Constructing a regional common foreign policy: a case study of ECOWAS and SADC

Thesis (M.M. (Security))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2016This study seeks to interrogate how regional institutions in Africa construct their foreign policies. States are faced with a continuously evolving global structure and as a result face complex challenges that require the collaboration of collective efforts to resolve. In order to overcome such challenges states are tasked with the challenge that involves finding ways to amalgamate their policy frameworks. This is a serious challenge, but one that states must overcome if they are to find effective solutions to growing global challenges. What this research has endeavoured to achieve is show exactly how the task of forging collective or common foreign policy is achieved and what institutions are best suited to help African regions achieve their goals of a common foreign policy. To this end, the study uses qualitative design and employs document and content analysis, focusing on the structure and history of the two organisations (ECOWAS and SADC). It then looks at the three foreign policy approaches (climate change, terrorism, and maritime security), comparing the coordination of each and seeking out what works in terms of finding and/ or building of the necessary institutions in order to gauge the cohesion of the regional organisations given different contexts. The adherence to sovereignty by member states has proven once again to be an impediment where collaboration particularly of the supranational nature is concerned. What this study has endeavoured to do is to show that despite an adherence to sovereignty certain goals can be achieved. While the adherence to sovereignty is deemed a constraint towards cohesive regionalisation, this study finds that the issue is not necessarily an adherence to sovereignty, but the imposition of unrealistic or misplaced targets such as the vision of the two African sub-regions to acquire supranational institutions. For the most part, the findings were that African regionalism continues to evolve as intergovernmental organisations. Using Brosig’s (2013) typology of convergence This study has not only shed light into what works as a framework for achieving set goals and targets, but it has also shed light into the different types of arrangements that can be achieved given different contexts. This study hopes to add value to the understanding of the African regional society and how it makes and implements its decisions, The hope is that this also sheds light into understanding reasons behind policy failures and their successes thereof.GR201