 Hello, everyone. Let's talk about politics and governance. We'll explore how various organizations, various actors, respond to armed conflicts in Africa with a focus on the European Union today. Our guest, Malta Brozik, is from the University of Wheatwatersrand in South Africa. He will explain how institutions can effectively collaborate in complex conflict situations. Malta, in his study, he identifies four conditions for managing this complexity. And we'll provide some insights into the EU's role in the Sahelian security regime complex, as an example. Malta, welcome to our episode. Yeah, thank you for having me. Malta, before we jump into your research itself, can you explain to us, to our listeners, this concept of regime complexity? Yeah, regime complexity is around for some time now, but especially I think in the last 10 to 15 years, it got more and more prominent. So the basic idea is that it refers originally to regimes. So that means treaties, international law, for example. But these days, we focus much more also on the overlap of international organizations, like the European Union with the United Nations or with the African Union here. It basically describes, first of all, a situation of institutional overlap. And that is important because we have seen, especially in the security, but also in other fields, that institutions are overlapping more and more, either by membership or by action. You can imagine that out of this overlap, a lot of questions actually emerge and how cooperation is actually organized. So it is also a little bit problematic. I think it was a good kickoff bit to help us frame where we're going now. So what's the importance of studying, as you did, is regime complexity in conflict situations in Africa? So tell us about the importance of this. Well, first of all, I should mention that the article that we are referring to is also a co-authored article. So it was not just myself, but really Planck as well as Ibrakes have also contributed to it. And the importance is that once you have like a proliferation of actors and a situation that's independent of if it's security or economics or something else, of course, the immediate question that comes up is how do we coordinate all of this? And does it make sense? Are we actually making our lives more complicated here? Because more actors means more coordination, more costs of coordination maybe? Or can we organize in a way to create more synergies? So pooling of resources. And in the end, very often we actually see both. But this is, I think, the biggest question, the elephant in the room. Of course, it seems when I read your article that you and your co-author wanted to, so in terms of expectations of your research, you wanted to identify effective governance strategies within regime complexity and to understand how actors can fulfill specific roles within this complex conflict response system. Is this correct? Exactly. So we are a little bit EU centered. So the big challenge for the EU but also for other actors is to make sense of the existing complexity here. And as the EU is still one of the largest, most capable actors in the security field in the Sahel, the question emerges then, so what can the EU do to remain an important actor and work with not against the existing regime complexity? And in this regard, we're coming up with four arguments and we try to test them against reality, so to speak. And one argument is that for regime complexity, the best way of having or maintaining influence would be, for instance, to be a resource hub. And this is where the EU can actually score, I think, the highest points. The EU is one of the largest donors here, but it's not just about just giving money out or running projects. Obviously, much more needs to be done here. Then the second argument would then be that you need to, in order for the system to work, a regime complex can be understood as a system in its own right. So it's best if the different partners are complementary to one another, so if they can really create synergies. So resources spent, we're being a resource hub, but resources also spend for creating complementarity. This is where the EU is strong in the anti-article somehow concludes, but that is even not enough. So we do one more step. We don't just look at, let's say, the top level of interaction between the big international institutions here in the Sahel. So EU, AU, UN, regional economic communities in Africa. So it's an awful lot of them to exist in addition to individual state actors and groups and so on. But we also go at the local level, the implementation side. And this is something that the literature has not done so far. So in that regard, we try to add a bit of innovation and we combine also two theoretical frameworks. One is the literature on regime complexity that we already talked about. And the other one is complexity theory. And then we develop two more arguments here that we try to test in the field. And this is the argument that comes up from regime complexity that the systems work best if they can self-organize themselves. Now, this is a challenge for the EU. Because as you can imagine, you don't want to just, usually the programs are designed in a way that they support your own goals more or less as an institution. Right, so you want to have control over your own resources and how they are spent. We now say, okay, the best way would actually to focus more on system self-organization. That implies that your partners have to have a high degree of independence. And that is a bit problematic, I think, from the EU's perspective. But we would argue that is extremely helpful for the system as such to work. And then the last argument of the four would be adaptive peace builder. So we are focusing on the Sahel. By the way, this is an enormously large field here so we can only take a little piece of it and explore it. The argument of adaptive peace building is also important because it first links back to complexity theory. And basically says that there is not, let's say, the magic bullet that you can fire at the conflict and then it's over. But you have to, for each conflict, find out what instruments and tools are working best. So it's an iterative learning process. So the programs should not be designed in a top-down manner like we know what's best and then we implement it. But it has to be a trial and error thing. And there again, I think the article comes to the conclusion that these are the rather weaker points. So the EU is not really in that position to accept that trial and error situation there. But there's an emerging literature on adaptive peace building that we referred to and it clearly shows that, well, this is actually the way forward. The final word here. If we look at how conflict and the Sahel across different countries and communities evolves, I mean, it's not a success story from the perspective of international intervenance here. So we critically have to rethink our approach there. Okay. That's very good. This is a, well, complex discussion about this. I'm curious to hear about potential policy implications of this research or implications already being put in place. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. Of course, we as academics always use high-flying terms here, but I think there are also very practical messages in it. On the one hand, I mean, keep the good things that are working. I mean, the EU as a resource is really like a model that works and keeps you in the game. That's one message. On the other hand, I think it is really that we need more shift in the mindset of how programs are designed and operated. I know this is hard because institutional cultures change extremely slowly and never quickly, but the adaptive side of designing peace-building programs, I think, is like the biggest message, I think, in the article. And we are still very far from it. So what we have in terms of knowledge is we know an awful lot of instruments on how to build peace, but we don't know the exact recipe for each individual conflict. This requires us to again and again learn and start a little bit from zero and then build up knowledge step by step. So that would be, I think, our maybe practical message here. Okay. And I'm assuming from other the findings that you had and now there's policy implications that there's still a lot to find. So let's look ahead at the future. Future research on this topic. Should be looking at what? More actors, more conflicts? Where should we be looking at? I think, and I start from the perspective of the current events, very recent events, with, for example, France opting out the peacekeeping operation of the UN also drawing down at the one side. On the other side, levels of conflict are still high. So you could look at the indicators of battle death, etc. My worry is that we are opting out and leaving a situation behind that might even get worse in the future. And I think one, no, this is the time then also for what lessons should be learned here. And I think one element, not over-claiming here, but one element is that one really has to endorse and better understand existing complexities. And this means non-liliarity, lots of actors at different levels actually. And we have to understand that you cannot come with a one-size-fits-all approach here. And this again requires more adjustment and adaptation and learning from the site of the big international intervenes here. There is no guarantee for success in situations of active conflict here. So it's always like you are intervening in an extremely difficult situation, which doesn't really give you any guarantees for success here. That's clear, but there's no reason to give up. I think we still haven't really exhausted the potential of really working with not against complexity. So complexity should not be used as an excuse for doing nothing here, but it's better to actively engage it. That's good. Looking at a positive way of looking at complexity itself and it's not a problem per se. It's actually useful for us. This is how the world is. Exactly. Can you provide some additional resources about the topic? I would just like to refer the few ways to the special issue in which the article was actually published. So there are, I'm not sure, maybe 10 or 12, quite a lot of articles in it. And they focus on different aspects of the EU within regime complexity across different policy areas. So I think that provides everyone with a good up-to-date overview of the literature and discussions. Of course. We thank you for the promotion. So this thematic issue is available in the Politics and Governance website. Right. If you are watching us on the, let's talk about Politics and Governance website for what listeners on your right. There will be a link to the article and then to the thematic issue. Malta, this is a complex conversation in every sense. So let's narrow it down. Let's go to the punchline. If there is anything you want our audience to remember about this talk, what would it be? Yeah, complexity, complexity, complexity. No, it's not complexity is not the opponent. It's not the enemy. There's no reason to give up. But complexity challenges our thinking. And I think most of us are grown up in an environment where we got taught to look for cause effect relationships and complexity turns it upside down. So that mind shift. So we should be courageous enough to endorse it and engage it. Malta, it was a pleasure. For our listeners that are watching us on YouTube, you can find the resources and so the article and the issue mentioned on this conversation. On the let's talk about Politics and Governance websites. You can also listen to this episode wherever you get your podcast. You can subscribe if you scroll down on the websites and you can also follow us on Twitter at Kojitatiu LTA.