This volume offers systematic research on regionalism in Africa and explores the role and impact of external partners on the dynamics, institutional design, and performance of regional integration projects. It acknowledges and elaborates the multilevel and multidimensional nature of regionalism, with its variety of cooperative institutions and policy areas, while closely considering uneven relationships to external actors in African regional organizations. The book’s two comprehensive mapping studies examine patterns of asymmetric inter-dependence between regionalism in Africa and external partners in Europe, with a focus on trade and donor funding, and highlight structural imbalances and (un)intended consequences. Five additional case studies provide in-depth analyses of a variety of African regional organizations, mainly with a focus on security regionalism, and elaborate how external partners influence and affect integration processes and projects. Although regionalism in Africa benefitted from external relations and partnerships with Europe, contributions in this volume question this positive impression, highlighting some of the major undermining factors and actors.

This volume collects and combines research on regional integration projects beyond Europe and in the Global South across a wide range of policy issues. Given the plurality and diversity of regional organisations, there is a growing need to systematically analyse, assess, and explain the performance of regionalism. Acknowledging the considerable differences in settings, institutional design, and politico-economic environment of regional organisations, the expert contributors move beyond EU-centric notions to offer a profound overview and propose new dimensions of innovative performance research. Systematic and in-depth research from Eurasia, Asia, Africa, and Latin America on organisations such as the Eurasian Economic Union, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Indian Ocean Commission, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, African Union, and the Organisation of American States, enables us to identify the conditions and determinants that shape performance across regions, actors, policy areas, and settings. The book provides readily accessible, important, and novel information to students and scholars of political science, international relations, EU and European studies, peace and conflict studies, comparative regionalism, interregional and inter-organizational studies, and area studies, and persons interested in specific policy fields such as trade, security, or development policy.

This book interrogates the extent to which regional civil society organisations have evolved as actors in West Africa. Examining civil society democratic participation in regional integration and involvement in regionalism of peacebuilding, it rethinks how we study civil society in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. Beyond the functional typology of civil society actors as ‘partner’, ‘legitimiser’, ‘resistance/counter-hegemonic’ and ‘manipulator’, the book develops a new analytical framework to understand how organisations such as the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) and West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) have evolved. Offering analytical perspectives of the actorship of specific regional civil society actors, the book draws attention to the tendencies in the previous studies of mistaking an action or misdeed that is empirically specific to particular civil society organisations within a region to the generality of the civic space of the region. Providing an alternative perspective aimed at invoking a new intellectual conversation about civil society regionalism this book advances a new analytical framework of action-based regional identity of civil society, regional presence of activities, regional capacities and societal impact. It will be of interest to academics and scholars of international relations, global governance, African politics and comparative regionalism.

"Partnership" is a key concept in contemporary international peace operations. There is no universal model of peace operations in contemporary international society. Ad hoc arrangements of "partnership" between the United Nations and various regional organizations are consequences of the complex circumstances of international security. The ways in which "partnerships" are organised differently in different regions reflect each region's distinctive security situation. The universal nature of "liberal peacebuilding" is thus maintained only by ad hoc arrangements. All the UN peacekeeping operations in Africa have some partnership linkages with regional or sub-regional organizations ranging from the African Union (AU) and regional mechanisms to the European Union (EU). What are the conditions and characteristics that enable or lead to partnership peacekeeping in Africa? How should we understand lower levels of partnership peacekeeping in other regions? By highlighting key characteristics of partnership peacekeeping, the book explores these issues and argues that partnership is a reflection of political circumstances. The book provides an unexplored but critical perspective to understand the contemporary world for those who study International Relations, Security Studies, International Organizations, and Peace Studies.

Interrogating the notion of developmental regionalism as applies to Southern Africa, this volume explores the policy options and interventions necessary to ensure a peaceful and stable regional development process. With a focus on the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the contributions explore how regional institutions such as this can be drivers of developmental regionalism. Institutional architecture, along with key policy priorities, and implementation strategies in areas such as trade, industry, agriculture, private sector development and conflict management are analysed, and the ramifications of regional interventions for peace building and regional security in post-conflict Southern African countries are explored. Drawing on this analysis the book proffers key policy options and strategies for how developmental regionalism can be both consummated and sustained, ultimately driving economic transformation. Illustrating to policymakers, scholars and development practitioners how regional institutions can be engines or facilitators of regional development, the book will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of areas including development studies, public policy and African studies.

African regional trade integration has grown exponentially in the last decade. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the legal framework within which it is being pursued. It will fill a huge knowledge gap and serve as an invaluable teaching and research tool for policy makers in the public and private sectors, teachers, researchers and students of African trade and beyond. The author argues that African Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are best understood as flexible legal regimes particularly given their commitment to variable geometry and multiple memberships. He analyzes the progress made toward trade liberalization in each region, how the RTAs are financed, their trade remedy and judicial regimes, and how well they measure up to Article XXIV of GATT. The book also covers monetary unions as well as intra-African regional integration, and examines free trade agreements with non-African regions including the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union.

The relationships between Africa and Europe are of high strategic importance. This volume studies the ongoing dynamics between the two continents by adopting a pluralist understanding of international relations which encompasses non-state actors as well as states. Going beyond pure intergovernmentalism, this focus of this book is on activists, business people, religious believers, local politicians as well as transnational networks and by hybrid coalitions. Such plurality of socio-economic and political interactions underpinning the relationship between Africa and Europe is underexamined and yet of great importance. The text identifies new patterns of cooperation and recurrent obstacles in the African-European multistakeholder dynamics, thus opening the way for a more accurate understanding of the future relationship between Africa and Europe. This book brings African and European reflections together, on an equal standing, in order to achieve a true dialogue among civilizations. This book is aimed at all those who are interested in African-European relationships, including students and researchers, as well as activists, business people, civil servant and functionaries at local and national level.

This book focuses on the ECOWAS Commission, both as an autonomous actor, as well as a policy-making nexus for its member states and external actors. Drawing from a variety of never-before analyzed sources, unpublished internal documents and over 120 interviews with staff from the ECOWAS Commission, its member states, and external actors supporting the organization, this book presents a comprehensive portrait of ECOWAS’s institutional capabilities, challenges, and reforms. It utilizes a policy studies approach focusing on the areas of political affairs, peace, and regional security, as well as trade and customs to illustrate concrete cases of policy making. In doing so, the book provides practice-oriented insights into the policy-making agency within the organization, arguing for the significance of the ECOWAS Commission as an actor. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of West Africa and its international relations, comparative regionalism, international organization studies, development studies, policy-making, peace and conflict studies, governance and more broadly to African politics and international relations.

This book examines the past, present and prospects of regional economic integration in Africa. The empirical analysis ranges from unions formed during the years following independence, to the proposed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which aims to remove trade barriers between all 55 African states. In addition, the book explores to what extent Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have advanced in accordance with a linear integration model of goods, labor and capital markets. The book subsequently evaluates the suitability of the European model of deep integration with costly institutions for the conditions specific to Africa, considering, for example, the role of informal and non-recorded trade. Stylized cases of regional division of labour with increasing returns and imperfect competition are introduced to support the economic integration logic. Past and current economic policies in Africa are scrutinized to answer the question: how can African regions best foster new manufacturing industries and value chains across the continent? In conclusion, the book outlines content and processes of Common Industrial Policy in the African regions. The book also addresses the controversial issue of international trade agreements between developing countries and the European Union or the USA and investigates whether these agreements impede or promote economic development in Africa. The book includes a detailed roadmap describing how to improve key clauses of agreements for economic partnership in the interest of African countries. In closing, it outlines a new vision of joint sustainable development for Africa and Europe.

Terrorism: Commentary on Security Documents is a series that provides primary source documents and expert commentary on the worldwide counter-terrorism effort. Among the documents collected are transcripts of Congressional testimony, reports by such federal government bodies as the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and case law covering issues related to terrorism. Most volumes carry a single theme, and inside each volume the documents appear within topic-based categories. The series also includes a subject index and other indices that guide the user through this complex area of the law. Volume 124, U.S. Approaches to Global Security Challenges, analyzes U.S. strategy toward security threats across the globe and identifies the beginnings of a shift away from a reliance on military power to the application of various types of civilian power which utilize a multinational approach. The documents introduced by Douglas Lovelace include U.S. perspectives on the international security situation generally as well as reports on more specific topics, such as the security situation in Afghanistan, terrorism in East Africa, the evolving role of NATO, and cooperation between the U.S. and other governments (such as the EU and China) in the fight against terrorism.