Negotiating the Gains of Regional Integration in Central Africa
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08 October 2008: Negotiating the Gains of Regional Integration in Central Africa
Independence in the Central African region was supposed to bring peace and prosperity, a kind of biblical Seek ye first thy political kingdom and all things else shall be added unto you. Nonetheless, almost five decades down the road, while some parts of Africa (notably Southern Africa) have moved towards better political governance, economic stability and co-operation, a perusal of the World Bank Governance Indicators and the Human Development Index reveals that, despite some improvements, Central Africa on all counts of human security is facing a serious crisis. The situation is reminiscent of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, even though the dawn of political liberalisation in the early 1990s in Central Africa was supposed to usher in the end of history if one is to believe Francis Fukuyama. The direct consequence of this appalling human security situation has not only been the vindication of Afro-pessimism in the sub-region, it has enhanced Joseph Conrad’s description of the region as the “Heart of Darkness”.
Except for Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, where oil rents and international support or indifference have maintained some semblance of regime stability, the region has been embroiled in violent conflicts. Added together, Presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon, Omar Bongo of Gabon and Theodore Obiang-Nguema of Equatorial Guinea have been in power for a total of 96 years. Since independence, Chad has not known any constitutional transfer of power and political stability and peace is a scarce commodity in the Central African Republic. Thanks to international pressure, São Tomé and Príncìpe survived a bloodless coup in July 2003, engendered by the appetite for oil and led by former São Tomean mercenaries. The Republic of Congo (RoC) is a glaring example of how a truncated democratisation process against a backdrop of abundant oil rents and competing global interests unleashed a violent wave of elite struggle from which the country seems not to have fully recovered. Angola, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are still struggling to prevent the probability of a relapse into conflict.
Ironically, this depressing human security situation comes against a backdrop of abundant natural resources in the region, providing it with a huge potential for socio-economic development. Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, RoC, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncìpe are oil producers with sizable deposits in the strategic Gulf of Guinea. The Central African Republic is rich in timber, uranium and diamonds. How these countries can transform their natural resources wealth to sustain human security is still a mystery, considering the level of political decay and a skewed regional integration process that seems inexistent comparative to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS).
What explains the deplorable human security situation in Central Africa despite its enormous economic potential? Can integration provide the requisite ingredients for sustainable human security in the region? Why has the Economic Community of East African States (ECCAS) been comparatively ineffective in addressing the human security challenges in this region? In attempting to examine the security polemics, analysing integration in the sub-region and in the process propose some policy recommendation, a forthcoming monograph to be published by the Institute for Security Studies argues that regionalisation / integration have both an external and internal logic.
As such, the inability of ECCAS to discharge its mandate on human security is a function of the perceived potential benefit and cost to domestic politicians with regards to their political security or future. Thus, a weak ECCAS is a reflection of its importance to the political calculus of member states. Considering states in the region are politically and socio-economically interconnected, politics in the region is a two-level game. State intercourse in the region is a strategic game in which each state chooses its action based on the expected strategies of the other states. Within this context, if the benefits of a robust integration outweigh potential cost, politicians will be more amenable to integration. As a result, integration might seem good politics insofar as it entails some form of political convergence to overcome the problem of time, consistency (domestic political security and vulnerability), information flow and transaction costs and the ability of institutions to monitor and enforce compliance. Consequently, integration is an institutionalist approach to international politics that tends to reduce the cost of risk and uncertainty in achieving political security. However, while politicians are embedded in institutions, it should be noted that they represent the interests of certain constituencies and powerful interest groups. Thus, if integration is beneficial for certain powerful domestic interest groups, they will almost certainly try to influence state behaviour toward integration.
While the argument might seem a vindication of rational institutionalism couched in game theory, specifically the prisoner’s dilemma, one can nevertheless advocate for an analytic narrative approach in studying integration in Central Africa. Analytic narrative is an incorporation of elements of deduction and induction in ways that overcome traditional distinctions between historical institutionalism’s characteristic focus on specific contextual conditions and rational choice’s characteristic search for generalisable features of political behavior rooted in the incentive structure that individuals face. As a result, the theoretical insight is a mélange of two approaches: Firstly in attempting to analyse the human security situation in the region, it draws insights from new institutional economics and contends that until there is a positive alignment between political security and human security, the region will continue to face a human security crisis. Secondly it borrows from comparative political economy and argues that, RECs in the region are viewed as an extension of domestic politics.
As such, politicians must negotiate a precarious balance between potential long-term gains of regionalisation and the perceived short-term political cost to their survival. Within this context, one can conclude that any renewed effort at integration in the region should be contingent on political convergence and the rule of law so as to lock in states in the region to commit to institutional and democratic governance as a measure to enhance human security.
Chrysantus Ayangafac, Senior Researcher, Direct Conflict Prevention Programme, ISS Addis Ababa
