ABSTRACT
The main aim of this chapter is to advance the understanding of the emergence of regionalisms by contextualizing them in a dialectic relationship with other regionalisms. The entanglement is understood as a multilayered interaction with predecessors, competitors and external supporters. The case study explores the pattern of post-colonial regionalism in Central Africa with a particular emphasis on entanglements of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS, or CEEAC in French), as of 2016 composed of Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda and São Tomé and Príncipe. The fuzzy delineation vis-à-vis neighbouring regionalisms, a considerable national fragmentation and a lack of resources pose severe limits to the capacity of ECCAS as an actor (UNECA 2009: 45-7). In order to explain the steadiness of the regional order despite these challenges, the chapter reverts to global entanglements and introduces the notion of bifurcated regionalism. This analysis proposes a nuanced study of regionalisms, which focuses on regional and global contextualization and thus offers insights for the phenomenon at large. Proliferations and overlaps of regionalisms as well as interregionalism constitute inherent features of contemporary regional patterns forging the global order.
