Regionalism from without: External involvement of the EU in regionalism in southern Africa

ABSTRACT

Theories and analyses of regionalism, from both ‘orthodox' and ‘critical' strands of international political economy (IPE), have tended to conceptualise regional integration as a process led by intra-regional actors typically in reaction to external forces such as globalisation and the hegemonic power of international actors. This article sheds new light on theories of regionalism by arguing that international actors can have a direct and significant influence on the dynamics of regionalism, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, by examining the influence of the European Union (EU) on the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Building on the recent literature on Africa and international relations, which shows how lines of sovereignty between domestic and international actors are blurred in the case of African political economies, the article shows how the EU played a significant role in the SADC's inception and has been directly influential in shaping the SADC's strategies and priorities in the post-Lomé period. In the latter instance, this article explains how the EU's institutional embeddedness in the SADC's aid structures and its asymmetrical bargaining power in the SADC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) has encouraged the SADC's pursuit of a neoliberal, trade-oriented form of regionalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Regionalism
• SADC
• European Union
• the political economy of aid and trade
• Africa
• Economic Partnership Agreements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Nicola Phillips, Anthony Payne, Heinz Tüselmann, Hamed El-Said, Agnieszka Chidlow, as well as the editorial board and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. Any errors are my own.

Notes

1. For a discussion on the ‘Westphalian assumptions of sovereign statehood' in Africa, see Clapham (1996: 267).

2. As Joseph Hanlon noted, European support for the SADCC had both economic and political motivations. On the economic front, support was due to interest in ‘opening up new markets and sources of raw materials' (Hanlon, 1989: 41). Politically, European support for the SADCC had the aim of promoting a social–democratic alternative in southern Africa to the Marxist governments of Mozambique and Angola. It was hoped that through such European support, the SADCC could help steer Angola and Mozambique away from Soviet influence (Hanlon, 1989: 40).

3. The remaining ICPs, in order of their percentage contribution are: the African Development Bank (20 per cent), World Bank (20 per cent), USAID (11 per cent), Germany (10 per cent), Norway (7 per cent), Sweden (3 per cent), Denmark (2 per cent), France (<1 per cent), Austria (<1 per cent), Finland (<1 per cent), United Kingdom (<1 per cent), United Nations Development Programme (<1 per cent), Japan (<1 per cent), Switzerland (<1 per cent), Belgium (<1 per cent), Development Bank of Southern Africa (<1 per cent), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (<1 per cent) and the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (<1 per cent); Source: SADC Donor Matrix (EC, 2008: 55–86).

4. Source: SADC Trade Database (http://www.sadctrade.org).

5. Although not related to the SADC, see Heron (2011) for an insightful analysis of the EPA negotiations in the Caribbean region.

6. There is a growing literature on the involvement of China and India in sub-Saharan Africa and the degree to which these countries may be competing with the EU and the US for influence. To date, China has focused more on aid and economic relations with African countries rather than African regions (Mohan and Power, 2008: 35; Davies et al., 2008; Taylor, 2006), despite pledging support for regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa, as stated in the ‘Sharm El Sheikh Action Plan (2010–2012)' within the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC, 2009: Article 2, Paragraph 5). However, as Ayers (2012) has recently argued, the degree of China's involvement in aid and trade in sub-Saharan Africa may be overstated, with Chinese FDI being eclipsed by investment by the UK, the US and France (Ayers, 2012: 4) and Chinese aid representing a small fraction of support from OECD states (Ayers, 2012: 5). With regard to India, the SADC and India established the India–SADC Forum in April 2006 and thus far, India's aid commitments appear to be small relative to the EU and other donors discussed above (India, Ministry of External Affairs, 2011). (I would like to thank one anonymous review for drawing my attention to these matters.)