A political economy of African regionalisms: introduction

Abstract

Recent accounts of ‘Africa Rising’, as well as older claims that the twentyfirst century would be an ‘African Century’,1 have undeniably led to greater attention to the economic and political potential of countries on the African continent. Ever since the adoption, in 1991, of the so-called Abuja Treaty on the establishment of an African Economic Community by the heads of state and government assembled in the Organization of African Unity (OAU), regional economic collaboration has been an integral part of the African political agenda. The Abuja Treaty adopted a stepwise approach to the creation of the African Economic Community, which should be in place by 2025 (Organization of African Unity 1991: art. 6). Despite the treaty’s grand intentions, most of the six ‘stages’ described in the agreement have not been reached. In March 2018, almost 27 years after the adoption of the Abuja Treaty, 47 African countries were signatories to the Kigali Declaration for the Launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), while 44 signed the AfCFTA agreement. The latter specified as its first objective the creation of ‘a single market for goods, services, facilitated by movement of persons in order to deepen the economic integration of the African continent and in accordance with the Pan African Vision of “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa” enshrined in Agenda 2063’ (African Union 2018a: art. 3a). The ‘reiteration’ of the ‘solemn resolve to deepen our integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)’ in the Kigali Declaration (African Union 2018c: Preamble) brings to mind many earlier attempts to kick-start economic integration on the continent. The Kigali Declaration would seem to be easy prey for critics, who could echo Jeffrey Herbst’s (2007: 129) scepticism that the history of regional cooperation in Africa is ‘a veritable organizational junkyard of unsuccessful attempts to reduce the continent’s balkanization [sic]’. We do not rank ourselves among the sceptics à la Herbst, since we recognize that many