1. A LECTURE AT THE GHANA ARMED FORCES COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE Regionalism and Sovereignty: The Future of the African Union Dr. L.C. Mawuko-Yevugah, PhD (Alberta); MPhil (Cambridge) Senior Lecturer, GIMPA School of Public Service & Governance April 7th, 2014

2. Lecture outline  Introduction Presenter Overview of the Topic  Sovereignty Philosophy and History Nation-State Balance of Power  Regionalism Concept Regionalism in Africa  The African Union  Lessons from Regionalism, AU, and NRA  The way forward  Conclusion

3. Sovereignty: Philosophical background  Since Aristotle, the term "sovereignty" has had a long and varied history during which it has been given different meanings, depending on the context and the objectives of those using the word.  Sovereignty can be viewed as an attribute of a powerful individual, whose legitimacy over territory (which was often described as his domain and even identified with him) rested on a purportedly direct or delegated divine or historic authority over people under his domain  In Europe, the system of international law established by the assorted monarchs of the continent to serve their common purposes, reflected and reinforced this conception by insulating from legal scrutiny and competence a broad category of events that were later enshrined as "matters solely within the domestic jurisdiction."  In our context, it was not different, as a chief could not enter another chief of equal stature’s territory without his expressed consent, even when passing through the territory, they were required to do same.  If another political power entered the territory of the sovereign (whatever the reason) without his permission, his sovereignty was violated.  In such matters, the sovereign's will was the only one that was legally relevant.

4. Sovereignty: The Moral Argument  The idea of sovereignty, which is based on the moral authority to exercise power over a specific territory is based on the precept that, the person(s) exercising that moral authority should have the ability(power) to guarantee the best interest of its citizens  For a city state, sovereignty rests on the ability to guarantee the best interest of people within the city-state.  For that reason, if a state cannot act in the best interest of its members, then it can not be said to be a sovereign state  This applies to the AU (member states) and other regional bodies supporting and working under the AU The begging question is, what is the interest of the nation-state?

5. Best Interest of the State  In early human history, the national interest was secondary to religion and morality To engage in war, rulers had to justify their actions based on the national interest as against religion and even morality.  With time however, the actions of the state ceased to be derived from the divine order but rather on the particular necessities or interests of the particular state  The national interest- raison d'état( reason of the state) refers to the goals and/or ambitions of the state It can be military, economic, political, cultural etc

6. National Interest in International Political Discourse  With this notion of national interest, states could embark on war purely out of national interest (self-interest)  The Congress of Vienna(1814-1815) served as the first major attempt at creating a balance of power in the world. It is from this congress (the Concert of Europe) which served the grounds for the creation of international organizations and groupings aimed at controlling national exercise of power  The Congress of Vienna served as the basis for the formation of the League of Nations, the United Nations, and in our regional context the African Economic Community(AEC), and, the Organization of African Unity(to some extent), both of which has metamorphosed into the AFRICAN UNION

7. Balance of Power -based on the idea that international security is enhanced when military capabilities are divided in such a way that no individual state is strong enough to dominate all the others  Because if one state gains dominant power it will take advantage of its strength and attack weaker neighbors, therefore creating an incentive for those threatened to unite in a defensive coalition  For that reason, in a realist theoretical context, weaker(smaller) states’ survival is protected through maintaining or increasing their power in a self-help world(form a regional bloc or bandwagon).

8. Balance of Power and Regionalism This survival is not limited to war. The survival is Economic Political/legal Cultural identity Security Etc  Interdependence, interconnectedness, and globalization is what increasingly characterizes our world today  One of the main features of this interdependence (GLOBALIZATION) is the rise of regionalism.  As such, regionalism is part of globalization

9. Regionalism  Regionalism can be best understood as a series of bargains among the political leaders of the major states in a region.  The bargains are the result of converging preferences among these states.  The focus here is on states’ national interests and on power-related variables.  Regionalism brings together the most important states within a region under the leadership of the dominant state. This analysis is often referred to as regional hegemony.

10. Regional Hegemony  ---being abused by a hegemon- According to the concept of Regional Hegemony, the hegemon seeks to expand or maintain its power through an institution that could serve as an amplifier of its interests. In the African case, this was also duly noted by Sylvanus Olympio, Togo’s first leader: ‘political unification is only desired by those political leaders who believe they could come out on top in such unions.’

11. The African Union  The African Union (AU, or, in its other official languages, UA) is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco.  The historical foundations of the African Union originated in the Union of African States, an early confederation that was established by Kwame Nkrumah in the 1960s, as well as subsequent attempts to unite Africa, including the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was established on 25 May 1963, and the African Economic Community in 1981.  Critics argued that the OAU in particular did little to protect the rights and liberties of African citizens from their own political leaders, often dubbing it the "Dictators' Club

12. Mandate of the African Nation State in the era of the African Union  In terms of policy making and execution, state actors must accommodate other integrative forces at work at different levels, whether at the form of micro-regions, cross border operations, regional public goods, and non- state actors in general.  That is, a multi-pronged approach, including the reconstituted state, would better reflect reality and be more useful.

13. Predominant characteristics of the post-colonial state in Africa  It has been omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.  The common qualities usually attributed to the state are that it must have territory, people, government, and authority for the legitimate use of coercive force. Arguably, this has not always been applicable to states in Africa  Post-colonial African political elites attempted to build on the inherited colonial state and in the process transform it into a replica of the Western model. The results have been disastrous as the latter had distinctly different origins and reference framework.  Political independence was not accompanied by a reconstruction of the colonial state, a European construct, to make it more relevant to the environment and better respond to the needs of the indigenous peoples. The post-colonial state remained not as an alternative but as a successor to the colonial state.

14. The African post-colonial state as a legacy of the colonial state  First, the colonial state was authoritarian and repressive.  Second, it played a major role in the economy, with an all- dominant public sector.  Third, the colonial bureaucracy, as a major component of the state, was highly centralized.  Fourth, the Western state system coexisted with indigenous governance systems and models.  Fifth, vast amounts of resources were directed at eliminating all contending political authorities or divesting them of any meaningful functions. This included not only opposition political parties but non-state actors of all hues, traditional institutions and socio-economic bodies.  Sixth, the spread of the African state resulted in its presence being felt in all areas of socio-economic life. Not only within what was traditionally the public sector but also in most parts of the private sector.

15. The state and regional integration  Regionalism has always been regarded as a panacea for resolving Africa’s multiple predicaments, particularly through economic and political unification.  African leaders’ belief in regionalism has led to the creation of a multiplicity of specialized, single-purpose, multi-purpose, and general-purpose bodies for implementing a diversity of integration policies and programmes at continental, regional, sub-regional and bilateral levels.  At the regional level the landscape has been littered with inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), usually of a technical character; they also were created by states which have policy-making, management and oversight responsibilities on their operations.  States were the sole actors in the formulation and implementation of such seminal documents embodying collective self-reliance and regional integration as the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA, 1980) and the Abuja Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (AEC, 1991).  Abundant are the resolutions, declarations, protocols, plans of action, statements, and charters adopted by member states of equally abundant organizations, all purporting to further regionalism in the continent.

16. Persistent Problems Include  The perennial pressing business of the rationalization of the institutional arrangements for continental integration persists, first, in terms of the overlapping memberships of the regional communities and, second, in the sheer numbers of IGOs in each sub-region; what is termed elsewhere as the ‘African Spaghetti Bowl’.  Ratification of protocols has been another area of concern. Of the 34 protocols and conventions that had been ratified and entered into force as at May 2005 there was an average of three-and-a half years between signing and ratification. Nine protocols took five years or more to come into force and a similar number have not been ratified by the required number of states to come into effect. The situation is the same in 2013!  Some of the economic communities have too wide-ranging objectives and programming requirements covering economic, political, legal, social, cultural and other sectors. These objectives are not consistent with that of the AU

17. --and the problems continue  The massive increase in ‘loads’ assigned to the regional secretariats just as in the instance of the national states themselves. These emanate from four sources, namely, the original economic regionalism agenda, new political/human security engagements (conflict prevention and management), the expanded mandates of existing treaties, and continental demands especially as regards the AEC Treaty and the AU.  There has been a tendency for member states to assign responsibility for emergent areas of cooperation to the regional organizations.  The expansion in the scope of the regionalism agenda is not commensurate with the financial and other wherewithal at the disposal of regional secretariats. There remain inadequate capabilities and limited resources both for strengthening internal capacities and for programme implementation.  The problem of inadequate capacities and capabilities for formulation, implementation, coordination and monitoring of regional policies and programmes is also prevalent at the national state level, i.e., the institutional architecture at this level is woefully fragile.  Yet, it is precisely at this level that ultimate responsibility for implementing protocols etc. and regional programmes rests.  An integral aspect of this condition is the problem of building regionalism objectives and programmes into national development frameworks. Or, at a minimum, the coordination of policies and programmes so as to ensure consistency between governmental actions at national levels and commitments at regional levels.

18. Contours of a Paradigm Shift  The evidence adduced reveals some of the shortcomings of state-managed regionalism in Africa.  To a great extent, the inherent drawbacks are to be found in the character of the post-colonial state for in this approach it is assumed that an effective regional integration can only be built on an effective and capable state system.  Through the decades the limelight has been heavily focused on states and the formal actions adopted by them in furtherance of integration goals and objectives at sub-regional, regional and continental levels.  The last two decades or so have seen attempts by a dedicated group of academic researchers to shift the focus away from the state to other actors and from the centre to other levels of activity.  According to this New Regionalism Approach (NRA) the focus ‘should not be only on state actors and formal regionalism but also on non-state actors and what is broadly referred to as ‘informal regionalism’ or ‘regionalism from below’.

19. Other grounds for the NRA include the following:  First, it was important that the previously dominant model which almost exclusively concentrates on formal institutional frameworks should be challenged. The states had proven themselves not fit for the purpose, as it glaringly shows in Africa.  Second, older approaches do not reflect what is happening on-the-ground but accept without questioning the ‘often optimistic and unrealistic accounts of what state actors say they are going to do to build regions.’  Third, these other approaches do not have any relationship with the realities of regionalism besides demonstrating the chasm between ideal and reality.  Moreover, the track record of formal regionalism and intergovernmental regional organizations has not been impressive, resulting in a lack of real genuine interest in them by both national policy makers and regional/continental policy implementers. In contrast, informal processes are dynamic and produce visible results.  The conclusion that follows is that the conventional ‘top-down’ preoccupations of the institutionalists /inter-governmentalists need to be domesticated through a ‘bottom-up’ emphasis.

20. Other grounds for the NRA include the following:  Not only is the state in Africa here to stay (as elsewhere) but it will continue to play a leading and dominant role in defining, supervising and directing regionalism integration. Non-state and mixed-state actors are also here to stay.  So it is a question of straddling the two and building bridges  In line with reality on-the-ground linkages between the two must be established, both for more meaningful support and policy design.  The challenge is to recognize the existence and contributions of other actors than states, to accommodate them, and to maximize their contributions.  As formal and informal dimensions of integration are commonly intertwined, a fuller picture of regionalism can emerge only when the two sets of processes are accepted as overlapping.  Needless to argue that the separation between state and non-state actors is artificial, worse still where the place of non-state actors is completely ignored, as happens in conventional approaches to regionalism.  An increasingly related subject is that of the cross-border economy and the ‘ghost trade’, that is, unrecorded unofficial trade which is so prominent across African borders.  Lessons can be learned from regional economic communities such as ECOWAS and SADC who have designed programmes and activities directed at meeting the challenges and opportunities inherent in the “ghost trade”

21. Conclusion  The Future of the African Union rests on Whether the individual sovereign states can strengthen their internal structures, exercise their own sovereignty These individual member states should also recognize their expectations as members of the Union. Development of the formal sub-regional groupings, with a cue on overlapping responsibilities and membership is also essential There is also the need to appreciate and integrate the informal regional groupings and non-state actors into the policy planning and framing of the African Union. Their role and control of individual states cannot be undermined, as such should recognize their impact when planning