table 1).In both countries, separate focus groups were held with elites, such as parliamentarians from governing and opposition parties or leaders of social movements and civil society organizations, and everyday citizens, for instance residents of marginalized urban areas and villages, market women, or youth (see Table A1 in the Annex).While the selection of participants was not statistically representative, it followed a strategic sampling approach in order to reflect difference with regard to socio-economic status, age, gender, and ethnicity.Individual focus groups were designed with the greatest possible internal homogeneity in order to ensure a trustful conversation among the participants, as well as significant heterogeneity between the different groups to capture the greatest possible spectrum of voices. 34The focus groups were based on a jointly developed questionnaire and moderated by a Burkinabè/Gambian moderator.While some focus group participants spoke French/English, others used local languages such as Mooré, Dyula, Wollof, Mandinka, and Fula.

AU and ECOWAS Interventions in Burkina Faso and The Gambia
Over the past two decades, African regional organizations have become important interveners, responding to conflicts in their member states and thus affecting politics and order on the continent in substantial ways.This 31 See Kotzé and Steyn, African Elite Perspectives, 11-2; Dellmuth et al., Citizens, Elites, and  applies particularly to the AU as well as the sub-regional body ECOWAS.One area in which this growing intervention role has become especially visible is in these organizations' responses to political and constitutional crises as well as coups d'état in their member states.Both organizations have defined common political standards and developed legal norms to address such situations and work for the 'restoration of constitutional order' in the states concerned. 35The instruments to so doing range from public condemnation, suspension of member states, and the deployment of mediators, to more coercive measures such as issuing sanctions as well as threatening the use of force and its application.Since the adoption of the AU's anti-coup norm in 2000, the organization as well as its sub-regional counterparts intervened in a total of 22 cases in order to reinstall constitutional order in African states, with diplomacy and/or mediation being the most frequently applied instruments. 36he regional reactions to political crises in Burkina Faso (2014/15) and The Gambia (2016/17) both fall under this category of intervention and are thus part of a much broader universe of African intervention practice.In the existing literature, both cases are described as success stories of African regional organizations' conflict management.37 However, both the instruments as well as the social contexts of intervention differ in important ways.In Burkina Faso, AU and ECOWAS used mediation to enforce the reestablishment of constitutional order, whereas in The Gambia, diplomatic means were accompanied by the threat of and eventually the deployment of a military force.Moreover, in The Gambia both organizations intervened against the President's rejection to accept his electoral defeat, hence enforcing the popular will.In Burkina Faso, by contrast, AU and ECOWAS actually sought to contain the more revolutionary ambitions of a broad popular movement that had brought President Compaoré to fall, thus pitting regional The power void left after Compaoré's fall on 31st October 2014 was filled by a low-ranking military supported by factions of the protesters, which immediately caused AU and ECOWAS to call for elections and the return to constitutional order.However, both organizations refrained from suspending the country.The AU's Peace and Security Council (PSC) urged to establish a civilian transitional government within 14 days under the threat of sanctions, 41 whereas ECOWAS initially applied a more open, moderate approach.42 Both organizations dispatched mediators to facilitate a return to civilian rule and to negotiate a roadmap to pave the way towards elections.A 6-month timeline to re-establish constitutional order proposed by ECOWAS became the most contested element of the transition as some members of the social movements key in bringing Compaoré to fall opted for a longer period to allow for reforming the old system.43 Negotiations ultimately resulted in a civilian-military government to lead a one-year transition. InSeptember 2015, the transition was interrupted by a military coup, led by members of Compaoré's former presidential guard.AU and ECOWAS immediately condemned the coup.However, their approach differed: while the AU suspended Burkina Faso from the organization and threatened sanctions against the perpetrators, 45 ECOWAS dispatched the Presidents of Senegal and Benin, Macky Sall and Yahya Boni, to negotiate the return of the transitional government and the release of some of its members with the coup plotters.46 Although this strategy was eventually successful, the proposal by the ECOWAS mediators of an amnesty for the putschists was fiercely opposed by Burkinabè civil society and the larger public.47 ECOWAS Heads of State, at their extraordinary summit on 22 September 2015, decided to support the transitional government and transitional elections were held on 29 November, marking the return to constitutional order and the official end of the regional intervention.48 Regional Interventions in The Gambia (2016/17)   Compared to Burkina Faso, The Gambia has seen a regional intervention that was two-fold in nature from the very beginning, drawing on non-military and military means to solve the country's political crisis.On 1st December 2016, the Gambian electorate voted President Yahya Jammeh, after 22 years in power, out of office, uniting behind the coalition candidate Adama Barrow.49 After Jammeh had initially accepted defeat, a few days later he challenged the election results by clinging onto power.In The Gambia, the political stalemate that ensued is commonly (but not unanimously) referred to as 'the impasse'.
In a swift reaction, AU and ECOWAS together with the UN jointly called for a peaceful transfer of power. 50A high-profile delegation of former and sitting Heads of State engaged in several rounds of negotiations with Yahya Jammeh and the opposition's political leadership. 51With no success in sight, as early as mid-December AU and ECOWAS issued a threat of use of force, confirming their readiness to 'take all necessary measures'. 52These decisions formed the basis for what later became the ECOWAS Mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG) also called 'Restore Democracy'. 53With the constitutional ultimatum on 19 January 2017 approaching and Jammeh still clinging to his lost presidency, ECOWAS materialized its threat of use of force.While the different contingents constituting the ECOMIG forces were drawn together in the background, a Senegalese advance contingent assembled at the Gambian borders, preparing to intervene forcefully once the ultimatum elapsed.Rumours about an eventual outbreak of violence or a forceful intervention incited fear among Gambian citizens.As a consequence, thousands left their homes.President-elect Adama Barrow, preventively taken out of the country, was sworn in in the Gambian embassy in Dakar, Senegal, on the day of the ultimatum.
In a last attempt of diplomatic means, two of Yahya Jammeh's close allies, then Guinean President Alpha Condé and Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, President of Mauritania, brokered a deal with Jammeh to leave power.Whether this agreement negotiated on behalf of ECOWAS has ever been signed is subject to debate, as no signed copy is publicly accessible.Eventually, on 22 January 2017, Jammeh left together with Alpha Condé first to Guinea and then proceeded to Equatorial-Guinea for exile. 54The morning after he had left, ECOMIG forces crossed the border into The Gambia, headed by a small group of Gambian officers who had joined ECOMIG to ensure a peaceful arrival of the forces on Gambian soil.Upon Jammeh's departure and the arrival of ECOMIG, Gambians rejoiced on the streets of Banjul.With an initial one-year mandate to provide security for the President, government, and state institutions, ECOMIG has been showing military presence in the Greater Banjul Area (GBA), at the ferry terminal in Barra on the Northern part, and in the region of Foni, in the Southern part.Since 2016, ECOMIG's mandate has been extended several times.The last ECOWAS decision to 'maintain the military and police components of the ECOWAS Mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG) to consolidate stability in the country' 55 stipulated no end date for ECOMIG's presence.

How African Regional Interventions are Perceived on the Ground
In this section, we present key findings about how AU and ECOWAS interventions in Burkina Faso (2014/15) and The Gambia (2016/17) are perceived locally.While reflecting the different means and social contexts of intervention in both countries, our findings also reveal three common features: First, both interventions are locally more contested than the assumption of culturally proximate 'insider' interveners and the interventions' depictions in the 53 Hartmann, "ECOWAS and the Restoration of Democracy". 54Ateku, "Regional Intervention". 55ECOWAS, Final Communique.literature as successes suggest.Second, however, there is at the same time a clear appreciation of the interventions with regard to their aims, conduct, and outcomes, pointing to the great multiplexity with which different local actors experience and evaluate the interventions.Thirdly, cutting across the first two findings, there is a marked difference between elite perceptions and those of everyday citizens.The latter, hitherto largely ignored in the debate on AU and ECOWAS, evaluate African interventions against yardsticks that significantly differ from those expressed by national elites.The following section is structured along these findings, providing evidence from both case study countries.

Elite Perceptions of Regional Interventions
In Burkina Faso and The Gambia, AU and ECOWAS interventions first of all became a source of contestation among the countries' (political and societal) elites, in which the contribution of both organizations to the respective transitions was heavily put into question by one sideand highly appreciated by the other.These contestations largely reflect the intra-elite power struggles that were at the heart of both countries' political crises, in which AU and ECOWAS with their demand to restore 'constitutional order' intervened.They do, however, also reveal common concerns articulated vis-à-vis African interveners.
In Burkina Faso, the AU and ECOWAS intervention provoked two recurring critiques, which are widely shared among leaders in civil society and different political camps.They both concern the structure and conduct, rather than the outcome of the intervention.
Particularly for those who were actively involved in the mobilization of country-wide protests against Compaoré's attempt to stay in power, AU and ECOWAS intervened too late, only after the fall of Blaise Compaoré, rather than when Compaoré was playing with the country's constitution and democratic fabric.The late intervention gives fodder to a widespread accusation against both organizations as merely being a 'Syndicat des Chefs d'État' (a 'Club of Heads of State'), whose membersincumbent presidentsprotect themselves to remain in power.This popular imaginary serves to explain why AU and in particular ECOWAS remained silent on the matter, often summarized as 'zero contribution' to the political struggles in Burkina Faso at that time. 56As one member of a social movement expresses: 'They [AU and ECOWAS] immediately took a stand for their ally', accused of offering 'tacit support' to the former president.The late intervention is thus interpreted as 'guilty silence'. 57It left the protagonists of the protests with the impression that AU and ECOWAS wanted to keep the one in power in place. 58This critique of partial interveners not working in the interest of 'the people' was also nourished by both organizations' demand for elections within a rather short period of time.To many civil society leaders, this means that AU and ECOWAS were 'stealing' 'their' revolution 59 , as rapid elections went against their thirst for more fundamental political change. 60n the other side of the political spectrum, supporters of Compaoré, too, criticised the late intervention.They, however, expected an intervention when social uprisings against the President's regime, which they consider 'unconstitutional', were on the rise and thus accuse ECOWAS of being close to the protesters. 61In a winner-loser dynamic, each group thus blames ECOWAS for favouring the other party to the conflict and for not sufficiently understanding the local situation.
The second widely shared critique among political and social elites is more specifically directed against ECOWAS mediators and their amnesty proposal to the coup plotters in 2015.The coup during the transition was seen as an interruption of the latter and a threat to the accomplishments of the October 2014 'popular insurrection'. 62Whereas the fierce reaction of the AU against the coup perpetrators, by imposing sanctions and labelling them as 'terrorist elements', 63 is highly recognized, the conciliatory approach of ECOWASnot suspending the country and holding negotiations with the coup perpetratorsengendered strong critique.It remains one of the most remembered and contested elements of the transition shared across various elite actors from the country's political opposition, civil society, and social movements. 64ECOWAS mediators were criticized of 'not playing fair' 65 and accused of acting on behalf of the old regime. 66Against this background, the AU as the continental organization is deemed more neutral and its firm reaction against the 2015 coup has been assessed as 'honourable'. 67espite this widespread critique of regional interventions in 2014/15, some elites from former opposition parties and more traditional civil society also highly value AU and ECOWAS interventions.In particular, they applaud both organizations' commitment to pave the way back to democratic rule, their demand for a civilian interim president, 68 and their overall supervision of the transition and of the elections in 2015. 69These elites appreciate the intervention as 'constant assistance' and as a positive contribution to the country's transition process, mainly because it gave the transition an orderly form. 70Yet, while these reveal more positive perceptions, the same actors also often share the above-mentioned two main strands of critique of regional interventions in Burkina Faso.
Contrary to the situation in Burkina Faso, the AU and ECOWAS interventions in The Gambia were generally met by broad public support for the interventions' goal to ensure a transition of power.However, among the elite in particular, the conduct of the intervention also sparked fundamental contestation along political divides.On the one hand, AU and ECOWAS taking a timely and decisive stance against the U-turn of Yahya Jammeh, sending former and sitting Heads of State to negotiate with Jammeh and even threatening the use of force in 2016/17, is seen as 'siding with the [Gambian] people'. 71This positive assessment of the early phase of the intervention is particularly shared by the former opposition under Jammeh, namely the political parties under Coalition 2016 as well as societal elites.They appreciate that 'they [AU and ECOWAS] were all speaking with one voice' 72 and in a consistent manner, through issuing (joint) communiqués, conducting (joint) field missions as well as dispatching negotiation teams and the pulling together of soldiers for ECOMIG within a few days.These elites support the use of force as legitimate 'last resort' 73 and also as the only effective and thus necessary means to achieve the stated goal of putting an end to Jammeh's government, for violence was the 'only language that Jammeh would speak'. 74n the other hand, the decision to politically negotiate with Jammeh substantiated by the threat and eventual use of force is heavily criticized by former governing elites and supporters of Jammeh's party Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), who frame AU and ECOWAS as 'occupying force'. 75They fundamentally call into question both the conduct and the general mandate of the intervention and express their critique in four main facets: First, in their view, Jammeh would have left power even without the regional intervention by AU and ECOWAS.This view is rooted in Jammeh's initial concession of defeat which, in the view of many, has just not materialized due to a second set of election results published by the Independent Electoral Commission. 76Second, the negotiations are called a pre-written game.Not only forcing Jammeh to resign from power but forcing him to leave the country without alternative room for manoeuvre is seen as a partial attitude on the side of the regional envoys. 77Third, it is questioned that there was any irregularity on the side of the then incumbent presidency.According to this argumentation, the constitution allows the sitting president to challenge the election results and refer to the Supreme Court within the first weeks after the election.Consequently, this narrative refrains from calling the post-election phase a rightful 'impasse'. 78This 'sovereignty argument' questions the interpretation of the Gambian situation as an unconstitutional change of government and as a case for regional organizations to get involved. 79Lastly, this segment of Gambian elites fundamentally challenges the threat and eventual use of force because 'not a single chicken was killed'. 80Consequently, the use of force, and the intervention overall, are seen as unnecessary and illegitimate, 81 revealing that AU and ECOWAS were not overwhelmingly welcomed in 2016/17.
While the initial reaction of AU and ECOWAS was largely appreciated, the enduring presence of ECOMIG forces is more widely contested among the country's elites.For the majority of political and societal elites, the idea of AU and ECOWAS 'siding with the people' has a temporal limit because ECOMIG troops are recently seen as 'overstaying' 82 their mandate rather than serving the interests of the country.A young civil society leader notes that 'they were ready to fight, ready to fight for the interest of the people but now (…) their main focus is the president and his executive', 83 while another activist holds that 'they are creating more harm than good and doing stuff they are not supposed to do.(…) I don't think these ECOWAS soldiers are doing things that our Gambian soldiers can't do right now'. 84y far a smaller share, in turn, namely those urban and rural elites who benefit from the current administration fuel the demand for ECOMIG to stay until the reform of the security forces is completed, as they continue to see a danger of a coup d'état emerging from Jammeh loyalists: 'once these people [ECOMIG] leave, anything is possible',85 argues a lawyer.The enduring ECOMIG presence thus also became a bone of contention among the elites, revolving around the question of who benefits from and in whose interests the troops remain in the country.
In sum, elite perceptions of AU/ECOWAS interventions in both countries reflect a broad divergence among the elites as to how to assess the structure, conduct, and outcomes of the intervention, with a clear focus on conduct.This divergence reflects the respective elites' positionalities in the local conflict situation and thus underlines the 'perceptual minefield'86 in which regional interventions take place.As assumed, due to the different intervention contexts, elites in Burkina Faso were more critical of the regional intervention, while the reverse is true for Gambian elites.However, in both cases, one finds a quite similar pattern when it comes to what was criticized: firstly, African regional organizations are seen as partial interveners.AU and more so ECOWAS are perceived as siding with parties to the conflictin Burkina Faso with former president Blaise Compaoré and in The Gambia with the opposition coalition.Secondly, and related to that, the two regional organizations are criticized for unclear and/or hidden interests with regard to their actions on the ground, a critique that is particularly pertinent with regard to ECOWAS' continued presence in The Gambia.And thirdly, the nonimplementation of the organizations' norms and policy frameworks is criticized.In Burkina Faso, AU and ECOWAS are accused of not acting according to their own democratic principles when Blaise Compaoré tried to change the constitution in the course of 2014.Likewise, the pro-Jammeh camp sees the intervention in The Gambia as stretching ECOWAS' intervention doctrines and as not following the organization's respect for national sovereignty and the primary responsibility of national institutions to resolve political crises such as electoral disputes.

Everyday Citizens' Perceptions of Regional Interventions
Beyond the diverging perceptions of AU and ECOWAS interventions among the elites, everyday citizens in both countries perceive and evaluate the interventions on quite different grounds.In both countries, everyday citizens have a generally more positive and less politicized view on regional interventions, acknowledging AU and ECOWAS' efforts to bringing back 'peace' and reestablish 'normal life'.With this, the narratives of everyday citizens focus less on the structure and conduct, but instead on the outcomes of the interventions and the immediate effects they have on people's daily lives: the return of 'peace', the re-establishment of normalcy, and the calming of fear and anxiety.
For everyday citizens in Burkina Faso, the fall of Blaise Compaoré as well as the coup in 2015 above all created a situation of insecurity, which crucially interrupted the normal life.When talking about the regional interventionsboth conduct and outcomeeveryday citizens thus also employ a much more pragmatic tone, underlining the positive impact the intervention had on the restoration of normal life.In the words of a market woman in Ouagadougou, The mediation that these organizations did during the crises was beneficial to us (…) because their mediation avoided many deaths and it avoided the 'sins' that we could have committed, that's what was beneficial to us, because in a country where there is no peace, it's difficult to live there. 87re concretely, several participants connected the 'peace' that was restored with the ability to go back to the market and sell their products, to see their relatives in neighbouring villages.As a village council in Loumbila recalled, (…) at the time of the crisis (...) it is true that we were on the outskirts, but even with all that, we couldn't get to Ouagadougou because of the crisis.So, afterwards, if we were able to go to Ouagadougou, it was because peace had returned, so we personally benefited from something.For example, we are currently exchanging with each other here, at the time of the crisis, we couldn't meet and exchange, everyone was holed up in their houses; and as we have relatives in the capital, we didn't know how they lived and we couldn't go and visit them. 88ereas AU's and ECOWAS' late arrival in 2014 are also criticized by pointing to the human losses their tardiness provoked, the conduct of regional interventions stands much less in the centre of critique and attention in general.Although some of these citizens also accuse ECOWAS mediators' of having sided with the coup perpetrators in 2015, the mediation as such sparks much less debate.As a market woman in Ouagadougou reports: 'When we had a coup d'État (…) that's when we knew them [AU and ECOWAS] and we appreciate them'. 89Rather than described as partial, regional mediators are referred to as 'Sougkoata' which literally means 'those begging pardon' in Mooré language. 90Yet, despite these overall positive perceptions, everyday citizens also feel less 'owning' the order negotiated among the country's elites, which is described as 'peace of those above'. 91Hence, regional organizations' envoys remain similarly distant as their own country's political and societal leaders, and the peace achieved remains limited to solving the latter's intra-elite quarrels. 92n The Gambia, too, everyday citizens' perceptions of the interventions starkly differ from those of the country's elites, except for their shared general support for the goal of the intervention, namely, to ensure a change in power.However, contrary to the case of Burkina Faso, Gambian everyday citizens are more critical of the regional intervention, especially in those parts of the country with an immediate presence of ECOWAS forces.
On the one hand, everyday citizens particularly in the urban Greater Banjul Area applaud AU and ECOWAS because their coming resulted in 'normalcy return[ing]'. 93For them, the intervention began with great uncertainty: In the early days of the impasse and with reference to the little information that was available to the wider public, everyday citizens in the Greater Banjul Area report that they were 'left in the dark' 94 and were 'scared', 95 even fearing an outbreak of war which drove many citizens to flee their homes.But as ECOMIG arrived in Banjul, 'it was quite emotional', 96 'we were dancing', 97 'serving tea' 98 , and ECOMIG soldiers 'became like celebrities'. 99For everyday citizens, after weeks in limbo, the departure of Yahya Jammeh and the arrival of ECOMIG created relief as the intervention averted 'bloodshed' 100 and one could go about one's business again. 101As summarized by a village elder in Wassu: 'Ever since they came here, it's been peaceful'. 102n the other hand, however, this is quite differently perceived by everyday citizens who live in immediate proximity to ECOMIG soldiers and who are affected by the continued presence of the troops on a daily basis.Experiences such as ECOMIG street blockades, car accidents due to checkpoints, and alleged sexual exploitation 103 evoke images of ECOMIG as 'oppressors'. 104 community elder in Kanilai explains, I don't know at the government level, but at our own local level there are no significant whatsoever activities.They are doing here peacekeeping missions.So, definitely we see them as oppressors. 105his narrative is particularly strong in the Foni region, which continues to be considered a bastion of former President Jammeh and sees the deployment of a Senegalese ECOMIG contingent.106'The Senegalese',107 as they are usually just referred to, are accused of 'doing nothing [but] intimidating' and 'frustrating'108 citizens of Kanilai and surrounding villages.From this point of view, ECOMIG forces are not only oppressors, but also a security threat and risk in themselves, not bringing, but taking peace, as another elder from Kanilai notes, The government will use their game that, yes, ECOWAS is here for us, ECOWAS is here for everybody.But (…) they are only stationed in one site.So, the intimidations are all in Foni.(…) And again, also economically they had hampered us: We saw a great loss, our lands seized.We cannot farm anymore and, again, the instability within the border region was caused by them. 109 sum, everyday citizens in both countries perceive the interventions generally more positive than elites, focusing in particular on the positive outcomes for the restoration of 'normal' everyday life.Neither these everyday experiences nor their largely positive evaluation are reflected in elites' perceptions of the interventions.The disconnect these citizens experience from the intervention is acknowledged, but much less problematized than one might assume.In the case of The Gambia, however, there is also a strong critique if not outright rejection of the continued presence of ECOMIG coming from everyday citizens, which is, however, based on quite different grounds than the critique put forward by the country's political and societal elites.

The Multiplexity of Local Perceptions: Positionality and the Everyday
As evident from the previous section, African regional interventions are indeed contested locally, based on the organizations' perceived inaction, partiality, hidden interests, misapplication of instruments, as well as misbehaviour on the ground.While AU and ECOWAS are indeed seen as partial and interested interveners, this is not the only source of local critique and employed much more by elites than by everyday citizens.In Burkina Faso, critique of the regional intervention is much stronger among the political and societal elites than among everyday citizens.The reverse is true for The Gambia, where especially the initial AU/ECOWAS reaction to Jammeh's refusal to leave power was widely appreciated among elites and everyday citizens while the continued presence of ECOMIG is criticized by both groupsalthough on quite different grounds.
However, beyond this contestation, our data also display a great variety in the way African regional interventions are perceived locally, both within and between the two countries.As summarized in Table 2 (next page), elites and everyday citizens in Burkina Faso and The Gambia formulate both outright critique as well clear appreciation of the interventions, a phenomenon best captured by the concept of multiplexity.In everyday language, 'multiplex' means 'consisting of many elements in a complex relationship'. 110As a concept, multiplexity is particularly used in sociological analysis to describe the 'co-occurrence of multiple types of relationships'. 111As used here, multiplexity refers to the simultaneous existence of various forms of relating to, experiencing, and evaluating an intervention both at the individual and the societal level.It does not merely refer to 'many' or 'different' perceptions, but rather stresses the simultaneous existence of multiple, overlapping perceptions, which can be at the same time appreciating and contesting.In this sense, everyday citizens in Burkina Faso can criticize the intervention for being too late and still value the 'peace' it brought, while also noting that it is a peace of those 'at the top'.And both elites and everyday citizens in The Gambia can be critical of the continued presence of ECOMIG, but in so doing raise quite different concerns.This ambiguity in perceptions goes beyond the mere observation that 'different categories of people are likely to see things differently', 112 and provides a more nuanced picture of the legitimacy of an intervention than a simple measure of people's support and willingness to cooperate.
At the societal level, multiplexity refers to the great divergence both within Burkinabè and Gambian elites as well as more generally between elite perspectives and those of everyday citizens.This divergence concerns both how the intervention is generally evaluated and on what grounds such evaluations are being made.Hence, elites from the political and societal sphere in both countries assess regional interventions mainly with regard to their structure and conduct, whereas evaluations of everyday citizens focus on the interventions' outcomes.This difference shows everyday citizens' large disconnect from the general aims, legal frameworks, and political decisions, as well as from the actual implementation of the interventions, but at the same time stresses their clear affectedness by these interventions' outcomes.
The multiplexity of perceptions thus points to the importance of social, political, and spatial positionality for understanding just how interventions are experienced and thus perceived differently on the ground.
both sides of the political conflicts against each other.This once more underlines African regional organizations' deep involvement, through their interventions, in the politics of their member states and the ambiguous consequences this has for the organizations' local legitimacy.While for some the interventions were too late, interest-driven and partial or even came as an 'occupation', for others they were successful in re-establishing civilian rule, timely, decisive, and in support of 'the people'.Positionality in the political scene thus heavily shapes how elites perceive and evaluate regional interventions, guided by power struggles and diverging expectations among the local elites as to the preservation or transformation of the order in place.Based on these different political aspirations, elites accuse AU and ECOWAS of siding with the respective other party to the conflict.Unsurprisingly, assumed partiality and unmet expectations are therefore important sources of critique against AU and ECOWAS in both countries.
The perceptions of everyday citizens, in turn, and the different grounds they use to evaluate the interventions, reflect the importance of social positionality in shaping different experiences and thus perceptions of interventions.Everyday citizens' perceptions in both cases are much less nurtured by political positionalityin favour of or against the old regimenor by personal aspirations in the politicized transitional periods that followed the respective intervention in both countries.Rather, both critique and appreciation are formulated based on the interventions' immediate and tangible effects on people's everyday life, be it the re-opening of streets and markets or the creation of insecurity through the presence and illegal conduct of military troops.This may also explain why the prevention of (anticipated) violence and chaos is so recurrently and convincingly used by everyday citizens as reason to evaluate the interventions in positive terms.The case of The Gambia demonstrates that effects of interventions on the everyday life also come with an important spatial variation.Spatial positionality thus also shapes people's variegated perceptions of the interventions.In regions in The Gambia where ECOMIG is stationed, people's perceptions reflect the daily presence of foreign soldiers and their encounters at checkpoints or in local shops.Rather than naming the mission 'ECOMIG', citizens in these regions therefore only refer to 'the Senegalese' and only understand ECOMIG's role as what they witness just in front of their houses.In contrast, in regions without such presence, people refer to ECOMIG as something more abstract that concerns the overall peace and stability of the country, and which therefore provokes much less critique.
In sum, these diverse lived experiences shape the way regional interventions are evaluated and thus demonstrate the variety of criteria applied to assess their 'success' or 'failure' from different local perspectives.Rather than abstract ideals such as the common 'Africanness' or neutrality of regional organizations, perceptions are shaped by variegated experiences with and exposures to the regional interventions, which are in turn a result of people's different political, social, and spatial positionality.While positionality and everyday experiences may not be new frameworks to understand the multiplexity of local perceptions of interventions, such a differentiated and sociologically-inspired analysis of the variegated ways in which interventions are perceived has so far been missing in the study of African interventions.
Rather than merely measuring and comparing levels of support and cooperation, the multiplexity of perceptions thus allows us to see both the ambiguity with which regional interventions are met on the ground and people's variegated experiences with and exposures to them.For the study of interventions, this underlines the importance of a more nuanced conception of the legitimacy of interventions in order to capture the variegated meanings that are attributed to one and the same intervention and the different yardsticks people use to make sense of the interventions' presence in their lives.This also requires methodological approaches that place people's own meaning-making rather than external yardsticks centre stage. 113or the conduct of African regional interventions, the multiplexity of perceptions stresses the potential for an intervention to become politicized, since diverging perceptions can be easily exploited politically.It therefore also underlines the need for interveners to engage in tailored public communication, addressing different groups' particular experiences and expectations.This also includes a need to temper some expectations through active communication.A case in point is ECOMIG, which has in response to local critique increased its public communication, including the production of newsletters to report on what the mission is doing and what not to expect from it.In their public communications ECOMIG also specifically addresses local narratives, especially the critique of ECOMIG being an 'occupying force'. 114This underlines not only the practical consequences of perceptions, but also a growing concern on the side of ECOWAS about the mission's negative reputation.

Conclusion
While scholarship on international interventions has demonstrated that local perceptions of interventions can offer important insights into the legitimacy and effects of international interventions, this literature has so far widely ignored studying local perceptions of African regional interventions, despite their crucial contribution to the reality of global intervention practice.In addressing this lacuna, we presented findings from focus group and interview research on local perceptions of two African regional interventions, namely, the AU and ECOWAS interventions in Burkina Faso (2014/ 15) and The Gambia (2016/17).Based on these case studies, we demonstrate, first, that AU/ECOWAS interventions are locally more contested than assumed in the literature.Second, we show the multiplexity in local perceptions, underlining the parallel existence of multiple experiences with and evaluations of the interventions both at the individual and the societal level.Third, and relatedly, we show a marked divergence in the way elites in both countries on the one hand and everyday citizens on the other hand perceive the interventions.This divergence refers to both the overall evaluation of the interventions as well as the concrete grounds on which such evaluations are being made.Everyday citizens see the interventions generally in more positive and pragmatic terms, measured on the basis of the interventions' effects on everyday life.Our results have a number of implications for the study of African regional interventions and intervention research more broadly.
First, the local critique of African regional interventions in both countries questions the prevalent assumption of a generally high local legitimacy of African interveners due to their cultural proximity to the intervention contexts in question. 115Like other interveners, too, African regional organizations are confronted with the critique of partiality, of serving their own interests and not those of the receiving societies; 116 they are accused of being occupying forces 117 and of having hidden agendas, 118 and they are 114 The Point, "ECOMIG". 115Tavares, Regional Security; Duursma, "African Solutions to African Challenges". 116Birkholz et al., "International Interventions". 117Karlborg, "Enforced Hospitality"; Mersiades, "Peacekeeping and Legitimacy". 118Tull, "Contesting France".
confronted with broken promises and deception when found to be not fulfilling their mandates. 119Just as other interveners, too, the acceptability of African interveners' presence can erode over time, turning once celebrated saviours into 'overstaying' and 'oppressive' forces. 120The prevalence of these critiques across different intervention contexts points to much more general, systemic frictions in international efforts to build peace and order from the outside that might not be due to their 'Western' character, as often stated in the literature, 121 but in fact a characteristic feature of interventionism as such.In this sense, non-Western interventions might differ less from their Western counterparts than oftentimes assumed. 122Burkina Faso is a case in point to illustrate that these local experiences and critiques also have more long-term consequences.Following a renewed coup d'état in 2022, once again the country saw a regional interventionand a fierce public backlash against ECOWAS' (renewed) presence in the country's politics. 123ot seldom was this backlash justified by the experiences of 2014/15, especially the 'memory' of ECOWAS as a partial intervener.
Second, this article offers insights into the relationship between normative and functional assessments of interventions and their relative importance for different social groups and different categories of interveners. 124Everyday citizens in both Burkina Faso and The Gambia valued the regional interventions primarily for their restorative effects on everyday life and not so much for their contribution to defend political values such as constitutional rule or civilian governance, as put forward by elites.However, this also demonstrates that in contrast to what is often assumed, African regional interveners, too, are indeed evaluated against quite tangible, functional and not merely ideological benchmarks. 125hird, in terms of the effectiveness of African regional interventions, the diverging perceptions, especially among the Burkinabè and Gambian elites, are proof of the unresolved political conflicts that endure the interventions and the limited effect the latter had on more structural conflict resolution.Several years after the events, the interventions are still a political issue, inciting emotional reactions and receiving starkly diverging evaluations.This points to an enduring and memorized conflictive baggage that has the potential to nourish new conflicts in the future.
Finally, the divergence between the perceptions of elites and those of everyday citizens once again underlines the importance of the everyday for understanding contemporary interventionsand their effects. 126The clear yet distinct perceptions of everyday citizens demonstrate that nonmilitary interventions merely focusing on intra-elite negotiations can indeed have repercussions far beyond those officially admitted.A fact that is particularly often ignored when it comes to African regional interventions.The wide neglect of these everyday perspectives, especially in the study of African regional interventions shows the exclusive scholarly gaze that dominates academic research in this field, which is prone to miss a crucial dimension of lived intervention realities and intervention effects on the continent.Sophia Birchinger is a doctoral researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF).Her research focuses on the African Peace and Security Architecture and regional peacebuilding, with a special focus on West Africa.Her doctoral thesis explores the role of coercion in ECOWAS interventions and its perception in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.Sait Matty Jaw is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Research and Policy Development (CRPD) in The Gambia and a former Political Science lecturer at the University of The Gambia.His main research interests are in democratization and political transformations, Gambian politics and institutions, as well as migration.Since 2018, he is the Afrobarometer National Investigator for The Gambia.Simone Schnabel is a doctoral researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF).Her research focuses on the legitimacy of African regional organizations and regional security interventions, with a particular focus on the Sahel region.In her doctoral thesis, she explores diverging strategies of (de-)legitimating African regional interventions, based on a case study of Burkina Faso.

ORCID
Antonia Witt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4999-0589Sophia Birchinger https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4278-7986?lang=en Simone Schnabel https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4621-9687 Pressure (Oxford University Press, 2019) and the author of Undoing Coups: The African Union and Post-coup Intervention in Madagascar (Zed Books, 2020).Her articles have been published inter alia with the Review of International Studies, Millennium, and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.Omar M. Bah is a lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of The Gambia.His research focuses on conflict and security in the ECOWAS region and Gambian politics.

Table 1 .
Overview of interview partners and focus group participants.127 organizations.Outside Burkina Faso, Compaoré gained reputation as one of ECOWAS' key mediators in negotiating peace agreements in francophone West Africa.40 4438 Hagberg et al., "Au Coeur de la Révolution"; Bertrand, Mobilization, Negotiation, and Transition.39Hilgers and Loada, "Tensions et Protestations".

Table 2 .
Overview of elite and everyday citizens' perceptions of AU/ECOWAS interventions in Burkina Faso (BF) and The Gambia (GM).