Since 1963, when the African integration project was born, regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been an indispensable part of the continent's deeper socioeconomic and political integration. More than half a century later, such regional institutions continue to evolve, keeping pace with an Africa that is transforming itself amid challenges and opportunities. RECs represent a huge potential to be the engines that drive the continent's economic growth and development as well as being vehicles through which a sense of a continental community is fostered. It is critical therefore that citizens understand the multi-faceted and bureaucratic operations of regional institutions in order to use them to advance their collective interests.

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 adopts a holistic approach to identifying what could be done to surmount the corruption conundrum in the African continent. It acknowledges the objective reality of corruption in Africa, and identifies primary solutions to the issue. The volume takes a socio-legal approach in order to reveal the nature and extent of corruption, and suggests that solutions can be found simply by interrogating how society reacts to it. In conjunction with this, the book identifies and critiques constraints in the formation of a definitive definition of corruption. As shown here, although it is critical for African states to develop anti-corruption strategies, the solution to the problem requires an understanding of the significance of political will, and how the lack thereof has led to the endurance of corruption in Africa.

This book focuses on southern Africa by engaging with ‘norms’ from various perspectives and how they have proliferated within a neo-liberalising context since the 1990s. It particularly examines gender norms in relation to agency, influence and their impact. Despite growing transnational activities, regional studies analyses have so far maintained a primarily linear logic not incorporative of the increasing interface between state and non-state regionalism in a transnational context since the advent of liberalisation and democratisation. Increasing non-state activities, and their connection to state processes involved in norm creation, adaptation, diffusion and implementation around broad questions of security (including gender security), amount to regional thickening. The book’s analytical approach is informed by alternatives to mainstream approaches, emphasising processes rather than linearity inherent in regional international relations studies. The research reveals that transnational activities and regionalisation of gender and women-focused civil society actors are critical for advocacy and diverse representation within intergovernmental policymaking structures at the regional scale.

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 interrogates Africa’s pursuit of the Democratic Developmental State model by drawing on the experiences of Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. It comprises of five parts: Part I, consisting of two chapters, outlines the key conceptual and theoretical approaches used throughout the book’s discussions. The proceeding parts II, III and IV critically analyses the three case studies under review. Each part is subdivided into two chapters wherein a historical state-societal approach is employed in interrogating the extent to which Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Rwanda have been able to successfully achieve democratic development, on the one hand, and, conversely, inclusive economic growth and development, on the other. Part V, and Chapter 10 debuts the concept and model of the Developmental Civil Society.