Abstract
The collapse of the Cold War and accelerated globalization have reshaped the international political economy and in the process ignited a new impetus for regionalism. This paper posits that despite the transformation of SADCC into SADC, regional integration in southern Africa remains quintessentially statist with minimal (if any) involvement of civil society organizations and the private sector. This suggests that states in SADC remain crucial in lending scope and providing guidance about the content and character of regional integration. There is, therefore, in SADC, not yet a realization about the complimentary roles to be played by states, civil society organizations and the private sector in the integration process. To illustrate, SADC-PF, a non-governmental entity in the region cannot hold the SADC Summit (the regional executive) accountable and is therefore reduced to a powerless watch-dog body as the ruling elites shape and drive regional integration with little input from other non-state actors. Notwithstanding this state centric nature of SADC, extending the frontiers of globalized markets and globalized democracy, has led to the enfeeblement of the state. In southern Africa, this has opened-up opportunities for non-state informal actors to broaden the conception of the region and the notion of a regional community. This paper asserts that through economic and cultural trans-regional engagements, ordinary citizens are already constructing a southern Africa that lies beyond the geometry of state-sovereignty.
Recommended Citation
Blaauw, Lesley
(2008)
"Beyond the Geometry of State Sovereignty: Regionalism and Non-State Actors in the Southern African Development Community (SADC),"
Journal of African Policy Studies: Vol. 14:
No.
1, Article 2.
Available at:
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/joaps/vol14/iss1/2