Organized business and regional integration in Africa

ABSTRACT

Although the role of organized business in regional economic integration is well documented, extant scholarship portrays them as mere legitimizers and partners of regional policy. This neat categorization fails to capture the complicated, ‘multiscalarity’ of business and overall civil society's role in regional governance. Drawing insights from social constructivism and empirical evidence from fieldwork conducted in 2012 and 2013 on the interactions between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and region-wide business associations and advocacy networks since the early 1990s, this article shows that although African business groups are relatively new actors at the regional stage, their impact on regional governance is substantial. This is not only in terms of getting governments to adopt particular policies or the ability to hold the state accountable, as functional institutionalists might argue, but also in terms of the regional socialization effects, namely the willingness and ability to frame issues that influence the choices of political decision-makers. Business regional governance roles also straddle competing conventional roles, and sometimes counter the neoliberal vision of regional integration, even among those that owe their emergence to regional organizations. The study also challenges the pervasive view of business actors (especially in Africa) as simply profit-seekers by highlighting the ways business actors have deployed and acted on principled beliefs about regional identity collectively or individually to forge denser and relatively effective policy coalitions that signal unfolding changes in the direction of regional policy in Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• business
• regionalism
• integration
• governance
• civil society
• Africa
• constructivism
• institutionalism
• rent-seeking

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments, and the editors for their encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Interviews

1.	Aminou, Akadiri, Federation of West African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Abuja, 20 March 2013.
2.	Aremu, John Dr, Economist/Consultant, Private Sector Directorate, ECOWAS, Abuja, 16 June 2014.
3.	Braimah, Alfred, Director, ECOWAS Private Sector Directorate, Abuja, 20 March 2013.
4.	Fortune, H. Momoh, a Liberian and President, Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI), telephone interview, Monrovia, 22 August 2014).
5.	Ibru, Goodie (Chief), President, NEPAD West Africa-Business Group and Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industries (LCCI), Ikeja, 7 October 2012. Ibru is also Chairman of Ikeja Hotels Plc. (owners of Sheraton Lagos Hotel), Chairman, Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc. (owners of Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos), Chairman, Hans Gremlin Nigeria Limited (a subsidiary of Ikeja Hotels Plc) which acquired 51 percent equity stake of Capital Hotels Plc. (owners of Abuja Sheraton Hotel, under the privatization program); Chairman of Capital Hotels Plc. and sits on the board of several companies. He stepped down as president of LCCI in 2014.
6.	Monteiro, Amilcar, Executive Director, Cape Verdes Chamber of Commerce and Industries; Telephone interview, Praha, Cape Verdes, 25 August 2014.
7.	Thomas, Olorundare, Director-General, Nigerian Insurance Association (NIA), Lagos, 27 July 2014).
8.	Onwioduokit, Emmanuel A., Deputy Director, Financial Integration, West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), Accra. Interviewed on 6 June 2012.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Okechukwu C. Iheduru

Okechukwu C. Iheduru is Professor of Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe, USA. He won a US Fulbright Scholar to Ghana and Nigeria in 2011 and was a Visiting Professor of Strategic Studies at the National Defence College, Abuja, Nigeria, from 2012--2013. He most recently published ‘Regional integration and the private authority of banks in West Africa,’ International Studies Review, 14(2) (June 2012), 273--302.