Regionalism in East Africa c. 1900 to the present
Lead Research Organisation:
Liverpool John Moores University
Department Name: Sch of Humanities and Social Science
Abstract
This project will undertake the first comprehensive historical study of regionalism in East Africa in the twentieth century. Ideas about formal political and economic integration among the various territories of East Africa have a deep history in the region, dating back to the colonial period, and currently manifested in the institutions of the (second) East African Community, an intergovernmental organisation comprised of six eastern African states: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. Partly owing to this deep and continuing history, East African regionalism has often been seen as a beacon of effective regional integration in Africa, and assertions of a powerful sense of common regional identity - even destiny - have been an important part of the official rhetoric of the EAC over several decades. But the extent to which regional integration has delivered positive public outcomes or alternatively simply served the interests of a small regional elite in East Africa remains hotly contested (reflecting broader global debates on this issue). This project will engage this central question within both a regional and global setting, examining the origins, character and outcomes of regional integration initiatives as the product both of East African internal dynamics as well as of interlinked global structures and processes (colonialism, decolonisation, global regionalisms, and neo-liberalism). In so doing it will fill a major lacunae in the current scholarly literature on the history and politics of East Africa, moving beyond methodological nationalism to write a history of attempts at building region alongside nation. More broadly, the persistence of regionalism as a political and economic phenomenon in East Africa over time also makes the region an excellent case for examining and historicising wider debates around regionalism in Africa and the world.
This project, which builds on a successfully completed pilot study (British Academy funded - regional integration in 1960s-70s East Africa) brings together a team of historians and political scientists to examine
a) the colonial origins of integration projects - ideas of 'closer union' and federation that were debated amongst settlers and colonial officials in British East Africa during the first half of the twentieth century, alongside the establishment of regional institutions by the British
b) ideas of federation and 'community' that emerged among nationalists and East African publics in the years of decolonisation and independence,
c) the establishment and collapse of the first East African Community between 1965 and 1977
d) the revival and expansion of the East African Community from the 1990s to the present
Throughout we will focus on key themes including
a) the shifting intellectual content of regionalist visions (pan-Africanism; federalism; state-led developmentalism; neo-liberalism)
b) the politics of integration in the context of intra-regional relations more broadly
c) the (uneven) economic impact of regional integration
d) the role of external actors in shaping regional integration projects, and the role of local elite agency in mediating or transforming external interventions
e) continuities and changes in the above themes over time.
The research will utilise archival documentation, press material, official reports and interviews with figures involved in regional integration to produce academic and non-academic outputs that will make a major contribution to academic debate on global regionalisms and to policy discussions on the future of regional integration in East Africa.
This project, which builds on a successfully completed pilot study (British Academy funded - regional integration in 1960s-70s East Africa) brings together a team of historians and political scientists to examine
a) the colonial origins of integration projects - ideas of 'closer union' and federation that were debated amongst settlers and colonial officials in British East Africa during the first half of the twentieth century, alongside the establishment of regional institutions by the British
b) ideas of federation and 'community' that emerged among nationalists and East African publics in the years of decolonisation and independence,
c) the establishment and collapse of the first East African Community between 1965 and 1977
d) the revival and expansion of the East African Community from the 1990s to the present
Throughout we will focus on key themes including
a) the shifting intellectual content of regionalist visions (pan-Africanism; federalism; state-led developmentalism; neo-liberalism)
b) the politics of integration in the context of intra-regional relations more broadly
c) the (uneven) economic impact of regional integration
d) the role of external actors in shaping regional integration projects, and the role of local elite agency in mediating or transforming external interventions
e) continuities and changes in the above themes over time.
The research will utilise archival documentation, press material, official reports and interviews with figures involved in regional integration to produce academic and non-academic outputs that will make a major contribution to academic debate on global regionalisms and to policy discussions on the future of regional integration in East Africa.
Planned Impact
The project speaks directly to the successes and limitations of contemporary regionalism in East Africa, and aims to historicise these in regional and global contexts. The findings will be of great relevance to a range of groupings in East Africa and Europe aiming to promote a more effective form of regionalism and seeking to engage East African citizens in regionalist projects. Users will include:
1) Educational institutions in East Africa. Building on an existing relationship with the Institute for Regional Integration and Development (IRID) at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, the PI and the Director of IRID will co-design a new MA module, 'The history of regional integration in East Africa'. This will be delivered by IRID teaching staff as part of their MA in Regional Integration, a programme which aims to shape future civil servants of the EAC. The module will utilise curated source materials gathered during the course of this project, and will add research-led, historical perspective to the teaching of the MA at IRID.
A range of policy and civil society users will also be targeted, including
2) The East African Community, especially the outward-facing Secretariat, which is eager to engage with academic knowledge and promote a more transparent, 'people-centred' form of regional integration. The EAC will benefit from understanding how the history of regionalism in East Africa shapes the strengths and weakness of the present-day EAC. This understanding may feed into internal policy development and the EAC's efforts at developing 'people-centred' integration.
3) Civil society groups and NGOs in East Africa also interested in promoting a more 'people-centred' form of regional integration. These groups will benefit from new information and high quality analyses of the character of regional integration in East Africa in a historical and global perspective. This will enable them to better understand the obstacles to change and to design more effective strategies to promote change.
4) International (especially the EU) promoters of regional integration in East Africa. These groups will benefit from a greater understanding of the ways in which previous attempts to influence the form and character of regional institutions have worked in practice, and thus help them to design more effective strategies to promote more substantive regional integration.
These users will be engaged with the project through a variety of means:
A project conference will be held at IRID during the project's second year, and invite members of all stakeholder groups mentioned above.
A final research report of 10.000 words will set out policy-relevant project results, and shorter briefings will be prepared for stakeholder groups in response to related 'real-world' events during the course of research.
Further dissemination opportunities with civil society groups in the region will be developed during the course of the project research.
1) Educational institutions in East Africa. Building on an existing relationship with the Institute for Regional Integration and Development (IRID) at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, the PI and the Director of IRID will co-design a new MA module, 'The history of regional integration in East Africa'. This will be delivered by IRID teaching staff as part of their MA in Regional Integration, a programme which aims to shape future civil servants of the EAC. The module will utilise curated source materials gathered during the course of this project, and will add research-led, historical perspective to the teaching of the MA at IRID.
A range of policy and civil society users will also be targeted, including
2) The East African Community, especially the outward-facing Secretariat, which is eager to engage with academic knowledge and promote a more transparent, 'people-centred' form of regional integration. The EAC will benefit from understanding how the history of regionalism in East Africa shapes the strengths and weakness of the present-day EAC. This understanding may feed into internal policy development and the EAC's efforts at developing 'people-centred' integration.
3) Civil society groups and NGOs in East Africa also interested in promoting a more 'people-centred' form of regional integration. These groups will benefit from new information and high quality analyses of the character of regional integration in East Africa in a historical and global perspective. This will enable them to better understand the obstacles to change and to design more effective strategies to promote change.
4) International (especially the EU) promoters of regional integration in East Africa. These groups will benefit from a greater understanding of the ways in which previous attempts to influence the form and character of regional institutions have worked in practice, and thus help them to design more effective strategies to promote more substantive regional integration.
These users will be engaged with the project through a variety of means:
A project conference will be held at IRID during the project's second year, and invite members of all stakeholder groups mentioned above.
A final research report of 10.000 words will set out policy-relevant project results, and shorter briefings will be prepared for stakeholder groups in response to related 'real-world' events during the course of research.
Further dissemination opportunities with civil society groups in the region will be developed during the course of the project research.
| Description | The award has enabled significant archival and field research on the history and politics of regional integration in East Africa. The post-doctoral researcher on the project conducted a substantive number of interviews with key civil society stakeholders in the region, both remotely during the period of lockdowns, and in-person once travel restrictions lifted. This has resulted in the principal published output from the project to date, a policy report published by a leading NGO in the region, which assessed the challenges and opportunities for a people-centred form of regional integration in East Africa. This found that despite significant barriers to civil society participation in regional institutions, considerable significance remains attached to the regional sphere as a space where regional norms and standards can be shaped over the longer term. Recommendations were made to strengthen civil society and private sector involvement in regionalism by: selecting more feasible criteria for organizations to acquire observer status; creating more bespoke and separate forums for civil society and private sector groups; encouraging external donors to fund regional engagement; and ensuring that a broader range of stakeholders across East Africa are able to access and participate in regional affairs. The historical work associated with the project has separately found significant evidence show that ideas of 'closer union' and federation debated amongst settlers and officials in British East Africa in the early twentieth century, and the establishment of regional institutions by the British, became inseparable from wider debates over the future of the region and British Africa more generally, and especially the political rights of the region's populations. Divergent political and economic structures established by imperial rule across the region set the framework for these debates, and these divergences would continue to influence debates on regionalism in the later twentieth century. The research has also found that while Pan-Africanists who supported the idea of East African unity in the 1950s and 60s presented this idea as a decisive break with the colonial past, and a key moment in the process of 'world-making' that decolonizing activists were pursuing, in fact their rhetoric and justifications for unity shared considerable continuity with the advocates of colonial federation in the region. A key finding is that regionalism's real significance in East Africa was in providing a discursive sphere in which the differences between the region's territories and nations were articulated, a crucial facet of the construction of the nation-state that regionalism promised to transcend. |
| Exploitation Route | I anticipate the outcomes of this research being taken forward by civil society and private sector groups in East Africa to pursue their efforts at generating a more people-centred integration. We will launch the report at an on-line forum organised by the publishers, and stakeholders interviewed and engaged through the period of the project will be invited to attend and feed back on the report's content. We anticipate this may create an opportunity to lead an ongoing discussion forum among civil society and private sector organisations in the region , to generate sustained discussion on this topic over the longer term. I would also hope that scholars of the decolonising and post-colonial world will take our findings forward and apply some of the analytical approaches outlined in the key findings project to projects on the nature of international and regional political orders across the later twentieth century and up to the present. In particular, we hope the close attention paid to the colonial origins of regionalist projects in East Africa may serve as an inspiration to scholars of regionalism (and other forms of supra-national political order) in providing a deeper historical frame to their analysis, and help scholars to better understand the structural limitations of post-colonial political experimentation. |
| Sectors | Other |
| Description | Article for LSE Africa blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Article by PDRA by LSE Africa blog on the 'Made in Africa' agenda in response to COVID, assessing tensions between economic nationalism and regional integration. This reached 912 viewers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2020/06/04/made-in-africa-response-covid19-economic-nationalism-... |
| Description | Article for The Conversation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | An article for the Conversation was co-authored by the PI and PDRA on the response of the East African Community to the COVID crisis, assessing the impact of the pandemic on regional integration. This was read by 4518 readers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://theconversation.com/east-african-integration-is-alive-even-though-leaders-havent-been-united... |
| Description | Nairobi workshop with academic and non-academic stakeholders |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Fifty-five participants attended a hybrid workshop hosted by the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya on the theme of regionalism in East Africa. The audience included postgraduate students, academics, civil society organisations, and members of the general public with interests in the theme. The PDRA for the project, Dr Peter O'Reilly, played a leading role in organising the event, allowing him to develop his academic leadership profile. Both Dr O'Reilly and Dr Frank Gerits (Co-Investigator) presented unpublished project findings as part of the workshop. Presenters included many East African research students and academics, as well as presenters from North America and Europe. Holding the event in a hybrid format allowed broad participation by both in-person and remote attendees. Finally, civil society organisation partners from the region (Uganda and Tanzania) provided a closing round-table discussion which brought home the wider public and non-academic significance of the project's multiple dimensions. These stakeholders in particular have provided critical input into the policy report which we will publish in 2023. lr have provided input into the |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |