Regionalisation in Africa: Integration and Disintegration (review)

The former director of the Centre d'étude d'Afrique noire (CEAN) in Bordeaux and a recognized authority on African regionalism, Daniel Bach offers us the proceedings of a conference on "Integration and regionalisation in sub-Saharan Africa" (CEAN, Bordeaux, May 1994), which earlier appeared in French under the title Régionalisation, Mondialisation et Fragmentation en Afrique Subsaharienne (Paris: Karthala, 1998).

This comprehensive edited volume of two hundred dense pages and nineteen chapters is divided into four parts covering a broad range of issues. Part One ("Regionalism and Globalisation") situates Africa in the context of the world economy. Part Two ("States and Territories") focuses on the impact of boundaries, democratization, civil society and regional entities on African states. Part Three examines the problems and prospects of various African regional organizations, while Part Four looks at the impact of "informal" and "illicit" commercial processes and networks on African economic integration.

Starting from the (mistaken) view that there is practically no regionalization in Africa, Daniel Bach argues that quite the opposite is, in fact, the case. He notes, however, that Africa's regionalization processes are closely intertwined with changing patterns of globalization that are leading to the progressive, economic marginalization of the continent (p. xvii). In a cogent, concise, and thoughtful introductory chapter, Bach then discusses the crisis of territorial and governmental legitimacy, and its impact on African regional organizations. He argues with some justification that "far from contributing to an adjustment of the state to the pressure of globalization, regionalization in Africa is primarily the expression of micro-strategies which . . . seek to take advantage of the resources of globalization, with the effect of a further erosion of the states' territorial and governmental legitimacy" (p. 2). The point is aptly illustrated by Walter Kennes, who argues that the European Union supports regional integration in Africa "as a step toward wider liberalization and integration into the world economy" (pp. 38-9), even if the positive bias of donors toward regionalism has contributed to the proliferation of regional institutions in Africa.

The vexing issue of the gradual erosion of authority, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the African postcolonial state in the face of myriad (domestic and external) challenges is exhaustively tackled in part II of the book on "States and Territories." For Christopher Clapham, due to lack of power, authority, control, and economic collapse, African states are condemned to be forever marginalized in the world system (an argument well illustrated by Edouard Bustin's penetrating case study of the collapse of Congo/Zaïre). Both Dominique Darbon (in an obtuse way) and Célestin Monga (more convincingly) analyze civil society's capacity to challenge state power and authority in Africa, while Niandou Souley concisely highlights the paradox of African democracy, occurring against a backdrop of severe economic and financial crisis. Finally, the problems and ambiguities inherent in relations between the central government and the states and provinces in the quasifederal systems of Nigeria and South Africa are well captured by Rotimi Suberu and Simon Bekker, respectively.

Part Three really delves into the details of the actual functioning, problems, and prospects of key African regional organizations--already surveyed by Kennes in Chapter Three--with particular focus on 1) the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS; Olatunde Ojo), the Union Duanière des États de l'Afrique Centrale (UDEAC), the Communauté Économique des États de l'Afrique Centrale (CEEAC), and the Communauté Économique et Monétaire d'Afrique Centrale (CEMAC; Marc-Louis Ropivia and Roland Pourtier); 2) the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Common market for eastern and southern Africa (COMESA; Peter Takirambude); and, finally 3) the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and Common Monetary Area (CMA; Colin McCarthy). Michel Lelart tackles the crucial issue of the future of the franc zone in the context of European monetary integration. Finally, part IV successively examines cross-border trade between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire (Bruno Stary), transnational commercial networks of Congolese...