| Abstract: | This article seeks, through a historical analysis of the regional West African integration process, to reaffirm the pioneering region in terms of socio-economic integration, political and cultural, but also to highlight the persistence of the difficulties and challenges of the political unity consolidation in the region, especially after the internalization of colonial boundaries. The article has set the goal to understand why, despite the enormous efforts and several attempts, the pan-Africanist dream of autonomy, unity and development is still below expectations. It starts with the hypothesis that the difficulties are historical in nature (colonial heritage) and structural linked to difficult relationship between the internal processes of statebuilding and the inclusion of it in the international system dominated by capitalist imperialism of the colonial and neo-colonial countries. Namely, the low speed of the economic integration process, political and socio-cultural process and especially the lack of autonomy is closely tied to unfinished independence processes due to endogenous and exogenous factors. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |
AfricaBib 
Periodical article
Leiden University catalogue
WorldCat