In the famous words of Bongo (2013: Internet) 'the African Union (AU) has to act in order to put an end to armed conflicts that undermine the continent, to fight against the devastation caused by AIDS and other contagious diseases, to promote sustainable development of its member states'.OAU was established on the 25 May 1963 on 26 May 2001, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was legally transformed into the African Union (AU). Africa is continent with a high number of armed conflicts,united nations, regional organizations and a number of non-African state have tried to manage these conflicts (Mathiasen, 2006:3).According to (Mathiasen 2006:3) in 2001, the African states decided to establish the African union as a successor of the organization of African unity. Since its establishment the African union has made a significant effort to become an active player in conflict resolution of African conflict. The slums of Nairobi saw some of the worst violence, some were ethnically motivated attacks, some acts of outrage at extreme poverty, and some the activities of criminal gangs. The violence continued sporadically for several months, particularly in the Rift Valley (Ikejiaku,n.d.).
Conflict management tends to focus more on mitigating or controlling the destructive consequences that emanates from a given conflict than on finding solution to the underlying issues causing the conflict. It typically involves the use of military force for deterrence or peacekeeping. Conflict settlement emphasizes reaching agreement between parties through negotiation and bargaining. Conflict resolution is a more comprehensive approach based on mutual problem sharing between the conflicting parties. Deep rooted causes of conflict are addressed so that the situation is no longer violent, hostile and exploitative (Sandole& van de Merwe, 1993). Conflict resolution elicits win-win solution and does not use coercion (Cornelius & Faire, 1989). Although scholars have differentiated conflict management, settlement and resolution, this paper uses the concepts interchangeably, so long as the objective is to end conflict. Conflict resolution here covers the whole gamut of positive conflict handling (Oguonu & Ezeib, 2014).
Actors in world politics states and non state actors, according to Professor Ryo Osiba of Hitotsubashi University, can be defined as the entities which have the following three features. Firstly they should have autonomous capacity to determine their own purpose and interest, secondly they should also have the capability to mobilize human and material resources to achieve these purpose and interest, thirdly their action should be significant enough to the state-to-state relation or the behaviour of other state actors in the global system (Kan, n.d). according to (McG owan, Cornelissen & Nel, 2006:3)State actors comprise the 194 sovereign territorial states in the world and the intergovernmental organization such as UN, state can have bilateral relations with another state like SA and China. Furthermore state can also have multilateral relations which involves three or more states
According to (Brahm, 2005) Intergovernmental organizations are constructed by states to facilitate cooperation. The primary utility of IGOs lies in providing states with a forum which they can use to negotiate conflicts. IGOs are also useful to states in a number of additional ways.
AU implemented organization called peace and Security Council (PSC), its principles is to promote peace in Africa, better security and stability prevents conflicts and etc. The AU has adopted a holistic approach to peace building that seeks to link peace, security, and development, and emphasizes the importance of national ownership of post-conflict reconstruction efforts, the organizations of AU are: Assembly of the African union, which is one of the several decision-making organizations. Pan- Africa parliament is the legislative body of the AU. ECOSOCC is an advisory body of the (International Colloquium Report, 2012).
Liberals tend to be hopeful about the prospects of making the world safe and more peaceful. Most liberals believe that it is possible to sustainably reduce the scourge of war and increase international prosperity (McGowan, Cornelisen and Nel, 2006).
Liberalism resembles a family portrait of principles and institutions, recognizable by certain characteristics such as individual freedom, political participation, private property and equality of opportunity that all liberal democratic societies by definition share to some degree. Political theorists identify liberalism with an essential principle: the importance of the freedom of the individual (Doyle and Recchia, 2011).
According to (Doyle & Recchia 2011:1434) the ideal version of liberalism is marked by a shared commitment to four institutions. First, citizens possess juridical equality and other fundamental civic rights such as freedom of religion and the press. Second, the effective sovereigns of the state are representative legislature deriving their authority from the consent of the electorate and exercising their representative authority free from all restraints apart from all the requirements that basics civic rights be preserved. The most pertinent, for the impact of liberalism on foreign affairs, the state is subject to neither the external authority of other states nor the internal authority of special prerogatives held for, for example, by monarchs or military bureaucracies over foreign policy. Third the economy rests on recognition of the rights of private property including the ownership of means of production. The editors (McGowan, Cornelisen and Nel, 2006) emphasise that liberals tend to be hopeful about the prospects of making the world safe and more peaceful, most liberals believe that it is possible to substantially reduce the scourge of war and increase international prosperity.
According to (Moravcsik, 2010) the theoretical obverse of "democratic peace" theory is a republican liberal theory of war, which stresses risk -acceptant leaders and rent -seeking coalitions. There is substantial historical evidence that the aggressors who have provoked modern great-power wars tend either to be extremely risk-acceptant individuals, or individuals well able to insulate themselves from the costs of war, or both. Jack Snyder, for example, has refurbished Hobson's classic left-liberal analysis of imperialism-in which the military, uncompetitive foreign investors and traders, jingoistic political elites, and others who benefit from imperialism are particularly well placed to influence policy-by linking unrepresentative and extreme outcomes to log-rolling coalitions
Economic Interdependence
The effect of economic interdependence on security affairs varies with market incentives. A simple starting point is that the collateral damage of war disrupts economic activity: the more vulnerable and extensive such activity, the greater the cost. A more sophisticated cost-benefit calculation would take into account the potential economic costs and benefits of war. Where monopolies, sanctions, slavery, plunder of natural resources, and other forms of coercive extraction backed by state power are cost-effective means of elite wealth accumulation-as was true for most of human history-we should expect to see a positive relationship, between transnational economic activity and war (Moravcsik, 2010)