There is a gap in the legal scholarship on African regional trade agreements (RTAs) that links law and development to narratives of developmental regionalism. This article undertakes a critical analysis of the 'developmental regionalism' paradigm as they have been applied in the study of African RTAs. The article identifies three areas of critical intervention to address the incoherence of developmental regionalism in Africa: limitation in theory; narrow conceptualization; and an insufficient attention to the role of law. First, to address the gap in theorizing the 'development' in developmental regionalism, this article makes the case for an explicit linking of Law and Development scholarship and Developmental Regionalism in African regional trade agreements. In so doing, while the article acknowledges the shortcomings of mainstream Law and Development Scholarship, it contends that these critiques do not foreclose the cross-pollination of the fields to offer a theoretical basis for a more rigorous understanding of developmental regionalism in African RTAs. Second, to address the narrow understandings of developmental regionalism, the emphasizes the importance of a robust definition of the concept. It makes the case for rethinking developmental regionalism as an analytical tool that responds to and accommodates the multidimensional character of African RTAs. In turn, the article argues that rethinking developmental regionalism as an analytical tool avoids the need for prescriptive and limiting definitions of the scope of the concept. Thirdly, the article argues for a more rigorous engagement with the role of law in African RTAs. Since these agreements are not strict rules-based regimes; the article pushes back against the failure narratives that are produced by dominant theoretical frameworks that privilege globalized legal thoughts embedded in trade agreements. In conclusion, the article argues that our understanding of African RTAs as 'flexible legal regimes' or in anti-formalist terms is deepened by an explicit linkage of the fluid concept of development to the selective implementation of the RTAs based on their priorities.

Post-colonial Africa is littered with regional trade agreements that amounted to little more than a photo opportunity for the leaders that signed them. This book explores conventional explanations for past failures and posits a new theory rooted in the symbiotic relationship between authoritarian politics and crony-capitalism.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

This book explores how law and policy makers within the Southern African Development Community regional structure might reform the legal and regulatory frameworks to best capitalise the benefits of the movement of people, drawing lessons from other experienced jurisdictions by critically engaging with the regulatory efforts and approaches in regions such as the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and the East African Community to propose a revised approach to migration governance and practice in the SADC. Deeper regional integration allows citizens to move freely across national boundaries, and services are a rising component of global trade and investment. However, global trade in services is stifled by barriers at and behind the border. These barriers make it difficult for service providers from developing regions to access key markets in their preferred modes of service trade. Against this background, this book aims to take the discussion on furthering regional integration and trade through the movement of people by tackling issues on stringent immigration policies, arguing that having a vibrant and rewarding trade in services will require an approach towards the unrestricted movement of persons.

Interrogating the notion of developmental regionalism as applies to Southern Africa, this volume explores the policy options and interventions necessary to ensure a peaceful and stable regional development process. With a focus on the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the contributions explore how regional institutions such as this can be drivers of developmental regionalism. Institutional architecture, along with key policy priorities, and implementation strategies in areas such as trade, industry, agriculture, private sector development and conflict management are analysed, and the ramifications of regional interventions for peace building and regional security in post-conflict Southern African countries are explored. Drawing on this analysis the book proffers key policy options and strategies for how developmental regionalism can be both consummated and sustained, ultimately driving economic transformation. Illustrating to policymakers, scholars and development practitioners how regional institutions can be engines or facilitators of regional development, the book will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of areas including development studies, public policy and African studies.

The world is changing rapidly in several critical areas that could reshape our lifestyles, development, the environment, democracy, and geopolitics. Among the numerous obstacles, barriers, and opportunities, some significant challenges should be considered for the future planning of our territories and regions all over the globe. The Handbook of Research on Current Advances and Challenges of Borderlands, Migration, and Geopolitics collects a robust set of contributions concerning border territories dynamics and geopolitics in the current and future context. Covering key topics such as green economy, biodiversity, territorial management, and spatial planning, this major reference work is ideal for government officials, industry professionals, environmentalists, technicians, policymakers, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Africa, which was not long ago discarded as a hopeless and irrelevant region, has become a new 'frontier' for global trade, investment and the conduct of international relations. This book surveys the socio-economic, intellectual and security related dimensions of African regionalisms since the turn of the 20th century. It argues that the continent deserves to be considered as a crucible for conceptualizing and contextualizing the ongoing influence of colonial policies, the emergence of specific integration and security cultures, the spread of cross-border regionalisation processes at the expense of region-building, the interplay between territory, space and trans-state networks, and the intrinsic ambivalence of global frontier narratives. This is emphasized through the identification of distinctive 'threads' of regionalism which, by focusing on genealogies, trajectories and ideals, transcend the binary divide between old and new regionalisms. In doing so, the book opens new perspectives not only on Africa in international relations, but also Africa’s own international relations. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of African politics, African history, regionalism, comparative regionalism, and more broadly to international political economy, international relations and global and regional governance.

This collection explores the analytical, empirical and normative components that distinguish socio-legal approaches to international economic law both from each other, and from other approaches. It pays particular attention to the substantive focus (what) of socio-legal approaches, noting that they go beyond the text to consider context and, often, subtext. In the process of identifying the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ (analytical and empirical tools) of their own socio-legal approaches, contributors to this collection reveal why they or anyone else ought to bother--the many reasons ‘why’ it is important, for theory and for practice, to take a social legal approach to international economic law.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} This book analyses the main factors influencing the political economy of Africa’s asymmetrical regionalism, focusing on regional and sub-regional trade, investment, movement of people, goods and services. It pays particular attention to the way in which regional and sub-regional dynamics are impacted by extra-regional relations, such with the EU, US, China and India. Because African regionalism is influenced not only by economic processes, peace and security are also analysed as important factors shaping both regional and sub-regional relations and dynamics.

This volume includes many of Edward D Mansfield's contributions to research on the political economy of trade. Among the topics addressed are the effects of power relations and international economic institutions on trade flows, the influence of domestic politics on trade policy, the factors that shape the mass public's attitudes toward trade, and the determinants of the formation and expansion of international trade agreements. The Political Economy of International Trade is an essential reference for scholars and graduate students interested in the international political economy. Contents:Systemic Approaches to the International Trading System:The Concentration of Capabilities and International TradePower Politics and International TradeAlliances, Preferential Trading Arrangements, and International TradeInternational Institutions and the Volatility of International TradeThe Political Economy of Trade Policy and Trade Attitudes:The Political Economy of Nontariff Barriers: A Cross-National AnalysisFree to Trade: Democracies, Autocracies, and International TradeVotes and Vetoes: The Political Determinants of Commercial OpennessSupport for Free Trade: Self-Interest, Sociotropic Politics, and Out-Group AnxietyThe Political Economy of Preferential Trading Agreements:The Proliferation of Preferential Trading ArrangementsWhy Democracies Cooperate More: Electoral Control and International Trade AgreementsVetoing Co-operation: The Impact of Veto Players on Preferential Trading ArrangementsMultilateral Determinants of Regionalism: The Effects of GATT/WTO on the Formation of Preferential Trading ArrangementsThe Expansion of Preferential Trading Arrangements Readership: Postgraduates, researchers, academics, and policymakers interested in international political economics. Key Features:Covers a much broader range of topics than other competing titlesAddresses the international influences on trade flows, the domestic influences on both trade flows and trade policy, and how individuals in the United States perceive trade, and also addresses the international and domestic influences on trade agreements between countries The author and his co-authors are among the most prominent scholars of international political economy Keywords:Political Economy;International Trade;Globalization