Overcoming ‘Smallness’: Niger as an Elected Member of the UN Security Council, 2020–2022

ABSTRACT Niger served on the Security Council in the period 2020–2021 and remained throughout its tenure an active player in its West African region on security issues. The government in Niamey also leveraged its moral high ground in the region, based on its experience of democratic transfers of power in presidential elections in early 2021. Niger had expertise on security challenges in one of the focus regions of the Council, the Sahel, while it also enjoyed a good geopolitical partnership with two permanent members of the Council, France and the US, thanks to earlier cooperation on counter-terrorism initiatives in the Sahel. This article empirically examines how Niger used these factors to show agency in overcoming apparent structural deficiencies to address its own security challenges and promote aspects of the African Peace and Security Architecture.