The 15-year-old African Union faces a host of challenges ranging from its institutional capacity to the legitimacy it borrows from its member states.

The AIIA for WA’s Flavia Zimmermann spoke to coordinator of the University of Western Australia’s Africa Research Cluster Dr David Mickler about the African Union today. She asked how the African Union is precluded by national governments trapped by narrow domestic interests from performing a wider role as a regional security actor.

The interview was conducted before Dr Mickler’s presentation to the AIIA for WA on “Security and Governance Challenges for the African Union” on 28 June.

Dr David Mickler is a lecturer in foreign policy and international relations and chair of the Political Science and International Relations discipline at UWA. He is also the coordinator of the Master of International Relations program. David co-chairs the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Global Africa Group, is co-editor of the Australasian Review of African Studies, and convenor of the 39th Annual Conference of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific.

David was previously a lecturer in international relations at the University of Melbourne and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. At UWA, David teaches units on the international politics of Africa, peace and security in Africa, and international security.

Filmed and edited by: Nancye Miles-Tweedie