Abstract
What have African region-building and regional integration efforts achieved in nearly six decades of independence? This book is a comprehensive effort to answer that question as it relates to all five African subregions. Recent global changes have created an urgent need, and an audience, for more scholarly attention to regional integration, especially in the global South. Region-building has often been central to Africa’s development plans, and as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) are implemented, new assessments are needed of the successes and failures of development in Africa. In addition, the 2008–9 global financial crisis has raised both theoretical and practical concerns about the value of economic integration. If integration is not a panacea for weaker economies and can expose those economies to greater economic risk (an issue seen both in Africa and in Europe), new attention must be focused on the questions of when, whether, and how to pursue regional integration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Chris Saunders, Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa, and Dawn Nagar (eds.), Region-Building in Southern Africa: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (London: Zed, 2012);
Adekeye Adebajo and Kaye Whiteman (eds.), The EU and Africa: From Eurafrique to Afro-Europa (London: Hurst, 2012);
John Akokpari, Angela Ndinga-Muvumba, and Tim Murithi (eds.), The African Union and Its Institutions (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2008);
Adekeye Adebajo and Abdul Raufu Mustapha (eds.), Gulliver’s Troubles: Nigeria’s Foreign Policy after the Cold War (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008);
Adekeye Adebajo, Adebayo Adedeji, and Chris Landsberg (eds.), South Africa in Africa: The Post-Apartheid Era (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007).
Moses Tekere (ed.), Regional Trade Integration, Economic Growth, and Poverty Reduction in Southern Africa (Oxford: African Books Collective, 2012).
Elias T. Ayuk and Samuel T. Kaboré, Wealth through Integration: Regional Integration and Poverty-Reduction Strategies in West Africa (New York: Springer, 2013);
Thomas Jaye, Dauda Garuba, and Stella Amadi (eds.), ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-Building (Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa [CODESRIA], 2011).
Redie Bereketeab and Kidane Mengisteab (eds.), Regional Integration, Identity, and Citizenship in the Greater Horn of Africa (London: James Currey, 2012);
Juma V. Mwapachu, Challenging the Frontiers of African Integration: The Dynamics of Policies, Politics, and Transformation in the East African Community (Dar es Salaam: E&D Vision, 2012).
E. S. D. Fomin and John W. Forje (eds.), Central Africa: Crises, Reform, and Reconstruction (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2005);
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Prospectus sur l’État de l’Intégration en Afrique Centrale, 2008, http://www.issafrica.org/uploads/M155FULL.PDF (accessed January 9, 2015).
Dimitar Bechev and Kalypso Nicolaïdis (eds.), Mediterranean Frontiers: Borders, Conflict, and Memory in a Transnational World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010);
Mustapha Rouis and Steven R. Tabor, Regional Economic Integration in the Middle East and North Africa: Beyond Trade Reform, World Bank, 2013, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/12220/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed January 9, 2015).
Iwa Salami, Financial Regulation in Africa: An Assessment of Financial Integration Arrangements in African Emerging and Frontier Markets (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012).
UNECA, Assessing Regional Integration in Africa, 2004, http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/aria_vi_english_full.pdf (accessed September 1, 2014).
Ulrike Lorenz-Carl and Martin Rempe (eds.), Mapping Agency: Comparing Regionalisms in Africa (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013);
Emmanuel Fanta, Timothy M. Shaw, and Vanessa T. Tang (eds.), Comparative Regionalisms for Development in the 21st Century: Insights from the Global South (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013).
Similarly, the Monitoring Regional Integration in Southern Africa yearbook, on which the South African Trade Law Centre (TRALAC) and the German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung have collaborated for more than a decade, is a highly regarded technical resource, but serves a different role than broader academic discussions on Southern Africa. The most recent TRALAC yearbook at the time of writing is André du Pisani, Gerhard Erasmus, Trudi Hartzenberg, and Colin McCarthy (eds.), Monitoring Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Yearbook 2013/2014, March 12, 2015, http://www.tralac.org/publications/article/7132-monitoring-regional-integration-in-southern-africa-yearbook-2013–2014.html (accessed April 20, 2015).
A report from the seminar is available online: CCR, Region-Building and Regional Integration in Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, October 2014, http://ccr.org.za/images/pdfs/vol49_region_building_29sep2014.pdf (accessed October 14, 2014).
For one argument for integration along these lines, aside from those in this volume, see Percy S. Mistry, “Africa’s Record of Regional Co-operation and Integration,” African Affairs 99, no. 397 (2000), 554–6.
Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 132–5.
See, for example, John Fobanjong, “Articulating Cabral’s Regionalist and Pan-African Visions,” African Identities 4, no. 1 (2006), 118–19.
See, for example, Gilbert M. Khadiagla, Allies in Adversity: The Frontline States in Southern African Security, 1975–1993 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994);
Abillah H. Omari and Paulino Macaringue, “Southern African Security in Historical Perspective,” in Gavin Cawthra, Andre du Pisani, and Abillah H. Omari (eds.), Security and Democracy in Southern Africa (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2007), pp. 45–60.
Adebayo Adedeji, “Comparative Strategies of Economic Decolonization in Africa,” in Ali A. Mazrui and C. Wondji (eds.), General History of Africa VIII: Africa Since 1935 (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 1993), p. 393.
Amilcar Cabral, “Presuppositions and Objectives of National Liberation in Relation to Social Structure,” in Amilcar Cabral, Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar, trans. Michael Wolfers (New York: Monthly Review, 1979), pp. 130–3. See also Fobanjong, “Articulating Cabral’s Regionalist and Pan-African Visions.”
C. L. R. James, A History of Pan-African Revolt (Oakland: PM, 2012), pp. 117–18, 132.
See, for example, Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974);
Léopold Sédar Senghor, On African Socialism, trans. Mercer Cook (New York: Praeger, 1964).
Tirfe Mammo, The Paradox of Africa’s Poverty: The Role of Indigenous Knowledge, Traditional Practices, and Local Institutions—The Case of Ethiopia (Lawrenceville: Red Sea, 1999), p. 36. On capitalism in Africa in general, see Chinweizu, “Africa and the Capitalist Countries,” in Mazrui and Wondji, General History of Africa VIII, pp. 769–7.
See, for example, Kwame Nkrumah, Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare: A Guide to the Armed Phase of the African Revolution, US ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1969), pp. 24–6.
See, for example, Guy Martin, “Dream of Unity: From the United States of Africa to the Federation of African States,” African and Asian Studies 12, no. 3 (2013), 176–7.
Nkrumah, Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, pp. 32–8, 56–78. See also Paulin J. Hountondji, African Philosophy: Myth and Reality, trans. Henri Evans in collaboration with Jonathan Rée, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 138–9.
See, for example, Adekeye Adebajo, “Gaddafi: The Man Who Would Be King of Africa,” Guardian (London), August 26, 2011; Martin, “Dream of Unity,” pp. 170–1, 175; Maano Ramutsindela, “Gaddafi, Continentalism, and Sovereignty in Africa,” South African Geographical Journal 91, no. 1 (2009), 1–3.
Ali A. Mazrui, “Seek Ye First the Political Kingdom,” in Mazrui and Wondji, General History of Africa VIII, pp. 122–5; Sam Mbah and I. E. Igariwey, African Anarchism: The History of a Movement (Tucson: See Sharp, 1997), pp. 73–5.
See Khelha Shubane, “Black Economic Empowerment: Myths and Realities,” in Adebajo, Adedeji, and Landsberg, South Africa in Africa, pp. 63–77; Hein Marias, South Africa Pushed to the Limit: The Political Economy of Change (London: Zed, 2011), esp. Chapter 4.
Pan-African scholar Guy Martin provides a survey of some recent proposals in Martin, “Dream of Unity,” pp. 177–85. See also Mueni wa Muiu and Guy Martin, A New Paradigm of the African State: Fundi wa Afrika (New York: Palgrave, 2009).
See, for example, Daniel Jordan Smith, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
See, for example, Kweku Ampiah and Sanusha Naidu (eds.), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Africa and China (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008).
See Ibbo Mandaza and Arne Tostensen, Southern Africa in Search of a Common Future: From the Conference to a Community (Gaborone: Southern African Development Community [SADC] Secretariat, 1994), pp. 3–4;
Ibbo Mandaza, “SADCC: Problems of Regional, Political, and Economic Cooperation in Southern Africa: An Overview,” in Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o (ed.), Regional Integration in Africa: Unfinished Agenda (Nairobi: Academy Science, 1990), p. 149.
Nicos Trimikliniotis, Steven Gordon, and Brian Zondo, “Globalisation and Migrant Labour in a ‘Rainbow Nation’: A Fortress South Africa?,” Third World Quarterly 29, no. 7 (2008), 1324–6.
Baruti Amisi, Patrick Bond, Nokuthula Cele, and Trevor Ngwane, “Xenophobia and Civil Society: Durban’s Structured Social Divisions,” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 38, no. 1 (2011), 63–4.
See, for example, Shireen Hassim, “After Apartheid: Consensus, Contention, and Gender in South Africa’s Public Sphere,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 22, no. 4 (2009), 453–64.
Ceasefire Campaign, Ceasefire Campaign Dossier: South African Arms Exports, 2000–2010, October 31, 2011, http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/doc/2012/Dossier-SA-Arms-Exports2000–10%20%282011%29.pdf (accessed June 1, 2015).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2016 Daniel H. Levine and Dawn Nagar
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Levine, D.H., Nagar, D. (2016). Introduction. In: Levine, D.H., Nagar, D. (eds) Region-Building in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137586117_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137586117_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-60157-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58611-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)