ABSTRACT
African agents possess the ability to challenge European Union (EU) narratives in the current context of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), but also have historically demonstrated the possibility of counter-narratives in reworking of the moral economy of Association. This chapter explains the challenges of the contemporary moral economy of Association. It considers the African Union and whether it might provide a source of alternative economic strategies to the free trade impulses of Association. However, African agency resists the moral economy of EU-Africa Association under Cotonou, namely to challenge the development credentials of free market strategies in sub-Saharan Africa. The African civil society groups and trade unionists play the most active role in deconstructing the moral economy of Association in the Cotonou era. The chapter explores the neo-colonial moral economy of Association between Europe and its African partners. It examines the way in which European aid mechanisms have historically worked to diffuse dominant EU norms concerning the essential task, and economic liberalisation.
