Two logics of regionalism: the importance of interdependence and external support for regional integration in Southern Africa

Abstract

"Existing theories of European integration and political economy usually assume that economic interdependence is an important precondition for successful regional integration. This includes that regional integration among developing countries is unlikely to be successful, because their economies are usually more dependent on developed countries in the North than on their neighbours in the South. However, this article argues that developing countries use regional integration more in order to improve their standing vis-à-vis other world regions in the global economic system than to govern intraregional interdependence. Thus, the progress of regional integration in the South is at least as dependent on the feedback from other regions as it is on developments within the own region. This argument will be illustrated at the example of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which made important steps towards regional integration in the last decade. It centralised its institutional structure in 2001 and announced a Free Trade Area in 2008. This development can partly be explained by interdependence between the less developed countries of the SADC and the relatively well developed Republic of South Africa, but it was also favoured by external support from other world regions, especially the European Union (EU). Nevertheless, further regional integration towards a customs union is disturbed by external influence, because the EU currently negotiates different Economic Partnership Agreements with the SADC member states, which prevents the harmonisation of tariffs for imports from outside the region." (author's abstract)

"Bestehende Theorien der europäischen Integration und der internationalen politischen Ökonomie gehen in der Regel davon aus, dass intraregionale Interdependenz eine Bedingung für erfolgreiche regionale Integration von Volkswirtschaften ist. Dies würde bedeuten, dass regionale Integration zwischen Entwicklungsländern zum Scheitern verurteilt ist, da diese normalerweise mehr von entwickelten Ländern des Nordens als von ihren Nachbarn im Süden abhängig sind. In diesem Artikel wird jedoch argumentiert, dass Entwicklungsländer regionale Integration vor allem dazu nutzen, um ihre Position gegenüber anderen Regionen zu stärken. Daher ist der Fortschritt von regionaler Integration im Süden in hohem Maße von dem Feedback aus anderen Weltregionen abhängig. Dieses Argument wird am Beispiel der Southern African Development Community (SADC) illustriert. Die SADC hat in den letzten zehn Jahren erhebliche Integrationsfortschritte gemacht, sieht sich aktuell jedoch mit erheblichen Problemen konfrontiert, da die Verhandlungen über Economic Partnership Agreements mit der EU die weitere Integration erschweren." (Autorenreferat)