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Explore the challenges and dynamics of institutional diffusion from the EU to the African Union, focusing on Africa’s integration institutions, governance features, and theoretical frameworks. Unravel key unanswered questions and lessons learned.
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‘The diffusion of institutions from the EU to the African Union. Dr Gabila Nubong School of Economics, North West Universty(NWU)- South Africa Gabila.Nubong@nwu.ac.za
The Dilemma of Africa’s Institutions of integration-1. • Whereas an appropriate institutional framework and infrastructure are the bedrocks upon which development at all levels – local, national, regional and continental is built. • Without certainty about the appropriateness of designated institutions, endeavouring to set up and make them functional can be an exercise in futility. • The functioning and inadequate funding of Africa’s institutions of integration suggests fundamental conceptual and design issues which have given rise to he suspicion of mimicry from the EU.
The Dilemma & Key unanswered questions? • What institutions does Africa needs to foster its integration? • How did Africa end up with the current institutions of integration & what underlying logic informs their set up & functioning? • Why have the institutions foreseen in the constitutive act not yet been set up ( e.g court of justice & financial institutions)? • Why are Africa’s institutions of integration grossly underfunded and disregarded by Africans? • Is it a conceptualisation challenge, an implementation challenge, a capacity challenge or a combination of all of the above? • What lessons can Africa learn from establishment and functioning of the EU’s institutions of integration?
Introduction – Premise 1 • Draper (2012) argues that Africa’s thinking in the field of regionalism is dominated by European conceptions in two areas: political and institutional. • At the political level, the underlying rationale is rooted in the ‘liberal peace hypothesis’, which asserts that closer economic integration constitutes ‘ties that bind’ which act to restrain member states from engaging in hostile military actions against each other. • Article VII institutions of the OAU founding charter of 1963 (Council of Ministers, General Secretariat) and some Article VII institutions of the Abuja Treaty of 1991 (Council of Ministers, Pan African Parliament, Court of Justice and General Secretariat) • Article 4 institutions of the 1957 treaty of Rome (An Assembly (European Parliament), council, commission, court of justice) and the Article 4 institutions of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (European parliament, Council, Commission and Court of Justice)
Africa’s ‘Institutions of Integration’-1 These are the institutions identified by article 7 of the Abuja Treaty (1993) as the organs of the African Economic Community, which include: • The Assembly of Heads of State and Government; • The Council of Ministers; • The Pan-African Parliament; • The Economic and Social Commission; • The Court of Justice; • The General Secretariat; and • The Specialized Technical Committees. • Transitioning from (OAU)to the African Union in 2001, these organs became known as the organs of the union with a few new more additions. • According to article 4 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, the organs of the union shall be: • The Assembly of the Union; • he Executive Council; • The Pan-African Parliament; • The Court of Justice; • The Commission; • The Permanent Representatives Committee; • The Specialized Technical Committees; • The Economic, Social and Cultural Council; • The Financial Institutions;
What was the logic & what are the governance features of Europe’s institutions of Integration
Theoretical framework of institutions of integration-Federalism & Functionalism. • Within the context of European integration, federalism anticipated the creation of a sort of ‘United States of Europe’ where power is distributed between Europe and nation state institutions, • with a central authority that has sovereignty in selected areas such as defence, foreign policy, fiscal and monetary policy. • Riker (1964) isolates two circumstances incentivizing statesmen’s interest in a federal bargain: economic expansion or an external (often military) threat. • The theory of functionalism advocates for institutionalised international cooperation, proffering a peace system in which routine cooperation to solve global problems might in time lead to a global political authority. • The same principle when applied to cooperation at regional and sub-regional levels would proceed through the creation of institutions that have jurisdiction over nation states. • Functionalism explains why certain institutions are created to drive any integration project, while explaining the driving elements that would make these created institutions function in a particular manner
Theoretical framework of institutions of integration- Neo-Functionalism • Neo-functionalism is premised on a number of key principles including: • the recognition of the importance of politics in regional integration, • a liberal-pluralist conception of power, • bargaining by regionally-oriented pressure groups (Private sector or Pro-EU (Pan-Africanists)activities), • the notion of task expansion and spill over (tendency of regional groups to expand the scope of issues areas and to move from cooperation in ‘low politics’ to cooperation in high politics) and • the notion of the political community as an end product of regional integration.
Theoretical framework of institutions of integration- Neo-Functionalism • The ‘organic’ or step wise creation of a ‘supranational’ entity is also the preoccupation of neo-functionalism. • In its essence, neo-functionalism emphasises the mechanisms of technocratic decision making, incremental change and learning processes. • It also attaches considerable importance to the autonomous influence of supranational institutions and the emerging role of organised interests. • Neofunctionalistsargue that the work of important political groups whose interest favour integration drive functional cooperation amongst member states. • If they perceived their interests were advanced in one area of cooperation, they would be inclined to attempt more of the same in other related areas, the so called ‘neofunctional spill over’ (Ginsberg 2010:66).
Theoretical framework on institutions of integration- Intergovernmentalism-1 • Liberal inter-governmentalistsview integration as the result of bargains struck between nation states, with specific geopolitical interests that militate towards a pooling of sovereignty in given historical circumstances. • Liberal intergovermentalism thus focuses on governmental actors whose capacity for decisions is enhanced by supranational institutions designed for particular purposes and under the control of the actors who have created them (Moravcsik 1993). • Intergovernmental cooperation and supranational institutions perform a mutually reinforcing role of advancing the integration agenda and objectives.
Theoretical framework on institutions of integration-Intergovernmentalism-2 • This causes the process of integration to become a series of rational choices made by national leaders to respond to constraints and opportunities stemming from the economic interests of powerful domestic constituents. (Presupposes a government accountable to its people) • It is also dependent on the relative power of states stemming from asymmetrical interdependence, and the role of the created institutions of integration in bolstering the credibility of interstate commitments. • Within this context, the member states remain the drivers of the integration process, not the supranational institutions.
The Principles & Functioning of EU Institutions of Integration: There is a governance logic-2 • Proportionality: EU must not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objective of the treaty. • As such it can be argued that “… the pendulum of European integration swings between member states, who retain and delegate sovereignty, and EU bodies, who cultivate their scope for agency” (Ginsberg 2010:144). • This functions as a principal-agent relationship in which the one is mandated to act on behalf of the other along the lines of mutually agreed principles with delegated and shared responsibilities.
The Principles & Functioning of EU Institutions of Integration: There is a governance logic-3 • Overall the EU’s governmental system as a body seems closer to a parliamentary system where legislators from the European Parliament (EP) hold accountable the political appointees in the executive represented by the Commission. • The Commission is thus answerable to the EP, which has a supervisory role vis-à-vis the Commission. • By subjecting a supranational executive to an elected parliament, the EU has established a constitutional system of checks and balances where Commissioners attend EP sessions to reply to queries by MEPs and sometimes have to justify chosen policies (Ginsberg 2010:148).
So how did African Integration end up with the institutions they have? Did diffusion, lesson learning & emulation or mimicry occur from the European Union integration experience? What explains the similarities in their institutional frameworks?
Policy Transfers & Diffusion Theoretical Framework • Policy diffusion is concerned with the processes by which knowledge about policies and administrative arrangements,institutions and ideas in one political setting is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting. (Dolowitz and March, 2000:5). • Braun and Gilardi (2006) on policy diffusion: A process through which policy choices in one country/setting affects those in a second country/setting. Where this leads to an adoption of similar policies in the second that were enacted in the first, a transfer of policy can be assumed to have taken place.
Risks of Policy Failure From Transfer & Diffusion • Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) Policy transfers can lead to ‘policy failure’. • First the borrowing agent may have insufficient information about the policy/institution and how it operates in the area from which it is transferred (an uninformed transfer), • the transfer could occur leaving out crucial elements that made the policy or institution function in the original context (an incomplete transfer). • insufficient attention may be paid to the difference between the economic, social, political and ideological contexts in the transferring and borrowing regions( an inappropriate transfer).
Policy Transfers & Diffusion Theoretical Framework • Meseguer and Gilardi (2009) discuss four instances in which policy choices in one setting may influence the policy choices in another, these include: • Policy convergence promoted by dominant actors, • Diffusion due to social emulation, • Diffusion resulting from economic competition and • Diffusion caused by learning from others. • EU to AU integration - ‘policy convergence promoted by a dominant actor’?? • EU can be proven to be an active promoter of its model of integration to other regions, including towards the African Union
Incentives: conditionality and assistance. • Based on an understanding of conditionality to mean the connection of an objective in a specific area with incentives or punishments in a different area. The principle behind such policies would be to influence the utility calculations of the African Union (and its predecessor the OAU) by connecting the pursuit of compliance with a certain policy to material or non-material benefits (positive conditionality) or sanctioning non-compliance (negative conditionality). The hypothesis thus defined can be formulated as such: • “H1: The African Union’s decision to pursue a specific institutional change has been driven by other objectives than the functional reasons in that specific area, and can be linked to an incentive provided by the EU. “ • This hypothesis can also capture the effect of technical assistance and capacity building measures (including ODA) to influence the cost-benefit calculations of the AU, in its choice to pursue various policy actions or create and reform its institutions.
Hypothesis 2 : Lesson drawing. • In lesson drawing we tested for evidence that the material factors (own considerations) and utility calculations of the African Union were decisive in policy enactment or institutional change by learning from the EU’s experience without the direct active involvement of the EU. • This happens when the African Union (or OAU) decides to pursue a certain institutional change or adopt a specific policy because of its assessment of the EU’s successful experience in administering the same. • This is a form of diffusion that occurs because the EU experience is considered a normative model of integration leading to its practises diffusing to the AU with no specific contribution from them. • Such a policy adoption and institutional change will be observed in the absence of direct incentives offered by the EU. From the forgoing, the following hypothesis was tested. • “H2: Following an assessment of its own costs and benefits the African Union has pursued institutional change and adopted policy frameworks that it has judged as successful in the EU.”
Hypothesis • ‘ the institutions of the African Union (building from its predecessors) have been created and adopted in response to functional problems in Africa and independently from influence coming from the regional integration experience of the European Union’. • “Are the African Union’s institutional innovation the outcome of a functional demand for these institutions (our null hypothesis) or are they unrelated to functional elements in the region and (at least partially) determined by diffusion from the European Union?”
Analytical Framework for the diffusion of Institutions from the EU to the AU
Conclusion- How to resolve the Dilemma? • For the institutions of the African Union to deliver on their mandate of driving the integration process, they need to be clearly given this mandate and the accompanying authority and resources to do so. • There is need to revisit the conceptual & theoretical foundations of Africa’s integration to determine both the desired polity (cooperation or integration) to as to determine the suitable institutions ( inspired by neo-functionalism & intergovermentalism). • There is also the need to revisit the question of sovereignty pooling and sovereignty transfer to create functional supranational institutions. • The involvement of interest groups that drive integration is also important ( private sector & citizens & civil society).
