Diplomatic Effectiveness and the Promotion of Democracy in ECOWAS: An Empirical Assessment, 2010 to 2023

This study empirically assesses the effectiveness of ECOWAS diplomatic interventions in promoting democratic governance across its member states between 2010 and 2023, a period marked by a resurgence of military coups in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger that has challenged the organisation's commitment to democratic governance norms established in the 2001 Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. A mixed-methods comparative design is employed, analysing ECOWAS sanctions decisions, diplomatic mission reports, and democratic governance index scores for 15 ECOWAS member states over the study period, supplemented by 35 elite interviews with ECOWAS Commission officials, member state diplomats, and civil society democracy advocates. Fixed effects panel regression and comparative process tracing serve as the primary analytical tools. The Democratic Peace Theory and the Regional Organisations and Norm Diffusion Framework provide the theoretical anchors. Findings reveal a significant decline in ECOWAS democratic governance intervention effectiveness since 2019, associated with declining member state political will, the emergence of anti-ECOWAS sovereignty narratives in the Sahel states, and the geopolitical influence of external actors including Russia and China in coup-affected countries. Nigeria's reduced capacity to project influence in the sub-region is identified as a structural driver of ECOWAS's weakening democratic governance enforcement capacity. Keywords: ECOWAS, democracy promotion, diplomatic effectiveness, military coups, West Africa.