The African Union Commission: Shaping the Dynamics of Integration in Africa?

The African Union (AU) has become a major political player in Africa and in the international system, yet we know preciously little about the internal dynamics of the AU Commission, which is widely seen as one of the main drivers of AU policies. The AU Commission is mandated ‘to act not only as a Secretariat of the Union, but also to provide leadership and representation of the African Union and to monitor and implement decisions taken by the policy Organs of the Union.’ How the AU Commission plays these roles, the opportunities and challenges the Commission faces in prosecuting its mandate as well as the implications of the Commission playing these functions are unknown to students of both IR and IPA. To fill this gap in scholarship, this paper aspires to explore the internal dynamics of the AU Commission bureaucracy, its identity and relationship with other AU institutions. Drawing on a novel data set gathered inside the AU Commission, the paper discloses the scope of secretarial autonomy as well as secretarial activism, including how Commission bureaucrats grasp opportunities and manage constraints presented by AU member states and the increasingly assertive African regional economic communities.