56. Southern Africa’s Regionalism Driven by Realism

This chapter is concerned with Southern Africa’s regional integration efforts and provides both historical and contemporary perspectives followed by a discussion of the main factors and actors that led to the convergence of Southern Africa states’ achieving of regional integration. Southern Africa here refers to the 15 states that constitute the Southern African Development Community (SADC), created in 1992, including Angola, Botswana, Comoros (the newest member state joined SADC in 2017), Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe minus the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that left SADC in April 2018. I argue in this chapter that Southern Africa’s regionalism is driven by realism that involves both powerful internal and external actors and factors, which have set the pace for Southern Africa’s integration efforts. The key analysis addressed in this chapter is focused on an understanding of what has led to the convergence of Southern African states; what factors and actors are propelling their convergence toward achieving regionalism; and what are the prospects for economic convergence. The chapter examines, therefore, the transformation processes and the formation of Southern Africa through the lenses of regional integration, divergence, and convergence debates. The key theory raised in this chapter is premised on the theory that I had developed: Neoclassical Economic Regional Integration.