ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the political economy of Sierra Leone, its rationale for joining the economic community and the institutional provisions for Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) activities. The political economy of Sierra Leone provides the basis for the characterisation of the state and analysis of the politics of underdevelopment. Evaluation of Sierra Leone’s ECOWAS regionalism necessarily begins with an assessment of the nature of the domestic political culture and patrimonial decline. To overcome the disadvantages of small size and population, Sierra Leone has made membership of intergovernmental organisations an important foreign policy approach. This approach provides the advantages of collective solidarity and a political and economic bargaining bloc in pushing for African issues at the global level. The chapter examines the issue of Sierra Leone’s financial and infrastructural contribution to ECOWAS, the level of popular participation in the integration process and the link between the politics of regionalism and national development.
