ABSTRACT
The process of creating Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) took over 15 years, as Heads of State in West Africa stressed the importance of economic integration toward the stability of West Africa; political instability, extra-African influence, and the potential of large state dominance in the region loomed large as stumbling blocks to integration. Existing approaches to understanding region-building in West Africa focus on the failures of economic integration and the realpolitik and competition between ECOWAS member states. The practitioners within ECOWAS can be conceptualized as a “community of practice.” Democracy promotion has been a central feature of ECOWAS’ institutional development, following the idea that the regime types within a given region must be mostly the same for deep processes of regionalization and region-building to occur. This chapter develops a framework to examine region-building by focusing on understanding the factors and interaction patterns that drive institutional change in ECOWAS.
