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Regionalism and Integration in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Experiences, Issues and Realities at the Close of the Twentieth

Century

JOSEPH K. MANBOAH-ROCKSON University of Cape Town

Abstract – Globalization, the ‘border-less world’ or the ‘end of geography’ is an important theme of the post-Cold War discussion of the nature of international order. Although rarely tied to any clearly articulated theory, it has become a powerful metaphor in the sense that a number of universal processes are at work generating increased interconnection and interdependence between both states and societies. Increasingly common are images of a global flood of money, people, values, and ideas overflowing the old system of national barriers seeking to preserve state autonomy. Two areas are discernible in this regard: First, territorial boundaries are becoming less important. Second, traditional understandings of sovereignty are being undermined and individual regions are being viewed within a broader global context. This paper investigates the impact of the changing global conditions on regional integration efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The underlying argument in this paper is that there are a number of ways in which globalization works against the emergence of regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa. Changes in the global economy such as technology and productive systems, and especially the impact of information technologies have meant that regional industrial policies and the promotion of regional champions are no longer considered adequate. Therefore, the assertion of this paper is that globalization is undermining the sustainability of integration efforts within Sub-Sahara Africa. Globalization works against regionalism where states are increasingly facing powerful pressures toward the homogenization of economic policies solely to attract foreign investment and technology and to compete in a closely-knit market arena. Consequently, regionalism in Sub-Saharan Africa is being de-emphasized due to the emerging centripetal forces of globalization.

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Introduction At the close of the twentieth century, sub-Saharan Africa is shaped by a great variety of dynamics. The dynamics range from governments trying to sustain their individual economies to forming regional institutions for enhanced economic development. Regionalism on the continent is considered a ‘condition sine qua non’ to the extent that it can make a contribution to economic development. In economic terms, integration among countries in Africa is intended to expand the opportunities for investment in order to benefit citizens and to contribute to harnessing the resources of African countries in a move toward sustainable development.1

In most of Africa, achieving plurality of regionalisms and regionalizations characterizes the landscape. They interact simultaneously in a complex game with other processes, such as globalization, nation-state-building and issues of security and stability, which suggests that understanding these phenomena will be enhanced by using sub-regions as units of analysis. This paper provides an overview of a multilevel perspective to analyze the origins, dynamics and consequences of regionalism(s) in sub-Saharan Africa in various fields of activity. In doing so this paper draws on the concept of ‘new regionalism,’2 which has been proven to be a useful, albeit open-ended, analytical tool for understanding the dynamics shaping emerging regions in sub-Saharan Africa. The content of the new regionalism approach will not be repeated here, but a few clarifications seem appropriate since the study of regionalism is both contested and emotionally charged. The task at hand is to understand the processes of transformation that are shaping sub-Saharan Africa in a globalizing, multidimensional and multilevel perspective, using an eclectic theoretical mixture of strands of international relations/international political economy theory, regional

1 S. K. B. Asante, “Development and Regional Integration since 1980” in Economic Crisis in Africa, eds. Adebayo Adedeji and Timothy Shaw (African Perspectives and Development Problems and Potentials, 1985). 2 B. Hettne, A. Inotai and O. Sunkel, The New Regionalism: Implications for Global Development and International Security (Helsinki: UNU/WIDER, 1994), 75-94.

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integration theory and development theory.3 It is not the level of regional co-operation and integration per se which is in focus here, but rather the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of regionalisms and regionalizations, i.e., the increasing and decreasing levels of ‘ regionness’ and to what extent sub-Saharan Africa is coping with the pressing issues of globalization. There are two main overlapping ways of understanding regionalism: the role of the region toward the rest of the world, and the internal dynamics of a particular region.4 Although a regional world order is not necessarily favoured here, it may have resulted in sources of conflict for some regional schemes, as well as the exploitation and de-development in some parts of the African continent. However, it is equally important to understand why and how a region will disintegrate and stifle development under globalization. The point of departure here is that globalization is an interesting phenomenon that still requires further research. We make assumptions that states (i.e., governments) are important actors in the process of regionalization. This assumption will be given due attention, as it is necessary to transcend conventional state-centric, top-down, de jure perspectives of regionalization, or ‘ formal’ regions. We need to take into consideration non-state actors, bottom-up, de facto forces emanating from the market and from civil society. More specifically, those of the ‘ informal’ or those emanating from spontaneous forces. The distinction here is important because the various processes are not necessarily mutually reinforcing. By the same token, the ideology of regionalism should be distinguished from the process of regionalization. In the case of most of Africa, the choice is an increasingly stark one between continued incorporation into the world system or disengagement: between the perpetuation of outward-looking growth and the adoption of some form of self-reliant strategy for development. The repercussions of these choices have affected and continue to affect national planning, regional integration, continental unity and the impending globalized order we are talking about. Given the importance of these choices for peoples, regimes, and states – in Africa and elsewhere – there is the need for more informed decisions about

3 Ibid., 37-44. 4 Aina Tade Akin, “Globalization and Social Policy in Africa,” Working Paper Series, Codesria (1996).

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globalization and its impact on sub-Saharan African countries, because of Africa’s economic susceptibility to global economic melt downs.

This paper is outlined as follows. First globalization is discussed. A review of the processes of change at various levels shaping sub-Saharan Africa as a continent follows. The analysis of globalization is concretized in the following two sections by a focus on the process of transformation shaping the region and the developmental regionalism respectively. With regard to the former, the focus is on the multidimensional and multilevel nature of regionalism (the level of regional co-operation and integration schemes) currently affecting the region. The analysis of the latter on developmental regionalism suggests that contemporary regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa needs to be understood in relation to the structural transformation of the global economic order taking place as well as the restructuring of the nation-state in the region. The strings are then drawn together and the experiences, reality and issues on the transformation and the self-reliant developmental strategy are discussed. What are the challenges, experiences, stresses and strains of regional integration efforts, as countries in sub-Saharan Africa strive to translate articulated objectives of regional integration into concrete results? What can be done regarding the global forces encroaching on sub-Saharan Africa? Conceptualizing Globalization ‘Globalization’ can mean many things to different people. It is dualistic in nature and causes a great deal of confusion. Its dichotomy is derived from greater socio-economic, cultural and political interconnectedness between international actors on the one hand, and fragmentation and disintegration on the other.

Globalization is associated with the worldwide spread of modern technologies of industrial production and communication of all kinds across the frontiers of trade, capital, production and information. This increase in movement across frontiers is itself a consequence of the spread of new technologies to hitherto pre-modern societies. Globalization also implies that nearly all economies are networked with other economies throughout the world, with the exception of countries such as North Korea and Afghanistan, which have managed to cut

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themselves off from the rest of the world, but at some cost, both in human and economic terms.5

Globalization is an historical process. It does not require that economic life be equally and intensively integrated throughout the world. As a seminal study of the subject reports, “globalization is not a singular condition, a linear process or a final end-point of social change. Nor is globalization an end-state toward a process whereby all economies are converging. More to the process is that globalization is neither or (yet in) a universal state of equal integration in world-wide economic activity.”6 Moreover, the increased interconnection of economic activity throughout the world accentuates uneven development between different countries. It exaggerates the dependency of ‘peripheral’ developing states such as sub-Saharan Africa on the advanced countries.

The discussion of globalization is not only characterized by important theoretical and political silences but also by a further set of four interrelated absences that non-Western scholars have identified.7 These are as follows: the failure to connect contemporary issues of power and politics in a global context to the history of geopolitical relations between West and non-West or North and South; the lack of any serious treatment of neoliberal discourses of development as they are applied in peripheral societies as one powerful modality of a will to a global order; the non-inclusion of any serious treatment of the newer forms of Western intervention in third world societies including those under a United Nations aegis; and a pervasive indifference to theoretical knowledge that is being produced outside the West. Despite a most interesting discourse on the subject of globalization and its impact on regional integration in Africa and elsewhere, scholars who navigate a ‘non-Western,’ non-Eurocentric position in their discourses contribute to the production of ‘non-West theoretical knowledge’ on globalization. They do reflect most of the above-stated absences in their works, however it is the position in this

5 John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (London: Granta, 1997), 1-6. 6 Ibid., 17-28. 7 Aina Tade Akin, Claude Ake, and Samir Amin, Globalization and Social Policy in Africa, Working Paper Series, Codesria (1995).

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paper that such ‘knowledges’ are useful and relevant. This paper is a pioneering attempt to confront and broaden the impact of globalization on the economic, political and social aspects of countries’ attempts to manage development at their own pace. The major difference between the West-centred ‘knowledges’ and others on globalization lies in the emphasis and insights, which are seen in different elements and dynamics. The majority of the ‘West-centred’ analyzes emphasize the ‘ time-space compression,’ ‘shrinking world,’ new technologies, integrated markets, global interdependence and global flows, although ‘non-western knowledges’ struggle with two related sets of elements described below.8 The questions of inequality, unevenness and injustice embodied in the New World Order (NIEO) are of utmost importance given their pervasiveness. This is political, economic and cultural in nature. Many of the contributions involve experiments in understanding what this inequality means for political and economic sovereignty, and for national and international security.9 Related to this phenomenon, and illustrated concretely by the economic restructuring process embodied in the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), is the question of what globalization means for economic development and whether the programs constitute developmental possibilities for African economies.10

There is finally the set of concerns that seems to grow daily, focused on the social, economic and political implications and consequences of the global restructuring of capital through the SAPs.11 It is in the SAP literature, particularly in non-West scholarship, that one

8 Roger Burback, Orlando Nunez and Boris Kagarlitsky, Globalization and its Disorders: The Rise and Fall of Modern Socialism (Chicago: Pluto Press, 1997). 9 Samir Amin, Capitalism in the Age of Globalization: The Management of Contemporary Society (London and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books, 1997), 17-66; Claude Ake, A Political Economy of Africa, (Longman: Harlow, Essex, 1981), 16-31. 10 Claude Claude, Democracy and Development in Africa (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1996), 77-109. 11 World Bank, “Accelerated Development and UN Committee for Program and Co-ordination, Proposed Revision to the System-wide Plan of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development, Thirty-fourth Session” E/AC.51/1994/7, (1994), 7.

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finds the broad range, depth and diversity of the concerns raised here, with an important element of the globalization problematique. Understanding the Processes: Regionalization and Globalization

The content of the renewed trend toward regionalism throughout the world has changed radically. The new regionalism we are experiencing is a truly worldwide phenomenon. In general, the old regionalism had specific objectives, aims and content, and often had a simple and narrow focus on free trade arrangements and security alliances.12

The new regionalism in its numbers, scope and diversity during the last decade is comprehensive, multifaceted and multidimensional, implying the change of a particular region from relative heterogeneity to increased homogeneity with regard to a number of dimensions. The most important dimension is that of policies toward economic development, security, political regimes and culture. The convergence along these dimensions may be a natural process, politically driven or, most likely, a mixture of both. While the old regionalism was often imposed, directly or indirectly, from above and outside, very much in accordance with the bipolar Cold War power structure - so-called ‘hegemonic regionalism’ - and/or as a simple copy of the European Community (EC), as is the case of regional integration schemes in sub-Saharan Africa. The new regionalism, on the other hand, involves more spontaneous processes that often emerge from below and within the region itself, and more in accordance with its peculiarities and problems.

At the close of the twentieth century it is crucial to understand that the new regionalism is a complex process of change taking place simultaneously at various levels of analysis: the global system level; the level of interregional relations; and the internal structure of the region (including the nation-states, sub-national ethnic groups and trans-national micro-regions). However, it is not possible to state which of the levels dominate, because the processes at the various levels interact and their relative importance differs from one region and period to another.

12 Richard Falk, “State of Siege: Will Globalization Win Out”? International Affairs 73 (1997): 316-24.

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Much of the contemporary debate these days centres on the intriguing relationship between globalism and regionalism. There are many perceptions of and opinions about both of these processes and how they relate to each other. There are no clear-cut answers as to what extent they mutually support and reinforce each other. According to deMelo and Panagariya and Fawcett and Hurrell, the relationship tends to be symbiotic rather than contradictory.13 While others emphasize a dialectical rather than a linear relationship among the processes of regionalism and globalization.14 However, the conclusion that can be drawn from this mutuality is that regionalization and globalization are constitutive processes within the broader context of the global system currently undergoing change. As such, we are dealing with differing layers of these processes. Forms of Regional Integration

The increased importance of interregional relations is also characteristic of the current wave of globalization. Since we are dealing with a world-order phenomenon, the behaviour of one region has an impact on the behaviour of others, the most obvious being integration schemes in sub-Saharan Africa. The new wave of regional integration in this part of the world is taking shape despite political conflicts that are affecting their growth into viable regional blocks such as NAFTA, APEC, the Indian Oceana Rim (IOR), and the European Union.15 As regionalism (in the broad sense) covers too many phenomena to be useful as an analytical tool, it is broken down into specific categories. Drawing on recent literature,16 we will distinguish analytically between the following forms of regional integration: intergovernmental regional co-operation and state-promoted regional integration; market-and

13 Andrew Hurrell, “Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order” in Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective, eds. Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 14 B. Hettne, A. Inotai and S. Osvalo, eds., Studies in New Regionalism, 4 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1998-1999). 15 Joachim Hirch, “Global Capitalism versus Democracy” in Globalization, Class and the Question of Democracy, eds. Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (U.K. and NY: Merlin Press and Monthly Review, 1999). 16 Several scholars treat these definitions in a similar manner, however they are often incompatible.

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society-induced regionalization; regional convergence and coherence; and regional identity. ‘ Intergovernmental regional co-operation’ refers to an open-ended process, whereby individual states act together for mutual benefit in certain fields, such as infrastructure, water and energy, and to solve common tasks. This form of integration is best understood from the perspective of the interests of individual member states. Intergovernmental regional co-operation may be formal and involve a high degree of institutionalization, but it may also be based on a much looser and ‘ informal’ structure. It constitutes one component of all the regionalization processes that are analyzed in this paper. ‘State-promoted regional integration’ is a deeper form of joint action, which refers to a process whereby the individual states voluntarily merge and mingle, wholly or partly, into a single regional economy and political system.17 State-promoted regional economic integration refers mainly to the policies designed to abolish barriers to the mutual exchange of goods, services, capital and people. Regional integration in the political sphere involves a minimum degree of transfer of sovereignty or functions to supranational organs.18 However, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) as a body and the various sub-regional schemes are yet to show evidence of the realization of such an enterprise in terms of achieving an African Economic Community by the year 2025.

According to Hurrell,19 ‘market-and society-induced regionalization’ refers to the growth of the often-undirected processes of social and economic interaction and interdependence. This type of regionalization may be affected by intergovernmental regional co-operation and state-promoted regional integration, but is crucial to separating analytically the processes from one another; a distinction that is not often made. The actors and driving forces of the latter are obvious, while in the former they come from markets, private trade and

17 Joseph Nye, Peace in Parts: Integration and Conflict in Regional Organization (Boston: Little Brown and Company,[1971] 1978). 18 Supranationality here refers to the bypassing or transferring of member states’ decision-making authority, implementation of rules and functions traditionally exercised by the government. 19 Hurrell, “Regionalism in World Politics,” 21-27.

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investment flows, the networks of private firms, transnational business networks, citizens, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other types of social networks contributing to the formation of transnational regional economy and civil society. Here again, the activities and interaction of the countries in Africa and such engines of sustainable integration as their activities demonstrated in the integration process within the European Union have been minimal. ‘Regional convergence and coherence’ are also needed to understand the process of increasing regionalism. As Hurrell points out, this phenomenon can be understood in two ways: when the region plays a defining role in the relations with the rest of the world; and when the region serves as the organizing basis across a wide range of issues within the region.20 Of course there are different paths to regional convergence and coherence. Besides explanations at the regional level of analysis, convergence may occur either as a consequence of structure and behaviour at the domestic level. For instance, during the past few years, economic and political systems in sub-Saharan Africa have converged and become more compatible with the ideals of SAPs of the International Monetary Fund. This convergence has become necessary either because of domestic policy convergence or externally imposed conditionalities, or by way of regional co-operation and integration. But the failure of SAPs and the questions regarding the benefits derived by developing countries have temporarily halted this kind of convergence. ‘Regional identity’ is a contested concept but it cannot be ignored. It plays a much more significant role in the new regionalism when compared to the old in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, it is evident that many parts of the world including sub-Saharan Africa have seen a marked increase in regional awareness and regional identity. This shared perception of belonging to a particular community can be explained by internal (domestic and regional) as well as external factors. To a certain extent, all regions are ‘ imagined’ , subjectively defined and by nature, cognitive constructions. There is also an inherent ‘sameness’ in many regions shaped by pre-Westphalian empires and civilizations.21 To be successful, regionalization requires a certain degree of homogeneity or compatibility of culture, identity, and fundamental values. In Africa, 20 Ibid., 444. 21 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs 72 (1997): 3.

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there are questions of such homogeneity or compatibility because of the residual colonial mentality of francophone and anglophone countries’ link with France and Britain - their colonial metropolis. The Globalization predicaments for sub-Saharan Africa

There are several internal and external reasons for Africa’s complex socio-economic and political problems. The first is that democracy was denied to Africans for about a century, and that any opposition to European rule was ruthlessly crushed. The second is that owing to the international division of labour, the continent has always been at the periphery of world political and economic systems. The third is Africa’s lack of economic, scientific, and technological infrastructures, and the fourth is the cultural dimension of poverty, underdevelopment, injustice, and authoritarianism.

Certain trends and dynamics are noticeable in the study of globalization as it affects regional integration schemes in sub-Saharan Africa. To a great extent, they often define how research questions are posed and the nature of policy formulation and initiatives. Yet, like the definitions above, they cannot be taken at face value. They require not only further analysis but also an understanding of the directions in which a failure properly to appreciate their character and property can lead us. The basic analogy here is that certain streams within international relations and international political economy and in combination with certain streams in development theory, affect the sustainability of sub-Saharan African countries in their intended integration as coherent regional blocs. Such strands provide a base from which to start global theorizing.

First, globalization has a local resonance in terms of development through regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the growing irrelevance of a ‘nation-state approach’ to integration and the premature dominance of a ‘world approach’ by the forces that are totally divorced from all recent and external action programs that sub-Saharan African countries have assigned a major role. These programs include: the Monrovia Strategy (1979), the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) and the

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Final Act of Lagos,22 the World Bank’s 1981,1983 and 1984 publications23 and those of the European Economic Community,24 Africa’s Priority Program for Economic Recovery (APPER), Africa’s Submission to the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Africa’s Economic and Social Crisis, and the United Nations Program of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development (UN-PAAERD), and these have all failed to yield measurable results. Second, the basis of co-operation for both functionalists and neo-functionalists is that co-operation should be initiated in the technical and basic functional areas. This process will then gradually spill over within and across sectors. According to the neo-functionalists such as Haas,25 the process would spill over and lead to increased political integration, supranationality, and a redefinition of group identity around the regional unit. In sub-Saharan Africa, the functions, which need to be linked together in a network of organization for this functionalist principle to work, are non-existent. As institutionalization is in its early stages, many sub-regional integration organizations in Africa are only mechanisms for organizing and servicing meetings and for maintaining contacts, while others concentrate on national matters. In Africa, such institutional structures and mechanisms should not be misconceptualized as they are based on a multilateralism of economic enterprise. They are no more than facilitating instruments; the success or failure of which will be measured by the extent to which the intended objectives/targets are achieved within the time frame set by the participating countries. In

22 Organization of African Unity, Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa: 1980-2000 (Geneva: Institute for Labour Studies, 1981), 128. 23 World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Sahara Africa: An Agenda for Action (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1981); World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress Report on Development Prospects and Progress (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1983); World Bank, Towards Sustainable Development in Sub-Sahara Africa: A Joint Program of Action (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1984). 24 John A. C. Conybeare, Dale L. Smith and James Lee Ray, eds., The 1992 Project and the Future of Integration: Europe (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993); European Community, The European Community and Africa (Brussels, 1984). 25 Ernest B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964).

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short, there is not yet a consensus among states or a convergence of the various regional blocs in sub-Saharan Africa.

The third is dependency theory and the familiar division of the world into centre (or core) and periphery. The primary goal of dependency theory is for members of any regional integration scheme in Africa to reduce reliance on the outside world and to create conditions that will make self-sustained, autonomous development possible. In the African setting, such development can only come about through the transformation of productive structures. However, the forces of globalization will delineate such a dependency at a stage of higher integration and interdependence of the world, where the ‘delinking’ option is ruled out in place of the involuntary marginalization of African economies. Despite the regional identity and awareness in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly those within Asia and that of the European Union, sub-Saharan Africa has yet to witness governments willing to pool their resources for the common good of the sub-region.26 Finally, regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa is between immanence, that is, theorizing about development as ‘ inherent’ in history, and an intention, or political rhetoric, of the leaders to ‘develop’ their individual countries. These intentions continue to breed unrealistic voluntarism, particularly as development has become globalized and out of reach for the main actor – the states of the African continent.

On the whole, the economic communities in Africa were set up to play a vital role in the socio-economic transformation of the African economies and help to alleviate mass poverty through sustained recovery and growth. But there are a number of questions that need to be addressed. For example, to what extent have the African countries been willing to take the measures necessary to give practical effect to their declared objective? Why is there a striking contradiction between each sub-region’s general emphasis on the need for economic integration in Africa and the scanty evidence of practical success? Why has regionalism been less successful in Africa than elsewhere? What have been the challenges, experiences, stresses and strains of these integration schemes as they strive to translate articulated objectives into concrete 26 Economic Commission for Africa, “Proposals for the Implementation of the Abuja Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community,” E/ECA/CM/19/7 (1993), 1-18.

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results? The problem level of analysis is the region, soon to be consumed by the forces of globalization and as a political actor, and becoming increasingly less important in the emerging world order. The Interlocking problems of Globalization on sub-Saharan Africa

The analysis arising from the discourse on globalization is about the dynamics, contradictions and intricacies of capitalist production, consumption, accumulation, distribution and exchange. Globalization has various facets and perspectives ranging from the economic, technological, information, cultural and political. The crucial questions are: what is the place of Africa and its approach to regionalism in all this? Has African regionalism been envisioned to play any positive role in the globalization project? How does the globalization project define or picture Africa’s new wave of regional schemes and whose interests are likely to be served, if Africa decides to embrace globalization?

The ideals of globalization, just like all other socio-economic projects of the West, neither understands nor addresses the African reality. The point that needs to be made is that globalization is not rejected merely because it is a capitalist concept. The intended convergence process of globalization without allowing for the needs of Africa's political, economic and social developmental needs is rejected because the issues and audience it addresses are not African.27 There are many other pertinent issue-areas that globalization cannot address. The forgoing analysis illustrates and justifies these assertions.

First, neoliberal economics cannot explain the nature and causes of the poor performance of African economies, just as it cannot do the same for relative growth. It is shocking to note that the health of an economy is still being measured through the computation of GDP and per capita income. Per capita income does not tell us anything about poverty, household income, especially that of the peasantry, and other differentiated social categories of the rural areas also cannot provide the needed measurements. It cannot even identify the proper tools and classificatory scheme to study such people and their social and economic 27 Abubakar Momoh, “The Anatomy and Pathologies of Globalization: An Afrocentric Problematisation of Philosophy and Substance” (paper presented at the 12th biennial Congress of African Association of Political Science, Dakar, 1999), 1-22.

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location in the capitalist economy.28 African trade remains oriented predominantly toward the rich North, perpetuating the dependence of the continent on exports. Although intra-regional trade is on the rise, accounting for 8.4% since 1993, Africa still trails other regions in this particular area: Western Europe (72%) Eastern Europe (46%), Asia 48% and North America (31%).29 As trade liberalization remains the major step toward the formation and consolidation of a free trade area, customs union and common market, a globalized world in which barriers are dismantled is detrimental to sub-Saharan Africa in view of the slow pace of maximizing gains from trade liberalization.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Economic communities of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL), the Mano River Union (MRU), the Preferential Trade Area of Central Africa (PTA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have been attempting to strengthen and consolidate their trade liberalization schemes, but at the moment without adequate results. All these regional integration schemes are looking to promote and enhance economic development through close collaboration in all fields of economic activity.

However, the impact of globalization - which implies the growth of a functional world market both penetrating and dominating so-called ‘national’ economies - will destroy the ‘nationness’ of the fragile African economies, most of which are barely in functional order. Adherents to neoliberalism and globalization do not understand the operating principles of African economies. Globalization, therefore, does not have the same meaning for the people of the industrialized north, and the people of Africa. The major point here is that globalization has no theory of justice or equity, which means it cannot address the poor who constitute the global majority. Second, is the issue of divestiture and privatization as part of the economic logic of globalization. The issue of divestiture and privatization in Africa entails a few private companies and Multinational Corporations (MNCs) taking over the assets of states. The policies of the IMF and World Bank’s ceiling on government spending have already led 28 J. de Melo and A. Panagariya, New Dimensions in Regional Integration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 29 United Nations World Trade Figures for 1999.

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to the termination of most African economies’ investment capabilities. The dollarization of the African local economies (a case in point is Ghana), and the regulatory and forced devaluation imposed by the international financial speculators have in themselves resulted in inflation. A case in point is Nigeria, where the Nigerian economy has been labelled a “ rogue state.” This, in turn, has resulted in lay-offs, wage freezes, de-indexation of wages, and has caused the governments to eliminate minimum wage legislation and also to eliminate cost of living adjustments in collective bargaining agreements.30 Third, globalization raises fears that the sovereignty of Africa’s nation-states could be undermined. For, if sovereignty is defined as the ability of African states individually to exercise control without outside interference, then their nations, which are in embryonic stages will clearly experience diminishing sovereignty. These phenomena are troubling, as African countries have to convince themselves that pooling their resources will promote autonomous industrialization within the countries through the development of large intermediate and capital foods industries, the promotion of multinational enterprises, and especially the development of strategic natural resources within the sub-regions.

As part of a planned strategy by the African countries to achieve full integration by 2025,31 the impact of globalization continues to affect the quality of democracy on the continent. African government responses to globalization or the search for joint solutions to global policy dilemmas are bound to have a further negative impact on sovereignty. For instance, participation in international organizations or the adoption of international agreements, which do not favour integration, limit policy options available to governments. They may even require modifications in long-standing and highly valued domestic policies and practices. The involvement and continued relationship of French-speaking countries in West Africa to their colonial metropolis is a clear example. France is one such ‘colonial monster’ which still practices a degree of economic and political integration with its former colonies in West Africa, who are members of ECOWAS, in pursuit of a cohesive regional development policy. 30 Michael Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty, (London and New Jersey: Zed and Twn, 1997). 31 Organization of African Unity, Lagos Plan of Action.

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In sub-Saharan Africa, the emerging global free market works to

set sovereign states against one another in geo-political struggles for dwindling natural resources controlled by colonial institutions. The effect of a laissez-faire philosophy, which condemns state intervention in the economy, also impels states to become rivals for control of resources that no institution has any responsibility to conserve. Similar to this is the current state of economic development theory demonstrated by the policies of the IMF and the World Bank regarding SAPs. Neither would the world economy that is envisaged and organized as a global free market be able to meet the universal human need for security in terms of ethnic conflicts and random cases of ethnic racism on the continent. The end result for African governments would culminate in their inability to protect their citizens and discharge their duties as engines for the realization of the now famous Abuja Treaty of 1994, which aims at the achievement of an African Economic Community (AEC) by the year 2025. A regime of global laissez-faire would prevent African governments from discharging this protective and development role; a failure of which will further plunge the continent into greater political, social and economic instability with varying consequences for the West. Fourth, globalization is changing the way in which African governments operate in global commerce. The globalization of financial markets is just one aspect of this changed environment. The challenge to African policy makers is made more acute by a host of other ‘ internationalizations’ under way, in such areas as crime, communications, drug smuggling, population movements, and product and service markets. International actors and events that national governments cannot hope to control, either individually or collectively, increasingly affect the so-called domestic issues that African governments are confronted with. This has evoked fears that national policy autonomy – or even national sovereignty – is being undermined. For sure, globalization raises many challenges for African policy makers. The structures of government and policy-making systems need to be adjusted if governments are going to function effectively in a global policy environment. Moreover, greater attention must be paid to the impact of globalization on the functioning and quality of democracy. Toward this end, globalization will stifle progress because national governments will have no real option but to attempt to band

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together. If they try to modernize as the process of globalization forces most states to do, Africa will be robbed of its hopes to pursue and initiate a comprehensive and timeless development theory. As Hirst and Thompson put it, “ globalization is a myth suitable for a world without illusions, but it is also one that robs us of hope…for it is held that Western social democracy and socialism of the former Soviet bloc are both finished.”32 I could not agree more with Hirst and Thompson's assertion that the political impact of “ globalization” on countries in sub-Sahara Africa will definitely result in the pathology of over-diminished expectations.

Just as globalization is about power relations and the construction33 of hegemonic order, these analyzes rely on constructs that reflect and express a view and realization of that power, of the world, of those who construct it and the place from which they perceive it. The constructs express what Hirst calls the “myths and realities of the global economy and what that translates to development theories in the developing world. In other words, it must be realized that even when the so-called ‘periphery’ is being discussed, the dominant globalization discourses are themselves entangled and embroiled in the very contradictions and complexity of the world we try to understand. In that process, even in constructing analytical modes, globalization theories imagine and envision the world within a limited scope which is place-determined in terms of privileging a particular Eurocentric (Northern) positioning or understanding, which undervalues, ignores or rejects non-European, non-Northern visions and knowledge. Backed by the very global order being studied, these discourses succeed in imposing on the rest of the world, particularly the South – being African economies - their outlines of the visions and imaginations of the globe. This in itself reflects the uneven power relations or the influences discussed here.

Ohmae suggests that such an anomaly provides an interesting and useful critique of these ‘Western visions of the global.’ “These ‘global perspectives’ tend to conceal a limiting, enclosed and particularly centred position that is characterized by historical and geopolitical

32 Paul Hirst and Thompson Graham, Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996). 33 Paul Hirst, “The Global Economy: Myths and Realities,” International Affairs 73: 5 (1997): 16.

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amnesia.”34 This attitude of forgetfulness is conducive to the preservation and continued development of a distorted ‘world view’, since it allows for the historical erasure of imperial politics, and in addition, represses the record of contemporary forms of western power over the non-western forms, which some authors refer to as the ‘new imperialism.’

In short, whatever the terminology, the process of regional integration in Africa is now inextricably linked to that of economic development.35 Like the integration schemes launched in the 1960s, which essentially underscored the reality that regionalism was eminent and was a necessary complementary strategy to national and, regional economic self-reliance, the new regionalism approach in the 1980s has been fraught with a growth of bureaucracy and institutions. The principal reason is the lack of anything to trade, particularly when the unrecorded trade (smuggling) is ignored. African markets account for a small volume of intra-African trade and command any likelihood that the mere removal of trade barriers would produce a rapid expansion of such trade to enhance development should they attempt to ‘globalize.’ Furthermore, the lack of progress of most integration schemes in Africa is the reflection of the discontent of participating governments with the design and results of the sub-regional market integration schemes. Suffice it to say that these schemes do not provide demonstrable benefits to the participants, thereby negating their hopes of integrating their economies for enhanced development.

The lack of commitment to regionalism in Africa has manifested itself in member countries developing their own strategies, plans and priorities independently. The impact of globalization is thus manifested in a shift from a world of distinct national economies attempting to pool such economies together into a viable integration for development, to a global economy in which production is internationalized and financial capital flows freely and instantly between countries.

Although African countries continue to speak of collective action for regional integration, no single state has yet designed its national plans to be consistent with the promotion of effective integration for development. Also, most African leaders have not been able to 34 Kenichi Ohmae, The End of the Nation-State: The Rise of Regional Economies (London: HarperCollins, 1995), 367. 35 Asante, “Development and Regional Integration since 1980,” 75-99.

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distinguish between long-term development requisites and short-term political tactics; a situation responsible for the frequent rise and fall of sub-regional groupings on the continent.36 Regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa has become a result of two things: either African states still believe that they can develop autonomous, self-sustained economies in an independent manner, or that they do not fully understand the dynamics involved between the linkage of national interest and that of community interest should they opt for globalization. This is particularly reflected in their response to the international community. The Need for Structural and Institutional Change

In recognition of the above problems with regionalism in Africa, a reform of the world economy that would accept a diversity of cultures, regimes and market economies as a permanent reality is needed. A global free market belongs to a world in which Western hegemony seemed assured. Global relations are easily identified in terms of visible institutions, such as colonial administrations, transnational corporations, world banking and labour organizations, and are constructed within an already existing global field. Thus colonial administrations reinforce and institutionalize an already existing global hierarchy.37

Like all other variants of the Enlightenment utopia of a ‘universal civilization,’ globalization presupposes Western supremacy. It does not square with a pluralist world in which there is no power that can exercise the hegemony of Britain, the United States and other Western states possessed in the past. It does not meet the needs of a time in which Western institutions and values are no longer universally authoritative. It does not allow the world’s manifold cultures such as those in Africa to achieve modernization that is adapted to their histories, circumstances and distinctive needs.

If African governments are going to function effectively in an interdependent world, some adjustment in the machinery of government is required. Yet, despite increased recognition of the need to adapt to a ‘New World,’ African government structures remain largely rooted in the 36 Assertions frequently made by S. K. B. Asante, regarding the cohesiveness of regional integration schemes in sub-Saharan Africa. 37 Henrique F. Caroso, “Globalization and International Relations,” (paper presented at the University of Witswaterstrand, South Africa, 1996).

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past. In the absence of particular sub-regional strategies, change is occurring slowly and in a relatively piecemeal fashion. Individual government institutions, in particular the sectoral specialists who work in them, are themselves adapting to a globalized environment by developing their own transnational linkages. By blurring institutional and policy boundaries, globalization is challenging African governments’ capacities to provide effective and coherent policy responses to the impact of globalization. Conclusion

At the close of the twentieth century, regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa faces an enormous uphill battle in which Africa will have to organize in order to arrest a threatening process of marginalization and ‘peripheralization,’ as a result of the forces of globalization. At the same time, their regional arrangements are as fragile and ineffective as their states and – this weakness notwithstanding – they must first of all tackle acute poverty and domestic violence. Their overall situation thus makes ‘security regionalism’ and ‘developmental regionalism’ more important than the rather irrelevant creation of a new phenomenon of globalization. Globalization becomes relevant only when some strength vis-à-vis the rest of the world has been achieved by integration schemes in sub-Saharan Africa.

As Palmer claims, Africa’s new form of regionalism is linked with nationalism and domestic factors.38 Regionalism cannot be understood as a distinct alternative to national interest and nationalism, but is often better explained as an instrument to supplement, enhance or protect the role of the state and the power of the government in an interdependent world. In this vein, nation-states in Africa today lack the experience and capacity to handle global challenges to national interests, and they respond increasingly by ‘pooling individual sovereignty,’ and in the process destroying the hopes of regionalization on the continent. At the same time, they give up sovereignty and may ultimately end up as semi-independent parts of a larger political community.

38 N. D. Palmer, The New Regionalism in Asia and the Pacific (Lexington, MA: 1992), 2.

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Despite the benefits of globalization, such benefits will not come easily for African governments, nor will the challenges be met without adjustment. There are concrete issues for them to consider and address. These can be separated into two categories. First, there is a need for adjustment in the structures or machinery of individual governments to enable the totality of African governments to function effectively in an interdependent world. Second, governments must examine the impact of globalization on national and international policy-making processes, and the relationships between various policy actors therein, so as to protect and strengthen the basic democratic underpinnings required for national and global governance.

Regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa is the most concrete African initiative in this direction to arrest the fundamental causes of African economies’ decline. These include regional inequalities and intractable problems of politicization, which lead to institutional tension and decay. Thus, the lessening of the high degree of external dependence on forces such as globalization is a precondition for achieving basic structural development goals that most African countries desperately need at this time.

Viewed within the context of the New International Economic Order, and the forces of globalization, sub-Saharan Africa’s integration schemes must be regarded as an integral part of a wider desire of the international political system to eliminate, or at least to reduce, the inequalities inherent in the present international economic system with which it is incompatible. What African nations need is the chance to transform themselves into democratic regimes – at least regimes which can manage to avoid interstate as well as intrastate conflicts. For, if they organize themselves for the sake of being better able to control and obtain access to the rest of the world with respect to resources and markets they will lessen their susceptibility to external influence and play a more influential role in the globalized economy.