ECOWAS at the Crossroads: The Withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the Future of Regional Security Governance in West Africa

Abstract

The withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has unsettled the political and security order of the region. The three military governments described the exit as a matter of sovereignty, but the episode also points to a deeper structural problem: security threats across West Africa are becoming more interconnected even as the institutions meant to manage them grow more divided. This paper examines the political and institutional drivers behind the withdrawal and assesses what it means for regional security cooperation, counter-terrorism, and the wider trajectory of West African integration. Drawing on a qualitative documentary research design, the study works from scholarly literature, ECOWAS documents, policy reports, and security assessments, and applies Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) to make sense of the continuing interplay between security dynamics in the Sahel and coastal West Africa. The analysis shows that the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has given the three countries an alternative political and security framework, but has not severed their geographic, economic, or security ties to the rest of the region. What the withdrawal has produced is institutional fragmentation rather than a genuine separation of security fates, since terrorism, arms trafficking, organised crime, and displacement continue to move across the ECOWAS–AES divide. The paper argues that the underlying problem is not a loss of regional security interdependence but the erosion of the institutional channels through which that interdependence used to be managed. It concludes that the future of security governance in West Africa depends on whether ECOWAS and the AES can sustain practical cooperation despite their political disagreements, and it calls for continued diplomatic engagement, institutional adaptation, and closer attention to the links between democratic governance, sovereignty, and human security.