Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Jara Cuadrado
(Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa)
Pablo Arconada (Universidad de Valladolid)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- History
- Location:
- David Hume, Lecture Theatre C
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel is dedicated to the analysis of African boders as a place of divergence. On one hand, borders are analysed as a cause and effect of conflicts and violence outbreak. On the other hand, it is seen as an opportunity of cooperation and exchange.
Long Abstract:
The construction of Nation-State in Africa after the decolonization processes forced African authorities to build a state inspired by an external model. However, those states were built in artificially territorial entities, without an ethnic, linguistic or historical basis.
These disruptions have caused numerous conflicts along the continent, where borders are a cause and effect of them. Territorial disputes have been the origin of violence outbreak while some conflicts have driven to the establishment of new borders. There are several factors, endogenous and exogenous, that can explain the dynamics in African boders, which are the object of study of this panel.
Moreover, there is another point to be highlighted in this panel. Traditionally, historiography has focused on border conflicts and their repercussions. Nevertheless, there are other realities that must be analyzed: cooperation between communities on both sides of the border, cultural, social and economic ties or the recovery and construction of transnational identities are also part of the border. These issues can give us a new vision and propose border areas as places of encounter and cooperation, not only as a space of conflict.
This panel emphasises the study of the divergences on African borders, which are analysed both as a case of conflict and opportunity. Thus, topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:
- Territorial borders and the construction of Nation-State in African
- Frontier conflicts
- Politicization of territorial borders
- Cooperation along the border
- Socio-economic and cultural crossborder ties
- Transnational identities
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Jara Cuadrado (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa) Pablo Arconada (Universidad de Valladolid)
Paper short abstract:
This paper is based on analysing the situation of the borders within the African Union and clarifying the possibility of creating a space of free movement within the continent. In order to do this, the specific case of ECOWAS Will be examined.
Paper long abstract:
The European Union made a qualitative leap with the creation of the Schengen area in 1995. The freedom of movement has generated cohesion between states and their inhabitants and has abolished old border disputes, turning frontiers into spaces of opportunity.
This project has been raised on several occasions in the African continent and is an aspiration that remains in force. The elimination of borders in African is a challenge, but it could bring enormous benefits not only averting border conflicts, but also having an impact on the citizenship. However, the African Union faces major challenges that prevent the immediate implementation of a Schengen-type agreement such as terrorism, illegal trafficking networks (drugs, people, weapons), pandemics, resistance from some member states, etc. In the course of this study, an analysis on the possibilities and limits of the suppression of borders in the AU will be carried out.
With this objective, the case of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will take as a model. It is a subregional organization that has promoted important measures on free movement and migration management, which are one of the main focus of its regional integration policies. Thus, through a case study, this proposal aims: (1) to analyse the main measures taken by ECOWAS for the elimination of borders and their practical repercussions; (2) to identify the advantages and obstacles to the development and implementation of these measures; and (3) to propose a possible roadmap for a continental model similar to the European Schengen area.
Willie Aziegbe Eselebor (University of Ibadan)
Paper short abstract:
The paper reviewed extant literature on integration theory and interrogates identified divergent bulges in regional instabilities, weak institutional capacities, poor infrastructure and emerging transnational insecurities; and how this impacts on ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme.
Paper long abstract:
Inspired by the model of European Union, integration was largely envisioned as a mechanism for promoting socio-economic growth, security and cooperation in Africa, which have been elusive overtime due to poverty and intractable conflicts. ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLs), is a trade instrument that abolishes restriction on goods, which originates from Member States, with the grant of import duty waivers and concessions. While studies have centred on free movement of persons, little is explored beyond the policy document on the practicalities in place to encourage duty-free trade between The Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) countries. This paper questions the gaps in the ETLs free trade arrangement, how will ECOWAS boost assurances to drive the process and what realistically can be done to promote unhindered formal and informal trade at the operational levels of cross-border blockage. An inter-disciplinary method that combine primary and secondary sources of data collection from field research is adopted to examine the conflicting trends. The paper reviewed extant literature on integration theory and interrogates identified divergent bulges in regional instabilities, weak institutional capacities, poor infrastructure and emerging transnational insecurities. Deepening intra-ECOWAS trade is potentially feasible, if attendant asymmetries are addressed through enhanced and collaborative operational strategies of good border management.