Regionalism and Integration in Africa: Euro-Nigeria Relations and Economic Partnership Agreements

International economic relations in the post-Cold War era have been marked by a new resurgence of regionalism and regionalization. These processes are both manifestations and reactions to the forces of globalization (Mansfield, 2005; Ojendal, Schulz, and Soderbaum, 2001). According to L. Fioramonti (2014) regionalism and regionalization have been part of the evolution of various arrangements for the organization of economic, political, and security relations for centuries. However, the resurgence of these processes and their intensification in the past half-century reflect the growing importance that is attached to them as possible alternative models for socioeconomic and political development, either as a replacement to or in coexistence with the nation-states. Ojendal, Schulz, and Soderbaum (2001:3) argue that “as a post-Second World War phenomenon, regionalism was seen in the 1950s and 1960s as an important strategy for achieving security, peace, development and welfare particularly but by no means only in Europe.” Although Europe’s example of regional integration has been hailed as one of the most prominent types (Draper, 2013), other regions of the world such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa have embraced one form of integration or the other.