Investigating the One Thousand and One Directions of the EU-Sahel Interregional Partnership

Working within the broader field of studies on Africa–EU relations, this paper aims to analyze the case study of the EU–Sahel partnership from a new perspective often overlooked in the existing literature, namely, that of interregional studies. The paper seeks to address two key questions: (1) How to investigate the political dynamics among the actors involved in the Sahelian context in light of different types of interregionalism developed? (2) Are those conceptual categories adequate to describe the EU-Sahel relations? The paper approaches these questions through the theoretical lens of interregionalism, building on what the literature defines as the “theoretical functions” of interregional relations. Indeed, this paper seeks to provide a clearer understanding of the actors involved and the mechanisms through which these actors have built their political partnership. This paper juggles between international and local actors at national, regional, and supranational levels and seeks to decolonize the approach by adopting a bi-directional analysis of the dialogue. Within the analytically complex environment of the EU-Sahel relations, interregionalism appears as an interesting framework that sheds new light on the methods used to understand the Sahelian context. By applying this framework, the paper shows the need to move towards new epistemological paths, introducing one such path that brings the discourse around coloniality into the conventional ways of studying interregional relations.