Regionalisation in Africa: Integration and Disintegration

Bach, Daniel C.(ed.), Regionalisation in Africa: Integration and Disintegration. Oxford, Bloomington and Indianapolis: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1999.235pp.

Regionalisation is a much debated topic in North America, in Europe and in Asia. Africa misses here because the assumption has been that the continent has no regionalisation process.

Conversely, Africa's regionalisation processes are closely intertwined with changing patterns of globalization, where Africa is increasingly incorporated on a subordinate basis into the emerging global order. The unremitting marginalisation of the continent in terms of world trade and investment is compounded by its brutal politico-diplomatic and strategic downgrading, due to the end of bipolarity, and perhaps the return of South Africa to "normally".

The nineteen chapters in this book, by a distinguished collection of African, American and European scholars, led by its editor, Daniel C. Bach, a former director of the Centre d'etude d'Afrique noire in Bordeaux, examine various aspects of the impact of globalisation on Africa, the problems confronting regional integration, tensions within and between states, and the rise of an international informal economy.

It is observed in the book that there is "aid fatigue "within the developed countries which has resulted in decrease of aid flows to African countries. Besides the new economic, financial and socio-political strings attached to bilateral and multilateral transfers mean increasingly tight prescriptions for African governments. Highly dependent on the resources of the developed countries, they are left with fewer opportunities to avoid external tutelage and conditionality. These constraints, the authors observe, often reach a scale unprecedented since decolonisation, although their internationalisation remains both limited and largely ineffective. The authors maintain that the chains of institutional authority and the political legitimacy are too weak for externally - induced programmes to be fully implemented.

The authors also contend that the political and developmental failure of Africa's authoritarian regimes was already blatant when the end of the Cold War brought an end to pressures for the preservation of the political status quo. Fresh opportunities for the opening up of a democratic space exerted catalytic effects on the expression of identitatarian, ethno-regional or religious demands. These challenged incumbent regimes as much as the concepts of citizenship and territoriality. Single-party and military regimes imposed authoritarian policies in the name of nation-building, and this in turn undermined the perception and values attached to citizenship. Networks based on so-called primordial attachments also emerged as a response to the decay of state capacities, not least with respect to the preservation of civil peace and individual security.

It is also observed in the book that the extreme fragmentation of Africa and the problems of economic survival faced by numerous states, account for the establishment of a large number of inter-governmental organisations (IGOs). Unfortunately, apart from a few cases, large discrepancies exist between the objectives they set out to pursue and their concrete implementation. The book, therefore, clarifies the factors responsible for such a trend. In this regard, the book transcends traditional references to state deficiencies and insufficient political will. The book also calls for a better understanding of the failure of regional integration programmes based on trade liberalisation. Indeed, it is established that in Africa as in other regions of the world the "continentalisation" of trade is a reality, although one that is dependent on the persistence of significant fiscal, tariffand monetary disparities on each side of the borders.

In all, the book is a united attempt to question the dominant paradigms in a comparative perspective taking into account experiences from other regions of the world. The authors have transcended the traditional cleavages between "Francophone", "Anglophone", and "Lusophone" Africa. Although such divisions are often denounced, they remain all too often implicitly present, and confer a parochial flavour to many analyses on African regionalisation processes.

One glaring weakness in the book, however, is the failure whether deliberately or otherwise - to fully recognize the numerous works on regionalisation in Africa by African scholars resident in the continent itself. The tendency, therefore, is for the authors of the book to appear to imply that the subject of regionalisation in Africa is exotic -which is not.

Despite shortcoming, the book is an important addition to the ever growing list of literature on the subject of regional integration in Africa. It is, therefore, a crucial reference material for students, researchers, teachers and policy analysts of regionalisation in Africa.

P. Godfrey Okoth Maseno University, Kenya

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved