ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the concept of regional security culture to analyse the African Union’s (AU) attempts to promote peace and security on the continent, particularly through the policies set out by its Peace and Security Council (PSC) between 2004 and 2011. 1 Regional security cultures are sets of interlocking preferences about the theory and practice of security held by members of a regional arrangement. 2 They are made and remade through processes of socialization and in this chapter are used as shorthand to refer to a structural ideational context wherein certain dispositions and preferences have become routinely expressed in the form of common discourses and are themselves actualized in habitual practices. These discourses about conceptions reflect and help establish the core assumptions, beliefs, values and norms that decision-makers hold about how security challenges can and should be dealt with. Map of membership of the African Union (AU). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203422496/84b35142-f16a-4630-bee6-7fa0ac57f848/content/map2_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
