ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt to provide an overview of the diverse types of regional economic governance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which are currently shaping the increasingly complex scales and spaces associated with regionalism on the continent. The discussion seeks to analyse the competing orders and varieties of governance that are being formed and reproduced. It is asserted that various modes of regional governance, such as non-Eurocentric ideal types of regionalisms, may be identified. Three main types can be identified that, although not fitting the narrow institutionalism of most work on regionalism, explain and describe the day-to-day conditions encountered by most persons living in Africa. These are neoliberal regional governance, sovereignty-boosting regional governance and regional shadow governance (Söderbaum 2004a). Such types of governance are not necessarily unique to Africa but certainly reflect deeper structural issues related to the nature of the state in Africa and how projects to encourage integration may be expressed both formally and informally. This chapter seeks to help explain the origins, the main actors and the purposes of these three broad varieties of regional economic governance.
