The Role of Côte d’Ivoire in the Geopolitical Transformation of West Africa

The article examines the issue of Côte d’Ivoire participation in a number of structural and geostrategic changes in the West African region. The creation of a new regional architecture represented by the Alliance of Sahel States, (AES), the disintegration of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as well as the intensification of cooperation between the states of the region and alternative partners were responses to security crises, the socio-political situation in the states and the collapse of the French neocolonial system. Rapid changes in many ways increase regional destabilization, which is why the most stable states can serve as a kind of support, one of which is considered to be Côte d’Ivoire in terms of economic and political indicators. The study seeks to determine the impact of Côte d’Ivoire on the process and nature of the regional system transformation. For this purpose, the tasks of assessing the state’s responses to modern socio-political challenges of the state (micro-level), regional security threats (meso-level) and the risks of exposure to non-continental players (macro-level) were solved. The analysis of government reactions has shown that Côte d’Ivoire maintains continuity in its foreign policy and, with the backing of Western nations, seeks to curb internal conflicts while ensuring that the elites retain their positions of power and governance. In this strategy Côte d’Ivoire acts as an antagonist-state in relation to new models of cooperation, which slows down the pace of building a more stable and equitable regional order in West Africa.