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.

This book provides a comprehensive, conceptual and analytical framework for understanding the reordering process in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region, driven and shaped by China–US rivalry. It demonstrates the differences between China–US, China–LAC and US–LAC relations and questions to what extent the LAC region can be considered a unified actor. Exploring broad perspectives such as global governance, international institutions, trade, security policy, climate change, multilateralism and regional and global peace and stability, the contributors also consider China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and “minilateral” cooperation, sustainable development and business and the role of soft power, such as tourism and education in China–LAC relations. This timely and important contribution analyzing the changing regional order in the LAC region brought about by China’s global rise and increasing hegemonic competition with the US will appeal to scholars and student of international relations, international political economy, and security studies.

This book investigates the history, political economy and spatiality of Chinese railway projects in Africa. It examines the financial governance of Sino-African railway projects, their socio-cultural, political and economic effects as well as the regional dimension of Africa’s new railway architecture and its function within China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Leading and emerging scholars from Africa, China, Europe and the Americas offer interpretations through politicoeconomic, historical, geographical and post-colonial conceptual lenses. Case studies on projects in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia offer an empirically rich and cross-disciplinary picture of Sino-African railway developments at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Regional analyses on West and East Africa expose persistent obstacles to the regional integration of Africa’s railways. The volume outlines opportunities and challenges related to Africa’s railway renaissance in the post-COVID-19 global political economy and will be of great interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in Africa-China relations and their developmental effects or in the politics of infrastructure, spatial governance and the political economy of transport.

This book tracks and critiques the impact of the internet in Africa. It explores the legal policy implications of, and legal responses to, the internet in matters straddling human rights, development, trade, criminal law, intellectual property and social justice from the perspective of several African countries and the region. Well-known and emerging African scholars consider whether access to the internet is a human right, the implications on the right to privacy, e-commerce, cybercrime, the opportunities and dangers of admitting electronic evidence, the balancing of freedom of expression with the protection of intellectual property and how different African legal systems address this tension. This book will be an invaluable resource for a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers, scholars and postgraduate students; policymakers and legislators; lawyers and judicial officers; crime-fighting agencies; national human rights institutions; civil society organisations; international and regional organisations; and human rights monitoring bodies.

This book examines the establishment and implementation of the AfCFTA, which is the largest free trade area globally, covering 54 African countries. It explores how this initiative has the potential to reshape Africa-EU relations by promoting intra-African trade, economic integration, and diversification, as well as inter-regional trade. Both continents have potential to serve as global actors in reshaping the global order in ways that can affect how multilateralism foster inclusive development. However, whether this will happen would be a function of how the EU and AU define their interests and relationship. Leon Mwamba Tshimpaka is Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn) and the SARChI Research Chair in the Political Economy of Migration in the SADC Region in the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba is Assistant Professor at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and Honorary Professor at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South Africa, where he was previously an Associate Professor. .

This book examines regional integration in Africa, with a particular focus on the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It argues that the SADC’s pursuit of a rationalist and state-centric form of integration for Southern Africa is limited, as it overlooks the contributory role and efficacy of non-state actors, who are relegated to the periphery. The book demonstrates that civil society networks in Southern Africa constitute well-governed, self-organised entities that function just like formal regional arrangements driven by state actors and technocrats. The book amplifies this point by deploying New Institutionalism and the New Regionalism Approach to examine the role and efficacy of non-state actors in building regions from below. The book develops a unique typology that shows how Southern African regional civil society networks adopt strategies, norms and rules to establish an efficient form of alternative integration in the region. Based on a critical analysis of this self-organised regionalism, the book projects the reality that alternative regionalism driven by non-state actors is possible. This book expands the study of regionalism in the SADC, and makes a significant and innovative contribution to the study of contemporary regionalism.

This book is about oil and gas dynamics in the world’s newest petro-powers-in-the-making, and the attempts to balance this against the impact of climate change. The known oil reserves in the Guyana-Suriname Basin total some 30 billion barrels equivalent, and the gas reserves exceed 30 trillion cubic feet. This massive offshore discovery amounts to 10 percent of the world’s conventional oil, but Guyana and Suriname are also in a wet neighborhood, where the impact of climate change stands to wreak havoc on the area and undermine some of the oil gains. Examining the political economy of petroleum production and some of the myriad challenges and opportunities involved, the expert contributors discuss the global and regional geopolitical and national security ramifications of the petroleum pursuits and explore global climate change dynamics and their effects on the region. This title will be of interest to students, scholars of international political economy, environmental politics, and the Caribbean. It will also be invaluable to policymakers in countries with business investments in Guyana and Suriname, especially in the energy sector, and policy and operational staffs in regional and international organizations and companies.

Since the late 1980s, there has been a global upsurge of various forms of regionalist projects. The widening and deepening of the European Union (EU) is the most prominent example, but there has also been a revitalization or expansion of many other regionalist projects as well, such as the African Union (AU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). More or less every government in the world is engaged in regionalism, which also involves a rich variety of business and civil society actors, resulting in a multitude of regional processes in most fields of contemporary politics. In this new text, Fredrik Söderbaum draws on decades of scholarship to provide a major reassessment of regionalism and to address questions about its origins, logic and consequences. By examining regionalism from historical, spatial, comparative and global perspectives, Rethinking Regionalism transcends the deep intellectual and disciplinary rivalries that have limited our knowledge about the subject. This broad-ranging approach enables new and challenging answers to emerge as to why and how regionalism evolves and consolidates, how it can be compared, and what its ongoing significance is for a host of issues within global politics, from security and trade to development and the environment. Retaining a balanced and authoritative style throughout, this text will be welcomed for its uniquely comprehensive examination of regionalism in the contemporary global age.

Free market policies have been in operation across Africa for the past 25 years, yet they have failed to reverse deepening poverty. This book explores, with case studies, why such policies continue to be implemented and the ways in which they have been reinvented by socialization, depoliticization, regionalization and securitization.

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.