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Crafting regional cooperation in Africa
Abstract
Numerous attempts at creating formal regional organizations have failed in Africa, leaving a veritable organizational junkyard of unsuccessful attempts to reduce the continent's balkanization. The assumption has therefore been that regional cooperation has failed, and will continue to do so, in Africa because the domestic and regional environments are so different from Europe, which has the highest density of successful regional experiments. In fact, while the failures in crafting regional organizations have been numerous, there have also been occasional examples of dramatic success. In particular, the Organization of African Unity managed to establish an improbable continental norm that boundaries should not be altered and large parts of Africa had a common currency decades before the euro. More generally, African states continue to devote enormous amounts of time and energy to creating continental, regional, and bilateral treaties, organizations, and forums, suggesting by their revealed preferences that they do not believe that pursuing regional cooperation is fruitless. In fact, regional cooperation is largely initiated and designed in Africa to promote the security and interests of rulers, rather than the more generally assumed goals of increasing the size of economic markets, ensuring the rights of citizens, or overcoming capricious national boundaries. The key to understanding the fate of regional cooperation in Africa is to discard the assumption that there is an inevitable conflict between sovereignty (or, more precisely, the prerogatives of individual leaders) and regional cooperation.
... [3n25] 25. Irish banks in particular were also borrowing heavily from the wholesale funding markets in the US. ...
... The mode of engagement regards the type of participation, i.e. voting toward decision making, observation, or provision of expert advice on tech-nical information. 25 In CDRAV's case, it was a combination of observation (especially on the legal aspects of the Treaty) and provision of technical information on areas such as armed violence, gender, and implications for sustainable development. It must be noted that the regional preparatory meetings did not just convene government representatives, but government experts in all the tenable areas including immigration, customs, legal, and science. ...
... [5n25] 25 [5n26] 26. Mutota, Presentation on Civil Society's Contribution to the ATT process in the Americas and the Caribbean. ...
Supranational regionalism and regional integration have for a long time been top-down processes, led by the few and imposed on the many. The role of citizens, especially those active in civil society, has been neglected by scholars, students, and commentators of regionalism. In reaction to the prevalence of these top-down models, a “new regionalism” approach has proliferated in the past few years. This book aims to further develop such a research agenda by providing an up-to-date overview of the contribution of civil society to world regionalism, from Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. This is not only relevant as a research topic; it is also of critical importance from a political standpoint. As regions across the world experience prolonged governance crises, it becomes paramount to understand the extent to which these new regional formations actually reflect the interests and needs of their people. While old regionalism was accepted as a de facto elite-driven byproduct of both the Cold War and neoliberal globalization, the twenty-first-century regionalism—if it is to survive—will need to refocus its objectives through new forms of participation and inclusion. Regions without citizens are unlikely to stand the test of time, especially in times of crises.
... The first is that EAC states developed this strategy collectively and, at least initially, implemented it also. This runs counter to the common tendency in the African Studies literature to portray regional institutions as 'empty spaces' or 'clubs' whose purpose is merely to boost the external sovereignty of political elites and their clientelist networks (Gibb, 2009;Herbst, 2007;S € oderbaum, 2004). The second reason concerns the abandonment of the second-hand clothing directive by the EAC member states. ...
... In conceiving of regional institutions in this way, our account pushes against the prevailing logic that characterizes African regional organizations as 'empty spaces' (see, inter alia, Gibb, 2009;Herbst, 2007;S € oderbaum, 2010). This logic holds that regional institutions principally serve as spaces where African leaders can performatively and symbolically engage in processes of regionalism to boost their sovereignty and political status. ...
In this article, we engage with contemporary debates about South-South regionalism as spaces to advance collective development agendas. Our starting point is recent scholarship emphasizing regions as important political spaces where new development possibilities are being conceived in a changing global order. We build upon the emphasis this literature places on regions as sites of policy innovation but argue that insufficient attention has been paid to regional institutional dynamics. We explore these issues with reference to the East African Community (EAC) and its decision in March 2016 to ‘phase-out’ second-hand clothing imports, a decision which was soon abandoned by the majority of EAC states (the exception being Rwanda), following opposition from the US. While the EAC served as a crucial forum to conceive and promote this policy, we argue that its institutional foundations proved insufficient to produce the level of regional coordination necessary to ensure its implementation and to withstand external pressure. In this way, we also challenge the prevailing logic that portrays regional institutions in Africa as ‘empty spaces’ by both demonstrating the role of the EAC as a site of policy development and its institutional dynamics in shaping political outcomes.
... The most convincing set of explanations, however, has argued that regime type and domestic political structures on the continent explain why and how African governments invest in regional integration. Overlapping memberships, for example, are clearly rational for policy-makers which are rather interested in accumulating diplomatic positions and extracting rents while not wanting to lose control over their economies and neopatrimonial polities (Herbst, 2007). The existing forms of regional cooperation are thus highly successful insofar as they strengthen the status, the international recognition, and the reputation of incumbent governments and might also lead to an additional inflow of material resources. ...
... The lack of deeper integration in many regional arrangements also explains why institutional ground-rules have remained intergovernmental in principle and informal in their decision-making procedures. If regionalism is less about harmonizing policies or liberalizing trade, as claimed by Herbst (2007) or Söderbaum (2004), consensus is the most efficient decision rule, and the spaghetti bowl thus not an indicator of ineffective regionalism but functional in terms of other political objectives, such as securing domestic or international legitimacy. Much of the literature has thus claimed that institutional structures within African regionalism are mostly intergovernmental, consensus-based, with inclusive membership rules and informal decision-making processes, and that heads-of-state tend to rely on themselves to bargain over contested issues. ...
The chapter presents an overview of empirical evidence and debate on African
regionalism and regionalization since the early 1990s. From a comparative perspective
the probably most puzzling aspect of African regionalism is the continuing gap between
the ambition, innovation, and multiplication of state-led regionalism and the lack of
broader societal engagement with these projects. While the various theoretical
approaches presented offer different explanations for this paradox, the growing
differentiation of domestic structures and state–society interactions across the continent
makes any generalization about African regionalism, its main drivers or effects
problematic. Globalization and external drivers are certainly important for understanding
regional cooperation. But it is political and social change in African states which explains
primarily why state-led regionalism moves towards more legitimate projects of regionbuilding
with a broader set of objectives in some parts of the continent, while it remains a
shallow façade for rent-seeking in others.
... African and Latin American leaders have supported regionalism as a way to control, manage and prevent regional conflicts and to deal with non-traditional security threats (cf. Barnett and Solingen 2007;Caballero-Anthony 2008;Graham 2008;Herbst 2007;Okolo 1985). In a similar vein, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines created ASEAN to maintain peace and stability amidst their disputes over inter-state borders and external interferences in domestic conflicts (Nesadurai 2008). ...
... Regime-boosting concerns the consolidation of political regimes and of statehood through building and joining regional organizations. African, Latin American, Arab, and Asian leaders have supported regionalism as a source of domestic power and consolidation of national sovereignty (Barnett and Solingen 2007;Hancock and Libman 2016;Herbst 2007;Morales 2002;Nesadurai 2008;Okolo 1985;Valbjorn 2016). Moreover, as Acharya argues, seeking autonomy from domestic constraints is a powerful incentive for incumbent regimes to engage in regionalism in many parts of the world (Acharya 2016). ...
This contribution re-engages grand theories of integration that have been developed with the European experience in mind. We ask to what extent these theories travel beyond Europe. Standard integration theories, such as neo-functionalism or liberal intergovernmentalism, privilege economic interdependence as a key driver of regional integration. We map intra-regional trade as a proxy of economic interdependence against the density and strength of regionalism in major world regions demonstrating that there is little correlation. Building upon post-functionalism, we then develop our own comparative regionalist account encompassing three building blocks: first, functional demands for regionalism stemming mainly from security interdependence and the quest for regime stability; second, the supply of regional integration through elite efforts at regional identity construction resonating with mass public opinion; and, last not least, the diffusion of institutional designs across regions. We claim that this account can not only explain regionalism across the globe, but even fits better the European experience than standard theories of integration.
... For elites in clientelist and neopatrimonial states, participation in regional interventions sometimes can also serve as a way to acquire patrimonial resources under the cloak of legitimate regional cooperation (Hentz, Sonderbaum, and Tavares 2009: 214). As remarked by Jeffrey Herbst (2007), African leaders are thus often only enthusiastic about regional cooperation to the extent that it "highlights sovereignty, helps secure national leaders and asks little in return" (cited in Williams 2008: 320). ...
African regional organizations play a significant role in maintaining peace and security on their continent. This article looks at how China, as an emerging power in Africa, has incorporated these organizations into its policies on African security crises. It asserts that China has explicitly endorsed regional conflict resolution mechanisms, which it perceives as having a less intrusive impact on third world countries’ sovereignty than have initiatives taken under the global collective security system led by the UN Security Council. Moreover, China strengthening cooperation with African regional organizations and aligning its stance with the views emerging from these regional bodies is an important way in which China has tried to respond to the rising security challenges and political demands it is faced with in Africa. The article briefly considers what influence China’s increased attention to African regional bodies is having on efforts by Africa’s traditional donors to help build – but also shape – Africa’s emerging peace and security architecture.
... For more contingent political reasons some countries have overlapping memberships and belong to more than one organization(Herbst 2007).3 The island state of Sao Tomé and Principe is much closer politically and geographically to Southern Africa, and has remained an outsider within ECCAS.Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. ...
Differences in African regime dynamics are clustered in sub-regions and thus might not be driven entirely by domestic variables such as the coercive capacity of states or the cohesion of ruling parties. The main argument of the paper is that leverage by regional organisations and by regional hegemons as well as specific types of regional linkages matter for domestic political developments. There is huge variation in terms of the competencies of regional organisations to influence democratisation processes, a varying availability of hegemons to enforce regional democratic standards and varying degrees of leverage vis-à-vis member states, which partly explain the regional patterns of regime dynamics. In the African context regional linkage is important in explaining how leverage is used by regional organisations and hegemons.
... Indeed, some argue that within Africa greater emphasis is placed on flexibility than on enforcing obligations (Gaathi 2010b). Herbst (2007, 130) likewise claims that there is a Bclear style^ of African cooperation and questions whether Brational design^ predictions can fully explain Africa, noting that many African leaders are more concerned with domestic politics than with international appearances. The story for Latin America is quite different, and thus we expect agreements within the Americas to be more likely to contain strong dispute settlement provisions. ...
To understand why some international institutions have stronger dispute settlement mechanisms (DSMs) than others, we investigate the dispute settlement provisions of nearly 600 preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which possess several desirable case-selection features and are evoked more than is realized. We broaden the study of dispute settlement design beyond “legalization” and instead reorient theorizing around a multi-faceted conceptualization of the strength of DSMs. We posit that strong DSMs are first and foremost a rational response to features of agreements that require stronger dispute settlement, such as depth and large memberships. Multivariate empirical tests using a new data set on PTA design confirm these expectations and reveal that depth - the amount of policy change specified in an agreement - is the most powerful and consistent predictor of DSM strength, providing empirical support to a long-posited but controversial conjecture. Yet power also plays a sizeable role, since agreements among asymmetric members are more likely to have strong DSMs due to their mutual appeal, as are those involving the United States. Important regional differences also emerge, as PTAs across the Americas are designed with strong dispute settlement, as are Asian PTAs, which contradicts the conventional wisdom about Asian values and legalization. Our findings demonstrate that rationalism explains much of international institutional design, yet it can be enhanced by also incorporating power-based and regional explanations.
... Defensive considerations also informed the decision by South East Asian countries to launch several post-Cold War regional initiatives, such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992 and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994 (Foot 1995;Khong and Nesadurai 2007). In Africa, in turn, the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC, now the South African Development Community or SADC) was created in the 1970s with the express purpose of countering the influence of the apartheid government of South Africa in the region (Herbst 2007;Qobo 2008). 12 In other cases, external powers have deliberately constructed and/or promoted regional and bilateral initiatives for strategic reasons, as the United States did in Western Europe and East Asia during the Cold War. ...
In Power and Regionalism in Latin America: The Politics of MERCOSUR, Laura Gómez-Mera examines the erratic patterns of regional economic cooperation in the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), a political-economic agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and, recently, Venezuela that comprises the world's fourth-largest regional trade bloc. Despite a promising start in the early 1990s, MERCOSUR has had a tumultuous and conflict-ridden history. Yet, it has survived, expanding in membership and institutional scope. What explains its survival, given a seemingly contradictory mix of conflict and cooperation? Through detailed empirical analyses of several key trade disputes between the bloc's two main partners, Argentina and Brazil, Gómez-Mera proposes an explanation that emphasizes the tension between and interplay of two sets of factors: power asymmetries within and beyond the region, and domestic-level politics. Member states share a common interest in preserving MERCOSUR as a vehicle for increasing the region's leverage in external negotiations. Gómez-Mera argues that while external vulnerability and overlapping power asymmetries have provided strong and consistent incentives for regional cooperation in the Southern Cone, the impact of these systemic forces on regional outcomes also has been crucially mediated by domestic political dynamics in the bloc's two main partners, Argentina and Brazil. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, the unequal distribution of power within the bloc has had a positive effect on the sustainability of cooperation. Despite Brazil's reluctance to adopt a more active leadership role in the process of integration, its offensive strategic interests in the region have contributed to the durability of institutionalized collaboration. However, as Gómez-Mera demonstrates, the tension between Brazil's global and regional power aspirations has also added significantly to the bloc's ineffectiveness. Copyright © 2013 by the University of Notre Dame Press All Rights Reserved.
... This article attempts to map the outlines of private regulatory authority exercised by large indigenous cross-border multinational banks and the impact of this private regulation on regional integration effectiveness in Africa, especially in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). For decades, economic integration in the region was a straightforward exclusive preserve of state-centric processes (Oyejide, Elbadawi, and Collier 1997;Ojo 1999;Mystry 2000;Herbst 2007). In the past two decades, those processes have been complicated by nonstate actors who, independently or in collaboration with states, are revitalizing and ⁄ or fostering new forms of regionalism that do not necessarily conform to notions about ''model'' regional integration arrangements (Marchand, Bóas, and Shaw 1999;Shaw 2000;Callaghy, Kassimir, and Latham 2001;Neubert 2009). ...
Iheduru, Okechukwu C. (2012) Regional Integration and the Private Authority of Banks in West Africa. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2012.01112.x
A lacuna in the networked global economy and private regulatory authority literatures—hence the main theoretical contribution of this article—involves situations where regulatory authority is ceded or outsourced to nonstate business actors that, in addition to their commercial mission, espouse and actually integrate their profit motive with political and economic missions that can enhance or undermine regional integration effectiveness. Such identity-based, dual-mission regional business actors are more likely to promote regional economic integration than their foreign counterparts because these firms often define the region as the centerpiece of their investment decisions. The melding of their “region-centricity” with the profit motive may suggest the capacity of states and nonstate actors to “tame” or “regionalize” globalization or even challenge the existing global order. The empirical evidence is drawn from an unlikely source, that is, cross-border, dual-mission regional banks in West Africa to whom governments and INGOs have ceded or “outsourced” critical central banking regulatory authority, empowering or enabling them to (i) act as regional development banks through public–private partnerships; (ii) create and regulate financial instruments as surrogate common currency and regional payments systems; and (iii) cross-border supervision of regional bank subsidiaries and branches. Expanded private authority of regional banks is creating putative region-wide norms of financial integration and behavioral changes among banks and other sectors and governments while amplifying the limits of private-sector-led financial integration. The study fills a gap in the comparative regionalism literature that continues to neglect, misidentify, or undervalue the African experience.
... to this volume on Latin America and Africa confirm that democratic regimes are more likely to commit to regional institutions (Chapters 8 and 11, this volume), particularly if they allow to lock-in domestic reforms consolidating and promoting democracy (Pevehouse 2005, Ribeiro Hoffmann and van der Vleuten 2007). Like their European counterparts, African, Latin American, Arab and Asian leaders have supported regionalism as a source of domestic power, not only with regard to safeguarding democratic reforms (Barnett and Solingen 2007, Herbst 2007, Morales 2002, Nesadurai 2008, Okolo 1985. ...
... Political regionalism, rather than imposing constraints on national autonomy, may actually serve to enhance the international role of individual states and thereby contribute to the enhancement of sovereignty. 10 Where regional collaboration rests on a strong underlying political motivation, it may be sustained despite lack of effective economic collaboration, as was arguably the case in the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in the apartheid era. 11 At the other end of the state autonomy curve is functional regionalism, which means interstate collaboration on specific issues-areas such as river basins, transportation links, or meteorology. ...
All forms of regionalism inevitably impose some constraints on state autonomy. The extent to which regionalism intrudes on state sovereignty varies substantially, however, according to the form that it takes. We can envisage this relationship as a “Regionalism and State Autonomy ‘Smile’ Curve”. At one end of the curve is “Political regionalism”, which, rather than imposing constraints on national autonomy, may actually serve to enhance the international role of individual states and thereby contribute to the enhancement of sovereignty. At the other end of the state autonomy curve is functional regionalism, which means interstate collaboration on specific issues– areas such as river basins, transportation links, or meteorology. Although functional cooperation inevitably imposes some constraints on the autonomy of national decision-making, these are generally fairly narrow and can be predicted and largely controlled in advance. In contrast to these two forms of regionalism that impose few constraints on state autonomy are various forms of economic regionalism – collaborative action by states to remove barriers to the flow of goods and services, migration and capital. In contrast to the gradualism of Southeast Asian states in slowly ascending the hierarchy of regional economic collaboration, African leaders have made things especially challenging for themselves by choosing forms of regionalism that impose high levels of constraint on policy autonomy and yet, in the absence of favourable background conditions, forms that are unlikely to generate commensurate gains from regional cooperation.
... For example, even though African leaders are among the most enthusiastic signers of RIAs, as shown in Figure 1a, they tend to hollow out these agreements by endowing them with no implementation and enforcement capacity (an extreme instance of flexibility by incapability). This is because they are much more interested in using membership in the RIAs to cement their states' sovereignty and security than in regional integration (Herbst 2007). On the other end of the spectrum, emerging democracies are more likely to sign stringent human rights agreements because they can use the sovereignty costs to lock in liberal policies (Hafner-Burton et al. 2013). ...
This article reviews and analyzes recent research on regional integration. The review is structured along a political economy framework and proceeds in three steps. After analyzing the development of regional integration agreements (RIAs) from a historical perspective, I first discuss regional integration as a consequence of the decision-making calculus of office-motivated political leaders who find themselves under pressure from different societal groups interested in promoting or hindering regional integration. These pressures are conveyed, constrained, and calibrated by domestic institutions, which provide an important context for policy making, and in particular for the choice to enter RIAs. The analysis also highlights the importance of international pressures for regional integration. Second I summarize the determinants and consequences of variations in regional institutional design. Third, I analyze the normative and strategic consequences of regional integration. The article concludes by outlining opportunities for future research, with emphasis on the domestic politics of regional integration, the causes and consequences of institutional design beyond trade agreements, and the consequences of the increasing number of often overlapping regional agreements. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science Volume 20 is May 11, 2017. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... Under the auspices of the OAU, strict adherence to the UN determining principle of non-interference in internal matters of member states implied the scrupulous endorsement of national boundaries bequeathed by colonialism. As a result, African leaders would rush to ratify international treaties which only guaranteed the sovereignty of the state such as the UN and its sister agencies but remain less enthusiastic about genuine cooperation at the regional level (Herbst, 2007). In such a context of mistrust, border rivalries and controls were more damaging to the movement of peoples and goods as long as individual states held on to the hub-and-spoke relationship which once characterised the colonies and their respective metropoles (Adedeji, 2002: 300). ...
This study is centred on the debate which followed the launching of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) in Abuja (Nigeria) in 2001. By reopening the said debatethe paper contends that the question as to whether this blueprint for development has the potential to turn the conflict-ridden countries around and produce a peace-friendly environment does not come out clearly in the literature.Far from being an oversight, the omission of its potential for promoting peace in Africa seems to imply that most critics subscribe to the power politics which only calls for military intervention on the continent to quell internal as well as interstate conflicts. This desk research adopts a content analysis method in an attempt to unveil the peace agenda of the NEPAD base document in the light of the liberal peace theory. Findings from the paper indicate that the pacifying dimension of the NEPAD rests on the interplay of its core objectives, namely political and economic governance, regional integration and partnership with the world at large. At the national level, good governance precludes civil wars and stimulates interstate cooperation which in turn facilitates a strong partnership between Africa and the rest of the world.However, the study observes that the plan has remained largely unknown to the general public owing mainly to the bad press which surrounded its launching fifteen years ago. As goes the saying, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Thus the paper recommends that a reactionary approach to policy formulation which dominates African scholarship gives way to the emergence of innovation and creativity if critics mean well for peace and development on the continent.
... Staatliche Regierungen versuchen, durch die gemeinsame Ausübung oder die Übertragung von Hoheitsrechten Handlungsspielräume zurückzugewinnen, die ihnen durch die zunehmende Entgrenzung von Politik (Kohler-Koch 1998) entzogen wurden (Milward 1992;Wolf 2000). Illiberale Regime in Afrika, Lateinamerika, Asien oder der arabischen Welt haben die Bildung regionaler Institutionen unterstützt, um ihre innerstaatliche Macht und ihre nationale Souveränität zu sichern (Herbst 2007;Okolo 1985;Nesadurai 2008;Barnett und Solingen 2007;Morales 2002). Dieser "regime-boosting regionalism" (Söderbaum 2004) kann durch verschiedene Faktoren angetrieben sein, die auf liberale und illiberale Regime gleichermaßen Anwendung finden. ...
This contribution explores the "comparative turn" in research on regionalism which emerged at the intersection of International Relations and area studies. Seeking to capture the rise of regionalism after the end of the Cold War, studies have increasingly engaged in comparisons of region-building in different parts of the world. Such inter-regional comparisons have revealed institutional similarities and convergence. We argue that theories of international cooperation and regional integration identify important drivers of regionalism in Europe and beyond; diffusion theories, however, are more adequate to account for institutional similarities and differences among regions. Nevertheless, we conclude with a plea not to pitch theories of diffusion, international cooperation and regional integration against each other but to view them as complementary approaches to comparative regionalism.
... The political rationale also applies in regions that lack economic interdependence as a major driver for integration. African, Latin American, Arab and Asian leaders have supported integration as a source of domestic power and consolidation of national sovereignty (Herbst 2007;Okolo 1985;Nesadurai 2008;Barnett/Solingen 2007;Morales 2002). Weak states, in particular, should be more inclined to engage in "regimeboosting integration" (Söderbaum, 2004) because they are more dependent on economic growth to forge domestic stability, tackle societal problems, and strengthen their international standing in terms of bargaining power and legitimacy (Aschhoff, 2012). ...
The paper is specifically focused on the assessment of the level performance and the areas of cooperation in the East Africa with specific emphasis on the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and to seek ways for more fruitful relationship among the member state for the betterment of all the members of the union and to see if it is possible to widen the scope of operation. Secondary sources of data collection were used and contextually analyzed and neo-functionalist theory was adopted as the tool of analysis. The findings of the paper are: all the members of IGAD belong to more than one regional group; there is Infrastructural deficit; many of the potentials are not well utilized; Inadequate capacity and resources among countries of the IGAD; Conflicting attitude towards regional integration; The countries in the region have similar resources which account for lack of comparative advantage; Insecurity and political instability; Water Scarcity and Management of Shared Water Resources. This research sought to provide answers to the following questions: for what purpose was IGAD establish? How has the IGAD carried out its set objectives? How can the organization improve on its strategies and scope of operations, membership, and achievement? What are the internal effects of regional integration? Lastly the study arrived at the following recommendations: Member states should be persuaded to ensure that they do not belong to too many regional groups; Effort should be made towards improving on the region's weak transport infrastructure; Countries in the region should be encouraged to adopt energy policies and established regulatory frameworks to liberalize the power sector; That it should pursue an aggressive capacity building and mobilization of resources among countries of the IGAD; That effort should be increased to relate well with the close neighbours that could allow them channel water from the region to the landlocked areas; The IGAD should Intensify Collaborative efforts leading to compromise and ultimate resolution of conflicts that will strengthen regional integration process; and The organization should ensure that countries that are conflicting over similar resources are helped to identify complementary areas of activities based on their comparative advantage and diversify them accordingly.
... African regionalism hasgenerally speakingnot lived up to its expectations, and it is generally understood that the levels of de facto intra-regional exchanges are below their potential. Explanations for this "underperformance" include the continued dominance of north-south trade patterns, political instability and policy discontinuity, weak implementation record of regional policies (in turn related to weaknesses in national government and governance), inadequacies of investment in the regional integration hardware (infrastructure) and dysfunctional patterns of trans-state regionalization (Bach, 1999;Clapham et al., 2001;Schiff and Winters, 2003;van Ginkel et al., 2003;te Velde, 2006;Van Langenhove and De Lombaerde, 2007;Herbst, 2007;Fanta et al., 2013;GIZ, 2014;de Melo and Tsikata, 2014). ...
Purpose
African regional integration and market-building processes have not lived up to their expectations in terms of the development of intra-regional international business and the contribution to reaching broader socioeconomic development goals. The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the indicator-based monitoring tools that have been designed and used to assess these processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The assessment is based on a comparative analysis of all relevant cases for which information is publicly available. Complementary expert opinion has also been taken into account.
Findings
This study finds that there is room for improvement of the existing monitoring systems, both with respect to their governance and technical aspects, so that they can have more impact on the respective integration processes and can better guide the business strategies.
Originality/value
This is the first systematic comparative assessment of indicator-based monitoring systems for African regional integration.
... Defensive considerations also informed the decision by South East Asian countries to launch several post-Cold War regional initiatives, such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992 and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994 (Foot 1995;Khong and Nesadurai 2007). In Africa, in turn, the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC, now the South African Development Community or SADC) was created in the 1970s with the express purpose of countering the influence of the apartheid government of South Africa in the region (Herbst 2007;Qobo 2008). 12 In other cases, external powers have deliberately constructed and/or promoted regional and bilateral initiatives for strategic reasons, as the United States did in Western Europe and East Asia during the Cold War. ...
... However, they easily link up to various theoretical discussions. The value of regime boosting effects of regional organizations in the developing world is well documented by Herbst (2007) and Söderbaum (2013: 13). The strong emphasis on sovereign independence is rooted in the de-colonial tradition which BRICS countries are following. ...
Just after a decade of its existence, the BRICS group and the rising powers narrative have lost some of their appeal. The economic growth story has stalled, and domestic political challenges curb the group’s foreign policy potency. In the context of the presumed decline of relevance, the article asks what foreign policy value is BRICS providing for its members? An inner-group perspective is applied. The article argues that BRICS is offering a number of benefits. Namely: indirectly supporting domestic regime stability, protection from unwanted external interferences, flexible alignment in foreign policies and boosting of regional authority. The article goes through the rhetorical codification of BRICS summit documents, traces the uncodified principles of cooperation among its members and illustrates its argument with selected empirical examples. Far from being in decline, BRICS delivers important value added for the group which often goes missing in the literature on regional powers.
... Unlike neofunctionalist reasoning, the political rationale also applies in regions that lack economic interdependence as a major driver for regionalism. African, Latin American, Arab and Asian leaders have supported regionalism as a source of domestic power and consolidation of national sovereignty (Herbst 2007; Okolo 1985; Nesadurai 2008; Barnett/Solingen 2007; Morales 2002). Weak states, in particular, should be more inclined to engage in " regime-boosting Comparative Regionalism | 19 regionalism " (Söderbaum 2004) because they are more dependent on economic growth to forge domestic stability, tackle societal problems, and strengthen their international standing in terms of bargaining power and legitimacy (Aschhoff 2012). ...
After the end of the Cold War, students of International Relations observed an expansion of inter-state activities at the regional level. Regional and sub-regional groupings appeared to gain momentum as the way in which countries cooperate and should cooperate to pursue peace, stability, wealth and social justice. The surge and resurgence of regionalism has triggered the proliferation of concepts and approaches. The focus of this paper will be on processes and structures of state-led regionalism driven by the delegation of policies and political authority to regional institutions. Based on this understanding of regionalism, the existing literature will be reviewed with regard to three general questions. These questions do not only require research across regions but also allow developing a common research agenda to accumulate knowledge generated about specific regions. First, what are the outcomes of regionalism? How can we describe and compare the results of the delegation of policies and political authority? Second, what are the drivers of regionalism? Why do some governments choose to delegate policies and political authority while others do not? Finally, what are the internal effects of regionalism? How does the delegation of policies and political authority impact back on the domestic structures of the states involved?
... The political rationale also applies in regions that lack economic interdependence as a major driver for integration. African, Latin American, Arab and Asian leaders have supported integration as a source of domestic power and consolidation of national sovereignty (Herbst 2007;Okolo 1985;Nesadurai 2008;Barnett/Solingen 2007;Morales 2002). Weak states, in particular, should be more inclined to engage in "regimeboosting integration" (Söderbaum, 2004) because they are more dependent on economic growth to forge domestic stability, tackle societal problems, and strengthen their international standing in terms of bargaining power and legitimacy (Aschhoff, 2012). ...
The paper is specifically focused on the assessment of the level performance and the areas of cooperation in the East Africa with specific emphasis on the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and to seek ways for more fruitful relationship among the member state for the betterment of all the members of the union and to see if it is possible to widen the scope of operation. Secondary sources of data collection were used and contextually analyzed and neo-functionalist theory was adopted as the tool of analysis. The findings of the paper are: all the members of IGAD belong to more than one regional group; there is Infrastructural deficit; many of the potentials are not well utilized; Inadequate capacity and resources among countries of the IGAD; Conflicting attitude towards regional integration; The countries in the region have similar resources which account for lack of comparative advantage; Insecurity and political instability; Water Scarcity and Management of Shared Water Resources. This research sought to provide answers to the following questions: for what purpose was IGAD establish? How has the IGAD carried out its set objectives? How can the organization improve on its strategies and scope of operations, membership, and achievement? What are the internal effects of regional integration? Lastly the study arrived at the following recommendations: Member states should be persuaded to ensure that they do not belong to too many regional groups; Effort should be made towards improving on the region's weak transport infrastructure; Countries in the region should be encouraged to adopt energy policies and established regulatory frameworks to liberalize the power sector; That it should pursue an aggressive capacity building and mobilization of resources among countries of the IGAD; That effort should be increased to relate well with the close neighbours that could allow them channel water from the region to the landlocked areas; The IGAD should Intensify Collaborative efforts leading to compromise and ultimate resolution of conflicts that will strengthen regional integration process; and The organization should ensure that countries that are conflicting over similar resources are helped to identify complementary areas of activities based on their comparative advantage and diversify them accordingly.
... 6 Comparative politics literature mostly focused on the efforts of autocratic powers such as China, Russia, and Venezuela in intentionally shaping and sustaining autocracy in their immediate neighborhood 7 with ROs as one possible instrument of influence. 8 Beyond ROs as a tool of powerful states, regionalism scholars have investigated how ROs have been employed to boost legitimation through "shadow election monitoring" 9 or regional identity discourses, 10 to boost rent-seeking capacities, 11 for purposes of cross-border policing and intelligence-sharing, 12 or to deal with negative externalities through international signalling. 13 While previous literature has made important contributions to understand the regional dimension of authoritarian resilience, it often fails to clearly connect regional dynamics and domestic politics to theorize and empirically test how RO membership can actually increase the likelihood of incumbent survival. ...
The international dimension of authoritarian resilience is receiving increased attention by scholars of comparative politics and international relations alike. Research suggests that autocratic states exploit regionalism to boost domestic regime security. This article explains how membership in regional organizations can help to strengthen survival chances of autocratic incumbent elites. It argues that membership provides additional material, informational, and ideational resources to autocratic incumbents that can be used to boost domestic survival strategies vis-à-vis internal and external challengers. The article provides qualitative case-based evidence to show how autocratic incumbents in Zimbabwe, China, and Bahrain have benefited from the involvement of regional organizations during moments of political instability to strengthen legitimation, repression, co-optation, and international appeasement strategies. The article thereby provides the first encompassing explanation linking regionalism and authoritarian survival politics that is applicable across regions and different types of authoritarian regimes.
... Some leaders show demonstrative support and loyalty towards one another in order to raise the status, image and formal sovereignty of their often-authoritarian regimes, both domestically and internationally (Bøas et al. 2005). Jeffrey Herbst also agrees with this claim but adds that this misplaced enthusiasm of African leaders should not be interpreted as a failure because even they can do some positive things while trying to boost their image (Herbst 2007). Thirdly, William Reno introduces another concept called "shadow regionalism." ...
... Intergovernmentalist approaches see national sovereignty as an exogenous value that factors into the cost-benefit analysis of state actors (Kahler, 2000;Moravcsik, 2000). However, it remains unclear how states calculate the 'sovereignty costs' of cooperation and how they weigh them against cooperation benefits, as researchers usually infer them as 'revealed preferences' -i.e. by observing state behavior after the fact (Herbst, 2007) -instead of analyzing them inductively. While the regime boosting literature rejects the conventional assumption that any cooperation amounts to sovereignty costs for governments, it has an equally hard time establishing how exactly state actors arrive at the conclusion that cooperation is beneficial rather than detrimental to their national sovereignty. ...
This paper takes its departure in the fact that national sovereignty understandings are crucial for explaining why states chose to cooperate on a regional basis. While there is a rich literature on the nexus between national sovereignty and transboundary cooperation in the field of Comparative Regionalism, it fails to account for the empirical variation of different forms of regional cooperation across policy fields and regions. This failure arises, we argue, because scholars are too narrowly concerned with 'instrumental' notions of national sovereignty. To systematically explore how different sovereignty understandings affect states' propensity to engage in different forms of regional cooperation, we conceptualize national sovereignty understandings as social constructs that carry different ideas about how transboundary cooperation relates to the purpose of the state. Not only instrumental but also principled and status-oriented national sovereignty understandings shape policy-makers preferences for regional cooperation in different policy fields. Depending on which combination of national sovereignty understandings become dominant in a region, six ideal-types forms of regionalism may result. The paper illustrates each ideal-type with an empirical cooperation initiative, and proposes a research agenda to explore the role of national sovereignty understandings in regionalisms around the world.
... • Intergovernmentalist approaches see national sovereignty as an exogenous value that factors into the cost-benefit analysis of state actors (Kahler, 2000;Moravcsik, 2000). However, it remains unclear how states calculate the 'sovereignty costs' of cooperation and how they weigh them against cooperation benefits, as researchers usually infer them as 'revealed preferences' -i.e. by observing state behavior after the fact (Herbst, 2007) -instead of analyzing them inductively. While the regime boosting literature rejects the conventional assumption that any cooperation amounts to sovereignty costs for governments, it has an equally hard time establishing how exactly state actors arrive at the conclusion that cooperation is beneficial rather than detrimental to their national sovereignty. ...
This paper takes its departure in the fact that national sovereignty understandings are crucial for explaining why states chose to cooperate on a regional basis. While there is a rich literature on the nexus between national sovereignty and transboundary cooperation in the field of Comparative Regionalism, it fails to account for the empirical variation of different forms of regional cooperation across policy fields and regions. This failure arises, we argue, because scholars are too narrowly concerned with 'instrumental' notions of national sovereignty. To systematically explore how different sovereignty understandings affect states' propensity to engage in different forms of regional cooperation, we conceptualize national sovereignty understandings as social constructs that carry different ideas about how transboundary cooperation relates to the purpose of the state. Not only instrumental but also principled and status-oriented national sovereignty understandings shape policy-makers preferences for regional cooperation in different policy fields. Depending on which combination of national sovereignty understandings become dominant in a region, six ideal-types forms of regionalism may result. The paper illustrates each ideal-type with an empirical cooperation initiative, and proposes a research agenda to explore the role of national sovereignty understandings in regionalisms around the world.
... In fact, in various regions of the world, which are predominantly characterised by non-democratic systems of government, we see more regional cooperation mechanisms and institutions (Mattes and Rodríguez 2014;Walker 2015), and, interestingly enough, also integration effects that seem to go well beyond conventional utility-driven interstate cooperation and where we see integration effects via ideology or transnational identity (de la Torre 2017; Weyland 2017). In some areas, such as Africa (Herbst 2009) or Asia (Acharya 2009;Johnston 2008), states are relinquishing sovereigntywholly against their own security and strategic culturesand are prepared to formulate common values and rules of conduct and to codify them in cooperation formats. This new quality is difficult to explain by strategic-instrumental motivations alone. ...
This article shows how identity shapes the pathway of Eurasian economic integration. Applying a "flat ontology", the article traces the enabling and constraining effects of regime identities in Russia and Kazakhstan on the integration process within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The empirical results show that Russia and Kazakhstan were able to reconcile the EAEU project with their very divergent regime identities during its institutionalisation. The Ukraine crisis changed this equilibrium as it amplified the differences in constructions of the post-Soviet regional order. This triggered a negative chain reaction, resulting in a fading of the shallow consensus on the EAEU.
... Staatliche Regierungen versuchen, durch die gemeinsame Ausübung oder die Übertragung von Hoheitsrechten Handlungsspielräume zurückzugewinnen, die ihnen durch die zunehmende Entgrenzung von Politik (Kohler-Koch 1998) entzogen wurden (Milward 1992;Wolf 2000). Illiberale Regime in Afrika, Lateinamerika, Asien oder der arabischen Welt haben die Bildung regionaler Institutionen unterstützt, um ihre innerstaatliche Macht und ihre nationale Souveränität zu sichern (Herbst 2007;Okolo 1985;Nesadurai 2008;Barnett und Solingen 2007;Morales 2002). Dieser "regime-boosting regionalism" (Söderbaum 2004) kann durch verschiedene Faktoren angetrieben sein, die auf liberale und illiberale Regime gleichermaßen Anwendung finden. ...
This working paper deals with one of the most pressing problems in the study and policy of regional integration: the problem of ‘Eurocentrism’, which in this context implies that assumptions and theories developed for the study of Europe crowd-out both more universally applicable frameworks and contextual understandings. In their frustrated attempts to avoid Eurocentrism, some scholars dealing with non-European regions tend to treat the Europe as an ‘anti-model’—a practice which often results in a different form of parochialism where context is all that matters. The general ambition of this paper is to contribute to rethinking Eurocentrism and the role of Europe in comparative regional integration. More specifically, the study shows how Eurocentrism (in various guises) is detrimental to theoretical development, empirical analysis and policy debates, claiming instead that European integration should be integrated into a larger and more general discourse of comparative regionalism, built around general concepts and theories, but which is still culturally sensitive.
‘New Regionalism’ (NR) approaches have emphasized the qualitative differences between the more recent wave of regionalism and regional integration attempts in the post-World War II period. This article assesses the extent to which these claims to newness are empirically justified in the specific case of MERCOSUR, the largest regional trade bloc in Latin America. It argues that, consistent with NR perspectives, regionalism in South America since the 1990s has been part of a broader process of national and global economic transformation, which has influenced the character of the process of integration itself. Yet, a careful examination of MERCOSUR suggests that the extent of its newness should not be overstated. MERCOSUR remains a state-led, primarily commercial initiative, and its evolution and sustainability have been fundamentally linked to strategic factors and power configurations at the regional and hemispheric levels. Based on these empirical findings, the article challenges the usefulness of the analytical and theoretical separation between NR and mainstream international relations approaches and illustrates the ways in which their insights can be combined and complemented in the explanation of contemporary regionalism.Journal of International Relations and Development (2008) 11, 279–308. doi:10.1057/jird.2008.14
This chapter will provide an overview of the concepts, theories and debates on formal and informal regionalism, and identify directions in which it should be moving. The first section focuses on theories and concepts. It tries to briefly clarify why some theories are so heavily geared towards formal regionalism, while others are much more focused on the formal-informal nexus, or even informal regionalism per se. Related to this, the section attempts to bring some conceptual order to the many alternative meanings of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ regionalism. The following two sections provide empirical illustrations from Asia and Africa concerning how the formal-informal nexus can be analysed. These two sections are relevant because they provide examples of how to go beyond hegemonic emphasis on formal regionalism, and how non-European cases of regionalism are important for the further development of comparative regionalism over the formal-informal nexus. The chapter concludes by summarising the strengths and weaknesses in study of this area, and what future research needs to be focusing around in order to further illuminate the formal-informal nexus.
This article documents and analyzes the limits of multinational federalism in East Africa and the diffusion of the East Asian model of integration. As the most advanced regional bloc in Africa, the East African Community is ideally suited to test different models of integration and federalism, especially those developed in Asia, and in particular by Malaysia. The article seeks to move beyond traditional explanations of relatively limited impact of external model of integration on African states, and proposes an alternative framework of analysis where external pressures and models are compared with more demanding expectations on the African side. Thus, the main aim of the article is to explore, and to compare, different theoretical perspectives and empirical examples of federalism in the two regions where working patterns of integration does not necessarily follow a Western style of integration (the EU) or federalism (Canada and the US).
Where scholars even take the time to reflect on regionalism on the African continent, they consider it primitive, weak or simply a ‘failure’. A closely related misunderstanding is that regionalism in Africa is of little relevance for comparative regionalism, which is intimately related to the overwhelming dominance of Eurocentric theories in the study of regionalism. This chapter seeks to ‘bring Africa in’ to the discussion on comparative regionalism. Drawing on the new regionalism approach (NRA), the chapter discusses four modes of regionalism in Africa: the ‘project’ of market integration, regime-boosting regionalism, shadow regionalism and the role of civil society in regional governance. The study offers an alternative understanding to regional dynamics more broadly than the mainstream Eurocentric approach allows for. Given that that few of the tendencies highlighted are uniquely ‘African’, the African case also offers valuable insights and venues for comparison across different regions, including enriching the European case.
While the United Nations is the main human rights norm-creator for Africa, the Organisation of African Unity/African Union has ‘appropriated’ many of these standards in treaties of its own. In as far as these treaties deviate from a global consensus, they do so to ensure greater normative legitimacy in the African context. The institutions created under AU human rights treaties — especially the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights — have shown themselves as relatively effective in promoting and protecting human rights. While the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights was added by way of a subsequent redesign of the system, its potential has remained largely unexplored. In addition, the emergence of subregional courts as fora to provide relief to victims of human rights has opened the door for competition and forum shopping. These developments have often been initiated and steered by civil society organisations and subregional judicial institutions rather than member states of international organisations. Much can still be done to strengthen and extend complementarity between international organisations in this field.
Despite the lofty objectives set out in the treaties of African intergovernmental organisations, such as the African Union, ECOWAS, SADC and the East African Community, legal harmonisation in Africa is still underdeveloped. Apart from a push towards harmonisation in the protection of human rights and the environment, mainly driven by a global agenda, some progress has been made with regard to legal harmonisation linked to economic integration at the sub-regional level. However, the process is slow and measures to ensure implementation of agreed norms at the national level and ensure consistent interpretation are still underdeveloped. This is illustrative of the lack of political will and the big gap between political rhetoric and reality on the African continent.
Trades of money for political influence persist at every level of government. Not surprisingly, governments themselves trade money for political support on the international stage. Strange, however, is the tale of this book. For, in this study, legitimacy stands as the central political commodity at stake. The book investigates the ways governments trade money for favors at the United Nations Security Council – the body endowed with the international legal authority to legitimize the use of armed force to maintain or restore peace. With a wealth of quantitative data, the book shows that powerful countries, such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, extend financial favors to the elected members of the Security Council through direct foreign aid and through international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In return, developing countries serving on the Security Council must deliver their political support … or face the consequences.
This book provides an introduction to the analysis of global political order - how patterns of governance and institutionalization in world politics have already changed; what the most important challenges are; and what the way forward might look like. The first section develops three analytical frameworks: a world of sovereign states capable of only limited cooperation; a world of ever-denser international institutions embodying the idea of an international community; and a world in which global governance moves beyond the state and into the realms of markets, civil society, and networks. Part II examines five of the most important issues facing contemporary international society: nationalism and the politics of identity; human rights and democracy; war, violence, and collective security; the ecological challenge; and the management of economic globalization in a highly unequal world. Part III considers the idea of an emerging multi-regional system; and the picture of global order built around US empire. The conclusion looks at the normative implications. If international society has indeed been changing in the ways discussed in this book, what ought we to do? And, still more crucially, who is the 'we' that is to be at the centre of this drive to create a morally better world? This book is concerned with the fate of international society in an era of globalization and the ability of the inherited society of sovereign states to provide a practically viable and normatively acceptable framework for global political order. It lays particular emphasis on the different forms of global inequality and the problems of legitimacy that these create, and on the challenges posed by cultural diversity and value conflict.
At the turn of the century the regional-global security partnership became a key element of peace and security policy-making. This book investigates the impact of the joint effort made by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) to keep the peace and protect civilians in Darfur. This book focuses on the collaboration that takes place in the field of conflict management between the global centre and the African regional level. It moves beyond the dominant framework on regional-global security partnerships, which mainly considers one-sided legal and political factors. Instead, new perspectives on the relationships are presented through the lens of international legitimacy. The book argues that the AU and the UN Security Council fight for legitimacy to ensure their positions of authority and to improve the chances of success of their activities. It demonstrates in regard to the case of Darfur why and how legitimacy matters for states, international organisations, and also for global actors and local populations. Legitimacy, Peace Operations and Global-Regional Security will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations, African Security and Global Governance.
International institutions are powerful players on the world stage, and every student of international law requires a clear understanding of the forces that shape them. For example, with increasing global influence comes the need for internal control and accountability. This thought-provoking overview considers these and other forces that govern international institutions such as the UN, EU and WTO, and the complex relationship that exists between international organizations and their member states. Covering recent scholarly developments, such as the rise of constitutionalism and global administrative law, and analysing the impact of important cases, such as the ICJ's Genocide case (2007) and the Behrami judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (2007), its clarity of explanation and analytical approach allow students to understand and think critically about a complex subject.
How and under what conditions does the European Union (EU) shape processes of institution building in other regional organizations? Interorganizational Diffusion in International Relations: Regional Institutions and the Role of the European Union develops and tests a theory of interorganizational diffusion in international relations that explains how successful pioneer organizations shape institutional choices in other organizations by affecting the institutional preferences and bargaining strategies of national governments. The author argues that Europe's foremost regional organization systematically affects institution building abroad, but that such influence varies across different types of organizations. Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, it shows how the EU institutionally strengthens regional organizations through active engagement and by building its own institutions at home. Yet, the contractual nature of other regional organizations bounds this causal influence; EU influence makes a distinguishable difference primarily in those organizations that, like the EU itself, rest on an open-ended contract. Evidence for these claims is drawn from the statistical analysis of a dataset on the institutionalization of 35 regional organizations in the period from 1950 to 2017 as well as detailed single and comparative case studies on institutional creation and change in the Southern African Development Community, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The book is freely available for download under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license from the following OUP website: https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780198823827.pdf
China has followed a strategy of largely self-financed (i.e. export-led and thus largely free from foreign aid transfers) development and consumption gradually turning into one of the so-called emerging markets. Its expansion into Africa is a direct follow-up of this development strategy. The European Union (EU) and its member states share a long tradition of cooperation and fostering of socio-economic growth and development in Africa. Having recognized the potential related to China’s involvement in Africa for the continent’s prospects of catching-up with the world economy, on several occasions, the European Commission and the Council of the EU reiterated the need to coordinate the EU and Chinese efforts in Africa. Nevertheless the 2008 Commission’s proposal for a trilateral dialogue and cooperation between the EU, China and Africa , has been received with a lukewarm interest of both China and Africa signalling fundamental differences in approaches to Africa’s growth and development that the EU, China, and to a lesser extent Africa, stand for.
The EU, the ‘normative power’, is committed, frequently to no avail, to the promotion of specific values and principles, and thus views the rule of law, democracy, and good governance as preconditions of sustained growth and development. China accentuates its dedication to business remaining rather relaxed towards the question of norms and principles. Can these approaches be reconciled? Can China and the EU act as partners for the future of Africa? To answer these questions, the concept of normative power will be reconsidered and the possibility of its application for the examination of China’s stance towards Africa will be addressed. An alternative theoretical framing will be suggested. From this perspective, the EU and Chinese approaches to Africa’s growth and development will be discussed. As the issue at stake is Africa’s future, in the following part the prospect of reconciling these approaches will be dealt with.
Afrika in seiner Gesamtheit zerfällt in fünf Teile. Mit leichtem Augenzwinkern leihe ich mir den Kapitelanfang von einem Klassiker imperialistischer Geschichtsschreibung. Das ist insofern angemessen, als die Unterscheidung dieser fünf Teile: Nord-, West-, Zentral-, Ost- und Süd-Afrika nicht nur geografische Fakten widerspiegelt, sondern auch die koloniale Geschichte des Kontinents. Zu den geografischen Fakten gehört die trennende Rolle, welche von der Wüste Sahara ausgeht – ungeachtet der Tatsache, dass sie über Karawanentransporte auch ein Jahrhunderte alter Verbindungsraum ist (Austen 2010).
Differences in African regime dynamics are clustered in sub-regions and thus might not be driven entirely by domestic variables such as the coercive capacity of states or the cohesion of ruling parties. The main argument of the paper is that leverage by regional organisations and by regional hegemons as well as specific types of regional linkages matter for domestic political developments. There is huge variation in terms of the competencies of regional organisations to influence democratisation processes, a varying availability of hegemons to enforce regional democratic standards and varying degrees of leverage vis-à-vis member states, which partly explain the regional patterns of regime dynamics. In the African context regional linkage is important in explaining how leverage is used by regional organisations and hegemons.
This chapter explores the theoretical and empirical puzzles of regionalism in the Global South on the example of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The SADC is one of the most realistic and promising examples of the new regionalism and shows constant dynamics in a number of policy areas. The main research interest of this much-needed analysis is to explain the emergence, institutional design and performance of regionalism in the SADC from a political science perspective. In order to provide innovative research, the analytical focus is on the role and influence of regional key countries and, particularly, external actors. Moreover, this chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the state of research on regionalism, including summaries of classic integration theories and the latest new regionalism approaches.
This chapter provides the analytical framework and guiding theory for this work. Muntschick develops an innovative situation-structural model to the analysis of regionalism that goes beyond Euro-centric and classic integration theories because it takes the impact of external actors explicitly into account. This—often neglected—aspect is of crucial importance in regions with mainly developing countries that show strong and asymmetric relations to extra-regional actors. Besides offering clear-cut definitions of regions and regionalism, Muntschick draws on insights from cooperation and regime theory in order to specify assumptions and deduce hypotheses about the emergence, institutional design and effectiveness of regionalism. In terms of an internal and external line of the argument, the theory offers sound explanations for the phenomenon of regional integration and regionalism in the Global South and beyond.
International-relations scholars tend to focus on the formation, design, and effects of international organizations (IOs). However, the vitality of IOs varies tremendously. I argue that IOs end up in one of three situations. They could die off altogether, though this happens infrequently. More commonly, many IOs become “zombies.” They continue to operate, but without any progress toward their mandates. A third category includes IOs that are alive and functioning. I develop a theory to explain an organization's vitality, hinging on the quality of the bureaucracy. In an environment where IOs with similar goals, and with many overlapping members, compete for bureaucrats, the ability of the secretariats to attract talented staff and to enact policy autonomously are associated with whether organizations truly stay active, simply endure, or die off. I demonstrate this proposition using a new measure of the vitality of international economic organizations from 1950 to the present. Around 52 percent of the organizations in the sample are alive and functioning, around 10 percent are essentially dead, and nearly 38 percent are zombies. Using these original data, tests of these propositions support the theory.
Advancing a constructivist conceptual approach, this book explains the surprising outcome of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (the ACP countries). Despite the EU's huge market power, it had limited success with the EPAs; an outcome that confounds materialist narratives equating trade power with market size. Why was the EU unable to fully realise its prospectus for trade and regulatory liberalisation through the EPA negotiations? Emphasising the role of social legitimacy in asymmetrical North-South trade negotiations, Murray-Evans sets the EPAs within the broader context of an institutionally complex global trade regime and stresses the agency of both weak and strong actors in contesting trade rules and practices across multilateral, regional and bilateral negotiating settings. Empirical chapters approach the EPA process from different institutional angles to explain and map the genesis, design, promotion and ultimately limited impact of the EU's ambitious prospectus for the EPAs. This volume will be particularly relevant to students and scholars of international trade and development and the EU as an international actor, as well as those researching international political economy, African politics and international trade law.
While scholars have argued that membership in Regional Organizations (ROs) can increase the likelihood of democratization, we see many autocratic regimes surviving in power albeit being members of several ROs. This article argues that this is the case because these regimes are often members in “Clubs of Autocrats” that supply material and ideational resources to strengthen domestic survival politics and shield members from external interference during moments of political turmoil. The argument is supported by survival analysis testing the effect of membership in autocratic ROs on regime survival between 1946 to 2010. It finds that membership in ROs composed of more autocratic member states does in fact raise the likelihood of regime survival by protecting incumbents against democratic challenges such as civil unrest or political dissent. However, autocratic RO membership does not help to prevent regime breakdown due to autocratic challenges like military coups, potentially because these types of threats are less likely to diffuse to other member states. The article thereby adds to our understanding of the limits of democratization and potential reverse effects of international cooperation, and contributes to the literature addressing interdependences of international and domestic politics in autocratic regimes.
This article examines the motive behind China’s increased activities in Ethiopia in recent years and concludes that it lies in Ethiopia’s perceived diplomatic usefulness. If China’s relations with many African countries could be described as one of “infrastructure for natural resources,†the Sino–Ethiopian relationship can be described “infrastructure for diplomatic support.†After exploring the nature and scope of Ethiopia’s relations with China and highlighting areas of divergence of interest, the article seeks to demonstrate how the convergence of interests between the two countries has ushered in a period of Sino-optimism among Ethiopia’s elite and rising expectations among ordinary Ethiopians.
Mali's attempts to re-enter the West African Monetary Union illustrate how political factors can frustrate economic ends; the regime had no viable alternative but to rejoin but there were the inevitable pulls between a desire for greater autonomy as well as the need to maintain important links with the colonizing power.- from Author
This paper examines the economic performance of the CFA franc zone versus non-CFA countries in recent years. A modified control-group approach is used to compare the evolution of macro-economic indicators in the CFA countries vis-à-vis other sub-Saharan African countries, controlling for initial conditions, changing exogenous internal and world environment, and policy stance. In addition, our approach allows for a formal testing of whether zone membership is a random. The implication of randomness (i.e., no selection bias) is that the CFA zone economies would have performed in the same fashion as the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, in the absence of the zone. Our results show that the randomness assumption is only valid for the cases of GDP growth and inflation. For other indicators (savings, investment, and export ratios to GDP) the decision to participate in the zone is endogenous and is related to the expectation of improved economic performance. Subsequently, in the estimation of the zone's effects on the latter group of indicators, we corrected for the ensuing “sample selectivity” bias by estimating that status indicator (participation versus non-participation) via a probit model.Our estimation results indicate a weakening competitive position of the CFA members, during the second half of 1980s relative to the first half, compared with the non-CFA countries, in terms of output growth as well as the performance of exports, investment, and savings. The exception is domestic inflation with the CFA countries faring better on that front. Results for a longer term comparison (the 1970s versus the 1980s) are somewhat mixed. While the estimated coefficients for the marginal effect of zone participation corroborates a better performance for the CFA zone over the group of comparators — in terms of exports, domestic savings and investment, and inflation — the zone failed to distinguish itself with regard to economic growth in the long run.