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Regional Integration and Africa's Development Trajectory: meta-theories, expectations and reality

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  • Richard Gibb

Abstract

Regional integration remains an integral part of Africa's development strategy and has underpinned most pan-African development policies for the past 50 years. This paper explores the issue of regional integration in the context of ‘development’ theory and the neo-patrimonial state system in Africa. A central contention of the paper is that Western, Euro-centric conceptions of regionalism, particularly those centred on the market integration approach, have promoted a very biased understanding of regional integration in many parts of the developing world. Using southern Africa as an exemplar case study, the paper argues that the various meta-theories focused on explaining the political economy of regionalism, often closely allied to a development theory paradigm, fail to account for the nature, character and evolution of regional integration. Regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa has been conceived and analysed in the light of the market-led approach, modernity and development. Thus far, it is has failed. This paper therefore explores why market-led regional integration has failed and why, for the foreseeable future, it will continue to do so.

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  • Richard Gibb, 2009. "Regional Integration and Africa's Development Trajectory: meta-theories, expectations and reality," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 701-721.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:30:y:2009:i:4:p:701-721
    DOI: 10.1080/01436590902867136
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    Cited by:

    1. E. A. Ndaguba & O. I. Nzewi & K. B. Shai, 2018. "Financial Imperatives and Constraints towards Funding the SADC Standby Force," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 74(2), pages 179-196, June.
    2. Andrew Enaifoghe & Sandile Blessing Mkhwanazi, 2020. "The Polity of Regional Integration Development and the Challenges Hampering Southern Africa Economic Growth," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 12(5), pages 44-52.
    3. Peter Arthur, 2019. "Economic Community of West African States, Regional security and the Implementation of Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Rhetoric or Reality?," Insight on Africa, , vol. 11(2), pages 162-183, July.

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