Taking orders from Brussels? external actors and regional organizations in the developing world

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Taking Orders from Brussels?
External Actors and Regional Organizations in the Developing World

Nicolas de Zamaróczy

Graduate School of the University of Southern California

August 9, 2016

Dissertation Submitted as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 7
1.1 The New Building Complex in Arusha ............................................................................................... 7
1.2 Introducing DWROs ......................................................................................................................... 10
1.3 Rationales for the Dissertation ........................................................................................................ 13
1.4 Recovering a Forgotten Literature: American Interest in East African Regionalism, 1960-1980 .. 17
1.5 Case Selection, Methodology, and Data Sources ............................................................................ 20
Chapter 2: Theorizing DWROs ............................................................................................................... 31
2.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 31
2.2 Avoiding Eurocentrism .................................................................................................................... 32
2.3 On the Need for Middle-Range Theorizing ...................................................................................... 35
2.4 Regional Hegemonic Theories ......................................................................................................... 37
2.5 Policy Coordination Theories .......................................................................................................... 39
2.6 Trade Promotion Theories ............................................................................................................... 44
2.7 Post-Colonial Theories .................................................................................................................... 49
2.8 Rhetorical Theories .......................................................................................................................... 53
2.9 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 58
Chapter 3: The Rise and Fall of the First East African Community .................................................. 67
3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 67
3.2 East African Regionalism Prior to Independence ............................................................................ 67
3.3 Independence and the Deferral of a Dream ..................................................................................... 72
Chapter 4: Post-Colonial Theories: Comparing EAC-EU Relations in the 1960s and 2000s ........... 82
4.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 82
4.2 The First EAC and the European Economic Community: The Indecisive Encounter the
Disinterested ........................................................................................................................................... 84
4.3 The Second EAC and the EU: The Developmentally-Minded Woo the Hard-Up .......................... 100
4.4 The External Financing of Contemporary East African Regionalism: Whoever Pays the Piper
Calls the Tune? ..................................................................................................................................... 103
4.5 EU Tools for Supporting the Second EAC ..................................................................................... 107
4.5.1 Day-to-Day Contacts .............................................................................................................. 108
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4.5.2 Trainings and Study Tours ...................................................................................................... 111
4.5.3 Secondments ............................................................................................................................ 116
4.5.4 High-Status Reports ................................................................................................................ 118
4.6 Formal Region-to-Region Negotiations Today: The Rich Compel the Divided ............................ 121
4.7 The EU as a Development Actor in East Africa: Angel, Demon… or Patron? ............................. 138
4.8 Post-Colonialism in 2015: Tracing Changes in the EU-EAC Relationship over the Decades ...... 146
Chapter 5: Policy Coordination Theories: The Bizarre Resurrection of the EAC .......................... 167
5.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................... 167
5.2 Irrationally Designed? The Relaunch of the EAC ........................................................................ 168
5.3 (Mis)learning the Lessons of History ............................................................................................. 170
5.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 174
Chapter 6: Regional Hegemonic Theories: Politics in a Region of Peers .......................................... 175
6.1 Is the EAC an Instrument of a Regional Hegemon? ...................................................................... 175
6.2 The Case for Ethiopia .................................................................................................................... 176
6.3 The Case for Rwanda ..................................................................................................................... 177
6.4 The Case for Uganda ..................................................................................................................... 178
6.5 The Case for Kenya ........................................................................................................................ 179
6.6 The Rise of the “Coalition of the Willing” and the EAC Secretariat’s Role as an Honest Broker 182
Chapter 7: Trade Promotion Theories: Elite Coalitions Competing for the Money ........................ 187
7.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................... 187
7.2 The Rent-Oriented Coalition .......................................................................................................... 190
7.3 The Export-Oriented Coalition ...................................................................................................... 193
7.4 The Distribution of the Two Coalitions across East Africa ........................................................... 202
7.5 The Strategic Nature of East African Regional Politics ................................................................ 206
7.6 The Rent-Oriented Coalition’s Strategies ...................................................................................... 207
7.7 The Export-Oriented Coalition’s Strategies .................................................................................. 210
7.8 Is the Export-Oriented Coalition Winning? Recent Evidence from East Africa ........................... 217
7.9 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 222
Chapter 8: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 241
8.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................... 241
8.2 The Argument Restated Chronologically ....................................................................................... 242
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8.3 Wither the EAC? ............................................................................................................................ 247
8.4 Scholarly Takeaways: Which Theories Best Explain East African Regionalism? ......................... 251
8.5 Policy Recommendations ............................................................................................................... 253
8.6 Self Critiques .................................................................................................................................. 255
8.7 Directions for Future Research: Extrapolating to Other Cases .................................................... 257
8.8 Directions for Future Research: Deepening Our Understanding of the EAC ............................... 258
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 262
Primary Documents .............................................................................................................................. 262
Secondary Literature ............................................................................................................................ 273

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Acknowledgements

I could not have finished this project without the tireless support of Patrick James, who is one of
the most generous and patient advisors professors I have ever worked with. Whenever the going
got dark, Pat promised me that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, and I am incredibly
grateful that with his help I was able to see them all.

I also greatly benefitted from the knowledge of my two other committee members. Wayne
Sandholtz’s commitment to the pursuit of genuine intellectual inquiry, regardless of disciplinary
politics, is something I hope to follow in the years ahead. Andrew Lakoff’s teaching and
research interests in the discipline of Anthropology were a welcome respite from the often
stultifying world of IR, and his perennial enthusiasm and knack for asking provocative questions
made interacting with him a constant delight.

At the beginning of this project I was inspired by Mai’a Davis Cross, who helped me get it off
the ground. Towards the very end of my dissertation I was helped across the finish line by
Christian Grose. Other professors who have helpfully commented on various parts of the
dissertation over the years include Jeb Barnes, Saori Katada, Mary Sarotte, Jacques Hymans,
Brian Rathbun, and Doug Becker.

I am profoundly appreciative of my fellow students who patiently listened to me present version
after version after version of this dissertation over the years: Simon Radford, Parker Hevron,
Dave Bridge, Juve Cortés, Mark Paradis, Justin Berry, Chin Hao-Huang, Garrett Swanburg,
Edwin Juárez Rosales, Christine Solinsky, Kym MacNeal, Mary Byram Washburn, Michael
Washburn, Brian Knafou, Tom Jamieson, Erin Kamler, Eric Hamilton, Matt Gratias, Deniz
Kuru, Tyler Curley, Ron Osborne, Michael Pérez, Jillian Medeiros Pérez, Kate Svyatets, Jiun
Bang, Gloria Koo, Joey Huddleston, Mayaguez Salinas, Jenn Roglà, Victoria Chonn, Meredith
Shaw, Suzie Caldwell Mulesky, Stephanie Kang, Shiming Yang, Sahra Sulaiman, Kia Hays, and
many others. As a professor quite correctly told me during the first year of my Ph.D., “no one
makes it through grad school alone.” I could not have asked for a better crew to get me through.

In addition, I am exceedingly grateful to everyone who worked with me, befriended me, and
agreed to my requests for interviews during my time in Tanzania. In particular, this project
might never have gotten started in the first place if I had not been able to shoot the breeze as
often as I did with Thomas Grimaud, Nicolas Beaupied, and Martin Francou.

The School of International Relations and the Center for International Studies at the University
of Southern California were fantastic homes while I researched and wrote this dissertation. I
gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of both at various points along the way, and in
particular the tireless efforts of the Associate Director of the School of International Relations,
Linda Cole, who always helped me obtain the funding I needed to pursue my research. Cathy
Ballard, Indira Persad, Veri Chavarin, Karen Tang, and Luda Spilewski helped me solve
countless administrative problems swiftly and painlessly. Me gustaría también agradecerle a
Rosa, quien siempre mantenía nuestras áreas de trabajo limpia cada noche a pesar de mi mejor
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esfuerzo a desordenarlo, y quién mas que nadie me acompaño mientras estaba escribiendo esta
tesis.

I must also express my gratitude to my family: to my father Mario, who taught me to care about
politics and about justice, and that sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh at the world; to
my mother Isabelle, who is both fiercely tenacious and deeply affectionate, and who introduced
me to the joys of music; to my brother François, whose quiet but profound devotion to our family
I seek to emulate; to my sister Ilona, who is absolutely fearless in everything she does; and to my
sister Zita, who is probably the most selfless and patient person I know. I love you all from the
bottom of my heart and am so thankful for your constant support.

Lastly, without a doubt the best thing about the several long years it took to complete this
dissertation is that it afforded me the opportunity to meet someone incredibly special. Were it
not for this dissertation, I might have missed discovering an amazingly talented and heart-
gladdening person who always keeps my spirits light and my life on track. As my network login
password reminded me every day, Rosie is indeed super! I could not have done this without you,
darling. Thank you for your patience, steadfastness, and love.
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Chapter 1: Introduction

The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only
there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets, which
convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork. ― Alain de Botton, The Pleasures
and Sorrows of Work

1.1 The New Building Complex in Arusha
Arusha is a lovely and tranquil city in the highlands of East Africa. The second-largest
city in Tanzania, Arusha is frequently called the “Geneva of Africa,” owing to the picturesque
mountains that surround it as well as its prominent role in regional diplomacy: the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is based here, and numerous peace negotiations have taken place
in the city over the years.
1
To the west lies the world-famous Ngorongoro Crater, where herds of
elephants, giraffes, zebras, and gazelles roam about under the eyes of eager tourists. To the
north, the border with Kenya and the tumult of Nairobi beckon. And to the east stands majestic
Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, usually wreathed in clouds. Lacking the
slums of larger African metropolises, and with fertile volcanic land all around, Arusha is usually
a quiet place.
As the 21
st
century gets under way, however, events stirring in the center of this peaceful
city may have profound implications for millions of people across a quarter of a continent. Since
2000, Arusha has been the site of the headquarters of the East African Community (EAC), the
leading regional organization in East Africa. The EAC is an ambitious effort to bring together
the factitious East African states—Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan
2

and perhaps someday others—and unite them into a single market and ultimately a single East
Africa super-state. If able to deliver on these goals in a peaceful, democratic, and sustainable
manner, the EAC could ultimately hold the key to a better future for all East Africans.

1
These peace negotiations include the Arusha Accords signed in August 1993 that ended the Rwandan Civil War, as
well as the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi, which was signed in August 2000 and helped
lay the groundwork for the end of the Burundian Civil War in 2005.
2
The bulk of this dissertation was written during 2014 and 2015. As I was preparing the final draft, South Sudan
was accepted as the EAC’s sixth member state in March 2016 (although a formal accession treaty remains to be
signed and ratified). In order to accurately reflect the conditions that existed at the time this dissertation was written,
I have not gone back and revised the text to include South Sudan’s recent membership. Accordingly, unless
otherwise specified, references to the EAC throughout this dissertation should be construed as referring to the EAC-
5, i.e. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
8

Since November 2012, a sleek new complex in the heart of downtown Arusha has given
physical form to the hopes of EAC-philes. Built on land donated by the Tanzanian government,
the modern, three-wing facility is the EAC’s permanent headquarters. The 15,000-square meter
space includes restaurants, conference rooms, court rooms, and a library in addition to offices for
the staff of the EAC Secretariat, the East African Legislative Assembly, and the East African
Court of Justice.
Inside the buildings, several hundred men and women work primarily as bureaucrats:
compiling data, issuing reports, holding meetings, adjudicating disputes, communicating with the
media, making their message known to the outside world, and generally crafting and
implementing policies that will affect the well-being of over 150 million people.
3
The EAC’s
staff, however, represent a relatively unusual breed of bureaucrats. They are neither national
bureaucrats who focus on the welfare of a single country, nor bureaucrats for an international
organization whose mandate extends all over the globe; rather, they are regional bureaucrats,
tasked with increasing cooperation between a limited set of neighboring countries. Even more
remarkably, these regional bureaucrats are located in the heart of the developing world, whereas
historically most regional organizations have been based in the developed world. As this
dissertation will show, there are a number of ways in which regional organizations in the
developing world differ from their counterparts in the developed world, but the most obvious is a
persistent lack of material resources. There is a clear difference between EAC bureaucrats
seeking to craft policies for a region with a weighted per capita annual income of only $590 and,
say, European Union (EU) officials who oversee an area with an annual per capita income of
about $35,000.
This widespread poverty makes the EAC’s gleaming new headquarters complex stand out
all the more. Where did the money for the building come from? The short answer is almost
entirely from the German government, whose international development agency spent
approximately €15 million designing and erecting the complex. And Germany’s involvement
with the EAC’s headquarters went far beyond simply financing it: German architects designed
the building, and a German construction company won the contract to actually build it.
4
In

3
The EAC is growing quickly in terms of personnel: there were approximately 134 permanent staff in 2009, 178 in
2012, and 269 in 2014 (GIZ 2012: 24; EAC 2014c: 78).
4
“New EAC Head Office in Arusha Opened,” New Vision (Kampala), November 29, 2012.
9

recent years, about two-thirds of the EAC’s annual budget has been directly provided by
European donors (including Germany). And a handful of the staffers inside the building are EU
employees on official secondment to the EAC. All in all, then, Germany today is deeply
committed to the process of East African regional integration, having spent over €213 million to
support it since 1998.
In a curious quirk of city planning, there is another building in Arusha only two streets
down that speaks to a very different side of Europe’s interest in East Africa. First erected in
1900, the Old Boma building originally served as the military and administrative headquarters of
Germany’s colonization of then-Tanganyika. Built using enslaved local labor, the Boma
featured high walls, a moat, and a machine gun emplacement—rapacious German military
commanders used it as a staging point for raids further into the Tanganyikan interior. When the
British took possession of Tanganyika following World War I, they continued using the fort and
its barracks for several decades, before converting it into a natural history museum in 1938.
Today, the Boma remains a museum which, in delightfully eclectic fashion, covers everything
from Arusha’s local fauna to the history of German colonialism, from paleo-anthropology to
taxidermic best practices. With very little money and in rough shape, the museum stands in the
literal and figurative shadow of the new EAC headquarters, recalling the dark side of European
involvement in the region.
Overall, this brief depiction of the EAC’s headquarters and its surroundings nicely
showcases many of the themes I develop further in this dissertation. While the EAC building
physically embodies the hopes of believers in the East African regional project, its dependence
on support from outside the region also points to the EAC’s current limitations. Overall, this
vignette should drive us to wonder about several questions:
 Why in 2000 did East African countries voluntarily come together and found a new
regional organization? What kind of regional cooperation existed in East Africa
beforehand? Where do the loyalties of the EAC’s bureaucrats actually lie?
 More generally, how are regional organizations in the developing world different from
their counterparts in the developed world? Are they generally effective? What issues are
they best at addressing, and which ones are they weaker on?
10

 Why are the European Union and other external actors so interested in the progress of
regional integration in the developing world? Why are they willing to contribute
hundreds of millions of dollars each year to supporting rather obscure regional
organizations in very poor parts of the world?
 And, in turn, what effect does all of this external support have on those same regional
organizations? Is there a cost to accepting all this external largesse? Are there strings
attached when regional organizations in the developing world partner with actors from
outside their region? And in what ways does the legacy of colonialism continue to affect
regional organizations in the developing world?

1.2 Introducing DWROs
In the Western world, “bureaucracy” is usually a dirty word: bureaucratic organizations
are seen as too powerful, too unresponsive, too unaccountable, too indifferent, too inefficient, too
arbitrary, and (in the U.S.) as “job-killing.” In much of the developing world,
5
however, the
problem is often framed as societies having too little bureaucracy, rather than too much of it. In
many parts of East Africa, it is hoped that increased bureaucratization can lead to greater
efficiency, greater effectiveness, greater fairness, and greater transparency. Policymakers across
the world, then, are continually engaged in the task of seeking the Goldilocks spot, with neither
too little nor too much bureaucracy, but instead an amount that is just right.

5
Throughout this dissertation I employ the term “developing world” to collectively refer to countries where the
majority of people have very low standards of living, particularly those countries that experienced colonialism in the
19
th
century. Historically, many of these countries were referred to as the “Third World” during the Cold War, but
that term has lost relevance in recent decades and is also problematically loaded: who decided that the U.S. was part
of the “First World”? Accordingly, many critically-minded scholars have in recent years preferred to use the term
the “Global South,” which gets away from problematically teleological conceptions of development as a process
where the West is ahead and the rest of the globe lags behind. Critics point out, however, that it can be misleading:
desperately poor Haiti is in the Northern Hemisphere, while well-off Australia and New Zealand are some of the
southernmost countries on the planet. And there is of course no shortage of rich capitalists throughout the Global
South (Funk 2015). For their part, some major international organizations such as the World Bank have gone the
empiricist route: these days they prefer arguably more “objective” terms such as “low-income” and “lower-middle-
income” countries. But in addition to not being immediately intuitive, these terms problematically emphasize
income as the primary measuring stick for human well-being, in the face of more holistic conceptions of
development as espoused by Amartya Sen and the Human Development Index. Given that none of these contested
terms is without its flaws, and amidst a proliferation of ever newer designations (Fialho & Van Bergeijk
forthcoming), I ultimately choose to stick with “developing world” precisely because it draws attention to the
processes of development which, I will argue below, are so central to contemporary manifestations of East African
regionalism. Many European and East African actors alike view the East African Community today very much
through a developmentalist perspective.
11

This search for the right degree of bureaucracy has been well-documented at the national
level all across the developing world (e.g. Ferguson 1990; T. Mitchell 2002; Feldman 2008; Hull
2012; Gupta 2012). Separately, there is a considerable literature on the bureaucracies of
international organizations with a global remit (Harper 1997; McAuslan 1997; Riles 2001;
Barnett 2003; Barnett & Finnemore 2004; Moschella 2010). But in between these two areas lies
an under-explored middle ground, that of formal regional organizations, very few of which have
been examined in the developing world.
This is not because formal regional organizations are scarce these days. To the contrary,
they have been seemingly sprouting up left and right across the globe over the past 30 or so
years. Some have spoken of a “rush to regionalism,” such that practically no country on the
planet is not part of at least one formal regional organization, and many countries participate in
three, four, or more (Cosbey et al. 2004). So why is this level of bureaucracy routinely ignored
by scholars in disciplines such as political science? Perhaps because many scholars continue to
have an implicit statist bias, viewing global politics in national as opposed to transnational terms.
Or perhaps they believe that most formal regional organizations are ineffective and hence not
worth studying. But both of these assumptions need to empirically verified rather than simply
asserted.
In this dissertation, I am particularly concerned with “developing world regional
organizations” (DRWOs), which I define as: (1) formal intergovernmental organizations
comprising at least three proximate states, (2) which are tasked with increasing and improving
cooperation among their member states by coordinating activities across a broad array of issue
areas, and (3) whose membership is mostly either low-income or lower-middle-income states (as
defined by the World Bank).
6
There are a number of features in this definition worth noting.
First, the organization must be formal and at least somewhat institutionalized—this rules out
purely “talk shop” bodies. Second, the insistence that a DWRO must have at least three

6
Once a year, the World Bank Group formally classifies all countries and politically autonomous territories in the
world according to their per capita Gross National Income (GNI, which is now the preferred measure over its close
cousin, GDP), placing them in one of four categories: High-income economies; Upper-middle-income economies;
Lower-middle-income economies; and Low-income economies. For 2016, the thresholds for the various levels were
$1,045 or less for low-income countries; between $1,046 and $4,125 for lower-middle-income countries; between
$4,126 and $12,736 for upper-middle-income countries; and above $12,737 for high income countries. For further
information, see http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-and-lending-groups [last accessed April 12, 2016].

12

members rules out purely bilateral initiatives and organizations. Third, while I do not attempt to
provide a specific upper limit, the criterion of proximity limits the potential geographical scope
of a DWRO: after a certain number of members join, states are simply no longer proximate to
one another. Fourth, insisting that a DWRO must have a wide remit covering several different
issue areas excludes multi-country organizations with very narrow mandates, such as the
Mekong River Commission or the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, although this does not
necessarily imply that the organization is effective in all those areas. It simply means that it has
not been formally constrained to act in a narrow range of areas (a test which most free-trade
agreements fail, for instance). Lastly, while a DWRO may have a few members that are upper-
middle income or even high-income states, the majority of its members must be lower-middle-
income states or poorer, and typically the median per capita income in the area the DWRO
covers will be quite low (< $5000 a year). A non-exhaustive list of 21 currently active DWROs
is provided in Table 1.1.
DWROs represent the formal, institutionalized end of a spectrum of social processes
collectively referred to as “regionalism,” which is a broad term that has been defined as:
a multi-dimensional process of social transformation whereby actors, associated with (sub-national
governance levels and belonging to a limited number of different states, intensify their interactions
through the reduction of obstacles, the implementation of coordinated or common actions and
policies, and/or the creation of regional institutions, thereby creating a new relevant (regional)
space for many aspects of human behaviour and activities. (De Lombaerde 2011: 32)
Regionalism, in other words, can be bottom-up as well as top-down, informal as well as formal,
social as well as economic or political, and the result of a wide variety of actors, not simply
states (for a useful typology of regionalism, see Hurrell 1995: 39-45). Indeed, following the
post-positivist revolution in IR, the consensus seems to be that “there are no ‘natural’ regions [in
the world], and definitions of ‘region’ and indicators of ‘regionness’ vary according to the
particular problem or question under investigation. Moreover it is how political actors perceive
and interpret the idea of a region and notions of ‘regionness’ that is critical: all regions are
socially constructed and hence politically contested” (Hurrell 1995: 38-39).
If regionalism is such a multi-faceted concept, why then do I choose to narrowly focus in
this dissertation on its institutionalized aspects—viz., state-directed efforts to increase formal
“regional integration,” which usually culminates in the establishment and maintenance of a
13

“regional organization”? I do so for at least three reasons. First, as I elaborate on in the next
section, I worry that proponents of so-called “new regionalism” have gone too far in dismissing
the importance of DWROs by instead only analyzing bottom-up regionalism. DWROs still
matter, I argue, but even if it turns out that they do not matter, that is still noteworthy given the
considerable resources they consume. Second, regional integration efforts in the developing
world have typically been considered a failure, by academics and policymakers alike. For
instance, Fawcett (1995: 14) argued that most DWROs “fell far short of expectations,” while
Telò (2007b: 3) has bemoaned their “very poor results” and at best “marginal impact” on global
politics. To what an extent does this generally pessimistic take on DWROs still make sense in
2015? This question is especially pertinent in the case of the specific DWRO I analyze in this
dissertation, the EAC, which has been called the most successful DWRO in Africa by both the
EU and US governments.
7
Accordingly, the third reason I focus on formal regional integration
in this dissertation is because my case is said to be an exemplar of it: if formal regional
integration in East Africa is unsuccessful, it is unlikely to fare better anywhere else in the
developing world.

1.3 Rationales for the Dissertation
To the best of my knowledge, this dissertation represents the first single-authored, book-
length scholarly study of the East African Community in decades. As such, it offers a
comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the preeminent regional organization in East Africa,
paying particular attention to areas such as the EAC’s relations with external donors (Chapter 4),
the political economy of contemporary East African regionalism (Chapter 7), and how the
founders of the second EAC sought to incorporate “lessons learned” from the demise of the first
EAC (Chapter 5).

7
The EU Ambassador to Tanzania called the EAC “the most successful illustration of regional integration on the
African continent” in July 2007 (“Donors speak highly of EAC integration process,” People’s Daily, November 3,
2008). An August 2010 EAC press release opened with “The US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has
praised the East African Community as the most successful regional economic community among the regional trade
or cooperation agreements in the Sub-Saharan Africa” (see
http://www.eac.int/customs/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&catid=130, last accessed May
20, 2016).

14

However, this dissertation seeks to go beyond simply analyzing the case of EAC to speak
broadly about the processes at work in DWROs more generally. Accordingly, the dissertation is
not structured as a simple chronology, but instead as a series of empirical tests of the most
significant prevailing theories about DWRO formation and evolution. Five broad theoretical
approaches to DWROs are presented in Chapter 3, and then four of them are assessed for their
applicability to the case of the EAC in the empirical chapters (5-8).
In addition to assessing the applicability of five broad theories about DWROs, the
dissertation also makes contributions to at least four additional subfields within the discipline of
political science.
First, this dissertation widens the debate in the emerging subfield of comparative
regionalism by providing a full-fledged case study of the EAC. Comparative regionalism, which
crystallized around 2000, is a self-conscious effort by scholars of regional integration to shed the
Eurocentric blinders which hindered earlier studies and rigorously and systematically examine
the causes and consequences of regional integration in every part of the world (Sbragia 2008).
While a great deal of fresh, inventive literature has been produced in recent years (Laursen 2003;
Duina 2007; De Lombaerde et al. 2010; Börzel 2011; Krapohl & Fink 2013; Mattheis 2014),
oddly the subfield has focused excessively on just a handful of regional organizations (viz.,
Mercosur, ASEAN, and SADC) while neglecting many others. Helping to bring the EAC into
the subdiscipline as an additional case should make its findings and theories more balanced and
robust.
Second, this dissertation offers a helpful corrective to the emerging literature on new
regionalism. In contrast to “old regionalism,” which focused exclusively on top-down regional
integration that occurred within formal international organizations, “new regionalism” instead
takes a bottom-up perspective, focusing in particular on broad social processes of
regionalization, such as cross-border movements and trade routes (Muzvidziwa 2001; Hettne
2005; Telò 2007a; Mattheis 2014). Scholars of new regionalism have laid particular claim to
Africa, showing how a continent often thought to be characterized by a lack of regional
integration actually has surprisingly deep regional processes and identities at the quotidian level
(Ntseane 2001; Grant & Söderbaum 2003; Söderbaum & Taylor 2008; Masinjila 2009). I am
sympathetic to these aims, but at the same time wonder if proponents of new regionalism have
15

gone too far in dismissing the impact of formal regional organizations in Africa. What are the
actual effects of DWROs, and does their impact approach the scale and significance of the
bottom-up regionalization other scholars have identified? These questions need to be assessed
empirically, not simply set aside in favor of a newer research approach.
A third way in which my dissertation seeks to make a contribution is by shedding light on
the long-standing debate about the nature of the EU’s foreign policy.
8
Some scholars have
argued that the lessons learned from Europe’s bloody history and the EU’s unique, multi-level
structure have caused the EU to develop a “distinctive” and more pacific foreign policy (Smith
2002; Telò 2006; Lucarelli 2007; Hoang 2016)? Is the EU perhaps the best exemplar we have of
“normative power” being deployed in global politics (Manners 2002; Martin-Mazé 2015)? Or,
as the skeptics maintain, is the EU simply a run-of-the-mill power bloc benefitting from good PR
(Gillespie & Youngs 2002; Sjursen 2006; Hyde-Price 2006; Bicchi 2006; Manners 2006;
Merlingen 2007; Staeger 2016)? Or perhaps the EU is nothing more than an unusually
aggressive trading power, wielding access to its large market as a cudgel to force weaker actors
to comply with its decrees, as proponents of the “market power Europe” thesis suggest (Garelli
2012; Damro 2012; Jurje & Lavenex 2014; Elsig 2013)?
Carefully scrutinizing the EU’s support for regional integration in the developing world is
an excellent case for gaining inferential leverage within this debate, since there is no clear a
priori answer to these questions. One can make equally compelling initial cases that the EU is
promoting regionalism abroad in order to normatively persuade others to adopt its own
developmental model, which it genuinely believes has yielded peace and prosperity to the
European continent, or that the EU is creating mini-clones of itself in the developing world in
order to cynically facilitate ever-greater resource extraction as part of an ongoing neo-colonial
foreign policy. Which side of the “normative power Europe” vs. “market power Europe” debate
does the case of EU-EAC relations seem to better support?
The fourth subfield this dissertation contributes to is a recent literature on the potential
for (and limits of) African agency, given Africa’s weak structural position in global politics.
Arguably emerging from growing interest in “the politics of the weak” (de Certeau 1984; Scott,

8
Throughout this dissertation, “EU” refers to the amalgamation of both the EU’s 28 member states as well as all its
Community-level institutions, such as the European Commission and the European Parliament.
16

J. 1985), scholars have begun empirically answering the question of exactly how diverse African
agents attempt to advance their interests on a playing field that is tilted against them. Some
academics have focused on the tactics of resistance deployed by rural Africans in the face of
neoliberal logics deployed by potent external actors (Sivini 2007) or empowered national states
(Thomson 2013). Others have focused on how African governments themselves seek to
circumvent restrictions on their freedom to act imposed by external actors such as donors
(Whitfield 2005; Whitfield 2009; Lorenz-Carl & Rempe 2013; Girod & Tobin 2016). According
to some, multinational African organizations such as the African Union or ECOWAS have been
showing signs of renewed energy in recent years, in keeping with the ongoing quest to find
“African solutions to African problems” (Aning & Edu-Afful 2016; Bischoff et al. 2016). And,
finally, some analysts flip the argument of weak African states on its head, noting how wily
African leaders are fully capable of tactically playing up security threats in order to secure ever
larger amounts of donor aid (Fisher 2012; Fisher & Anderson 2015). While some key recurring
strategies of African agents have been identified—including foot-dragging, playing various
external actors off against one another, cosmetic compliance, and norm localization
9
—much
further empirical work remains to be done in this area.
To recap, then, there are several main reasons for this dissertation: it constitutes the first
major comprehensive examination of East African regionalism in decades; it explicitly embraces
a theory-testing perspective for five major theoretical approaches to DWROs; and it makes
contributions to four newly emerging subfields (comparative regionalism, new regionalism,
nature of EU foreign policy, and African agency). There is one final aim this dissertation seeks
to accomplish, which is to help recover the “forgotten” literature of American interest in the
EAC that was prevalent in the 1960s and 70s. As I discuss further in the next section, recovering
this literature is important because it should usefully remind contemporary readers that the bulk
of writing about post-independence East Africa, in both East Africa and the West alike, was
marked by overwhelming degrees of optimism and dynamism. What happened that changed all
that?

9
“Cosmetic compliance” refers to situations where “governments manipulate [a regulatory regime] in order to
formally comply with its explicit provisions, while still allowing them, in practice, to defect from its objectives”
(Chey 2006: 271). “Norm localization” refers to the process whereby “local agents reconstruct foreign norms to
ensure the norms fir with the agents’ cognitive priors and identities” (Acharya 2004: 239).
17

1.4 Recovering a Forgotten Literature: American Interest in East African Regionalism, 1960-
1980
Today the East African Community is not, to put it mildly, a priority for American
researchers or policymakers, nor is it at the forefront of the minds of the American public. But at
one point Americans did pay a fair amount of attention to the EAC. In the 1960s and 70s, the
United States’ ascendancy to superpower status following WWII, combined with the perceived
need to establish Cold War clients, led to a surge of American interest in the newly independent
countries of Africa. The discipline of International Relations was very attuned to these
hegemonic dynamics (Hoffmann 1977), which surely explains part of the explosion of American
interest in East Africa (see Figure 1.2). Still, the Cold War cannot fully explain the publishing
phenomenon, since the U.S. had relatively low-level ties with the three main East African
countries during the 1960s, and the American scholarship was very focused on the specific
problem of regional integration, not all aspects of East African politics and society. Rather, there
seems to have been an incipient recognition that East Africa’s degree of regional integration in
the 1950s and 1960s—what with a customs union, a common market, centralized taxation, a
single currency, and collectively owned infrastructure—was a truly remarkable achievement,
with potential implications for the development trajectory of all the newly independent countries
(cf. Segal, A. 1967). Long before the subfield of comparative regionalism would emerge in the
2000s, American scholars were realizing that the first EAC offered a parallel model of political
federation to the slow-moving “functionalist” European experiment, despite starting from a much
lower economic base.
As an example, consider the first four publication entries on the CV of world-renowned
IR theorist Joseph Nye Jr.
10
It would probably come as a surprise to most IR scholars today to
learn that all four deal with East African regional integration. In particular, Nye ’s Ph.D.
dissertation,
11
published in 1965 as Pan-Africanism and East African Integration, is a book-
length study of the role that ideology plays in regional integration schemes. Anticipating themes
in comparative regionalism that would follow four decades later, Nye compares efforts at

10
See http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jnye/cv.pdf [last accessed April 10, 2016].
11
Other American Ph.D. dissertations written around this time on the topic of East African regional integration
include Segal, D. (1969) and Sampson III (1979).
18

integration in East Africa with the burgeoning European Economic Community, seeking to
understand how the widespread commitment to the ideology of Pan-Africanism in 1960s East
Africa contributed to the region’s attempts to federate. (Nye contrasts East Africa’s
ideologically-driven integration with Western Europe’s, which he believes—mistakenly, I
think—to have been unideological in nature.) An even more explicit and prescient early move in
the direction of comparative regionalism is Nye (1968), a short piece he wrote comparing East
African and Central American attempts at federation during the 1960s.
Scholarly interest in the EAC was also apparent in the pages of the Journal of Common
Market Studies (JCMS), which began as an academic review of the then-European Common
Market but which over time became the most prestigious forum for academic work on regional
integration anywhere in the world. The JCMS ran no less than six articles that focused explicitly
on East African integration between its founding in 1962 and 1980 (Segal, A. 1967; Ghai, Y.
1973; Ghai, D. 1973a; Ghai, D. 1973b; Shaw 1979; Hazlewood 1979), as well as the verbatim
text of the 1968 Treaty for East African Co-operation (JCMS 1968). Since 1980, however, it has
only published one article on regional integration in East Africa, and that all the way back in
1983 (Cox 1983). Other scholarly journals also published articles devoted to the EAC in the
1960s and 70s (e.g. Rothchild 1967; Aliboni 1970; Dresang & Sharkansky 1973; Sharkansky &
Dresang 1974; Mugomba 1978; Ravenhill 1979), but since 1980 not a single one of the top 10
peer-reviewed American IR journals has published an article that substantively addresses East
African regionalism.
12

The palpable American excitement surrounding regional integration in East Africa during
the 1960s can also be inferred from interest by media organizations at the time. American and
European newspapers regularly covered matters pertaining to East African regional integration,
13

12
The list of top 10 International Relations journals (as perceived by U.S. academics) was obtained by referring to
the 2011 TRIP survey, and then dropping the non-peer-reviewed journals Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. That
yielded a list of these journals: International Organization; International Studies Quarterly; International Security;
American Political Science Review; World Politics; European Journal of International Relations; Journal of
Conflict Resolution; Review of International Studies; Millennium; and American Journal of Political Science. Next,
the online archives for each of these journals was searched, using the term “East African Community.” For most
journals there were no results. For some, the term appeared in a handful of articles, but simply as an example: the
articles were not mainly focused on East African regionalism. Only one journal’s archives contained any articles
that substantively addressed East African regional integration—International Organization, which ran a pair of
articles about the EAC… in 1973 and 1974.
13
E.g. “E. African Federation is Urged,” Washington Post, October 16, 1961; “East African Hopes of Federation,”
The London Times, July 11, 1962; “Unity for Africa Appears Distant,” New York Times, July 30, 1962.
19

and there are in fact numerous requests in the EU’s archives from the Commission Delegation in
Washington DC asking for more information on EU-EAC trade negotiations in response to
requests from U.S.-based journalists. Indeed, the New York Time’s digital archive contains 21
articles since 1990 that contain the phrase “East African Community” (.88 articles per year), but
a much higher 27 articles between 1969 and 1989 (1.35 articles per year).
Even relatively small newspapers in the United States thought the EAC was deserving of
their attention. In 1967, a remarkable article in the Baltimore Sun noted that “officials are
convinced that the East African Common Market is one of the few regional associations in the
rapidly fragmenting African world that will hold together.” In fact, the EAC would implode in a
highly public fashion within the decade. But leaving aside failed journalistic prognostications,
the bigger point here is that the Baltimore Sun—never more than a regional paper throughout its
history—had a correspondent reporting on the EAC in 1967. (The Baltimore Sun does not
appear to have covered the EAC since then.)
Policymakers in Washington, D.C. were also curious about the EAC. Indeed, the EAC
received the ultimate badge of honor the American social sciences could deliver during the Cold
War: an official, manuscript-length study done by the RAND Corporation (Massell 1963; see
also Massell 1962; Massell 1964). The study was a careful economic appraisal of the gains and
losses of the EAC’s common market up to that point, with a particular focus on the differences
across the three partner states. As with the reporting by American journalists, the optimistic tone
of the report is striking in retrospect.
Ultimately, the dramatic collapse of the first EAC in the late 1970s would cause the
deluge of American commentary on East African regionalism to dry up almost overnight (see
Figure 1.2). By 1990, the last few scholarly post-mortems had all been wrapped up (e.g. Muriuki
1978; Mazzeo 1979; Njiku 1981; Nkonoki 1983), and the distinctiveness and dynamism of the
East African federal project became largely forgotten. Instead, the United States began viewing
East Africa through the lens of “underdevelopment” and the attendant need for Western tutelage,
whereas just a few short decades earlier Americans had been impressed by the vitality and
capability of the leaders of post-independence East Africa. East Africa has never since regained
that earlier degree of sustained attention from Americans, even with the advent of the War on
Terror in the 2000s. But this forgotten literature is worth revisiting, because it shows that, pace
20

perpetually gloomy readings of East African history, there truly was a great deal of optimism
about East Africa’s future all around the world in the 1960s and 70s. A better understanding of
the past history of East African regionalism—as well as of the role that external powers like the
US and the EU play in shaping the region’s future—can help us recapture that lapsed spirit of
hope.

1.5 Case Selection, Methodology, and Data Sources
Why is conducting a single case study of regional integration in East Africa a compelling
framework for studying the broader class of DWROs? There are a number of reasons why this
dissertation is centered around an extended case study of the EAC. Let us begin by considering
three “usual” rationales for engaging in a single case study. First, as I suggested in the previous
section, the EAC case is severely understudied in contemporary Western scholarship—as such,
exploring the case promises to shed a great deal of new light. Second, the case is substantively
important: the course of East African regional integration directly affects the lives and
livelihoods of over 170 million people, living in an area of roughly 942,000 square miles
(approximately 2.4 million square kilometers), almost the size of India. Or, if the EAC is not
truly affecting the lives of ordinary East Africans, then one should wonder if the hundreds of
millions of dollars it has expended in recent years are being well spent. Third, I was fortunate
enough to occupy a unique vantage point during my fieldwork in Dar es Salaam and was able to
carefully observe European donors’ attitudes and actions towards the EAC. These insights seem
to me to be worth preserving and recounting.
Together, these three arguments help justify my decision to engage in a single case study,
and indeed echo points made by Joseph Nye decades ago: “The conclusions to be drawn from a
single case with respect to African integration must of necessity be limited… Nonetheless, since
that case represents a failure of Pan-Africanist leaders working under the relatively favorable
conditions of 1963, it is of considerable importance to anyone interested in problems of African
integration. Moreover, both as a case study and as a qualification of the existing ‘European’
theory, the East African failure to federate in 1963 is important for anyone interested in
comparative problems of regional integration” (Nye 1965: viii).
21

But there is arguably an even more persuasive and methodologically rigorous reason why
a case study of the EAC makes perfect sense: out of all DWROs in the world, the East African
region arguably offers the most within-case variation. In recent years some political scientists
have increasingly criticized the analytic utility and inferential leverage that single case studies
(especially qualitative ones) can offer (King et al. 1994). Would-be methodological purists have
even claimed that “case studies have become in many cases a synonym for freeform research
where anything goes” (Maoz 2002: 164-165). Defenders of case studies, however, have
countered that well-selected and properly analyzed case studies have a number of unique
strengths (George & Bennett 2005; Gerring 2007; Hall 2008). For one thing, well-designed case
studies are extremely good at helping the researcher inductively identify additional variables and
hypotheses that had not been previously considered. For another, they offer unparalleled
opportunities for careful process-tracing, and as such can generate better insights into underlying
causal mechanisms than more static explanatory approaches. Overall, this has pushed
proponents of case studies to place a growing emphasis on within-case variation, as opposed to
across-case variation.
And by that standard, East Africa is a gold mine for scholars interested in studying
regional integration in the developing world. Between 1900 and 2015, East African regionalism
can be classified into at least four distinct periods: from roughly 1900 to 1960, when East Africa
was colonized by the British and experienced very high levels of regional integration mandated
by an external power; from 1960 to 1977, when post-independence leaders launched the first
indigenous attempt at regional integration in East Africa, which spectacularly failed in 1977;
from 1977 until about 1995, when there was practically no formal regional integration in East
Africa; and since 1999, when a second East African attempt at formal regional integration has
emerged, with a relatively high degree of success. In addition to its bountiful variation, the
beauty of this periodization is that it holds many structural factors constant (for instance, pre-
colonial legacy, cultural factors, the region’s structural position in the world economy, etc.),
helping the astute researcher to minimize the number of confounding variables and more clearly
identify causal mechanisms.
Consider some of the most common questions researchers ask about DWROs. Are you
interested in how DWROs get started? Then you should love the fact that the East African case
22

offers you at least three distinct data points. Does your scholarship ask the far less common
question of how international organizations die (e.g. Gray, J. forthcoming)? Then the implosion
of the first EAC is a must-cite case. Or perhaps you are more involved with the puzzle of how
DWROs evolve over time? Both the first and second iterations of the EAC offer a great deal of
material to work through. Does your research take seriously the “dogs that don’t bark,” i.e. the
instances where we might expect DWROs to be present but in actuality are not? You may need
to wrestle with the “lost decades” of East African regionalism—the 1980s and the early 90s.
And on top of this rough periodization that I have laid out, there is of course considerable
variation within each of the periods themselves. The bottom line is that a thorough study of East
African regionalism from 1900 to 2015, which is precisely what this dissertation provides, offers
unprecedented variation of both independent variables and the outcome variable (the observed
degree of formal regional integration).
So much for case selection. What methodological choices did I make in undertaking the
research for this dissertation? This dissertation employs a range of diverse methods to make
sense of past and present East African regionalism, including: process-tracing, participant-
observation, elite interviews, analysis of primary sources, archival research, and discourse
analysis. Overall, the main method employed is process-tracing, which I take to mean “the use
of histories, archival documents, interview transcripts, and other sources to see whether the
causal process a theory hypothesizes or implies in a case is in fact evident in the sequence and
values of the intervening variables in that case” (George & Bennet 2005: 6).
I was fortunate enough to be able to engage in some participant-observation as well. I
lived in Dar es Salaam from January to July 2008, and again from January to June 2010. During
the first of those periods I worked as a voluntary, unpaid intern in the Political Section of the
French Embassy in Dar es Salaam. For the bulk of the second period, I had a voluntary, unpaid
internship in the Economics Section of the European Union Delegation in Dar es Salaam. In
both embassies I was given near-total access to internal documents and considerable day-to-day
access to my colleagues, including senior officials. My duties at the French Embassy primarily
concerned improving coordination among EU donors in Tanzania, while my work at the EU
Embassy mainly dealt with issues emerging from the Economic Partnership Agreement
negotiations that were taking place between the EU and the EAC at the time. Accordingly, I was
23

uniquely placed to observe how Western diplomats interacted with East African officials on the
topic of regional integration in the developing world. Being in Dar es Salaam was particularly
useful for exposing me to EAC issues, since all the European countries that have a diplomatic
presence in East Africa have given the EAC dossier to their Tanzanian embassies (as opposed to,
say, their embassies in Kenya). Indeed, many Western ambassadors to Tanzania are officially
double-hatted as ambassadors to the East African Community. Given the European
Commission’s preeminent role within the EU for conducting development policy, the European
Union Delegation in Dar es Salaam was (and still is) the main site on the EU’s side for observing
the entirety of the EU-EAC relationship.
During the course of my two internships, I regularly kept field notes, documenting
incidents I observed, recording notable conversations I had, and noting my impressions. When I
rely on this these field notes in the empirical chapters that follow, I identify them as such and
provide the date they were first taken. In the course of my duties, I met and had conversations
with perhaps 30 officials in Dar es Salaam who were involved in East African regional
integration, from a range of donor institutions, from the Tanzanian government, and from the
EAC itself. There were, however, some individuals who I did not at first cross paths with but
who seemed worth interviewing. I accordingly arranged a handful of additional unstructured
interviews towards the end of my time in Tanzania. These interviews, which took place under
the condition of anonymity, usually lasted around an hour, and are identified by date and location
in the empirical chapters below.
My dissertation also draws upon a rather copious set of primary documents I have been
collecting since 2008. Most of it is “grey literature,” which refers to the written materials
routinely generated by official organizations: memoranda, reports, records, meeting minutes,
correspondence, emails, Powerpoint presentations, brochures, newsletters, speeches, etc. (cf.
Bonelli & Ragazzi 2014: 477). I have sought to systematically collect as many documents as I
can from a wide range of actors engaged in East African regionalism: the EAC itself, national
ministries, external donors, relevant civil society organizations, etc. Some of this literature was
publicly diffused, but the majority was either intended for internal consumption or for a limited
distribution, e.g. to all development attachés at EU embassies in Dar es Salaam. Whenever cited,
these documents are listed by their institutional author in the bibliography below; for the ease of
24

the reader, I have grouped them together in their own bibliographic category called “Primary
Documents.”
In addition to this grey literature, I draw upon three other sets of documents at various
points in the dissertation below: European Economic Community (EEC) archival records; U.S.
diplomatic cables made accessible by WikiLeaks; and articles from East African newspapers
collected since 2008.
My research in Chapter 4 on relations between the EAC and the European Economic
Community (EEC) during the 1960s and 1970s relies primarily upon an examination of over 35
internal EEC documents and press clippings contained in Folder 441.2 (251) of the Barbara
Sloan European Union Documents Collection, hosted at the University of Pittsburgh. These
documents present a largely unvarnished take on the attitudes of the European Commission and
the European Parliament on the first EAC, and cover in considerable detail the EEC’s trade
dealings with East Africa throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
My dissertation also draws upon an analysis of officially declassified as well as
independently leaked US diplomatic cables sent by the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Nairobi,
and Kampala and made available online through WikiLeak’s Public Library of US Diplomacy.
These cables range in date from 1966 to 2010, but the vast majority cluster around two periods:
1973-1976 and 2000-2009. Diplomatic cables from the first period were declassified as part of
the National Archives’ normal declassification process, and then posted online as 1.7 million
(individual and unsearchable) PDFs. The whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks reverse-
engineered the PDFs to create a systematic database, which it calls the “Kissinger Cables” after
the then-Secretary of State and makes publicly available at its Public Library of US Diplomacy:
https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/ . Of these Kissinger Cables, 11,410 were sent from the U.S.
Embassy in Nairobi, 6,856 from various U.S. diplomatic missions in Tanzania, and 554 from the
U.S. Embassy in Kampala.
The diplomatic cables from the 2000-2009 period were obtained by WikiLeaks in a quite
different manner. A disillusioned U.S. intelligence analyst serving in Iraq in 2009 named
Bradley Manning (now Chelsea Manning) illegally downloaded around 250,000 diplomatic
cables off of a U.S. government intranet. The downloaded cables represent a small sample of the
overall universe of U.S. diplomatic correspondence, and were selected via a semi-random
25

process: Manning has stated that she chose the documents to shed light on the vast scope of US
imperialism abroad, while at the same time deliberately withholding highly classified documents
which could put lives in danger by revealing American sources. Manning then turned over the
cables to Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, who further disseminated them to media
organizations around the world as part of the controversial “Cablegate” episode in November
2010. Following the accidental publication of Assange’s password for the entire Manning file on
August 31, 2011, WikiLeaks chose to make all of the cables publicly available in unredacted
form in early September 2011. The cables have since remained online in searchable form at the
Public Library of US Diplomacy. Researchers have expressed a number of potential concerns
with using the Cablegate diplomatic dispatches, but their authenticity has never been seriously
questioned. (I address these possible methodological concerns in detail in de Zamaróczy,
forthcoming.) All told, the Cablegate file contains 1,820 cables from the U.S. Embassy in
Nairobi, 665 cables from the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, and 410 cables from the U.S.
Embassy in Kampala. Throughout the dissertation, in keeping with emerging best practice, each
US diplomatic cable I cite is identified by a three-part identifier, consisting of: the four-digit year
the cable was sent; the post which issued the cable; and the unique chronological number of the
cable, reset at 0 for each post for each year.
Lastly, I obtained and analyzed an extensive collection of articles concerning East
African regionalism in the East African press as part of my dissertation research. While I was
present in Tanzania between 2008 and 2010, I systematically collected press clippings from all
the English-language daily or weekly newspapers published in Dar es Salaam, many of which
are not available online. Since leaving the country in 2011, I have also used the Google News
Search service to set up a news alert that systematically captures all English-language media
articles posted online that mention the “East African Community.” This has generated a dataset
of around 2,600 articles. When referring to these articles in the dissertation, I identify each
newspaper by its name and principal city of publication.
My hope in employing such a diversity of methods and range of data sources in this
dissertation is that the strengths of some can help make up for the limitations of others. For
instance, both participant-observation and non-random elite interviews can generate incredibly
deep insights and highlight the importance of routine practices in generating observable
26

outcomes, but their perspectivism risks introducing considerable bias in the analysis. Similarly,
while relying on an organization’s internal “grey literature” can be helpful in reconstructing the
beliefs and attitudes of its policy-makers, it can miss how developments were perceived by
outside actors, which come across better in news accounts and diplomatic cables by third parties.
Ultimately, I hope that my efforts to create as comprehensive and wide-reaching a documentary
record of the EAC as I can, combined with some skillful triangulation of the various types of
evidence available, have led to a reasonably objective and well-rounded account of the EAC’s
evolution over time.
Still, I am quite aware that researchers can never fully escape their own biases.
Accordingly, the final point I want to make in this methodology section is to make my own
positionality clear to the reader from the very outset of this work. In doing so, I am taking to
heart the calls in much recent IR literature about the importance of self-reflexivity for good
scholarship (e.g. Cohn 2011; Hamati-Ataya 2013, Guzzini 2013; Neumann & Neumann 2015;
Wibben 2016). Indeed, as a white French citizen who grew up in the United States and is
currently based in Los Angeles, and whose exposure to East Africa has happened in incredibly
privileged ways, facilitated by a father who is a senior official at the International Monetary
Fund, I am acutely, intensely aware of the risk I run of recreating neo-colonial modes of thought
in this dissertation. Furthermore, I am nervous about being seen to speak on the behalf of
individual East Africans or East Africans as a group, given my ultimately rather limited
knowledge of the people, places, languages, and situations I discuss (cf. Köhler 2015). Indeed,
while the experiential gap between myself and those I am writing about (but not speaking for!) is
likely insurmountable, I have nevertheless chosen to write this dissertation because of how
important I consider the topic of East African regionalism to be. My main hope in writing is not
so much to change any minds or affect any policies, but simply to help bring the important issue
of contemporary East African regionalism to the fore, so that as many people as possible, from
multiple countries and walks of life, can carry on a true debate about what its contours should be.
27

Table 1.1: Active Developing World Regional Organizations
Name Acronym Established HQ Location Current Membership*

Western Hemisphere
Andean Community
of Nations
CAN 1969 Lima, Peru Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru
Caribbean Community CARICOM 1973
Georgetown,
Guyana
Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica,
Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis,
St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and
Tobago
Central American
Integration System
SICA 1991**
San
Salvador, El
Salvador
Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Panama
Common Market of
the South
MERCOSUR 1991
Montevideo,
Uruguay
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela
Latin American
Integration
Association
ALADI 1980
Montevideo,
Uruguay
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador,
Mexico, Paraguay, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela
Pacific Alliance 2011 Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru

Africa
Common Market for
Eastern and Southern
Africa
COMESA 1993
Lusaka,
Zambia
Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda,
Seychelles, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia,
Zimbabwe
Community of Sahel-
Saharan States
SEN-SAD 1998
Tripoli,
Libya
Benin, Burkina Faso, CAR, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire,
Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra
Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Tunisia
East African
Community
EAC 2000**
Arusha,
Tanzania
Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda
28

Economic Community
of Central African
States
ECCAS 1983
Libreville,
Gabon
Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, DRC, Equatorial
Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe
Economic Community
of West African States
ECOWAS 1975
Abuja,
Nigeria
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana,
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal,
Sierra Leone, Togo
Indian Ocean
Commission
COI 1982 Mauritius
Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, France (for Réunion),
Seychelles
Intergovernmental
Authority on
Development
IGAD 1996** Djibouti
Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan,
Uganda
Southern African
Development
Community
SADC 1992**
Gaborone,
Botswana
Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi,
Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Asia and the Middle East
Arab League 1945 Cairo, Egypt
Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen, Syria
Association of
Southeast Asian
Nations
ASEAN 1967
Jakarta,
Indonesia
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam
Gulf Cooperation
Council
GCC 1981
Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE
Economic
Cooperation
Organisation
ECO 1985 Tehran, Iran
Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iran
Pacific Islands Forum PIF 1971 Suva, Fiji
Australia, Kiribati, Palau, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Nauru,
Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Micronesia, New Zealand, Marshall
Islands, Tuvalu, Niue, Samoa, Vanuatu, Fiji
29

Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation
SCO 2001
Beijing,
China
China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
South Asia
Association for
Regional Cooperation
SAARC 1985
Kathmandu,
Nepal
Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka

*Excludes observers and associates, but includes currently suspended members (e.g. Eritrea, Madagascar, Paraguay, Syria).
** SICA replaced the Central American Common Market, which was founded in 1960. A previous EAC was founded in 1967, but
collapsed in 1977. IGAD replaced the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development, which was founded in 1986. SADC
replaced the Southern African Development Coordination Conference, which was founded in 1980.

30

Figure 1.2: Publication Frequency of EAC-Related Terms, 1900-2015

Source: https://books.google.com/ngrams The figure shows the results of a Google Ngram search for the phrases “East African Community” and “East African
federation.” An Ngram search analyzes the entirety of the Google Books English-language database (over 5 million volumes) and identifies the number of exact
matches for given phrases. In this figure, the y-axis reports the percentage these two three-word phrases represent out of all the three-word phrases in Google’s
corpus in a given year.
31

Chapter 2: Theorizing DWROs

Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through knowledge. — Max Weber

2.1 Introduction
The main goal of this theory chapter is to explore various answers to three related
questions: what are the purposes of developing world regional organizations (DWROs)? When
and how do DWROs initially form? And what causes DWROs to either change or remain
constant over time, well after their initial formation?
I begin this chapter by articulating two overarching principles. In Section 2.2, I argue
that we should try not to theorize DWROs from a Eurocentric viewpoint but instead take
seriously the proposition that regional organizations in the developing world have their own
unique histories, logics, and trajectories. Then, in Section 2.3, I explain why I think it is most
useful to review “middle-level theories” (as opposed to either high-level inter-paradigmatic
debates or low-level theories with limited generalizability) when discussing DWROs.
I then proceed to survey how five different traditions within IR have theorized the
purpose, formation, and development of DWROs (for a summary, see Table 3.2 at the end of the
chapter). Each of these five major theories provides different answers to our opening questions
about how DWROS work, usefully drawing our attention to different parts of the overall story.
At the same time, however, each of these theoretical perspectives is necessarily partial and
cannot explain some aspects of the behavior of DWROs. Thus, regional hegemonic
explanations, for example, argue that DWROs are formed by powerful states (“hegemons”) to
help cloak their power when dealing with weaker, nearby states. A weakness of regional
hegemonic theories, however, is that they are rather static; because hegemonic power changes
relatively slowly, these explanations tend to be silent about the processes of DWRO change.
Policy coordination explanations, for their part, assert that neighboring states of roughly equal
power agree to set up DWROs in order to facilitate the achievement of collective goals. Policy
coordination theorists pay particular attention to the initial design and set-up of DWROs,
articulating how the member states of a DWRO can either constrain or enable the organization to
act on their behalf, but they have much less to say about the evolution of DWROs after their
formation. Trade promotion explanations claim that DWROs are primarily economic
32

organizations helmed by business-friendly interest groups that aim to remove intra- and extra-
regional barriers to trade. Accordingly, DWROs are best viewed as a forum that business-
friendly coalitions use to gain the upper hand over their rent-extracting rivals. Empirically,
however, it is not clear that establishing a DWRO leads to increased trade, and many DWROs
also engage in non-trade-related activities, complicating the story offered by trade promotion
theorists. Post-colonial explanations note how local actors in the developing world often alter
their behavior to better align with the expectations of well-funded international development
agencies. Accordingly, post-colonial theorists claim that DWROs are primarily utilized by local
actors to obtain resources from the global North. While the density of interactions between
DWROs and rich donor countries makes this a compelling narrative in some ways, it
nevertheless cannot fully explain the diversity of activities undertaken by DWROs. Finally,
rhetorical explanations unpack the socially constructed nature of DWROs and go on to show
how elite actors can use discourses related to DWROs to legitimate their own power.
Unfortunately, rhetorical theories have yet to fully specify the conditions under which regionalist
discourses will or will not be accepted by publics, limiting the predictive utility of the approach.
After laying out these theories one by one in Sections 2.4-2.8, I briefly summarize their main
similarities and differences in Section 2.9.

2.2 Avoiding Eurocentrism
This chapter aims to nudge the theorizing of regionalism away from perpetual re-analysis
of the same, tired cases of developed world ROs, and instead take the historical experiences of
DWROs like the EAC seriously. It is widely acknowledged that most existing theoretical
treatments of regionalism have been heavily influenced by the experiences of regional
organizations in the developed world, particularly the trajectory of the EU (Söderbaum 2013).
Arguably two of the most influential theoretical treatments of regionalism—Haas’ (2004 [1958])
neo-functionalism and Moravcsik’s (1998) liberal intergovernmentalism—began as explicit
studies of European integration. Indeed, serious efforts to systematically study regionalism in
the developing world did not truly take off until the “comparative regionalism” push that began
around 2000.
33

This has led to serious bias in efforts to develop general theories of regionalism (for an
early critique, see Nye 1964). Here I critically assess Moravcsik (1998) and show how it
includes at least five Eurocentric assumptions that do not match up well with the political and
economic realities of much of the developing world. This exercise would be unfair to
Moravcsik, given that his main focus is on explaining the emergence of the EU, were it not for
his insistence that his model can be applied to other parts of the world:
Yet if the domestic developments that gave rise to European economic integration were
found uniquely in postwar Europe, it is not because the European continent was subject
to unique social processes but because the intensity of common influences—in this case,
underlying trade flows—was higher. Surely, then, the comparative political economy of
regionalism deserves more intensive study, beginning with the assumption that Europe
and other regions face similar challenges and opportunities. (Moravcsik 1998: 496, italics
in original)
It is precisely the notion that “Europe and other regions face similar challenges and
opportunities” that I seek to dismantle here by noting five problematic assumptions that
Moravcsik and others make when they theorize about DWROs on the basis of the European
experience of regional integration.
First, Moravcsik promotes the state-centric assumption, placing states at the center of
his analysis, and assuming that states are able to competently devise and pursue their
individual interests. In much of the developing world, though, states that resemble the West
European model cannot be presumed. For instance, the robust literature on the African state
has found that states in Africa are often more divided than their European counterparts, may
have less capable formal bureaucracies, and may play a less central role in socio-political life
than in Europe (Herbst 2000; Larémont 2005; Mbaku 2007; wa Muiu & Martin 2009; Bayart
2009; Araoye 2014). Empirical datasets steeped in the same Eurocentric assumptions as
Moravcsik confirm that European states are more effective than East African ones (see
Figure 2.1). This does not mean, of course, that African states are more backwards or less
developed than their European counterparts; the action may simply lie elsewhere in society
(Ayers 2006). But it does mean that a DWRO model that depends upon states to undertake
the complicated tasks of discerning national preferences, articulating policy positions, and
engaging in the intergovernmental bargaining is perhaps not directly applicable to the
developing world.
34

Second, mainstream accounts of regionalism also typically make the assumption of
political liberalism. Implicit in these theories of regionalism is the notion that politics are openly
practiced in society, and that the state serves as a forum where various interest groups compete
over policy outcomes. As Moravcsik (1993: 483) puts it, “the relationship between society and
the government is assumed to be one of principal-agent…. The primary interest of governments
is to maintain themselves in office; in democratic societies, this requires the support of a
coalition of domestic voters, parties, interest groups, and bureaucracies.” However, in many
developing parts of the world, democratic freedoms are much lower than in Europe, and often
open political contestation is quite limited. In such regions, the state may be less responsive to
the whole of society and instead serve the interests of narrow, particularistic interests. Data from
Worldwide Governance Indicators dataset confirms this hypothesis when comparing East Africa
and Europe (see Figure 2.2). Here I am not suggesting that political contestation is absent or
fully suppressed in illiberal regimes (cf. Nye 1964: 363-364; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), but
I do believe that the “rules of the game” operate in a sufficiently different manner that
governmental transparency and responsiveness cannot be presumed.
Thirdly, Moravcsik stresses that the ultimate driver of regionalism is a desire to reap
economic benefits from increased trade within a given regional bloc, which I call the assumption
of internal market gains. While probably true in the case of the European Union, it is pretty
clearly not true for most DWROs. As we shall see, while some DWROs do have a mandate to
focus on intra-regional trade, others give greater emphasis to increasing extra-regional exports,
while yet others do not focus on trade whatsoever.
14
Moravcsik and other theorists who focus on
internal market gains (e.g. Mattli 1999) assume what they instead should be explaining, which is
why some regional organizations attempt to maximize internal market gains and yet others do
not.
Fourthly, Moravcsik (1993: 481-482) assumes that the main influences on the
development of a given regional organization are internal to that region, what I term the internal
actors assumption. For instance, in his discussion of the supply-side and demand-side factors
necessary for strong regionalism, it is clear that all of the factors are European in origin. Thus,

14
Kraphol et al. (2013: 473) make a similar point about how Moravcsik assumes that economies within a given
region are highly economically interdependent.
35

Moravcsik overlooks both the structural and external factors which can hinder or facilitate
regionalism.
15
Historically, regionalism has proceeded in “waves” (Fawcett 1995), strongly
suggesting that structural features of the international system influence DWRO development, and
as the rest of this dissertation will emphasize, external actors can also strongly shape a given
DWRO.
Lastly, Moravcsik and other scholars of regionalism have not been sufficiently aware of
the possibility that the seeming inactivity of a regional organization may signal not an absence of
political will, but rather the deliberate exercise of it to maintain a given status quo. As both
Söderbaum (2007) and Herbst (2007) have noted, this teleological assumption can cause analysts
to believe they are witnessing the “failure” of a given DWRO while in reality a great deal of
political effort may be going on beneath the surface—after all, it takes effort to stand still when
everyone around you is “rushing towards regionalism.”
16
Rather than adopting a bureaucratic
perspective which assumes that various forms of organizational activity (such as producing
reports or hosting summits) equate with change and progress, questions of failure and success
must be answered from within the internal perspective of the actors that set up and actively
maintain a given DWRO (cf. Gray, J. forthcoming).
I explicitly consider several post-colonial theories about DWROs that have been
proposed in Section 2.7 below, but throughout this chapter I endeavor as much as possible to
analyze theories that do not take the European experience as their starting point.

2.3 On the Need for Middle-Range Theorizing
In addition to seeking to avoid the pitfalls of Eurocentrism wherever possible, another
principle underlying this chapter is that DWROs are in need of sustained middle-range
theorizing. Originally articulated by sociologists and subsequently introduced into the lexicon of
political science, the term “middle-range theorizing” is best understood as a call to develop
theories with a specific scope (Merton 1949; Boudon 1991). Middle-range theorizing eschews
so-called “grand theories” that seek to explain large swathes of human activity with a

15
Indeed, historians such as Lundestad (1998) are increasingly highlighting the external factors that allowed the EU
itself to come into being.
16
For a similar point, see Thomas’ (2015) point about how American development experts routinely understand
developing countries as “governing less” rather than “governing differently.”
36

parsimonious number of variables (examples of grand theories in IR might include Waltz 1979;
Wallerstein 1979; Moravcsik 1997; Wendt 1999; and Lebow 2008). On the other end of the
spectrum, however, it disapproves of “low-level theorizing,” or narrowly-targeted theories that
explicate only one or a small number of cases, typically by drawing upon a range of factors
internal to the case(s) in question. Some have suggested that middle-range theories are a
particularly appropriate level for making careful policy recommendations (Walt 2005), as I go on
to do in the concluding chapter.
In practice, the IR scholars who have most embraced middle-range theorizing are
constructivists intent on presenting constructivism as a media via for IR (Christiansen et al.
1999; Checkel 2006). Middle-range theorizing is not, however, specific to any one paradigm:
Mattli’s (1999) rationalist effort to explain every regional organization in the world as
principally the result of the interaction of two variables (see discussion below) is a good example
of the typical bounds of a middle-range theory.
In other words, my emphasis in this chapter (and dissertation) will not be on rehashing
the Third Debate (see Lapid 1989) for the umpteenth time,
17
but on examining theories that
specifically address regionalism in the contemporary developing world. As middle-range
theories, the examples I provide do not attempt to address all examples of regional cooperation
throughout human history or across the entire world, but rather recent or ongoing examples
located in the global South. At the same time, however, I am not overly interested in theories
that explicitly attempt to explain only a single DWRO while stressing the case’s particularities.
Finally, I give pride of place to theories that clearly identify important causal variables and/or
mechanisms.

17
Arguably, IR produced more smoke than light during the course of the Third Debate, which saw straw-manned
versions of “realism,” “liberalism,” and “constructivism” routinely pitted against each other throughout the 1990s
(cf. Rathbun 2010, as well as the online symposium sponsored by International Studies Quarterly available at
http://www.isanet.org/Publications/ISQ/Posts/ID/297/categoryId/102/The-Third-Debate-25-Years-Later).
Moreover, disciplinary historians have thoroughly critiqued IR’s standard account of having gradually improved via
a series of Great Debates. Numerous scholars have demonstrated that the so-called First Debate between Realists
and Idealists never actually occurred, but rather was retroactively framed in the 1980s in order to further certain
intra-disciplinary battles (Wilson 1998; Osiander 1998; Thies 2002; Ashworth 2002; Quirk & Vigneswaran 2005;
Knutsen 2008; Schmidt 2012). Many scholars have also noted that the very terms “realist” and “idealist” are heavily
loaded semantic constructions, with realists placing themselves on the right side of history while disparaging their
liberal counterparts as wooly-headed utopians.
37

2.4 Regional Hegemonic Theories
Regional hegemonic theorists argue that DWROs are vehicles by which powerful states
attempt to exert control over smaller, neighboring states. Typically they argue that DWROs are
set up at the urging of the most powerful state in a given region, and that the DWRO will
continue to operate only so long as it continues to serve the hegemon’s interest. A common
definition for a regional hegemon is a “state that is powerful enough to maintain the essential
rules governing interstate relations [in a given area], and willing to do so” (Keohane 2005
[1984]: 35-35).
In theoretical terms, regional hegemonic theories lie at the confluence of neo-realist and
neo-liberal institutionalist theories, the so-called “neo-neo synthesis” (Wæver 1996: 163). The
key variable of interest in regional hegemonic theories is the power disparity between the
regional hegemon and other states in the region. In keeping with the usual assumptions of
neorealism, this power is usually conceptualized in material terms as a combination of military
might and economic capabilities. But whereas most neo-realists are very skeptical about the
utility of international institutions, dismissing them as epiphenomenal manifestations of their
memberships (e.g. Grieco 1988; Mearsheimer 1994), regional hegemonic theorists acknowledge
that DWROs may have some independent effects on the states that comprise them (see the
review in Cooper & Taylor 2003: 105-106). More specifically, regional hegemonic theorists
often employ neo-liberal institutionalist arguments to stress how working through a DWRO
allows regional hegemons to achieve outcomes they could not obtain by acting unilaterally. The
existence of the DWRO helps legitimize a broader bargain whereby the hegemon is accorded
primacy in setting the region’s external economic and political relations, in exchange for offering
the weaker states security guarantees and the right to be consulted on major decisions (Pedersen
2002; Lake 2009). Scholars have argued that weaker states are particularly likely to accept the
bargain offered by regional hegemons in situations when they expect their relative power to
diminish in the future, allowing them to lock-in relations at the more advantageous present-day
level (Grieco 1997: 176), or in the face of a significant external threat which must be collectively
balanced against (Rosato 2011).
A systematic effort to map all the “regional security complexes” in the world is given in
Buzan and Wæver (2003). They find that, of the six regional complexes located in the
38

developing world, three had clear regional hegemons (Southern Africa, West Africa, and South
Asia). Two recent studies provide additional articulations of regional hegemonic theory, while at
the same time emphasizing the possibility of variation in how regional hegemons will act.
Krapohl et al. (2014) examine the behavior of two regional hegemons—Brazil and South
Africa—in the DWROs they respectively helm, Mercosur and the Southern African
Development Community (SADC). Unlike those who assume that regional hegemons will
consistently act in a “benevolent” manner, that is to say use the DWRO to provide public goods
for the region (e.g. Pederson 2002; Mattli 1999), Krapohl et al.’s main insight is showing that
regional hegemons do not always act in a consistent manner, but rather update their behavior in
the light of changing circumstances and interests. Krapohl et al. show that Brazil and South
Africa were both important regional hegemons committed to their respective DWROs until 1999,
when for separate reasons both countries decided to shift their attentions from the regional level
to the world stage, leaving their weaker regional partners rudderless and in a lurch. They
conclude that while the power of regional hegemons is not in doubt, the ultimate success of
DWROs anchored by them very much is. Lopez-Lucia (2015) also takes a comparative
approach, contrasting the behavior of Brazil with Nigeria. Interested in why Nigeria has
generally supported deepening the institutionalization of ECOWAS while Brazil has not shown
interest in strengthening Mercosur, she ultimately traces the differences back to differences in
how national elites interpret their material predominance in their respective regions. In other
words, the self-representations of hegemons matter.
All in all, regional hegemonic theories bring a healthy regard for power to the table in
terms of analyzing DWROs. Still, four general critiques of regional hegemonic theories can be
made. First, regional hegemonic theories tend to give pride of place to security considerations,
both as the cause and outcome of successful DWROs. As we shall see, trade promotion
explanations disagree with this assumption, claiming that DWROs are instead primarily
concerned with expanding the region’s trade. Second, because the hegemon’s power and
national interests tend to change only very slowly over time, regional hegemonic explanations
tend to be rather static, not providing a mechanism for understanding important shifts or
evolutions within a given DWRO. Third, regional hegemonic theories conceive of power in a
very narrow way. Rhetorical theorists, in contrast, argue that it is not just material capabilities
39

that matter, but also legitimacy. For example, Acharya (2014) points out that while there have
often been materially powerful regional hegemons in Asia over the past 70 years, none has
enjoyed widespread legitimacy in the region, and that consequently Asian regionalism has never
truly taken off. Fourth, critics argue that the under-theorization of regional hegemonic models
allows them to have it both ways and occasionally be unfalsifiable. For instance, Solingen
(2008: 271) notes that some regional hegemonic scholars argue that regional hegemons prefer
informality in the DWROs they create (since they tend to be more flexible arrangements), while
other regional hegemonic theorists state that regional hegemons will produce highly formalized
DWROs (as in the case of cooperative security arrangements, where ambiguity could cause the
institution to collapse). It is difficult to reconcile both positions simultaneously.

2.5 Policy Coordination Theories
Like regional hegemonic theories, policy coordination theories view DWROs as
institutions created and controlled by member states (MS) to achieve collective goals. However,
whereas regional hegemonic theories argue that the most powerful state in each region is able to
control the DWRO in order to shape outcomes in its favor, policy coordination theorists view the
relationship as more equitable, with MS negotiating amongst themselves to achieve collective
goals they cannot accomplish on their own (R. Mitchell 1994; Abbott & Snidal 1998). For
instance, MS might form a DWRO to harmonize their policies in order to protect a regional
public good like a river system (e.g. the Mano River Union, the Mekong River Commission, and
the Niger Basin Authority).
Policy coordination theories emerge from the rationalist tradition in IR, and even more
specifically from studies of two classic political economy problems: the collective action
problem and the principal-agent problem. The collective action problem refers to the difficulty
in getting groups of actors to work together on a common goal, even when it may be in the
collective interest to cooperate (Olson 1965). For our purposes, it refers to the difficulties states
in a given region might encounter while attempting to coordinate their policies to achieve
positive outcomes: agreeing on which issue areas to coordinate in, harmonizing specific
policies/standards in a given issue area, establishing protocols to share information about the
issue area, establishing verification measures to monitor MS compliance, possibly agreeing to
40

penalties for free-riders, etc. All of these problems are of course not particular to regional
integration in the developing world, but are instead familiar to anyone who studies international
cooperation, international law, or diplomacy.
A common solution to the collective action problem is to delegate. The MS can select a
separate entity to either directly implement policy on their behalf, or to actively monitor their
own compliance with a given policy (Moe 1984; Abbott & Snidal 1998). Three different logics
can undergird the decision by the MS (in rationalist lingo, “the principals”) to delegate to the
separate entity (“the agent”): specialization, trust, and lock-in (Thatcher & Stone Sweet 2002).
Specialization describes how the agent usually develops significant expertise with the relevant
policy area over time. This, in turn, frees up each of the principals from having to acquire that
knowledge themselves, significantly reducing the collective group’s costs (acquiring knowledge
is costly: see Downs 1957; Lupia & McCubbins 1998). The logic of trust maintains that, from
the perspective of a given principal, it makes more sense to trust the agent to do its job well than
the other co-principals: firstly, because in theory the agent has no incentive to cheat, since poor
performance of its delegated task could lead to its abolishment and, secondly, because it is easier
to verify the performance of just the sole agent than all of one’s co-principals (Oye 1985;
Milgrom et al. 1990). The logic of lock-in maintains that in cases where present-day principals
worry that their decisions could be overturned in the future (say, after upcoming elections which
bode ill for incumbent governments), principals give authority to agents in the hopes that the
policies agents set will not be as easily altered in the future. Relatedly, making agents
responsible for policy decisions could lessen the costs to the principals for adopting unpopular
policies.
However, while delegating is a common response to the collective action problem, social
scientists have noted that it engenders its own set of difficulties, known as the principal-agent
problem. While arguably the principal-agent problem has been known to us since Antiquity
(quis custodiet ipsos custodes? wrote Juvenal), in its modern form it asks how the principal(s)
can ensure that the agent will do a good job on the delegated task while minimizing costly
oversight (McCubbins & Schwartz 1984; Moe 1984; Shepsle & Weingast 1994). Many scholars
have noted that under some circumstances the agent can become more powerful than the
principals and take the lead in formulating policy (e.g. Pollack 1997; cf. Blais et al. 1997). For
41

instance, various studies have argued that the success of the European Union is best attributable
to various agents pushing the Common Market far beyond the original desires of the EU member
states, particularly the European Commission (Mayer 2008), the European Court of Justice (Alter
2009; Stone Sweet & Brunell 2012; Davies 2016) and the European Parliament (Tsebelis 1994).
As the study of the principal-agent problem has developed, a pushback has begun in recent years,
with scholars asserting that the previous generation underestimated the tools available to
principals to keep agents in check (Elsig 2011; Bailer 2014; Elsig & Pollack 2014; cf. also
Jupille et al. 2013).
18

Whatever one thinks of that academic debate, what is clear is that for agents to develop
an independent ability to shape policy requires a great deal of resources—material, epistemic,
legal, managerial, and normative resources (Joachim et al. 2008). For example, Barnett and
Finnemore’s (2004) analysis of three successful policy initiatives by agents demonstrates the
substantial amounts of expertise and legitimacy that the agent must first acquire. Therefore,
most examples put forward of agents “winning” the principal-agent tug-of-war are located in the
developed world (Egan 2001; Barnett & Finnemore 2004; Slaughter 2004; L. Martin 2006;
Mayer 2008; Stone Sweet & Brunell 2013; Abbot et al. 2015). It is an open (and important)
question whether any of the DWROs listed in Table 1.1 can be viewed prima facie as having
agents that are more powerful than their principals. I explicitly look for signs of powerful,
independent DWRO agency in my case study of the EAC in the chapters that follow.
Recapping the discussion thus far, for our purposes policy coordination theories posit that
MS come together in DWROs to achieve collective policy goals that they cannot attain alone.
The DWRO can either simply serve as a talk shop (a regularized forum where the MS meet) or
the MS can choose to delegate certain policies and issue areas to the DWRO in a limited fashion
(L. Martin 1992). In either case, policy coordination theorists have emphasized how the initial
design and set-up of the DWRO can set certain characteristics in stone and generate path
dependencies, some anticipated, some not (R. Mitchell 1994; Pollack 1997; Tallberg 2002;
Wilks & Bartle 2002; Hawkins et al. 2006; Johns 2015). For instance, Hanrieder (2015) argues
that the surprisingly federal structure of the WHO (each regional office has striking amounts of

18
This recent pushback against principal-agent models that emphasize agents’ agency is linked to the growing
recognition that agents are rarely unitary actors, but instead typically organizations with their own complicated and
often contradictory internal politics (Barnett & Finnemore 2004; Graham 2014; Brehm & Gates 2015).
42

autonomy for an international governmental organization) is a legacy of its original roots as the
Pan American Sanitary Bureau in the 1940s. This arrangement has persisted (indeed, even
solidified) over the subsequent decades, despite the objections of powerful principals like the
United States government. Because MS are aware of this potential for path dependency, policy
coordination theorists typically expect MS to carefully negotiate the formal rules governing a
DWRO.
Indeed, scholars affiliated with the “rational design of institutions” school have pointed
out the wide range of control mechanisms available to MS to ensure that they retain ultimate
control of policymaking (see Table 2.3 for a list). Moe (2012) distinguishes between ex ante and
ex post control mechanisms—the former limit the types of actions agents can make before they
happen, while the latter ensure that decisions taken by agents are subsequently reviewed to
ensure suitability. For instance, principals can set ex ante limitations on what issue areas agents
can take up, or can place funding/staffing constraints on agents to ensure that new initiatives will
be curtailed. On the ex post side of things, principals can require agents to formally justify their
activities at set intervals, or can create channels whereby dissatisfied third parties can report
overreach by the agents.
A number of critiques have been leveled at policy coordination theories. While few
contest the core idea that MS may establish DWROs to achieve collective policy outcomes, other
theoretical traditions take policy coordination theorists to task for their (over-)simplifying
assumptions. To begin with, there is the general critique applicable to any rationalist work,
which is that rationalists provide almost no evidence that human agents actually think and act on
the bases that rationalists impute to them (Simon 1955; Green & Shapiro 1996). In other words,
policy coordination theorists have provided relatively little empirical evidence that MS are
actively worried about, say, principle-agent problems when establishing DWROs (although see
Tallberg 2002). Thus for Haggard (1997: 21), policy coordination theories are unsatisfying
because they do not address the question of where actors’ preferences come from: “A theory of
regional cooperation… cannot be built around models of collective action and transaction costs
alone; it must address the more fundamental question of the policy preferences and capabilities
of the relevant actors.”
43

The general rationalist response to these types of charges is that their simplifying
assumptions are merely “as if” assumptions that provide enhanced analytical clarity. At this
point this debate is very well-tilled soil, so I shall not dwell on it, except to suggest that recent
work applying bounded rationality frameworks to the policy-making process of developing states
may help fill the gap (e.g. Skovgaard Poulsen 2014).
Another critique of policy coordination theories is that even if they can explain the initial
phases of a DWRO’s formation, they have very little to say about the DWRO’s subsequent
evolution (Solingen 2008: 266). Policy coordination theorists tend to freeze the DWRO at a
given moment in time, which allows scholars to identify the relative power of the various MS as
well as the agent, and to then trace how those positions translate into certain outcomes via a
bargaining process (e.g. Moravcsik 1998). But things change over time, and as historical
institutionalists have clearly demonstrated, no political institution stays constant, if only because
the social environment the institution is embedded in is in constant flux (Pierson 2004; Hacker
2004; Barnes 2008; Fioretos 2011; Schillemans & Busuioc 2015; Colgan & Van de Graaf 2015).
Thus, many analyses of DWROs that hew closely to the rational design paradigm are at risk of
becoming obsolete even before they are written, and can suffer from serious “rearview mirror
bias” (Wendt 2001). For example, ECOWAS was originally tasked with helping to coordinate
economic issue areas, as suggested by its name, but since the 1990s its greatest successes have
arguably been in the politico-military spheres (Francis 2001; Dennis & Brown 2003).
Compounding policy coordination theorists’ difficulties in dealing with time is their
problematic overreliance on analyzing just the formal rules of DWROs, which could bias their
findings (Stone 2013). As scholars of bureaucracy have pointed out, the formal “rules of the
game” at best can only provide a partial story. At worst, unwritten rules, unofficial processes,
and unspoken cultural-cognitive frames can lead outcomes to be the complete opposite of what
the formal rules might suggest (for theoretical treatments, see Scott, W.R. 2008; Stone 2011;
Carpenter & Krause 2015; for case studies, see Aspinwall 2009; Blom & Carraro 2014; Colgan
& Van de Graaf 2015; Clegg 2016).
Finally, some post-colonial theorists have alleged that the same features of DWROs that
allow them to solve collective action problems can also allow DWROs to serve as vehicles for
oppression. In other words, bureaucracy is a double-edged sword. Moe (1990) faults policy
44

coordination theorists for overwhelmingly focusing on the first half of the story and neglecting
the potential dark side of DWROs.

2.6 Trade Promotion Theories
“It’s the trade, stupid” could serve as a pithy formulation of why trade promotion
theorists believe DWROs come into being. Unlike policy coordination theorists, who argue that
cooperation can occur in any issue areas that the MS deem desirable, trade promotion theorists
claim that DWROs are primarily set up to increase a given region’s trade. Other differences also
separate the two approaches: policy coordination theories tend to see states as more or less in
charge, whereas trade promotion theories typically ascribe the most agency to business elites and
other business-friendly interest groups. In this sense trade promotion theories draw upon the
strand of liberal IR theory that seeks to “open up the black box” of the state in order to study the
ubiquitous clash of competing interest groups (Milner 1997a; Moravcsik 1997; Broz & Hawes
2006). Winning those inter-group tussles can cause state and supra-state institutions to privilege
the interests of some groups over others. Thus, while policy coordination theorists envision
DWROs as a forum for inter-state bargaining, trade promotion theorists see DWROs as an arena
where various interest groups clash, with the possibility that specific coalitions can “hijack” a
DWRO in ways that are not necessarily to the liking of some member states. Thus, trade
promotion theories pay as much attention to the bottom-up nature of regionalization as to the
top-down effects of regional institutions.
The divergences within trade promotion theories are perhaps as significant as their
differences with the other theoretical traditions, however. Trade promotion theorists internally
disagree on two key assumptions. First, they argue about whether increasing trade is a means to
help improve welfare throughout the region, or rather an end in itself. Second, trade promotion
theorists disagree about whether DWROs care more about promoting intra-regional trade or
extra-regional trade.
Why is increasing trade worth pursuing? In a seminal paper, Viner (1950) pointed out
that customs unions are sometimes “trade-creating” and sometimes “trade-diverting.” Trade-
creating DWROs enhance welfare throughout the region; trade liberalization among member-
states shifts imports from less efficient producers outside the DWRO to more efficient producers
45

within it. Removing both tariff and non-tariff barriers (NTBs, discussed in more detail in
Section 7.2) to trade allows for larger markets, greater economies of scale, reduced transaction
costs, increased competition, lower prices for consumers, and increased attractiveness to
investors.
19
Thus trade-creating DWROs are beneficial ones that promote overall standards of
living in the region via trade liberalization.
However, some DWROs are trade-diverting, which means that the preferences afforded
producers within the arrangement shift imports from more efficient external producers to less
efficient internal ones. This undermines the region’s welfare and can be difficult to explain from
the perspective of classical economics—why would states knowingly allow less efficient modes
of production to persist? Political economy perspectives, however, have long noted that many
real-world phenomena are best explained not by referring to classical economic theory but rather
by examining the winners and losers of economic policy-making (cf. the contributions to
Mansfield & Milner 1997, especially Milner 1997b). And while consumers are net losers in
trade-diverting DWROs, there are some who will always seek to increase trade—based either on
the trade-friendly factors of production they control (Stolper & Samuelson 1941) or the trade-
reliant economic sector they work in (Jones 1971). The promotion of trade within a DWRO,
then, can sometimes be pursued as an end in itself by certain interest groups, regardless of what
its overall effects may be (Grossman & Helpman 1995; Mansfield & Milner 1999). And
unfortunately economists have not yet been able to reliably model ex ante whether a given
DWRO will be trade-creating or trade-diverting (Mansfield & Solingen, 2010: 148-149).
Thus far we have been assuming that DWROs are set up mostly to promote trade within
the region. However, as alluded to above, another possibility exists, namely that the interest
groups behind a trade-promoting DWRO may actually be more interested in pursuing extra-
regional trade. More specifically, exporters in the developing world may be supporting DWROs
in order to gain improved market access in the developed world. Such a perspective helps
explain a conundrum that several economists have asked about the proliferation of DWROs that
has occurred since the 1990s—why do states with roughly the same comparative advantages and
which produce broadly the same products join DWROs together? Viewed according to

19
Increasing trade can in turn lead to additional knock-on benefits, like mitigating conflict in the region (Gowa
1994; Mansfield & Pevehouse 2000; Bearce 2003; Khan 2009; Haftel 2012) or helping governments lock-in
economic reforms (Pevehouse 2005).
46

traditional economic theory, this should simply spark a race-to-the-bottom, as each country tries
to undercut its neighbors in an intra-regional trade war. But if DWROs are really about extra-
regional trade, then banding together might help them exert greater collective influence on
foreign markets.
The differences between trade promotion theorists who focus on intra-regional and extra-
regional trade leads to differences in policy emphases. Those who believe a given DWRO is
about stimulating intra-regional trade tend to stress increased market size, greater economies of
scale, higher efficiencies, and shifting supply chains to the regional level (e.g. Milner 1997b;
Mattli 1999), whereas scholars of externally-oriented DWROs are more interested in questions
of market access, external regulatory standards, foreign investment, and receiving compensation
for enacting painful domestic reforms (e.g. Söderbaum 2007; Haftel 2010; Krapohl & Fink
2013).
20
Both groups often emphasize improving infrastructure (a key stumbling block for trade
in the developing world), but internally-focused interest groups often mention factors of
production (e.g. electricity generation) while externally-focused interest groups insist on
improving the transportation infrastructure that allows their goods to reach international markets
(e.g. ports). The regulatory agencies and other bureaucratic actors that make decisions about
these types of trade-offs are of central importance in trade promotion theories, since capturing
them allows for policies favorable to specific interest-groups to be enacted (Egan 2001). Thus,
trade promotion theorists expect DWRO bureaucracies to be rather responsive and dynamic, in
contrast to more stolid views of DWROs.
An example of a trade promotion approach to DWROs can be found in the work of
Solingen (1998; 2008: 266), who “begin[s] with the assumption that dominant domestic political
coalitions create regional institutions that strengthen their own positions in power (or thwart their
decline).” Indeed, Solingen goes one step further and argues that, more often than not, interest
groups organize themselves not just at the national level but also at the regional level in order to
more ably lobby for their preferred policies. Thus, she sees the regional institutions of both East
Asia and the Middle East as primarily reflecting the outcomes of a struggle between two major
regional coalitions: “internationalist coalitions” generally supportive of globalization and

20
A parallel debate in economics asks whether preferential trade agreements are “stepping stones” to wider-scale
multilateral liberalization or “stumbling blocks” against it (e.g. Krugman 1993; Bhagwati 2008).
47

economic liberalization and “statist-nationalist-confessional coalitions” focused on the local/state
level and largely resistant to current world economic trends. Broadly speaking, the
internationalist coalition has tended to dominate in East Asia since at least the 1970s, giving rise
to several impactful regional organizations (ASEAN, APEC, ARF). In contrast, the statist
coalition has prevailed in the Middle East, and its worries about the revolutionary implications of
pan-Arabist and pan-Islamist ideologies have caused it to severely stifle the Arab League, the
main regional organization in the Middle East. Solingen demonstrates that the preferences of
regional coalitions shape the initial design and subsequent evolution of DWROs: firstly,
dominant coalitions (like states in policy coordination theories) will attempt to choose the formal
features of an organization that best fit their goals, and secondly, the DWRO will slowly shift
over time to reflect changes in the balance of power between the coalitions (much like DWROs
track the power of regional hegemons in hegemonic theories).
Whereas Solingen tends to stress the shared interests and willingness to cooperate of
elites across countries within a given region, Krapohl & Fink (2013) acknowledge that elite
interest groups in a region can diverge in both their interests and their amount of power. Thus,
while Krapohl & Fink broadly agree with Solingen’s depiction of ASEAN as an association of
export-oriented, roughly equal member states, the two scholars also study the quite different case
of SADC. They assert that “SADC is distinguished by large economic asymmetries, with South
Africa being the dominant regional power. […] While South Africa is a very important trade
partner for nearly all other member states, extra-regional actors are the main trade partners of
South Africa. […] We can expect that South Africa has an interest in regional integration in
order to ensure access to the regional market, but that co-operation is constrained by South
Africa’s interest to ensure privileged access to the externals markets—most notably the European
single market” (p. 484). Thus, Krapohl & Fink (2013: 485) are not surprised that South Africa
broke away from its SADC partners to sign a bilateral trade agreement with the EU in 1999; this
is an instance of “plutocratic governance” (see Hancock 2009), whereby SADC’s structure
“allows South African to design trade agreements according to its own interests without taking
care of the interests of its neighbors.” In short, Krapohl & Fink agree with Solingen that
DWROs are often about promoting trade with the outside world, but do not assume that all states
within a given DWRO have coinciding interests.
48

Perhaps situated in between Solingen and Krapohl & Fink is Haftel (2010), who argues
that DWROs are primarily signaling mechanisms for outside actors. When the states in a region
set aside their differences enough to establish a DWRO, Haftel argues, they are sending a
credible signal to the rest of the world that the region is relatively stable, unlikely to collapse into
open warfare, and generally ready for business. So, while establishing a DWRO does require
coordination at the regional level, the prizes are very much extra-regional in nature: increased
trade and FDI inflows. While Haftel’s discussion of Indonesia’s impetus for creating ASEAN is
telling, he would have difficulty explaining the collapse of the first EAC in 1977, which suggests
that sending a “doors open for customers” signal is not a sufficient condition for DWRO
maintenance.
In addition to their internal disagreements, trade promotion theorists face several external
critiques. The most fundamental one is empirical: critics point out that in actuality the formation
of a DWRO rarely boosts trade. This is a key finding of several empirical case studies of
specific DWROs (e.g. Francis 2001; Burges 2005), although as we shall see in Section 7.8 the
formation of the EAC does seem to have been associated with increased levels of trade. For the
critics, however, the question remains: if promoting trade is the central objective of DWROs,
why do they often fare so badly at it?
Trade promotion theorists sometimes attempt to get around this problem by arguing that
particular DWROs can be captured by non-trade-promoting coalitions at any given point in time.
But for rhetorical theorists, at least, this becomes the point—if most of the time DWROs are not
particularly engaged in trade promotion, is it not better to make the things they are doing (i.e.
generating legitimacy for national leaders) the intellectual focal point? Or, for regional
hegemonic theorists, even in cases where there is an increase in regional trade, they believe it to
be epiphenomenal: the rise in trade (and the formation of DWROs) is actually an outgrowth of
security alliances, not a cause of them (Kim 2011; cf. Cooper & Taylor 2003). Börzel (2011: 16)
succinctly sums up these empirical counter-interpretations of regionalism when she writes,
“regionalism: it is not only the economy, stupid!”
Post-colonial theorists put forward not an empirical challenge, but a normative one. They
accept that interest groups are deeply enmeshed with DWROs, and that DWROs do seek to
promote trade. However, they question the extent to which that increased trade will actually lead
49

to widespread welfare gains in the regions of developing world. Instead of trade being a tide that
lift all ships, they view it more as a river that creates notable advances for a handful while
leaving the majority of the population to languish in backwater eddies. Thus they criticize
DWROs for focusing on international trade, an issue that can benefit elites but rarely delivers
widespread welfare gains.

2.7 Post-Colonial Theories
Post-colonial approaches to DWROs do not form as cohesive or well-developed a set of
theories as some of the other approaches discussed in this chapter; however, they are all united
by the core insight that politics in the developing world are still profoundly affected by the
legacies of colonialism. In particular, the persistent weakness of many formal institutions in
post-colonial settings, combined with the lure of readily available foreign development aid, can
lead bureaucratic actors in DWROs to place their relationship with external actors ahead of the
public interest.
There is a bourgeoning literature in IR that attempts to “decolonize” the discipline by
pointing out the various ways in which IR scholars have contributed to (and continue to
contribute to) the West’s political, intellectual, and social domination of the rest of the world
(Gruffydd Jones 2006; see also: Fuat Keyman 1997; Schmidt 1998; Ling 2002; Slater 2004;
Beier 2005; Barkawi & Laffey 2006; Parasram 2014; Vitalis 2015). Post-colonial scholars have
powerful messages to convey about the continuing relevance of race to global politics
(Chowdhry & Nair 2002; Anievas et al. 2015), about the profoundly unjust and violence-laden
nature of the contemporary global economic system (Agathangelou & Ling 2009; Inayatullah &
Blaney 2004; Blaney & Inayatullah 2010), and about the importance of viewing global politics
from the perspective of the subaltern (Darby 1997; Ayoob 2002; Franklin 2005; Grovogui 2006;
A. Tickner & Wæver 2009; Krishna 2009; J. A. Tickner 2011; Sethi 2011; A. Tickner & Blaney
2012; Jabri 2013). Post-colonial scholars tend to be normatively committed to the ideals of
genuine democracy, self-reflexivity, and (sometimes) emancipation. However, while post-
colonial IR scholars’ efforts to shame the discipline into radically reexamining its own
assumptions and practices are quite valuable, they have thus far produced very little direct
empirical work on DWROs (exceptions include Mandaza & Nabudere 2001; Staeger 2016).
50

Thus, while we can retain their normative commitment to always asking whether a given
political arrangement serves the interests of society’s most vulnerable members, we must turn to
related literatures outside of IR to find the pieces that can help us construct an empirically
focused, post-colonial understanding of how DWROs operate.
For instance, the critical development literature often stresses how—in light of the
continued profound inequalities between the global North and South—actors in the developing
world are often forced to play along with the latest fads conjured up by the international
development industry, either because of powerlessness or in order to reap material gains
(Rondinelli 1976; Ferguson 1990; T. Mitchell 2002; Mosse & Lewis 2005; Cornwall & Brock
2005; Staples 2006; Ferguson 2006; Sivini 2007; Li 2007; Harman 2010). In many parts of the
developing world, international aid is a very lucrative revenue stream, one which local actors
strategically adapt themselves to. For example, studies have shown how efforts to make AIDS
care programs in Malawi more grass-roots and sustainable actually backfired, because increasing
the human capital of village elites through training programs allowed them to better market
themselves to other NGOs, ultimately abandoning the initial AIDS care project for more
lucrative salaries elsewhere (Swidler & Watkins 2009; Sulaiman n.p.). Field experiments have
further demonstrated that the simple presence of white foreigners changes the economic
decision-making of individuals in rural Sierra Leone (as measured via the Dictator Game),
possibly in order to depict greater need for development funds (Cilliers et al. 2015; see also
Wakano et al. forthcoming).
Nor is this strategic adaptation limited to just “hard infrastructure” projects or rural
populations. Elites in urban centers across the developing world are just as willing to accept
Western money in exchange for real or imagined reforms to socio-political systems. As part of
the Washington Consensus, the major international financial institutions have proven themselves
willing to spend substantial sums on projects that would improve the “good governance,”
“transparency,” and “capacity” of the recipient country, despite criticisms about the anti-
democratic and aggressively neoliberal nature of many of the most common reforms (Kambudzi
2001; van Gastel & Nuijten 2005; Anghie 2006; Ilcan & Phillips 2008; Ilcan & Lacey 2011).
Needless to say, this disconnect between the goals of external agents and local actors causes
many, if not most, development projects to fail to meet their professed goals (Easterly 2006;
51

Zanotti 2008; Watkins & Swidler 2013; Dionne et al. 2013; Naqvi 2016). But despite its
frequent failures, the “good governance” agenda is still widely followed by many local actors
because of the very tangible income flows it can unlock, particularly in so-called “donor darling”
countries. As Whitfield (2005) asks,
Why does the Ghanaian government continue to engage with the World Bank and IMF
when the results have been less than satisfactory? Besides the fact that the IMF is the
gatekeeper of development financing and debt rescheduling, the accommodation of
increasing donor intervention by the Rawlings government can be explained in terms of
‘policy rent’. Policy rent occurs where the government has turned conditionality to its
advantage, but has in the process become addicted to donor finance for its survival. The
funds available in the national budget for operations of government ministries,
departments and agencies are inadequate and salaries are not motivating. The resources
and perks associated with foreign funded projects in the short term create the temptation
for politicians and bureaucrats to accept any aid project, and in the long term provide an
incentive to continue a donor-led reform process.
It is undeniable that over the past decade regional integration has emerged as another
fashionable and trendy idea in international development circles. Accordingly, post-colonial
scholars predict that well-positioned actors in the developing world will get behind regional
initiatives, and may even go so far as to establish DWROs themselves, in order to obtain
resources that would not otherwise be available. The benefits may occur at either the state or
individual levels. Some donors, like the EU and the WB, have tranches of money that are
reserved for “regional projects”; when states unlock these supplemental pools of money, part of
it trickles down to individual bureaucrats, via higher salaries, increased job security, oversight
over larger amounts of money, etc.
For the most part in this dissertation, I set aside the question of whether or not such
behavior by DWRO bureaucrats constitutes “corruption.” The concept of corruption is
undergoing a profound rethink in academia currently, with a reevaluation of the previous mindset
which defined corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain” and then correlated it
with various negative societal outcomes (Walton 2015). There is a growing recognition within
corruption studies that, first, there are a multiplicity of “corruptions” and, second, that they are
inextricably linked to local systems of practices and meanings (Gray, H. 2015; Gephart 2016).
Accordingly, seemingly corrupt behavior may be undertaken for a host of reasons other than
simple greed (McMann 2014), and can lead to a number of positive outcomes in certain
circumstances (Kato & Sato 2015; Twijnstra 2015; Thomas 2015; for dissenting views, however,
see Tangri & Mwenda 2013; Sulemana et al. forthcoming). Lastly, there is a strong sentiment
52

among some post-colonial scholars that the West is hypocritically instructing others to remove
the splinters from their eyes despite the large planks of corruption in its own societies (Hindess
2005; Batra 2009).
All in all, then, post-colonial scholars are usually less interested in pointing fingers about
“corruption” than they are motivated to understand how actors in the developing world respond
to the incentive structures they perceive (e.g. Arnall et al. 2013). Post-colonial scholars are not
interested in how DWROs are supposed to work in theory, but instead only in how they operate
in practice. For instance, several observers of DWROs have highlighted the perverse incentives
surrounding per diems.
21
Originally intended as a way of ensuring that DWRO bureaucrats
would not miss out on important training and networking opportunities for financial reasons, the
significant sums donor agencies pay out in per diems (in comparison to local salaries)
incentivizes many DWRO functionaries to attend as many workshops and forums as they
possibly can, leaving home offices severely understaffed. A cable from the U.S. Embassy in Dar
es Salaam described the impact of per diems on the EAC thusly: “The combined absence of the
staff (in some cases up to 80% of their time is spent away from the office), in addition to
overlapping periods of absence within the [Secretary General’s] office, creates performance
challenges across the organization in terms of its ability to share information, make timely
decisions to address daily routine matters.”
22

Ultimately, the most troubling aspect of all this for proponents of international
development may be whether or not international donors realize that private financial gain may
be the primary motivation of DWRO bureaucrats. Given that numerous Western diplomats in
Dar es Salaam suggested precisely this during my fieldwork in Tanzania, the question becomes
whether international development agencies are at least partially complicit in the unusual
political economy of DWROs. Or phrased differently, if external supporters of DWROs realize
they are simply buying off local actors, what are their actual reasons for supporting DWROs?

21
While not directly connected to a DWRO, arguably one of the most pernicious impacts of per diems in Eastern
Africa is occurring in the context of the South Sudanese civil war. Observers have argued that the generous per
diems offered to participants from both sides in the off-again, on-again peace talks in Addis Ababa reduce the
incentive the parties have of ending the conflict, since the status quo is relatively profitable for elites (“No One Is
Winning South Sudan’s Civil War,” Peter Dörrie, War is Boring, April 28, 2015).
22
10 DARESSALAAM 100.
53

Perhaps the main critique one can make of post-colonial approaches to DWROs is that
their somewhat cynical account fails to explain the demonstrable and varying range of activities
DWROs have undertaken throughout the developing world over the last several decades. Can all
of this be merely a sham to trick donors? Indeed, even trade promotion theories—which, like
post-colonial theories, postulate that the main logic at work in DWROs is greed—believe that
DWROs are intended to actually do something, namely remove barriers to trade. Do the actions
undertaken by DWROs truly signify nothing?

2.8 Rhetorical Theories
Rhetorical theories of DWROs begin with the idea that regions are not natural, objective
features of the social world, but rather discursive constructions that can—if the meanings
ascribed to them become widely accepted—have significant social and political effects.
According to this view, DWROs come into existence when powerful actors begin to use
discourses that frame a given territory as a region, and solidify once those discourses are
accepted and reproduced by other socio-economic actors and ultimately the public at large
(Hurrell 1995: 38). However, these intersubjective agreements are always subject to contestation
and re-interpretation: the discourses surrounding a given DWRO are therefore never fixed (Pace
2003: 161).
As numerous studies by constructivist IR scholars have pointed out, just because
something is a (deliberate) discursive construction does not mean that it is unimportant or that it
does not have real world political consequences (e.g. Campbell 1998; Hopf 2002; Hansen 2006;
Krebs 2015). Specifically, creating or altering discourses around DWROs are a form of speech
acts, and when speech acts are broadly accepted they can entail profound political consequences,
such as mobilizing resources against perceived security threats (Buzan et al. 1998; Balzacq 2011;
Jamieson forthcoming), justifying extraconstitutional governance in emergencies (Schmitt 2004
[1922]), or enabling some political entities to act in lieu of others (Larsen 2014). In the case of
DWROs, popular acceptance of a given DWRO discourse often serves a legitimating function,
allowing political elites greater room to maneuver than they otherwise would have (on
legitimation, see: Becker 2010; Goddard & Krebs forthcoming). Furthermore, once discourses
surrounding DWROs have been accepted, they can allow material resources and political capital
54

to be expended in ways that would not have been previously possible. In other words, viewing
DWROs as rhetorical devices allows researchers to identify the “winners” (and, by extension,
also the “losers”) of regional integration, without assuming in advance what the most significant
issue areas will be.
23

Examples may help illustrate some of these ideas. I present four instances of regionalist
rhetoric being deployed: the first two describe efforts by Western actors to reconfigure existing
regions, whereas the latter two discuss the political effects of two homegrown African regionalist
discourses.
In the 1990s, Australia’s political leaders were very worried about missing out on the
economic emergence of Asia.
24
As a mostly white settler nation, they were left out of Southeast
Asia’s preeminent regional grouping, ASEAN, despite geographic proximity. Furthermore,
Australians viewed the advent of the “Asian values” discourse spearheaded by leaders such as
Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore as excluding Australia and
setting it up as a (Western) Other. As a deliberate effort to counter these trends and to recast
Southeast Asian regionalism, Australian diplomats stressed the idea of an “Asia-Pacific region,”
whose membership would depend less on culture than on geography (Korhonen 2012). To
provide an institutional foundation for this new discourse, Australia championed the recently
founded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which even included Australia’s close
ally, the U.S. (Beeson & Hidetaka 2007). While APEC has since proved to be a disappointment
to its initial sponsors (eclipsed by rival forums such as the East Asian Council), the Australians
were nevertheless at least partially successful in getting the idea of an Asia-Pacific region to take
hold, and Australia is currently much more integrated into the international relations of its
neighbors than it was in the 1980s. It has been able to thoroughly integrate its economy with
those of other Asian powerhouses, generating impressive welfare gains.
A less positive story is explored in Pace (2003, 2006). Pace shows how, beginning in the
1990s, the EU has depicted the southern littoral states of the Mediterranean as an unalterable
(and dangerous) Other through the discourses related to its Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

23
It is to stress the deliberateness of how political actors wield these discourses in an attempt to gain something that
I refer to the theories in this section as “rhetorical” theories and not simply discursive or constructivist ones.
24
The following paragraph is based in part on Beeson & Hidetaka (2007), as well as on personal conversations with
Geoffrey Wiseman. See also Wiseman (1992).
55

(EMP). Whereas previous policies emphasized the potential for trade across the Mediterranean
and viewed positive relations with the Maghreb as a bridge towards wider engagement with
Africa and the Middle East, the EMP, despite its name, consists primarily of drawing a line
straight across the Mediterranean Sea: “European line drawing still defines the primary borders
of its identity” (Pace 2003: 178). This allows the littoral members of the EU (France, Spain,
Italy, Malta, Greece) to draw EU attention to, and receive EU funding for, the perceived security
threats, overriding the objections of northern EU member states.
We turn now to rhetorical analyses of two important moments in African regionalism: the
pan-Africanist movement which flourished in the early- and mid-20
th
century, and the growth in
“regime-boosting regionalism” that arguably succeeded it beginning roughly around the 1980s.
Pan-Africanism continues to represent the most important homegrown political ideology in
modern African thought (Mandaza & Nabudere 2001; G. Martin 2002; Bankie & Mchombu
2008; Olympio 2013). Throughout the 20
th
century, African intellectuals, writers, and other
cultural elites (including those in the diaspora) stressed that all Africans shared not only a
common history, but also a common destiny, and that unity was the only way to stand up to
outside powers (Mazrui 2005). In part because pan-Africanism helped link all the anti-colonial
resistance movements on the continent to one another, thereby magnifying their effects, by 1960
pan-Africanism was de rigeur in African cities such as Addis Ababa, Conakry, Accra, and Dar es
Salaam (Nye 1965).
As an ideology, the rhetorical aspects of pan-Africanism usually outstripped both its
economic and institutional dimensions. The economic policies of pan-Africanism typically
centered on collective self-reliance, with a socialist model of production and an emphasis on
import-substitution industrialization. However, several prominent failures of pan-African
economics, most notably the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966, soon dimmed pan-
Africanism’s economic appeal. Separately, an effort to give concrete institutional form to pan-
Africanism occurred in 1963 with the founding of the Organization for African Unity (OAU). Its
initial membership comprised thirty-two newly independent African states, with a mandate to: i)
serve as a collective voice for the African continent; ii) promote increased coordination among
African countries; iii) vouchsafe the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of
African states; and iv) continue eradicating colonialism on the continent. Unfortunately, the
56

OAU eventually proved largely ineffective, with strong internal factionalism (French-speaking
vs. English-speaking, socialist vs. capitalist, South Africa vs. Nigeria) and little willingness by
member states to give up any recently hard-gained sovereignty.
The practical failures of pan-Africanism did not diminish its widespread popular appeal,
however, thereby allowing national politicians across the continent to appropriate its discourses
in their speeches (Agyeman 1992). While many, perhaps even most, were true believers of the
idea of pan-Africanism, it is undeniable that several gained important political boosts from
aligning with the popular idea. For example, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya made pan-Africanism
part of Libya’s official policy in the 1990s as domestic tensions mounted, seeking foreign policy
successes abroad to stem protests at home (Ramutsindela 2009; Ajayi & Oshewolo 2013).
As pan-Africanism’s appeal gradually declined during the last third of the 20
th
century,
scholars have argued that a new form of African regionalism has emerged in its place: “regime-
boosting regionalism” (Sidaway 1998; Söderbaum 2007; Herbst 2007). According to
Söderbaum (2007: 192):
[These DWROs] seek to strengthen the status, legitimacy and the general interests of the
political regime (rather than the nation per se), both on the international level and
domestically. Many ruling regimes and political leaders in Africa engage in symbolic
and discursive activities, whereby they praise the goals of regionalism and regional
organizations, sign cooperation treaties and agreements, and take part in “summitry
regionalism,” but without having a commitment to or bearing the costs of policy
implementation.
Söderbaum argues that the regime-boosting regionalism is so prevalent on the continent
because, in general, African states are weak, but African regimes are strong. This obliges
regimes to find sources of popular legitimation outside the state, and DWROs are a convenient
avenue. Herbst (2007: 129) makes a similar point when he writes: “the key to understanding the
fate of regional cooperation in Africa is to discard the assumption that there is an inevitable
conflict between sovereignty (or, more precisely, the prerogatives of individual leaders) and
regional cooperation. […] Regional institutions usually work in Africa when they help African
leaders with their domestic problems.” Or yet again, Sidaway (1998) talks about how SADC’s
continued regional integration schemes, far from undermining state sovereignty, rather bolster
sovereignty by allowing members to participate in practices only open to state actors, facilitating
increased (inter)national recognition and the continuous re-inscription of sovereignty.
57

In short, all three scholars view African leaders as cynically exploiting DWROs to shore
up their domestic legitimacy. This can have negative knock-on consequences for the DWROs
themselves; empirical evidence suggests that international organizations associated with
illegitimate national authorities are deemed “guilty by association” (Johnson 2011). Viewing
DWROs in this light also allows Söderbaum to explain one of the most peculiar aspects of
African regionalism: the “spaghetti bowl” problem. This term, coined by Jagdish Bhagwati,
refers to the fact that almost all African countries belong to several DWROs all at once, and that
these DWROs often have different memberships, goals, rules, and policies. From either a trade
promotion or a policy coordination perspective, this fact makes no sense: a state cannot
effectively set tariffs, for instance, if it belongs to two different customs unions at once. But if
the real goal of DWROs are to provide PR coups for state leaders, then each additional
membership in a DWRO increases the number of photo opportunities.
At the broader level, these four examples of rhetoricized DWROs suggest that the
discourses surrounding DWROs are indeed powerful and can have potent political effects—if the
underlying speech acts are accepted by the public at large. One key factor in whether this is
likely to happen or not depends on whether the people working within the DWRO themselves
accept the DWRO’s discourses. Oelsner (2013) points out that DWROs need strong senses of
identity in order to be effective actors in global politics.
25
If the bureaucrats themselves believe a
given DWRO is legitimate, they will be more effective in getting the public at large to accept
that legitimacy as well. Thus rhetorical approaches consider what happens within DWROs an
important intervening variable in ways that regional hegemonic theories, for example, do not.
Several critiques of rhetorical theories have been proffered. Trade promotion theorists
argue that rhetorical theorists confuse the temporal sequence: instead of discourses coming first,
and those discourses subsequently affecting actors’ interests (and ultimately perhaps even
identities) as rhetorical scholars claim, trade promotion scholars believe that (material) interests
exist first, and that any discursive changes that follow are epiphenomenal.
A more empirical critique of rhetorical theories is offered by van Leeuwen (2008), who
based on a study of the African Great Lakes conflicts argues that even when external actors

25
Oelsner can be read as extending the literature on “ontological security” from states to regional organizations—on
ontological security, see: Steele (2005); Mitzen (2006a); Mitzen (2006b); Steele (2008); Subotić (forthcoming).
58

expend a lot of energy and money on encouraging specific regional discourses, it can be very
difficult for them to take root. Despite international donors making money available for Central
African civil society organizations to participate in region-wide peacebuilding processes, the
concerns of most civil society actors remain resolutely local, and they frequently dismiss the
regional level as unimportant. Accordingly, van Leeuwen stresses how hard it is to get publics to
accept DWRO-related discourses.
Finally, a more general critique is that rhetorical approaches are too underspecified to
offer any clear guidance to researchers and policymakers. Without being able to identify ex ante
which discourses will matter in relation to a given DWRO, and without a clear specification of
the conditions which allow for successful discursive change, rhetorical scholars cannot offer
helpful predictions. The critics argue that, at best, rhetorical theories can help researchers
identify an important mechanism, but would likely leave out the most important independent
variables. (A busy constructivist research program on scope conditions is ongoing, but it has not
yet explicitly considered discursive transformations: see Checkel 2007; Meyer & Strickmann
2011, Cross 2013; Huang n.p.)

2.9 Conclusion
This chapter began by asking three questions about DWROs: what are the purposes of
DWROs? When and how do DWROs initially form? And what causes DWROs to either change
or remain constant over time? Table 2.4 provides a summary of how the five approaches we
have discussed answer these questions. It should be clear to the reader that I have presented
these sets of theories in rather ideal-typical fashion in order to provide for a clearer narrative.
There are of course exceptions and anomalies in the works discussed above, as well as many
works that lie at the intersection of some of the theories.
26

What is the purpose of a DWRO? Interestingly, all five of our theories disagree
significantly on this question. Each holds out a different key object for DWROs: power

26
As mentioned above, Sebastian Krapohl’s work often blends trade promotion ideas and regional hegemonic
notions. Separately, an interesting subset of scholars are operating right at the intersection of regional hegemonic
and rhetorical theories. These researchers specify how a given country can achieve not just material hegemony but
symbolic hegemony as well (Pedersen 2002; Alden & Schoeman 2015; Wehner 2015). Their arguments fuse
traditional realist and constructivist concerns—in a way, their work can be seen as an extension of the
“hard/soft/smart power” typology to regional organizations.
59

projection (for regional hegemonic theories); collective gains (for policy coordination theorists);
trade (for trade promotion theories); donor funding (for post-colonial theories); and regime
legitimatization (for rhetorical theories).
When do DWROs initially form? Mattli (1999) makes the point that that regionalism is
the result of both supply-side and demand-side factors. With that in mind, we can divide our five
approaches into those that emphasize how strong actors can provide regional goods (regional
hegemonic and rhetorical theories) versus those that claim that DWROs form when there is the
possibility for significant gains by local actors (policy coordination, trade promotion, and post-
colonial explanations). For both regional hegemonic and rhetorical theories, the strong actors—
the regional hegemon and the national regimes—come first, and subsequently create the DWRO,
almost ex nihilo. This results in a severely curtailed DWRO whose sole task is legitimization.
For the other theories, however, widespread recognition of a suboptimal status quo (in terms of
interstate coordination, levels of trade, and amounts of foreign aid, respectively) comes first.
This then encourages interested multiple local actors to take action by creating a DWRO that can
help them maximize their gains. While the participation of multiple actors (including possibly
ones external to the region) can lead to lowest common denominator outcomes, the fact that there
is visible demand for the DWRO’s activities more often empowers it and gives it greater leeway
(particularly since it may have to act in a variety of issue areas).
How often do DWROs experience significant change? This is primarily a function of
how connected to the outside world the DWRO is. For instance, both trade promotion theories
and post-colonial explanations emphasize active participation with external trade and
development actors, whose interests may change rather swiftly. Conversely, regional
hegemonic, policy coordination, and rhetorical theories focus more on changes within the region,
which tend to be slower and less frequent. When you combine that with the explicitly status quo
bias of regional hegemonic and rhetorical approaches, those tend to expect the slowest amount of
DWRO change, with policy coordination theories somewhere in the middle.
Having presented these five theories in ideal-typical form, the goal for the rest of this
dissertation will be to complicate that by determining which theories best match the EAC’s
historical development and present trajectory. In other words, which of these theories (or
combinations thereof) best capture the EAC’s experience? I will begin by closely examining
60

post-colonial theories in Chapter 4. But first, I need to set the stage in Chapter 3 by providing a
brief historical overview of regionalism in East Africa, in order to anchor the reader for the
theory testing that occurs in Chapters 4 through 7.

61

Source: Author’s calculations based on Worldwide Governance Indicators dataset.
N.B. Government effectiveness scores are calculated drawing upon a range of sources. Government effectiveness is defined as “reflect[ing] perceptions of the
quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and
implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such.” The scale is arbitrarily set from -2.5 (very ineffective government) to 2.5 (highly
effective government). Confidence intervals are set at the 95% mark.
-2.5
-2.0
-1.5
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
1996 1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 2.1: Comparison of State Effectiveness
in East Africa and Europe
EAC-5 Unweighted Mean EU-28 Unweighted Mean
62

Source: Author’s calculations based on Worldwide Governance Indicators dataset.
N.B. The indicator employed here is referred to as “Voice and Accountability,” and measures “perceptions of the extent to which a country's citizens are able to
participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media.” Voice and accountability scores are
calculated drawing upon a range of sources. The scale is arbitrarily set from -2.5 (very little citizen influence on government) to 2.5 (high degree of citizen
influence on government). Confidence intervals are set at the 95% mark.
-2.5
-2.0
-1.5
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
1996 1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 2.2: Comparison of Citizens' Ability to Influence the State in East Africa and Europe
EAC-5 Unweighted Mean EU-28 Unweighted Mean
63

Table 2.3: Rationally Designing DWROs

Type of Control Mechanism Explanation
Degree of formalization Will the rules governing the DWRO be clearly specified, or will the DWRO be afforded a
modicum of discretion (Hawkins et al. 2006; Stone 2011; Johns 2015)?
Limitations on DWRO’s resources Will the DWRO be limited in its staffing, funding, or expenditures (Cox & Jacobson
1973)? Will principals play a role in selecting the DWRO’s staff (Hawkins et al. 2006)?
Will there be a permanent secretariat, or a much less powerful rotating one?
Decision-making procedures Will decisions be made by consensus, by a simple majority, or by some other formula?
Will additional veto players be deliberately introduced to slow down policymaking
(Mansfield & Milner 2012)? Will principals force agents to share authority over a given
matter (Hawkins et al. 2006)?
Provisions for subsequent monitoring How often will the DWRO have to justify its work to the MS (R. Mitchell 1994)? How
can unhappy stakeholders bring DWRO overreach to the attention of the MS (McCubbins
& Schwartz 1984; Buntaine 2015)? Will important reforms be automatically renewed, or
will they contain a sunset clause?
Issue area allocation Will MS forbid the DWRO from taking up some issue areas (Koremenos et al. 2001)?
Alternatively, will a DWRO be mandated by the principals to take up a new issue area,
64

possibly shifting political costs associated with that issue onto the agent and/or diluting
the agent’s focus?
Dispute settlement procedures Will the agent be formally empowered to mediate disputes between the MS (Yarbrough &
Yarbrough 1997; Johns 2015)?
Maintaining “outside options” Will (some) MS deliberately maintain ties to third-party forums in order to have a fallback
option in the case of unacceptable agent behavior (Stone 2011)? Are exit provisions
formally written into the DWRO’s rules (Rosendorff & Milner 2001)?

65

Table 2.4: Five Different Theoretical Approaches to DWROs
27

Name Purpose of
DWROs
Main Actors Main Issue
Areas
When Do
DWROs
Form?
How Do
DWROs
Evolve over
Time?
Important
Concepts
Exemplar
Regional
Hegemonic
To project
power and
provide
legitimacy
for the
hegemon’s
foreign
policies
Regional
hegemons;
weaker
neighboring
states
Security At the
hegemon’s
instigation
Slowly, based
on shifts in
relative power
Material power,
legitimation
Krapohl et
al. (2014)
Policy
Coordination
To achieve
collective
policy
outcomes
States
(“principals”),
DWRO
institutions
(“agents”)
Any When there
are
significant
coordination
failures (via
rational inter-
state
bargaining)
Underspecified Transaction
costs, free-
riding, rational
design of
institutions,
monitoring
mechanisms,
issue areas
Mitchell &
Keilbach
(2001)

27
Contrast with Solingen (2008: 265).
66

Trade
Promotion
To increase
intra- or
extra-regional
trade
Pro- and anti-
trade interest
groups,
lobbies,
regulators
Economics When pro-
trade interest
groups come
to power
Very
responsive to
the changing
needs of pro-
trade interest
groups
Regional
coalitions,
barriers to trade,
trade-creating
regionalism,
trade-diverting
regionalism
Krapohl &
Fink
(2013)
Rhetorical To legitimize
national
regimes
Ruling elites Underspecified When elite-
driven
discourses
about
regionalism
become
widely
accepted
As a result of
changes in elite
discourses
becoming
broadly
accepted
Speech acts,
legitimation,
“regime-
boosting
regionalism”
Herbst
(2007)
Post-
Colonial
To obtain
funds from
international
development
agencies
Donors,
DWRO
bureaucrats
Infrastructure,
“good
governance,”
other donor
priorities
When
significant
external
funding is
available
In order to
satisfy donor
demands
Foreign aid,
“development,”
“good
governance,”
conditionality
Bachmann
&
Sidaway
(2010)

67

Chapter 3: The Rise and Fall of the First East African Community

“What is good for the whole of East Africa is not necessarily good for each of the parts.” – Anonymous Ugandan
Cabinet Minster, November 1962 (cited in Nye 1965: 130)

3.1 Introduction
The goal of this chapter is to provide a historical account of the pre-colonial, colonial,
and immediate post-independence roots of present-day East African regional integration.
Particular emphasis is given to explaining the foundation and subsequent collapse of the first
East African Community (1967-1977). This historical account aims to provide a foundation for
all of the empirical chapters that follow.
Proceeding chronologically, Section 3.2 reviews arguments that regionalism in East
Africa can be traced back to either the pre-colonial or British colonial periods. Section 3.3
discusses how East Africa’s first post-independence leaders chose to handle the tension between
nationalist independence campaigns on the one hand and East Africa’s considerable degree of
regional integration in the 1940s and 50s. Section 3.4 relates how the East African Community
was founded in 1967 as an attempt to prevent further regional disintegration, and sheds light on
why it was ultimately unsuccessful in freezing the status quo. The chapter then concludes by
highlighting the ongoing scholarly debate about why the first EAC failed in the end—a
particularly timely and relevant discussion given the relaunch of the EAC since 2000.

3.2 East African Regionalism Prior to Independence
It is difficult to give a date to the beginning of regional integration in East Africa. At the
official inauguration ceremony of the second East African Community in January 2001, Kenyan
President Daniel Arap Moi described the organization as a reaffirmation of the “cultural, political
and economic ties which have been there between the three countries since time immemorial”
(cited in Olympio 2013: 617). Similarly, President Museveni of Uganda has argued in several
speeches that East African regionalism long predates colonialism:
Excavations at Ntutsi in Uganda have shown that glass beads and cowrie shells were in common
use in Uganda [around the] time 900 AD. Where were they coming from? Uganda was not
manufacturing glass beads nor did we have an ocean out of which we could extract cowrie shells.
I am told that glass beads were being imported from Mesopotamia (present day Iraq). Both items
were certainly being imported from Zanzibar through Bagamoyo, Dodoma, Tabora, etc. […] This
common trading area extended all the way to the Congo River at Nyangwe. Our people got
textiles, guns, and gunpowder from the coast. In exchange, they sent ivory to the coast.
68

Unfortunately, some of the chiefs were also sending slaves. Out of Congo, we bought copper
bracelets and amooshe (necklaces made out of giraffe tails). This was a Common Trade Area and
not a Free Trade Area because the chiefs along the way would extort “hongo” (a sort of tax) from
the traders. Colonialism, therefore, interfered with the trading activities of our people. Even the
EAC of today does not cover the whole pre-colonial trading of this part of Africa. The new
element the British brought, and what we restored in 1991,
28
was the element of abolishing
“hongo”—the taxes between kingdoms and chiefdoms, in our case between the modern states.
29

In other words, Museveni argues that while East Africa was never unified politically during the
pre-colonial period, consisting as it did of a number of coastal city-states and small inland
kingdoms, the area’s degree of economic interdependence at the time approximates
contemporary forms of regional integration. In addition to trade, Museveni could also have
mentioned the cultural, religious, and linguistic similarities that emerged all along the Swahili
coast beginning in the 10
th
century, but which blossomed in particular during the Kilwa Sultanate
(c. 1000-1495) and later under the protection of the expanding Omani Sultanate (c. 1650-1890).
For instance, the Swahili trading language—a Bantu-based dialect with many Arabic loan
words—spread rapidly during these periods, becoming the coastal region’s lingua franca.
Most scholars argue that formal efforts at integrating the region begin with the British,
whose influence in East Africa grew during the last quarter of the 19
th
century.
30
The Imperial
British East Africa Company successively established territorial claims over Kenya (1888),
Zanzibar (1890), and Uganda (1894). The British Crown took direct control over colonial
administration of the territories beginning in 1895, and soon mandated the economic integration
of Kenya and Uganda, which began jointly collecting customs revenue in 1900 and adopted a
single currency in 1905. Ensuring effective British control of the far-flung territories was greatly
aided by the completion of the Kenya-Uganda Railway in 1901, which ran from Mombasa on the
coast to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. This accomplishment highlights the importance of physical
infrastructure to successful East African regional integration—then as now—and also served to

28
It is unclear what the reference to 1991 signifies. The rest of the speech ascribes the re-founding of the EAC to
2001.
29
Excerpt of a speech written by President Yoweri Museveni, delivered by Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi at the
East African Legislative Assembly, June 29, 2011, published in The New Vision (Kampala, Uganda) and The
African Executive. Slightly edited for clarity.
30
Notably, this is also the position of the present-day EAC itself, whose 1999 Treaty Establishing the East African
Community begins with the lines: “WHEREAS the Republic of Uganda, the Republic of Kenya and the United
Republic of Tanzania have enjoyed close historical, commercial, industrial, cultural and other ties for many years;
AND WHEREAS formal economic and social integration in the East African Region commenced with, among other
things, the construction of the Kenya Uganda Railway 1897 – 1901…”
69

cement the route as one of the two major present-day trading corridors through East Africa (the
other being the path from Dar es Salaam to Kigali/Bujumbura).
Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the United Kingdom further acquired the
Tanganyika Territory in 1920 under a League of Nations mandate. Debates arose in London and
Nairobi about how to approach the new territory, divided “between those who espoused
development on behalf of Africans, and those who wanted whites to play a controlling role”
(Rotberg 1964: 143; Rotberg’s study is the definitive account of the federation question in
British East Africa between 1900 and 1950). Generally speaking, white settlers in Kenya
supported integrating Tanganyika into the East African Protectorate to extend white rule, while
Tanganyikans (and Ugandans) resisted union because of concerns about being economically and
politically dominated by Kenya. “Asians”—as East Africans of South Asian descent were
known at the time—across East Africa also resisted anything that was perceived to increase
Kenya’s power, owing to Kenya’s discriminatory pro-whites policies.
Initially, the British decided to govern Tanganyika separately from Kenya and Uganda,
given its lesser degree of development and lack of a substantial settler presence. Thus, the
British largely opted for indirect rule in Tanganyika, compared to the more formal governing
structures established to the north (Read 2006). The British government began to reverse itself
during the late 1920s and 30s, however, as they sought to combat the consequences of the
worldwide recession (particularly pronounced in East Africa owing to a collapse in commodity
prices) and to deter a resurgent Germany from reestablishing any claims over its former East
African holdings. In 1927 Sir Edward Grigg, the governor of Kenya, called for the establishment
of a central East African Authority to control the region’s main transport services,
communications networks (including the postal and telegraph systems), and customs
administration. Initial resistance to the proposal was strong, with Sir Donald Cameron, governor
of Tanganyika, denouncing his colleague’s plan, but the Colonial Office increasingly supported
the decision to more fully integrate Tanganyika with Britain’s other East African colonies
(Rotberg 1964: 145; Nye 1965: 89-90).
Accordingly, the British began rationalizing their administrative structures across the
region. The East African Governors’ Conference was instituted to serve as the key executive
decision-making body for all of East Africa in 1926. On economic matters, a Joint Economic
70

Council was set up, and a new single currency (which now also covered Tanganyika) was
launched in 1920 under the watchful eye of the East African Currency Board, which de facto
served as the region’s central bank (Newlyn & Rowan 1954: 57). In 1940, wartime pressures
caused the British to further centralize the administration of East Africa, including having a
single entity—the East African Income Tax Board—take responsibility for income taxation
across the region. Despite the profound implications of such a move, it was breezily justified to
the public as being “convenient for taxpayers and economical in costs of administration”
(Conover 1960: 11)! In the legal realm, since 1902 a single British high court had jurisdiction
over the entire area—the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa.
By the mid-1940s, British colonial authorities had espoused a bold vision for the region:
total integration of public infrastructure and public services across the nearly 700,000 sq. mile
area. Accordingly, the East African Airways Corporation was established in 1945 as a
government-owned, cross-regional, publicly-minded enterprise. Jointly operated by the four
British territories, the ownership of the company was split between Kenya (67.7%), Uganda
(22.6%), Tanganyika (9%) and Zanzibar (0.7%). Similarly, building on the substantial
infrastructural investments that had been made to Kenya’s and Tanganyika’s railroads
throughout the 1930s, the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation was set up in 1948 to
jointly own, administer, and operate all railways and ports in East Africa. To oversee these and
other regional bodies, power was vested in an East African High Commission in 1947,
effectively consolidating all four British territories into a single administrative unit despite their
different formal statuses (Kenya was a colony, Uganda and Zanzibar protectorates, and
Tanganyika a mandate, first of the League of Nations and then of the United Nations after
WWII). The High Commission had as its goal to provide high-quality public goods to the
region, and operated rather successfully until independence movements began gaining
substantial traction in the various East African territories in the late 1950s. The number of policy
areas the High Commission worked in was quite far-reaching (cf. Conover 1960): regional
services for agricultural research and medical research were established, and the region’s
universities were centrally overseen. There was even a Royal East African Navy, although this
was very much a rump force (Conover 1960: 28-29).
71

Structurally, the High Commission was jointly overseen by the British governors of
Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika, but its core was a technocratic Secretariat consisting almost
exclusively of British expatriate officials who adopted a “supraterritorial” perspective (Nye
1965: 132, 139). The East Africa Central Legislative Assembly was also formed in 1948 with 33
members and had nominal authority to approve the High Commission’s annual budget—while
quite limited in its powers, Nye (1965: 131-132) notes that the European Parliament would not
possess this amount of legislative power until 1970. Financing for the High Commission’s
services came from a combination of user fees, contributions from the member territories, and
substantial contributions from the United Kingdom Colonial Development and Welfare Funds.
For some commentators, there is “no doubt that this period was the golden era of East African
integration” (Kasaija 2004: 26).
An additional important legacy of the British colonial era was to enshrine English as the
official language of the three major territories, a status it still enjoys today, although Tanzania in
particular has championed Swahili as an indigenous alternative. As Nye (1965: 67) points out,
the ability for East Africa’s leaders to communicate directly with one another was an important
facilitator for all future attempts at regional integration. He quotes Tanzanian President Julius
Nyerere as saying that “in eight years [of working with other East African leaders], I needed an
interpreter only twice.” Looking far ahead, East Africa’s elite-level linguistic cohesiveness was
somewhat complicated in 2007 by the accession of largely French-speaking Rwanda and
Burundi to the EAC, although both states are committed to increasing the prevalence of English
in their countries. Some African scholars have argued that precisely because of English’s deep
imbrication with Africa’s colonial past, it would be better for East Africa to embrace a truly
indigenous African language like Swahili instead (Mohochi 2005; Yieke 2005), but the EAC
does not seem set to move in this direction anytime soon. Bwenge’s (2002) sophisticated study
of the speeches given on the floor of the Tanzanian parliament shows how elite East African
politicians can derive advantages from their multilingualism via frequent codeswitching.
Overall, accepting the view that East African regionalism began either in the pre-colonial
or colonial periods leads to a very interesting historiographical insight. The conventional potted
history of regional integration invariably begins with the founding of the European Coal and
Steel Community in 1951—we are told that following the ravages of WWII, for the first time
72

deliberate efforts were made to interweave neighboring economies so closely that war would
become impossible, and that once the EU’s successes became apparent its model diffused to
other parts of the globe (e.g. Telò 2007b). However, East Africa’s experience with very tight,
formalized economic and political integration throughout the first half of the 20
th
century calls
this Eurocentric narrative into question. Without denying the crucial role of the British in
shaping East African regionalism, it seems that this may be more a case of Europe adopting
political models first elaborated elsewhere, instead of originating them. As one Ugandan wag
put it, “the European Union is a copy cat [sic] of our own community!”
31
This would of course
not be the first time Europeans have laid claim upon concepts and inventions first pioneered
elsewhere (Puchala 2003; Grovogui 2006), and would partially undermine the oft made claim
that the EU is a sui generis institution. The bottom line is that in many respects British East
Africa circa 1948 exhibited a degree of regional integration arguably still unmatched by any
subsequent regional body anywhere in the world, what with a common currency, joint ownership
of infrastructure, and centralized taxation.

3.3 Independence and the Deferral of a Dream
Following the granting of independence by the British to India in 1947, it became
increasingly clear over the course of the 1950s that it was a question of when, not if, most other
British colonies would follow. Accordingly, a central question for all political actors in British
East Africa during the 1950s became how to reconcile eventual independence with the region’s
existing high degree of political and economic integration. For the most part, the British
advocated the formation of single East African federation, which would gradually be given
increasing self-rule and eventually full independence. British colonial authorities were pursuing
similar federalization-cum-decolonization efforts in Central Africa and the British West Indies at
the time (even if both of these proved short-lived in the end - Dunbabin 2014: 59-60). Overall,
however, the main goal for the British—who were tired of fighting the Mau Mau insurgency and
other colonial rebellions, and who had the horrors of the Indian Partition firmly etched in their

31
“Kikwete has let Nyerere down on E. African federation,” anonymous opinion column, The Sunrise (Kampala),
December 18, 2013. See also Kikwete (2002: 152).
73

minds—was to extricate themselves from East Africa peacefully and with as little fuss as
possible.
For their part, East African anti-colonial organizations were organized on national lines,
not regional ones, despite making frequent recourse to pan-Africanism as an ideological
touchstone (cf. Nye 1965: 94-98, 119-129). This left decisions about the future of the region
mostly in the hands a small coterie of leaders associated with the major political parties of each
territory: Julius Nyerere at the head of the Tanganyika African National Union; Jomo Kenyatta
as the leading figure of the Kenya African Union; and Milton Obote as the leader of the Uganda
National Congress.
32

While the decision-makers are identifiable, the historical record is far less clear on
exactly how they made the decisions they did. It is generally accepted that Nyerere was the
strongest advocate of federation along the lines of the British proposal. Because of pressure
from the U.N. Trusteeship Council,
33
Tanganyika seemed likely to be the first East African
territory to achieve full independence. Nyerere, however, publicly offered in June 1960 to delay
Tanganyika’s independence so that Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika could all become
independent at the same time and immediately form a political union. Nyerere’s arguments
stressed the common bond East Africans shared because of their mutual Pan-Africanist vision, as
well as the danger small countries faced in a world of great powers. It would be better to delay
Tanganyika’s independence by a few months, he contended, “than take the risk of perpetuating
the balkanization of East Africa” (cited in Nye 1965: 180).
However, reactions to this offer in the other territories were lackluster. In both Kenya
and Uganda, political elites were primarily occupied with upcoming elections and jockeying for
power in order to be well-positioned when independence eventually came. Even within
Tanganyika, Nyerere received pushback from within his political party, which initially put out a
press release stating that the leader had been simply speaking in a private capacity, forcing
Nyerere to publicly repudiate his party’s press release and double down on his offer. The

32
I simplify the analysis here by focusing on the three national leaders, but in practice each faced constraints from
within the political parties they led and did not have total control over decision-making. For a more detailed
treatment, see Nye (1965).
33
The role of the U.N. Trusteeship Council in facilitating Tanganyika’s swift, peaceful, and orderly transition to
independence is ably recounted in Lohrmann (2007).
74

general sentiment seemed to be, as a meeting of a regional pro-federation lobbying group put it
in January 1961, that federation should proceed, but only after each country had an African
prime minister (Nye 1965: 180). Accordingly, Tanganyika duly went on to be the first of the
three to achieve independence on December 9, 1961.
34

In Uganda, calls for federation were deemed too colonial, too similar to what the British
were advocating (Nabudere 2006: 3). Suspicions lingered that federation would simply
empower white settlers in Kenya to extend their influence over Uganda, which did not have a
large settler population. Similarly, the customs union which had been in place since 1917 was
popularly deemed to favor Kenyan interests over Ugandan ones (Nabudere 2006: 3). Underlying
these practical concerns was a historical self-perception of independence, whereby many
Ugandans saw themselves as distinct from the rest of East Africa because of the long history of
Buganda Kingdom, originally founded in the 14
th
century and which survived more or less intact
through the colonial era (and, indeed, through to the present day). Accordingly, independence
was seen as opportunity to reclaim an authentically Ugandan spirit, which immediate federation
would diminish (Nye 1965: 103-110). Thus, as Uganda gained its independence in October
1962, Obote was inclined to view calls for greater integration with suspicion, and instead hoped
to roll back disadvantageous economic structures.
In Kenya, where British interests were strongest and the British were thus most leery of
granting independence to the colony prematurely, Kenyatta used calls for federation as a way of
forcing Kenya’s decolonization timetable forward (Dunbabin 2013: 59-60). In June 1963,
Kenyatta hastily summoned Nyerere and Obote to Nairobi for the purpose of issuing a joint
Declaration on East African Federation. The statement began:
We, the leaders of the people and governments of East Africa, assembled in Nairobi on June 5,
1963, pledge ourselves to the political federation of East Africa. Our meeting today is motivated
by the spirit of Pan-Africanism, and not by mere selfish regional interests. We are nationalists and
reject tribalism, racialism or inward looking policies. We believe that the day of decision has
come, and to all our people we say: There is no more room for slogans and words. This is our day
of action in the cause of the ideals that we believe in and the unity and freedom for which we have
suffered and sacrificed so much. […] We believe that East African Federation can be a practical
step towards the goal of Panafrican unity. We hope that our action will help to accelerate the

34
Tiny Zanzibar did not figure prominently in the late 1950s/early 1960s debates about the region’s future. When
the United Kingdom’s protectorate over Zanzibar was ended in December 1963, the (pro-Arab minority) Zanzibari
Sultanate was proclaimed, only to be overthrown a month later by the archipelago’s African majority. The
revolution’s leader, Abeid Karume, swiftly negotiated the formation of a federation with nearby Tanganyika out of
fear that the British would seek to reestablish control. The two territories merged to create the United Republic of
Tanzania in April 1964, offering Nyerere a small consolation prize for the failure of his regional vision.
75

efforts already being made by our brothers throughout the Continent to achieve Panafrican unity.
[…] In the past century the hand of imperialism grasped the whole Continent, and in this part of
Africa our people found themselves included together in what the colonialists styled “the British
sphere of influence.” Now that we are once again free, or on the point of regaining our freedom,
we believe that the time has come to consolidate our unity and provide it with a constitutional
basis. [This version of the text comes from Minogue & Molloy (1974: 203-205).]
In a rather ad hoc fashion, the three leaders further agreed that political federation should be
accomplished by the end of 1963, and established a high-level Working Party to prepare a
draft constitution for the Federation. The Working Party lost no time whatsoever, meeting
just four days after the Nairobi Declaration and proclaiming that they were “in agreement on
every issue” (Nye 1965: 184). Faced with this united front, the British gave way and agreed
to grant Kenya independence in December of that year.
But the era of good feelings proved short-lived. As the Working Party began to get more
concrete about what federation would look like, significant differences emerged among the three
delegations. Nor was cooperation easier at the level of the “Big Three,” who kept issuing
contrary statements and working at cross-purposes. By September it was clear that the
December deadline would be missed, and by May 1964 the entire project had been shelved,
spelling a quiet end to the dream of East African federation (Nabudere 2006: 6).
Historians disagree about who was most responsible for the inability to make political
unification work in 1963. Mwakkikagile (2010: 129) claims that “Kenyatta was the least
enthusiastic of the three East African leaders about forming a federation,” and that having
obtained what he wanted—an early end to British rule—he then applied the brakes whenever
possible. For Nye (1965: 188-189), however, “the reluctant partner was Uganda. Between
Kenya and Tanganyika there were some differences—for instance, on how strong a central bank
to have—but on all important matters they were in agreement.”
Rather than focus on identifying specific spoilers, perhaps the better question to ask is
whether the failure of a single East African super-state was inevitable. Over the decades, several
East African scholars have argued that the decisions to pursue decolonization on the basis of
nationalist projects—instead of regional or pan-African ones—doomed dreams of a united East
Africa from the very start. In particular, the claim is often made that maintaining the arbitrary
and problematic colonial borders post-independence set the stage for East Africa’s bloody
history in the second half of the 20
th
century (Prah 2001: 33; Nabudere 2006: 4-6). Even in the
Nairobi Declaration copied above, it is clear that the pronouncement was fraught from the get-
76

go, as its drafters struggled to situate their project vis-à-vis, on the one hand, radical Pan-
Africanist models of federation, and on the other, the British legacy of regionalism in East
Africa. Thus, despite the Nairobi Declaration’s multiple genuflections in the direction of Pan-
Africanism, some Pan-African purists condemned the idea of an East African federation, arguing
that it was the entire continent that needed to be unified post-independence. Specifically,
President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, a leading Pan-Africanist, had a heated exchange of letters
with Nyerere denouncing the project and may have sought to prevent its fruition (Mwakikagile
2014: 144-151). The Nairobi Declaration also took a relatively harsh stance towards the British
colonial legacy, rejecting it in toto, which had the effect of also tarnishing many of the
accomplishments the British had accomplished in terms of regional integration, most notably the
East African High Commission. Given this impossible ideological terrain, many conclude that
the idea of East African federation was doomed to founder.
Others, however, argue that East African federation could very well have occurred in
1963, given perhaps just a little bit more commitment on the part of Obote and Kenyatta (e.g.
Mwakikagile 2010: 129). Indeed, for Nye (1965), the real puzzle is why federation did not
succeed given the absence of any organized opposition and the presence of so many factors
militating in its favor (politically, economically, socially, and above all ideologically).
Defenders of the feasibility of integration in 1963 note that the federal dream did not disappear
all at once, but rather lingered on throughout the 1960s and 70s, reaching its nadir only in 1978.
Could another attempt at federation have been made at some further point during the 1960s?
What happened in East Africa after Nyerere’s calls for federation were ignored?

3.4 The Rise and Fall of the First East African Community
Following the collapse of constitutional negotiations in early 1964, the East African High
Commission—now renamed the East African Common Services Organisation—continued to
limp along. It suffered from erratic leadership at the highest levels, however, as the three East
African leaders struggled to reconcile regional goods with national self-interest. The Kampala
Agreement of April 1964 ruled out any further joint ownership of industries, instead clearly
stating that henceforth each country would develop its own national industries, but proposed that
the three states coordinate government support for industries to avoid unnecessary duplication in
77

the region and prevent a race to the bottom (Rothchild 1968: 45; Nabudere 2006: 6-7). But by
1965 Kenyatta refused this implied restriction on Kenyan industrial policy and declined to sign
the follow-up Mbale Agreement, leading Tanzania to impose import quotas on some types of
Kenyan goods (Rothchild 1968: 43-45; Nabudere 2006: 7). The decades-old East African
customs union was dead. The East African currency union soon followed, as each country chose
to establish its own central bank in order to retain the possibility of independent monetary
policymaking, although for a while the three currencies were pegged to one another (Arowolo
1970: 48).
Fearing total balkanization, an effort was made in 1965 to halt the region’s disintegration
by appointing Kjeld Phillip, a former Danish finance minister, to lead a high-profile public
commission and propose a path forward (Kasaija 2004: 27). The Phillip Commission’s
recommendation, which was duly adopted in June 1967, was to create an East African
Community. At its core, the goal of the first EAC was to institutionalize the status quo so that it
would be difficult to change, towards either greater or lesser integration. Accordingly, the public
enterprises that had been carried over from colonial times, such as the East African Railways and
Harbours, East African Airways, the East African Posts and Telecommunications, and the
various campuses of the University of East Africa were maintained and entrusted to the EAC
Secretariat. In terms of industrial policy, a new East African Development Bank (EADB) was
established, which would seek to provide lending for important private section investments
across the region. But the EADB would also seek to partially compensate Tanzania and Uganda
for keeping their markets open to goods from Kenya, which possessed some 70 percent of the
region’s overall manufacturing capacity (Nye 1968: 48). Thus the EADB would devote the
lion’s share of its funds to projects located in Tanzania and Uganda, and a further “transfer tax”
mechanism was set up to protect industries in those two countries in extremis (Rhoad 1968: 44;
Rothchild 1968: 47).
On the minus side, the 1967 Treaty for East African Co-operation that established the
EAC dropped all mentions of political federation and instead definitively committed the region
to an intergovernmental approach. Unsurprisingly, the ability of each president to veto policies
opened the door for lowest-common denominator outcomes (Rothchild 1968: 47). The already
weak East Africa Central Legislative Assembly was replaced with a similarly named but even
78

more anemic talking shop, the East African Legislative Assembly. As for the bureaucratic
apparatus that had been the hallmark of the East African High Commission/East African
Common Services Organisation, parallel moves by the member states to rapidly Africanize their
civil services as well as the new EAC Secretariat led to a marked drop-off in bureaucratic quality
(Himbara 1994a: Chapter 5; see also Adu 1963).
35
Lastly, the EAC left economic decision-
making firmly in the hands of the (quite ideologically different) member states, making
subsequent economic conflicts likely.
The EAC was successful in freezing the status quo for some time. Indeed, a few
contemporary observers were quite bullish following the signing of the 1967 Treaty; Rothchild
(1968: 45) reported that after its signing, “almost at once the climate of gloom and uncertainty
was dispelled by a renewed sense of commitment to interterritorial planning and administration”
(see also Arowolo 1970: 51-52). It is also worth pointing out that there was interest among
neighboring countries to join the EAC—Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, and Zambia all applied for
various categories of membership in 1967 and 1968, although a decision in March 1968 to admit
no new members “for at least two years” (and which persisted until the organization’s eventual
implosion) dashed their hopes (Rhoad 1968: 44; Rothchild 1968: 45; Massell 1963: 63; Ballance
1971).
Still, by the mid-1970s the entire East African edifice had come crashing down. The first
major sign of danger was the 1971 military coup in Uganda that brought Idi Amin to power.
Relations between Uganda and Tanzania soured quickly as Nyerere gave refuge to his ousted
friend Obote and quietly allowed armed opposition to Amin to use western Tanzania as a staging
ground. Nyerere also refused to meet with Amin, making it impossible for the EAC’s highest
body, the East African Authority (which comprised the presidents of the three member states), to
meet at any point after 1971 (Gordon 1994: 244). When in October 1978, Amin’s troops
pursued rebels into the Kagera region of Tanzania, Nyerere decided to fully commit Tanzania’s
military to the fight against Uganda. Amin appealed for and received some military assistance
from Libya, but was unable to repel the advance of 40,000 Tanzanian troops during the spring of

35
This decline in bureaucratic quality because of Africanization was partially due to the tiny pool of available
educated talent. In 1962, across all three countries there were only 727 post-secondary students in East Africa, with
another 2,185 studying outside the region (Nye 1965: 81).
79

1979 and fled the country in April (on the Uganda-Tanzania War, see Nyangani 1986: 230-252;
Roberts 2014).
Relations between Tanzania and Kenya were also not good during the 1970s,
36
in part
because of the contrasting economic and foreign policies the two countries were pursuing—
socialist, non-aligned, and ideological in Tanzania, capitalist, pro-Western, and pragmatic in
Kenya. In 1974, Tanzania seized some of the jointly-owned assets of the East African Railways
corporation, greatly angering Nairobi.
37
With a definitive rupture looming, another high-profile
commission led by an non-East African—this time William Demas, a Trinidadian and former
Secretary-General of CARICOM—was set up, but the commission had not yet delivered its final
report when Kenya effectively expropriated the East African Airways corporation in early 1977
and reformed it as a new national carrier (Gordon 1994: 244-245; Himbara 1994a: 140-141).
38

As the last remaining joint service from the East Africa High Commission days disappeared, an
infuriated Nyerere severed diplomatic ties with Kenya. But he also went a step further and
completely closed Tanzania’s five-hundred-mile border with its northern neighbor, imposing
heavy costs on both countries. Kenya’s southward trade dried up overnight, while Tanzania’s
tourism industry, geographically located right on the border and historically dependent upon
Kenya-based tour operators for the bulk of its clientele, collapsed. (The border would not re-
open until 1983.) Final desperate negotiations to keep a small remnant of the EAC project alive

36
This tension is arguably the main focus of declassified U.S. diplomatic cables sent from East Africa between 1973
and 1978, which are searchable at: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/ [As a reminder to the reader, in keeping with
emerging best practice all specific cables mentioned herein are referred to by a three-part identifier, consisting of:
the two-digit year the cable was sent; the post which issued the cable; and the unique chronological number of the
cable, reset at 0 for each post for each year.]
37
74 DARESSALAAM 00777_b
38
75 NAIROBI 09184_b; 76 NAIROBI 13943_b
80

failed,
39
and on July 1
st
, 1977, post-independence East Africa’s first attempt to create a DWRO
was officially declared dead.
40

Overall, historians’ opinions about the first EAC tend to depend on whether or not
political federation was considered achievable or not in 1963. For instance, Gordon’s (2014)
account entirely neglects the Nairobi Declaration of 1963 and instead focuses on the Kampala
Agreement of 1964 (but not the failed Mbale Agreement of 1965)—this leads him to adopt a
relatively rosy view of the first EAC. And other defenders of the first EAC rightly note that in
its heyday, the EAC was “arguably the most sophisticated regional cooperative arrangement in
the Third World at the time” (Asante 1997: 36; cf. Kasaija 2004: 27). For dyed-in-the-wool East
African federalists, however, the EAC was a poor shadow of what might have been. Nabudere
(2006: 5, italics in the original) grumbles that the “lesson we must learn from the failure of the
old East African Community is that the leaders put economic integration ahead of the realisation
of political unification. It was not the differences between Nyerere and Amin that were
responsible for the break-up of the Community… nor was it the ideological differences between
Kenya and Tanzania. In fact these differences were themselves the manifestation of political
differences brought about by the acceptance of the geographical divisions of East Africa
according to the colonial boundaries and the acceptance of multinational corporations as the
basis of African economic liberation.” In other words, for Nabudere the colonial legacy
combined with the greed of political elites at the time indelibly tainted the project of East African
unification. In the next chapter, I further explore the ways in which East Africa’s fraught

39
Interestingly, according to American diplomatic cables, the Tanzanian government made a final desperate appeal
to the U.S. Government for funding to keep the EAC going on its own (75 DARESSALAAM 05001_b; 77
DARESSALAAM 00779_c; 77 NAIROBI 02247_c), which considered the request but ultimately denied it (77
NAIROBI 04175_c; 77 DARESSALAAM 01547_c). The cables also depict European diplomats based in East
Africa as indifferent to the DWRO’s plight: “At the same time, some [Government of Kenya] officials believe that
demonstration of weakened political determination implicit in dismantling of corporations will affect community as
whole and pique nationalistic aspirations in three states to go it alone. This view was accepted by majority at recent
luncheon meeting of foreign diplomats accredited to Kenya, all harking in economic/commercial area, who felt EAC
likely disband altogether for several years and then re-unite after hard lesson learned. Representatives of European
Economic Community countries, in particular, cited need for trial and error. British more inclined share our view
that, even if corporations go, economics of retaining customs union and commonly funded services such as statistics
and various kinds of research will survive…” (75 NAIROBI 09184_b). I return to the EEC’s seeming indifference
towards the first EAC in the next chapter.
40
The actual phrase Kenyan Minister of Power and Communications Isaac Omolo Okero chose to mark this
momentous happening was “the EAC is dead as a dodo bird, so far as Kenya is concerned” (77 NAIROBI 05669_c).
For his part, Kenyan Attorney General Charles Njonjo announced to the Kenyan Parliament that “he had been so
delighted with the EAC’s breakup that he drank five cups of champagne to celebrate” (77 NAIROBI 08428_c).
81

relationship with Europe has shaped and continues to shape the contours of East African
regionalism, in often troubling ways.

82

Chapter 4: Post-Colonial Theories: Comparing EAC-EU Relations in the 1960s and 2000s

“My brother told me. ‘Never turn your back on Europe. The deal makers. The contract makers. The map drawers.
Never trust Europeans,’ he said. ‘Never shake hands with them.’ But we, oh, we were easily impressed—by
speeches and medals and your ceremonies.” – Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (1992)

4.1 Introduction
The main goal of this chapter is to assess the extent to which post-colonial theories can
shed light on the historical development of the EAC. In particular, I examine the relationship
between the EAC and its single most important external donor, the EU. I ask a number of related
questions: what is the nature of the EU’s relationship with the EAC? Has this relationship
changed over time? What political impacts has the EU-EAC relationship had on East African
regional integration? Is there any evidence that EU financial contributions to the EAC have
affected the latter’s policy-making?
Recall from Section 2.8 that post-colonial theorists argue that the profoundly
asymmetrical and dependent relationship between Europe and its colonies did not suddenly end
with the formal decolonization that swept through Africa in the 1960s. Rather, post-colonial
theories look for the ways in which unequal ties between Europe and Africa have persisted since
then. While many topics could be brought up under this banner (e.g. military intervention,
control over international financial institutions, Orientalizing discourses, etc.), one important
factor is the role played by foreign aid, and in particular foreign aid that is directly or indirectly
conditional, i.e. provided in exchange for behavioral or policy changes by the recipient country.
As I will show, many participants in East African regional integration receive substantial
amounts of money from various EU development agencies—does this source of money alter the
incentives and behavior of East African actors?
Rather than confine my analysis in this chapter to only recent EU-EAC ties, I instead
examine EU-EAC relations during two historical moments. Section 4.2 concerns the period
between 1960 and 1970, when the first EAC and the then-European Economic Community
(EEC) began formally interacting. Section 4.3 focuses on the period since 2005, following the
relaunch of the second EAC, when the EU and the EAC have reached an unprecedented degree
of cooperation. This cooperation has involved significant financial transfers from external actors
to the EAC—about half a billion USD since 2000—as discussed in Section 4.4, but also a wide
variety in the forms of interaction, including day-to-day contacts, trainings and study tours,
83

secondments, and high-level reports (discussed in Sections 4.5.1-4.5.4, respectively). Section
4.5.5 discusses the formal negotiations that occurred throughout the 2000s between the EU and
the second EAC concerning the Economic Partnership Agreement, a controversial free trade
agreement that was eventually signed in 2014. Building on the previous empirical sections,
Section 4.6 is more big-picture and proposes that the main lens through which the EU views
contemporary East Africa is a “developmentalist” one, by which I mean that being able to
disburse development assistance has become the European Commission’s main raison d’être in
East Africa. Indeed, the EU’s need to have a fiduciarily reliable partner on the ground that
shares its technocratic and export-friendly mindset arguably explains why it has so assiduously
partnered with the EAC Secretariat and is so willing to spend large sums of money on an
otherwise minor, unproven regional organization. Finally, Section 4.7 rounds out the chapter by
drawing attention to the profound differences between EEC-EAC relations in the 1970s and EU-
EAC relations today—differences which resist being pigeonholed into a crude post-colonial
argument but still reflect post-colonial theorists’ attention to how development assistance can
distort local incentives, as well as the frequent tradeoff between a DWRO’s capability and its
legitimacy.
As noted, this chapter begins with a structured historical comparison of EU-EAC
relations during the 1960-1970 and 2005-2015 periods. I have several reasons for operating in
this manner. First, post-colonial theories stress the importance of history and a longue durée
view of politics, since structural factors like unequal levels of development evolve only slowly
over time. Second, comparing recent EU-EAC relations to an earlier period allows us to develop
a more nuanced view of the EU’s current influence by providing a baseline of historical
behavior. In other words, only by looking at an earlier period of EU-EAC ties can I claim that
today’s close partnership is historically unprecedented.
Why do I choose to focus on the 1960-1970 and 2005-2015 periods specifically? First,
because both periods are substantively interesting. As Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya gained
independence in the early 1960s, there were numerous questions about how they would act
towards one another, towards their former colonial power of Great Britain, and towards other
major world powers. Multiple political and economic paths were open to the newly-independent
countries, as indeed their different trajectories during their first decade of independence
84

demonstrate. What role did EEC-EAC relations play in influencing these outcomes? For its
part, the period since 2005 has featured a significant upgrading of the EU’s institutional ties with
the EAC (as reflected in the EU’s increasing financial support to the EAC – see Table 4.11), but
also the very high-profile and fraught negotiations over a free trade deal between the two
regions, known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), finally signed in October 2014.
Second, the two periods have many similarities, allowing for a structured historical comparison.
Most notably, a formal regional organization representing East Africa—the EAC—served as the
region’s primary interlocutor with Europe for most of the periods in question. This was not the
case between 1977 and 2000, and while European interactions with East Africa persisted during
this interval, they were necessarily quite different in many respects.

4.2 The First EAC and the European Economic Community: The Indecisive Encounter the
Disinterested
Obtaining formal independence in the early 1960s thrust the three East African states
rather suddenly onto the global stage. Some of the developments that went along with becoming
sovereign states were welcome, such as receiving ambassadors from the slightly older West
African states, who proved a useful source of strategic information and practical advice (Nye
1965: 221). Other aspects of sovereignty proved more troublesome, however. Perhaps chief
among these was the need to take an official stance on how East Africa would position itself vis-
à-vis the emerging European Economic Community, then only comprised of France, West
Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries. The brunt of “the EEC problem” was figuring out
how the newly independent East African countries could maintain their traditional trade ties with
the United Kingdom if the UK joined the EEC’s customs union. If the East African countries
had remained colonies, they would likely have been automatically integrated into the EEC’s
trade framework, but as independent countries they risked facing cost-prohibitive tariffs.
Coming to terms with the EEC would become a chief foreign and economic policy
preoccupation of the three East African states throughout the 1960s, with particularly significant
turning points in 1962 and 1968. Ironically, shortly after the matter seemed to have been finally
hashed out in 1972, the EAC would implode and the quest to adopt common East African
foreign policy positions would fizzle out.
85

Thus, a rather unlikely set of three-cornered negotiations proceeded during the 1960s. In
one corner were the three East African countries, with no experience conducting trade
negotiations and with significant internal divisions. For some East Africans, direct economic
interests came first, but for others maintaining the region’s dignity and freedom of action as a
newly independent part of the world were paramount. In a second corner was the fledgling EEC,
a far-cry from the institutional behemoth it is today. The EEC was perhaps the least-interested
party in the negotiations: East Africa was not a particularly important trading partner for the
EEC, whose attention was much more focused on the Cold War clash between the Americans
and the Soviets as well as its own remaining colonies (for France, Belgium, Italy, and the
Netherlands). Still, the negotiations forced the EEC to consider how it would interact with a
poor, formerly colonized part of the world that it did not consider itself directly responsible for
(of “The Six,” only West Germany had played a direct role in East Africa’s development, and
then only before 1919). Thus, we can see in the EEC-EAC debates of the 1960s the beginnings
of the wide-ranging EU development policy that exists today (cf. European Commission 2000).
In the third corner stood a much diminished United Kingdom, who for both material and
symbolic reasons felt a responsibility to ensure that East Africa received a decent offer from the
EEC. But the UK’s attempt to play middle-man often faltered because of its fraught relationship
with the other two: East African leaders had little desire to heed the advice of their past colonial
master, which often acted in a very heavy-handed manner, as when it sought to prevent some
other African colonies from interacting directly with the EEC (Twitchett 1978: 145). Ideological
differences were also a sore point at times—in 1965, Tanzania cut off diplomatic relations with
the United Kingdom because of what it saw as London’s overly friendly policies towards white-
minority-ruled Rhodesia. For its part, the UK-EEC relationship ping-ponged up and down over
the course of the decade. The UK formally applied for membership in July 1961, but French
President Charles De Gaulle vetoed Britain’s request in January 1963, and then vetoed British
membership again in October 1967. Only once De Gaulle had left office, replaced by Georges
Pompidou, was the British application considered more favorably, leading to the UK’s eventual
accession in January 1973.
In short, the trade negotiations between the EAC and the EEC were always going to be
difficult. Tanganyika did not help matters at all when, shortly after gaining independence, it
86

began entertaining proposals for trade agreements from Eastern Bloc countries as well as Japan
without consulting its two neighbors (Nye 1965: 151-153). Uganda and Kenya, still bound for
another few years by British imperial restrictions on imports, cried foul, fearing that any deals
Tanganyika signed would also commit them because of the existence of the common external
tariff. Under considerable pressure, Tanganyika forwarded the draft agreements to Ugandan and
Kenyan authorities for comment, but maintained its right to unilaterally sign any trade deals as it
saw fit. Indeed, Tanganyika did exactly so in 1962, when it went ahead and initialed a minor
trade agreement with Burundi without any prior consultation of its partners. Despite having a
common market, then, would the three countries of East Africa even prove capable of
negotiating with the EEC as a single bloc?
Events picked up pace as 1962 progressed. Britain, in its own accession negotiations
with the EEC, was able to obtain that its former East African territories be allowed to apply for
“associate status” with the EEC on terms similar to those the French colonies had received under
Articles 131-135 of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. This largely meant duty-free access to the
European Common Market for East African exporters, with an expectation that East Africa
would also gradually remove its trade barriers for European goods, although a large loophole
was written in: associated states “may, however, levy customs duties which meet the needs of
their development and industrialisation or produce revenue for their budgets.” The French
colonies also received development assistance from the EEC, although it was unclear if this
would also be offered to East African countries or not. The only visible potential downside was
vague language enjoining associate members to refrain from signing trade deals with third
parties which would favor those over European participants.
Business interests across East Africa were in favor of a deal on these terms. Nye (1965:
23, 212) summarized the general opinion of most business leaders and civil servants in 1961-
1962 as “favoring acceptance of the associate status negotiated by Britain because of what they
expected to be its economic benefits—retention of Commonwealth preference (since it was
believed Britain would join the EEC), increased access to the European market, and a new pool
of aid funds. As a Uganda [sic] study concluded, the benefits were tangible and the losses only
speculative.” Some East African political leaders however were more ambivalent: they felt there
was a great deal of political uncertainty surrounding associate status. Would accepting that
87

relationship commit East Africa to the Western side of the Cold War? Would it constrain East
Africa’s ability to sign political or trade deals with other parts of the world in the future? Would
it prevent African states from forming a continental economic and political union of their own?
Was “associate status” simply a “colonialist plot to irrevocably bind the African economy to that
of West Europe and hence to determine and control the pace of Africa’s economic
development,” as an East African Marxist critic put it (quoted in Nye 1965: 215)?
Further adding to the uncertainty was the fact that in 1962 the EEC and Francophone
Africa were in the middle of renegotiating the terms of the latter’s association status under the
Rome Treaty, replacing it with what would become the first Yaoundé Treaty of 1964—while it
was expected that the broad outlines of the new agreement would remain the same, details about
any specific changes remained hard to come by, especially for East Africans (Nye 1965: 219).
And the sentiments that did trickle down to East African officials via discussions with their West
African counterparts were sometimes quite negative.
In April of 1962 the date of an important upcoming Commonwealth Prime Ministers’
Conference was finalized. Scheduled to begin in London on September 10
th
later that year, the
meeting would discuss Britain’s application to the EEC. Therefore, East African leaders needed
to have settled on a position vis-à-vis the EEC by that point in time. Throughout the summer of
1962, all three territories produced ministerial documents concluding that there were tangible
economic benefits to East Africa accepting associate membership in the EEC, and the topic was
much discussed in the East African press (Nye 1965: 222). However, the three East African
partners did not formally sit down to discuss their positions on the EEC problem until mid-
August. At a meeting in Nairobi, there were some minor differences of opinion between the
three territories: Tanzania seemed most worried about the political entanglements association
might entail, while Kenya emphasized the economic benefits of association, with Uganda
somewhere in the middle. Still, a four-fold consensus emerged: first, that more information
about the particulars of the deal being offered to East Africa was needed; second, that ensuring
the inviolability of East Africa’s own common market had to be the foremost priority; third, that
East Africa would seek to avoid firmly committing itself one way or the other on association at
the conference, needing more time to assess the offer of associate status as well other possible
88

alternatives; and fourth, and perhaps most surprising, that Tanganyika would speak formally on
behalf of all three partners at the conference.
The decision to have Tanzania represent all three East Africa partners was mostly borne
of necessity. Neither Kenya nor Uganda had achieved full independence at the time of the
conference, and as such were denied full participant status by the other delegates, something
which particularly galled Milton Obote, who was present at the London conference and less than
a month later would formally become prime minister and leader of Uganda. Tanganyika’s
delegation was headed by Nyerere’s number two, Prime Minister Rashidi Kawawa, while
Kenya’s was led by Minister of Finance James Gichuru, the most junior delegation head.
At the conference, the Commonwealth states voiced a range of opinions on Britain’s
application to join the EEC (for a detailed discussion, see Mgbere 1994). Sierra Leone was
supportive, and Trinidad (seeking to increase the Caribbean’s economic integration) went so far
as to say that it would seek associated status with the EEC regardless of whether the United
Kingdom joined as well. Ghana (still led by Nkrumah) and Nigeria, however, fiercely
denounced both British membership in the EEC as well as the possibility of obtaining associate
status for themselves. When it came time for Tanganyika’s Prime Minister to speak on
September 12, he went rogue, abandoning the carefully prepared non-committal speech and
instead firmly rejecting association. Striking a pan-Africanist and anti-colonial tone, he noted
that “more or less the same powers” as now made up the EEC had met at the 1894 Berlin
Conference to partition Africa. “It is obvious that if we join the Community we should commit
ourselves to the Western bloc. Further we believe that our association with the Community will
be against the possibility of the promotion of African unity, which we highly value” (cited in
Nye 1965: 225-226). Tanganyika held out the possibility that some other form of trade
relationship could be established between the EAC and the EEC, but it would have to be less
restrictive and more apolitical than associate status.
Privately, the Kenyan delegation was dismayed that Tanganyika was taking such a
forceful stance; when the British Colonial Secretary quietly approached the Kenyans to see if
they endorsed Taganyika’s rejection of association, Kenya’s head of delegation replied, “Mr.
Kawawa spoke for us all in the sense of the East African Common Market, but I cannot commit
the Kenyan government as such” (Nye 1965: 226). Uganda’s Prime Minister Obote, however,
89

seems to have been emboldened by the firm denunciations of the EEC others were making at the
conference. Having initially declared that he was attending the conference simply to seek more
information (“There is no question of my committing Uganda while I am there”), he made a
statement halfway through the proceedings that he was now “fully convinced that the European
Economic Community is not only an economic organization but also a political one and has a
great deal of military designs in it” (cited in Nye 1965: 224, 226-227). Fortified by this approval
of his new policy, and hoping to pressure the reluctant Kenyans into acquiescing, Tanganyika’s
Prime Minister Kawawa doubled down in the final days of the conference, reiterating that he
spoke for all of East Africa and that “our position is absolutely decided.” When asked about
whether rejecting association would harm East Africa’s exports, Kawawa took objection to the
question: “We have something to offer. We are not just bare-handed. We produce goods which
people want” (cited in Nye 1965: 227).
What explains the Tanganyikan about-face? Why did it unilaterally decide to abandon
the collective decision to kick the can down the road and instead reject the possibility of forming
an association with the EEC? Nye (1965: Chapter VII) convincingly argues that it was the pan-
African ideology of Tanganyika’s top leadership, which was extremely distrustful of anything
that smacked of (neo-)colonialism, and that Tanganiyka was able to use it spokesperson role to
nudge its two partners into line. But Nye (1965: 229) also notes that Tanganyika was on much
safer ground if trade barriers were to suddenly increase between East Africa and Europe/Britain:
“Tanganyika also had less to lose in rejecting association than Kenya; 73 per cent of
Tanganyika’s exports, 53 per cent of Uganda’s, and 37 per cent of Kenya’s would have been
duty-free” even if no trade agreement with an enlarged EEC were struck.
At the time, observers in both Europe and East Africa perceived the developments at the
1962 conference to represent a dramatic rejection by East Africa of closer ties with Europe.
41

But the 1962 decision was not the end of the story, and the East Africans began backtracking
almost from the moment the delegations returned from London. The reasons for this reversal of
course are not fully clear, although they likely represent Nairobi interjecting itself more

41
“In Kenya, the East African Standard felt that leaders ‘would do well to ponder the cold realities of economics’;
and in London the liberal Economist concluded that ‘to plead Western rational arguments against [the East African
decision] is at present useless’” (Nye 1965: 213).
90

forcefully into the East African decision-making process following the unexpected outcome of
the London conference. The reversal began with a two-day visit of Brussels by a “commercial
mission” from the three EAC countries in March 1963.
42
The European Commission’s press
release at the time noted that the visit “constitutes the first direct contact between the East
African Common Market and the Commission of the European Economic Community.”
43
Still
wary of association status, the East Africans in their meeting with Commission President Walter
Hallstein “initiated discussion on other possible types of trade arrangements that might be
considered between their countries and the EEC.”
44

By early 1964, the three East African partners considered themselves ready to open
formal albeit exploratory talks on a trade agreement with the Commission. The Commerce
ministers of the three EAC countries again visited Brussels for four days in February of 1964 to
begin hammering out the outlines of a possible deal.
45
Three interesting points come across
when reading Commission documents from 1964. The first is the pains to which the
Commission went to underline the fact that the East Africans were approaching them and not the
other way around—perhaps not surprising given the previous scene which had occurred in
London. The Commission’s press release on the opening of formal talks ends with the phrase “It
will be recalled that on March 14 and 15 last year the EEC Commission received a ministerial
delegation from these States…”,
46
while another European press release specifies that “These

42
Interestingly, before arriving in Brussels the delegation visited London for consultations with the British
government (Zartman 1971: 95). The British were still acting as an intermediary in 1963—despite the recent French
veto of their membership application—although this role would lessen over the course of the decade.
43
IP (63) 50, 3/14/1963, Brussels. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document
Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. Author’s translation from the French.
44
“East African Delegation Visits Common Market,” Press release dated 3/16/1963, European Community
Information Service, Washington D.C. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document
Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh.
45
East Africa’s diplomatic representation in EEC countries during the 1960s was slightly curious. Nyerere argued
in 1964 that the three East African partners should seek to have a single, joint diplomatic representation abroad, if
only for the cost savings (Nyangani 1986: 221). By 1965, the prospect of repeated ministerial trips to Brussels
convinced Uganda and Kenya that his proposal made sense, at least for dealings with the EEC. Bureaucratic delays
meant that it was not until November 1966, however, that C.G. Khama, Tanzania’s Ambassador to Bonn, was
double-hatted as East African Ambassador to the EEC (Zartman 1971: 102). Later the European Parliament (1968:
5) would credit this reinforced diplomatic apparatus as a factor in the successful conclusion of the trade talks.
46
IP (64) 27, 2/10/1964, Brussels. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document
Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh.
91

exploratory talks were the result of an application by the East African governments…”.
47
The
second interesting point is the degree of seeming disinterest the Commission evinced at the East
African approach.
48
A journalist’s account of the meeting’s aftermath emphasizes the EEC’s
dissatisfaction with East African political posturing:
Well informed circles state that the negotiations will be long and difficult, considering as they do
the technical appearance of the documents, together with the political aspects which are still not
very clear. It is noted in some circles—not without a certain bitterness—that the start of
exploratory talks with the EEC has in no way reduced the attacks of the East African countries…
in other places against the Community. They consider that this public hostility suggests that the
[three] countries do not really want a true association with the EEC, but only a way of eliminating
the customs preferences which are liable to impede their trade with the Six. This is leading some
Commission circles to wonder whether it is really in the EEC’s interest to conclude agreements
with… the East African countries which will not help her commerce much but may deal a heavy
blow to the Yaoundé Convention.
49

The third point of interest is the disconnect between how exceptional the two parties
considered the negotiations. For the East Africans, any deal struck would have to be “sui
generis,” although they conceded that its “broad outlines could be similar to the association
provisions” of the Yaoundé Convention, which the EEC had signed with eighteen former
colonies in Francophone Africa in July 1963.
50
For the Europeans, however, the East African
overtures were just one trade-related proposal they were entertaining at the time, with strong
interest from many parts of what would subsequently be termed the developing world. In
particular, the East African exploratory talks began just two months after preliminary trade talks
occurred between the EEC and Nigeria (which had also come to reconsider its outspokenness at
the London conference – see Okigbo 1967). Thus the Nigerian precedent weighed heavily on the
minds of European policymakers, and there is much written evidence showing that they mentally
lumped the two negotiations together, much to the dismay of the proud East Africans.
51

47
IP (64) 33, 2/14/1964 Brussels. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document
Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh.
48
“Objet: Conversations exploratoires avec les pays Est-africains,” Note Dis 14.588 aux Bureaux Nationaux,
2/14/1964, Brussels. “No progress in negotiations with East African Market,” by Richard Marne, European
Information [magazine published by Société Européenne de Presse], No. 61, 10/1/1967. Both located in Folder
441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of
Pittsburgh.
49
“The EEC Commission to Submit, to the Council, Its Report Concerning the Exploratory Talks with the Three E.
African Countries of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika,” Europe [magazine], 3/18/1964. Located in Folder 441.2(251),
Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh.
50
“Objet: Conversations exploratoires,” op. cit., author’s translation from the French.
51
“EEC Commission to Submit,” op. cit. See also European Parliament (1968: 6) and Helleiner (1968: 40), as well
as Note BIO n° 21.337 aux Bureaux Nationaux, 11/7/1966, Brussels; located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan
92

Negotiators from both sides met in March 1965, and then again in November 1966.
From the EEC’s perspective, the talks were “difficult;” the East Africans appeared more
interested in constantly reviewing first principles than in discussing specifics, and had difficulty
speaking with a common accord (recall from Section 3.4 above that the East African customs
and currency union was falling apart during those years).
52
The three partners were able to agree
to let the Tanzania minister head their joint delegation, “since his country had been the first of
the three countries to establish its independence and was the least interested in negotiations, and,
therefore would represent the toughest, minimal position. The results quickly bore this out”
(Zartman 1971: 102). Perhaps most egregiously, while the East Africans had initially accepted
in February 1964 that a trade deal would be “reciprocal,” i.e. that East Africa would also provide
preferential market access to European exporters in exchange for lower EEC tariffs on goods
from East Africa, they moved further and further away from this notion as time went on. Indeed,
a secret letter the Kenyan government wrote to the EEC dated August 22, 1966 took heart from
the recent first meeting of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
53

in Geneva to argue that the meaning of reciprocity needed to be fundamentally revisited: “The
Government of Kenya feels that what might have been meant by reciprocity in February 1964
need not necessarily hold today. … [The meeting of the First Session of UNCTAD] has created
an almost entirely new situation in the relations between the developed and the developing
countries, thereby altering the concept of reciprocity…”
54
For Kenya, this new situation meant

European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh: “Mr. Rocherau,
in his opening statement, recalled the agreement between the [EEC] and Nigeria. That agreement, as well as the
Yaoundé Convention, both equally serve as foundations for these negotiations [with the EAC], not only in their
overarching principles but also in their dates of expiration” (author’s translation from the French). Indeed, at one
point in 1964 the Dutch suggested that the parallel Nigerian and East African negotiations with the EEC be
combined into one framework, which was vociferously objected to by Tanzania (Zartman 1971: 96-97).
52
“Rapport des Conseillers Commerciaux des Pays de la Communauté Économique Européenne du Kenya –
Ouganda – Tanzanie (12ème rapport),” S/617/66 (RCC53), 9/15/1966, Brussels. Located in Folder 441.2(251),
Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh.
Author’s translation from the French.
53
Largely considered peripheral to discussions of global economics today, UNCTAD held a series of meetings
during the 1960s and 70s that were instrumental in helping to develop the concept of the “developing world,”
particularly as a part of the world with unified political and economic goals. For a recent academic review of
UNCTAD, see Taylor & Smith (2007).
54
“Rapport des Conseillers Commerciaux,” op. cit; see also Helleiner (1968: 37-41). A separate point to note it that
the Kenyan Minister of Commerce and Industry who delivered this secret letter was Mwai Kibaki, who would
become Vice-President in 1978 and eventually President in 2002. So we can be relatively confident that, at least in
93

that the EEC should unilaterally drop its barriers to East African goods, because it had already
given free market access to the West African signatories of the Yaoundé Convention, and not
doing so for East Africa would violate the principle of non-discrimination. In other words,
whereas in 1964 the EAC and the EEC had planned to give preferential trade terms to each other,
now in 1966 the East Africans complained that any EEC preferences that they could not benefit
from were unfair. Kenya also noted that it planned to keep “certain import restrictions of a
quantitative nature” for foreign goods, including those from the EEC, but argued that such
measures “affect but few commodities and are solely to protect Kenya’s infant industries.”
Doing so would be “in the general spirit of the UNCTAD.”
55

Needless to say, the Europeans were dismayed by these and other East African
pronouncements.
56
France, keen to ensure that Francophone African countries would continue to
enjoy the most advantageous access to the European market, was particularly incensed by the
East African volte-face on the question of reciprocity and balked at allowing the EU to make
major concessions.
57
The EEC’s overall pessimism in late 1966 concerning the negotiations is
nicely summed up by an internal memo circulated by several EEC commercial attachés posted in
Nairobi: “Overall, our group is asking itself if the conversations to be held in Brussels will really
be negotiations or simply more exploratory discussions. Will there really be a true mandate for
the East African delegates and will the three countries be in agreement among themselves? We
sometimes get the impression that African countries wait for the EEC to give them
recommendations on the best way to conduct the negotiations and believe they have a right to
help from developed countries given the atmosphere of the UNCTAD in Geneva.”
58

the case of Kenya, trade dealings with the EU both past and present have enjoyed attention at the highest levels of
government.
55
“Rapport des Conseillers Commerciaux,” op. cit; see also Zartman (1971: 97-98, 100). In a further bit of inspired
legal innovation, the East African countries also cited the 1885 and 1890 Congo Basin Treaties—which had divvied
up Africa amongst the European colonial powers—as requiring non-discrimination by Europeans in their trade
dealings with Africa (Helleiner 1968: 39).
56
Note BIO n° 21.337, op. cit; “No progress in negotiations,” op. cit. Writing in 1968, the European Parliament
characterized this stage of the negotiations as “painstaking” and frustrating in comparison to the relative swiftness of
the negotiations with Nigeria: the East Africans’ “unyielding attitude held up negotiations for months on end”
(European Parliament 1968: 5).
57
Untitled article beginning “Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have also applied for association to the EEC,” Opera
Mundi – Europe, No. 440, 12/21/1967. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document
Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. See also Zartman (1971: 96-97).
58
“Rapport des Conseillers Commerciaux,” op. cit. Author’s translation from the French.
94

And then, lo and behold—a major breakthrough occurred during the third round of
negotiations in April 1968! Just two months later the negotiations were completed, with a
mutually agreed upon draft treaty, which was signed to great acclaim on July 26, 1968 in Arusha,
Tanzania. What happened? Reading the EEC documents, one gets a clear sense of their surprise
at the sudden improvement in the now “fruitful” talks,
59
but Zartman (1971: 95-106) hints at
several reasons why a compromise became reachable in 1968:
 The signing of the Treaty for East African Co-operation in mid-1967 temporarily halted
the EAC’s slow-moving implosion and furnished the East Africans with “renewed self-
confidence in their unified approach to the EEC” (Helleiner 1968: 37);
 The pressure of having to compete with Francophone Africa’s advantageous terms on
tropical agricultural exports was becoming simply unbearable for East Africa—the East
African negotiators admitted during the negotiations that their coffee had become
“scarcely competitive”;
 The GATT’s (a precursor to the World Trade Organization) decision in November 1964
to accept UNCTAD’s position that trade deals between developed and developing
countries should be non-reciprocal strengthened East Africa’s hand;
 France’s position within the EEC was greatly diminished following De Gaulle’s
temporary withdrawal from Community institutions—the “Empty Chair Crisis” of
1965—allowing the Netherlands and Germany to overcome French recalcitrance towards
making any concessions towards the EAC;
 The successful conclusion of the EEC-Nigeria negotiations with the signing of the Lagos
Convention in July 1966 freed up a great deal of the European Commission’s attention
and encouraged both sides that striking a similar deal with East Africa would not severely
harm their interests;
 And the East Africans came to realize that several of the provisions they had most
objected to in the Yaoundé associations, such as their highly institutionalized
frameworks, had been put in place because of West African requests, not European

59
“Communiqué Conjoint,” IP (68) 86, 4/30/1968, Brussels. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European
Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. Author’s translation from
the French.
95

impositions—in the end, the agreement signed at Arusha was thinly institutionalized,
with just a bilateral monitoring group and a small court to arbitrate private-sector disputes
(European Parliament 1968: 9).
Ultimately the Arusha Agreements that were signed represented a compromise, but one
where the EEC conceded rather favorable terms to the EAC.
60
To be sure, the Accords were
association agreements, the political status which the East Africans had sought for so long to
avoid because of its neo-colonial connotations. (Learning its lesson, the EEC would drop the
politically toxic word “association” in the subsequent Lomé Convention it signed with 71
developing countries in 1975.
61
) And furthermore, despite the earlier invocation of UNCTAD
pronouncements, the agreement was nominally reciprocal, with East Africa agreeing to give
European exporters a preferential 2%-9% tariff reduction on a list of 59 products that together
totaled 15% of East Africa’s imports from Europe. In exchange, the EAC got tariff-free access
to the European Common Market, although quotas were set for some class of goods to maintain
equitability with other African producers (in general, the quotas erred on the side of generosity).
Analysts therefore soon concluded that the Arusha Agreements were reciprocal in name only:
“the derogations from the [principle of reciprocity] were so far reaching that the Arusha
Convention in effect amounted to a disguised, discriminatory trade agreement in the African’s
[sic] favour” (Twitchett 1978: 146). Indeed, in the run-up to the Lomé Convention, the EEC
would accept that all future trade deals with developing countries should be non-reciprocal, with
the EEC giving up and receiving almost nothing in return, an attitude that would last all the way
until the mid-2000s, when it began negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements with
developing regions around the world, as well shall see below.
62
Finally, at the EAC’s insistence

60
Technically, there were two Arusha Agreements (also sometimes called the Arusha Accords or the Arusha
Conventions). The first was signed on July 26, 1968 but was never ratified before its planned expiration on May 31,
1969, the same date the Yaoundé Convention expired. This allowed East and West Africa to be on the same
timetable for their relations with the EEC moving forward. The likely expiration of the first Arusha Agreement had
been anticipated, and so a second, largely-identical Arusha Agreement was signed on September 24, 1969, and came
into force on January 1, 1971. The second Arusha Agreement expired on January 31, 1975, whereupon the three
East African states became participants in the EEC’s Lomé Convention.
61
75 ACCRA 01032_b
62
It was because the discriminatory nature of the Arusha Agreements and other such trade deals undermined the
ideal of a completely level world trading space that the United States adopted a “highly guarded” attitude toward the
Agreements (European Parliament 1968: 6).
96

no provisions were made in the treaty for any technical or financial assistance.
63
All in all, in
large part because of the success of the trade negotiations, by 1971 relations between the EAC
and the EEC could be described as “particularly friendly.”
64

Let us pause now for a moment and consider where we are in the overall argument of this
chapter. I have been describing in considerable detail the course of admittedly somewhat
obscure trade negotiations between the first EAC and the EEC during the 1960s. Why? We are
looking to extract the main features of how each side dealt with the other during the immediate
post-independence era, the first period in which both sides had dealings with one another. The
main features I have identified from my historical narrative are summarized in the first column
of Table 4.1. Our goal below will be to compare these historical features with the traits that
characterize EAC-EU dealings since 2005, allowing us trace historical continuities and changes.
What then do I take to be the main features of the EEC and the EAC during their dealings in the
1960s?
Both sides struggled to achieve internal cohesion during the negotiations, although
succeeding would have necessarily strengthened their bargaining position. Over the course of
the 1960s, the East African side saw a great deal of the economic integration it had inherited
from the British disintegrate, and the EAC’s future as a single bloc was often in question.
Furthermore, the negotiations exposed the different structural position of Kenya from that of
Uganda and Tanzania: Kenya’s relatively greater wealth and greater prowess in manufacturing
meant that it was more reliant on maintaining good relations with the EEC and the United
Kingdom than its two partners, who after 1966 began to feel that their least-developed country
status awarded them a certain immunity in trade negotiations. Thus the aspirations of Kenyan
Minister of Economic Planning and Development Tom Mboya, who stated in 1967 that “it is one
of our great hopes that the establishment of the East African Community will considerably
enhance our bargaining position with respect to the European Economic Community,” never
came to pass (cited in Rhoad 1968: 44). But the EEC also struggled mightily to present a united

63
Characteristically, the EAC would change its mind on this point and around 1970 asked the EEC for financial and
technical aid, which began in earnest once the three East African countries were incorporated into the Lomé
Convention of 1975. See: European Parliament (1969b: 5-6); European Commission (1980: 2, 8).
64
Note BIO (71) 70 aux Bureaux nationaux, 5/14/1971, Brussels; see also Press Release CEE-ESTAF 32/72,
2/21/1972, Nairobi; both located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection,
University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. Author’s translation from the French.
97

front during the 1960s—the Empty Chair Crisis of 1965, while not related to trade negotiations,
is arguably still the single most dramatic emergency in the EU’s entire history. Nor did the
EEC’s persistent inability to agree on whether or not to accept the United Kingdom’s
membership application help matters, given the close trading relationship between East Africa
and the UK.
Overall, the EEC was considerably more powerful than the EAC throughout the
negotiations, and gained further leverage from its general disinterest in the proceedings. The
EEC considered that it would have been fine if no agreement were reached, given the relative
unimportance from its perspective of its trade with East Africa. In general, the EEC’s goals were
to get better market access to East Africa for its exporters, but it was just as concerned with not
incurring significant costs nor damaging its relations with any of its pre-existing African partners
(such as the Yaoundé associates or Nigeria). Indeed, as Nye (1965: 238) notes, “the irony of the
situation was that any reasons for the Europeans making any [economic] concessions to the East
Africans would be primarily political—to maintain good will in Africa.” As became
increasingly clear over time, the EAC had much greater need of an economic deal in order to
remain competitive with rival producers, but was leery of enmeshing itself too closely with the
EEC and required that it maintain complete diplomatic freedom.
As Nye (1965) convincingly argues, it seems clear that East African leaders were rather
ideological and proud throughout the 1960s. One can see the influence of Nyerere here, which
was particularly pronounced because Tanzania was often the lead negotiator for the East African
side. At times explicitly rejecting pragmatism and compromise, East African leaders repeatedly
emphasized their desire for a unique kind of agreement with the EEC, and ruled out any type of
development assistance (which the EEC had been providing Yaoundé signatories since 1959, and
would have considered providing East Africa as well). To act otherwise might have implied that
East Africa and Europe were not negotiating as equals. Ordinary East Africans also seemed to
endorse this view. The East African Standard reported with satisfaction in 1965 that “East
African delegates took the psychological initiative [in the negotiations by] making it clear that
although they wanted to protect their trade, they were not coming cap in hand and could manage
very well without any formal links if necessary” (cited in Zartman 1971: 100).
98

Meanwhile, East African business elites seemed most concerned with the threat of
competition from West Africa and Latin America. As analysts noted, “the preferences East
Africa seeks for its exports are more likely to be at the expense of third countries with which it at
present competes on equal footing” (Helleiner 1968: 38). There was therefore a tension between
the avowed pan-Africanism of East Africa’s political leaders and the economic nationalism of its
business leaders, which—when combined with the state-level differences among the three
partners and their general lack of experience with international negotiations—all go a long way
towards explaining East Africa’s frequent policy reversals.
Indeed, throughout the negotiations the East Africans had far less experience and
capacity than did the Europeans.
65
When the “EEC problem” first became apparent in 1961, it
took a long time for East Africa to explicitly start coordinating its position on this important
problem, and even then not everyone had done sufficient “homework” on the issue (Nye 1965:
213). Observers noted that East Africa did not always seem to have the best negotiating
strategies: “the East African approach seems to have been to hold obdurately to an unyielding
position in the hope that the Commission would bend, for it was felt that preferences were
contrary to UNCTAD, contradictory to the Commonwealth system, incompatible with East
African practice, and unjust to poorer countries” (Zartman 1971: 102-103). And at practically
every single stage of the negotiations, the East Africans were starved for information. Several
times the documentary record shows the highest levels of the East African government begging
outsiders for more information about proceedings occurring outside East Africa. For instance, in
1971-1972, the EAC countries were desperate to acquire information about the state of the
ongoing accession talks between the UK and the EEC.
66
In 1976, Tanzanian officials asked the
US Embassy in Dar es Salaam for any information the US government might have about “the
Andean Community and other economic groupings of developing countries.” As part of its
response, the Embassy also sent along a report its summer intern had just written about the

65
Or even than their Nigerian counterparts: “The Europeans are unanimous in recognizing that the Nigerians were
able negotiators, more skillful than the [Yaoundé] Eighteen or East Africans” (Zartman 1971: 111).
66
Note BIO (71) 70 aux Bureaux nationaux, 5/14/1971, Brussels; Press Release CEE-ESTAF 32/72, 2/21/1972,
Nairobi; both located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection, University
Library System of the University of Pittsburgh.
99

EAC’s likely future.
67
This profound informational asymmetry necessarily left the East Africans
at a disadvantage in their dealings with the EEC.
For its part, while the EEC’s “take it or leave it” strategy during the first half of the
negotiations was arguably quite successful (Zartman 1971: 98), it is worth noting that the EEC
was not fully on top of its own affairs. The EEC’s ratification process for the Arusha
Agreements was interminably slow, routinely missed self-imposed deadlines, and left behind a
great deal of frantically breathless telegrams between stressed-out European bureaucrats.
68

Embarrassingly, in July 1970 the Commission was forced to ask the East African countries to
sign an interim commercial agreement with the EU while waiting for the second Arusha
Agreement to work its way through the six EEC national parliaments. A memo at the time noted
that this procedure was “essentially a writing game, intended to temporarily turn the core of an
association agreement into a commerce accord, which as you know does not require [national]
ratification.”
69

The mental parallels the Europeans relied upon also frustrated the East Africans. While
the EEC did not make the mistake of viewing Africa as a single entity, they did at the least
perceive it as a place where templates could be freely transposed from one region to another (as
in the explicit modelling of the Arusha Agreements on the Lagos Convention). In other words,
already in the 1960s we can see hints of the EU’s “one size fits all” negotiating mentality, which
to be fair may be an inevitable result of carrying on multiple simultaneous negotiations, but
which is something the EU continues to be criticized for today.
Last and not least, it is important to note that—pace the EU’s rhetoric, as well as the
expectations of many contemporary theorists—collectively signing an agreement with the EEC
did not actually strengthen the EAC’s cohesiveness or politico-economic integration. Although
the European Parliament heralded the successful negotiation of the Arusha Agreement as one
that would “make for closer regional understanding in Africa and progressive integration of the

67
76 DARESSALAAM 03892_b
68
Telex from L.B. Tennyson to Rene Seingry, dated June 5, 1969; Telex reply dated June 6, 1969. Telex from L.B.
Tennyson to Jacques Cros, dated June 13, 1969. Reply from Pierre Cros, dated June 16, 1969. All located in Folder
441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of
Pittsburgh.
69
Note BIO (70) 54 aux Bureaux Nationaux, 7/9/1970, Brussels; located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan
European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. Author’s
translation from the French.
100

African economies” (European Parliament 1968: 3), the EAC was on life support only five short
years later, and had utterly collapsed within a decade.

4.3 The Second EAC and the EU: The Developmentally-Minded Woo the Hard-Up
Just when East Africa had finally committed itself to a partnership with the EEC, the
warring amongst the three partners came to a head and the EAC acrimoniously collapsed.
Indeed, the 1980s may have represented the lowest point in East African regionalism in well over
a century (Gordon 1994). Uganda spent almost the whole decade at war, either with others or
with itself. In turn, Tanzania found that its military intervention in Uganda lasted longer and cost
far more than it had originally foreseen. The wars, combined with the closure of the Kenya-
Tanzania border, unsurprisingly caused intra-regional trade to dry up (Kirya 1991; European
Commission 1980: 7). This difficult economic conjuncture forced both Kenya and Tanzania to
abandon their earlier policies of economic self-reliance and instead turn to international financial
institutions and bilateral donors for help (European Commission 1980: 5). What little energy
they had left over for foreign policy was directed towards southern Africa (in the case of
Tanzania) or towards the Horn of Africa (for Kenya).
As such, East Africans had little time for involved dealings with the EEC. The Arusha
Agreement continued to exist on paper, but lapsed in practice. When the EEC moved to replace
the Yaoundé Conventions with a reworked framework known as the Lomé Conventions, all three
former EAC members were included as a courtesy, but this time participation did not prompt the
intense political debates that had presaged the Arusha Agreement. For one thing, trade had lost
much of its luster in East African capitals. Whereas many East Africans had hoped after
independence that trade could provide a path towards prosperity, their trade with Europe actually
declined in both absolute and relative terms following the signature of the Arusha Agreements.
70

From the EEC’s perspective, the Lomé Conventions were important for reifying the distinction
between developed and developing countries, and for making development assistance an

70
“The EEC/East Africa Joint Parliamentary Committee Has Adopted a Position on the Functioning and the Future
of the Association,” Europe [magazine], 12/6/1972. Located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union
Document Collection, University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. Part of the explanation for this
decline in EEC-EAC trade is that East Africa’s privileged access to the European market became less meaningful as
the EU gradually lowered most of its trade barriers with all parties during the WTO’s Uruguay Round (Davenport
1992).
101

increasingly large part of Europe’s dealings with the developing world (European Commission
1973). Moreover, Europe’s aid to East Africa in the 1990s increasingly became predicated on
East African governments adopting various types of reforms, a move known as conditionality
(Elgström 2009: 454). The East African countries had repeatedly sought in their negotiations
with Europe during the 1960s to present themselves as equals. This would become increasingly
difficult moving past Lomé.
Crucially, however, the EU played almost no role in the decision by Tanzania, Uganda,
and Kenya to relaunch the EAC in the late 1990s. As I discuss in more detail in Chapter 5, that
rather puzzling decision—given the fallow years of the 1980s and early 90s—seems to have been
almost entirely driven by the leadership of the three East African countries. While the EU did
not directly contribute to the reestablishment of the EAC in 2000, it did welcome the
development, though, as it nicely dovetailed with the EU’s own substantial upgrading of its
regionalism policy throughout the 1990s. In 1992, the EU’s informal constitution was amended
to include “promoting regional political stability and contributing to the creation of political
and/or economic frameworks that encourage regional cooperation, or [contributing to] moves
towards regional or sub-regional integration” as an official EU policy objective.
71
A string of
further major policy reports confirmed the EU’s commitment to promoting regional integration
around the world (European Commission 1995; European Commission & World Bank 1997).
The EU also incorporated region-to-region cooperation as a major pillar of its overall
development strategy in 2000 (European Commission 2000), and placed regional integration
front and center in the negotiations surrounding the 2000 Cotonou Convention that updated the
Lomé Conventions. By 2006, the EU was facilitating regional integration via more than twenty
interregional partnerships (cf. Smith 2002: 25; Alecu de Flers & Regelsberger 2005: 321;
Reiterer 2006: 226), and the European Commission has repeatedly called for the EU to
dramatically increase its spending on promoting regional integration (European Commission
2008a).
So while present-day observers may not have been surprised at the EU’s alacrity in
embracing the relaunched EAC in 2000, an East African participant in the 1960s negotiations
would likely have been shocked, for at least three reasons. First, in marked contrast to the EEC’s

71
Report approved by the European Council held in Lisbon, June 26-27, 1992; cited in Smith, K. (2008: 13).
102

general disinterest in the 1960s, here it was the EU that paid court to the EAC, and rather quickly
at that. A detailed Regional Indicative Programme (RIP – see Region of Eastern and Southern
Africa… 2002) specifying how EU development funds would be spent to support East African
regional integration was mutually agreed upon by the parties in June 2002, a swift move for the
EU bureaucracy.
A second feature of EU-EAC relations since 2000 that would likely have astounded a
close observer of their former dealings is the range in types of support the EU provides to East
Africa nowadays. Contemporary EU-EAC dealings go far, far beyond the formal region-to-
region negotiations that characterized the relationship in the 1960s, touching not only on wider
array of policy areas but also entailing a previously unimaginable close working relationship,
with daily interactions between EAC bureaucrats and EU civil servants.
Third, while the second EAC’s institutional form is largely comparable to that of the first
(see Section 5.3 for details), who the EU most interacts with on the East African side has
significantly changed. Whereas EEC-EAC negotiations in the 1960s were mostly conducted
between the European Commission and a minister from each of the East African states, today the
European Commission has minimal direct interactions with the East African Council (of
Ministers). Instead, the EU has deliberately chosen to focus its attention on the East African
Secretariat, the renascent executive arm of the EAC. For the German development agency
Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),
72
“the EAC Secretariat [is] GIZ’s main
counterpart” in East Africa (GIZ 2012: 4). Indeed, as we shall see, the partnership has been so
direct between the EU and the Secretariat that the EU has built the Secretariat’s headquarters,
seconded staff to it, subsidized its salaries, and footed over half its bills.
This close collaboration between the EU and the EAC Secretariat is not accidental, nor is
it politically innocent. It represents an effort by the EU to encourage the EAC to move in a more
technocratic direction, deemphasizing both grand politics and populism. Furthermore, it opens
the door to questions about whether or not the EAC Secretariat might have divided loyalties.
Recall from earlier that the main question this chapter is interested in is whether or not the
EAC’s behavior might have been influenced by the EU’s considerable financial support. In the

72
GIZ is Germany’s main international development agency, and a lead EU actor in East Africa. Prior to 2011, it
was known as GTZ.
103

rest of this chapter I am going to suggest various ways in which this is happening, but first we
need to be clear about the scope of the EU’s present activity in East Africa, in terms of both the
financial and non-financial tools it wields.

4.4 The External Financing of Contemporary East African Regionalism: Whoever Pays the
Piper Calls the Tune?
During the 2000-2015 period, the EU (by which I mean the now 28 member states and
their bilateral development agencies, the various EU-wide institutions, and the Nordic
Development Fund—a small multilateral donor agency of five Nordic countries that focuses on
climate change projects) has been the most significant donor in East Africa.
73
The EU has given
billions of US dollars directly over the years (Figures 4.2-4.7), and many of East Africa’s other
major donors are multilateral agencies that receive much or even most of their funding from
European countries (for instance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the
various UN field agencies; and the African Development Bank). While the EU’s share of total
Official Development Assistance (ODA)
74
has been decreasing in recent years (Figure 4.8), it is

73
A skeptic might reasonably ask whether it is even reasonable to consider the EU as a single development actor,
given that at least thirty disbursement agencies are involved in its complicated funding process and given the
differing development goals of its constituent parts. Compared to, say, the rather straightforward Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, the EU is indeed a very messy creature. This is a fair point, but I nevertheless think
conceptualizing the EU as a single development actor makes sense in the context of this dissertation. Over the past
twenty years, enormous attention has been paid in EU development circles to intra-EU aid harmonization, and since
the adoption of an EU-wide development strategy in 2000 (European Commission 2000) the European Commission
has unquestionably been the main player in European development circles. While directly administering only about
20% of the EU’s total ODA to East Africa since 2000, my field observations in 2008 and 2010 suggest that the
Commission’s stewardship on the ground usually goes uncontested, although not always unquestioned. [As a
reminder, the European Union Delegation in Tanzania (composed of mostly European Commission staff,
supplemented by some European Council staff as well as some EU member state officials) serves as the primary
coordinator of the EU’s aid to the EAC. The other two most significant European actors vis-à-vis the EAC are the
German and British development agencies (GIZ and DfID, respectively).] Furthermore, interviews with EAC
officials have confirmed that in their day-to-day thinking and writing they themselves tend to lump the various EU
actors together into a single category, i.e. “the Europeans,” which also includes non-EU countries like Norway
(Bachmann & Sidaway 2010: 2; also confirmed by my fieldwork).
74
Official Development Assistance is a measure collected by the OECD on the basis of reporting by both aid donors
and aid recipients, and is the most standard measure of development assistance. It includes all net disbursements of
money by official bilateral and multilateral agencies that are either a grant or a loan at a concessional rate, except for
military aid. ODA is measured in constant 2013 US dollars (thereby accounting for both inflation and exchange rate
variations). Further details on the definition can be found at:
http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/officialdevelopmentassistancedefinitionandcoverage.htm#Definition All data in this
paragraph, as well as in Figures 4.2-4.9, come from the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
database.
104

still a formidable external actor in East African politics, having provided about 40% of the
region’s total ODA since 1999. Only the United States and the World Bank come close to
rivaling the EU’s share of East Africa’s total ODA (Figure 4.9). Each year the EU continues to
give East African states grants and concessional loans equal to nearly 4 percentage points of
gross regional income,
75
and in some East African countries the EU’s largesse has regularly
represented over 15% or even 20% of yearly gross national income (Figure 4.8).
Indeed, at times the EU has given so much development assistance to East Africa that its
representatives on the ground sometimes struggle to find ways to spend it. In May 2008, I
discussed funding changes that would likely occur as part of the Commission’s 10th EDF
package with an official at the European Union Delegation in Dar es Salaam. My respondent
suggested that Brussels was channeling more funds to East Africa than the Delegation knew
what to do with:
Ideally the European Commission would like to stay “soft” [i.e. spend money on good
governance and capacity building programs], where it has comparative advantages. However, it
is my own personal belief that the Commission will have no choice but to go “hard,” that is to
say engage in outright regional infrastructure projects. We [the EU Delegation in Tanzania] like
to avoid infrastructure projects because they tend to lead to disbursement delays, which are not
good either for us or for the recipients. But we may have no choice, in no small part due to the
sheer amount of money Brussels will give us to spend, and which we have no idea yet how we
are going to spend really. The point is worth repeating: we are going to have trouble coming up
with ideas to properly disburse all the money that Brussels is going to give us.
76

These figures and charts hopefully provide the reader with a sense of the magnitude of
the EU’s presence in East Africa, but they do not directly address the topic we are concerned
with here: East African regionalism. ODA includes in its definition every type of development
assistance under the sun, from general budget support to road improvement to post-conflict state-
building to childhood nutrition programs. What we need is much more tailored data, focusing
solely on the projects in East Africa substantively focused on building regional ties.
Unfortunately, systematic data on both the internal and external financing of East African
regionalism can be difficult to obtain, for a number of reasons. Some donors, such as the United
States, do not break out their spending on the promotion of regionalism as a separate category.
Other donors like the African Development Bank and the European Union do break out spending
on regionalism, but do not always specify which regional organizations receive what share of

75
Gross regional income (GRI) is the sum of the gross national incomes (GNIs) for the EAC-5. GNI is now the
preferred metric for measuring the size of national economies, having largely replaced GDP.
76
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008.
105

their spending. For example, a 2009 report by the European Court of Auditors on EU financial
support for regional integration around the world lumps several Eastern African DWROs under
its “East Africa” category, making it difficult to isolate the EU’s spending on just the EAC (see
Figure 4.10). And East African countries’ budgets and donation records are often unreliable,
either because they are not produced, are overly fanciful, or state anticipated spending
commitments instead of recording actual disbursements.
Nevertheless, the best source of funding data for the East African Community are the
annual reports of the EAC Secretariat, to which we now turn. As Table 4.11 shows, the EAC’s
budget has grown rapidly since its inception, increasing about 500% between 2006 and 2014.
The two main sources of the EAC’s budget are annual contributions from its member states,
which all pay an equal amount every year, and contributions from external donors. Financing
from external donors has exploded ever since donors began formally cooperating with the EAC
around 2002. As early as the mid-2000s, external donors were contributing over 30% of the
EAC’s annual budget, leading a major EAC report to refer to them as a “virtual 4th partner state”
(Committee on Fast Tracking… 2004: 54). By the 2010s, over 60% of the EAC’s annual budget
came from external donors, of which the lion’s share came from the EU (although an exact
figure is difficult to come by).
All in all, about half of the EAC’s budget has come from external donors since its
relaunch in 2000. But this money is almost never simply given to the EAC with no strings
attached. Rather, because of fiduciary concerns, the EU and most other major donors actively
select EAC initiatives they wish to subsidize and maintain a hands-on approach to EAC-related
projects.
77
Most external funding that the Secretariat receives is channeled via the “Partnership
Fund” (PF), a mechanism that pools together financial contributions from a range of donors into
a single, dedicated EAC fund. Begun in 2006, the PF grew out of the worldwide conversation
concerning “aid harmonization,” and sought to avoid overwhelming the Secretariat with many
different donors initiating too many, overlapping, and possibly inconsistent projects. In addition
to streamlining donor commitments, initially the PF was intended to promote the Secretariat’s

77
Indeed, because of these fiduciary concerns, donors looking to fund particularly at-risk projects, such as certain
kinds of regional infrastructure projects where corruption may be rife, may deliberately avoid going through official
EAC channels, making it likely that the figures I report here undercount the actual magnitude of external financial
support for regional integration in East Africa.
106

capacity by giving it experience directly administering significant amounts of money, while at
the same time increasing “local ownership” of regional integration in East Africa, since
development projects would be jointly decided by a Partnership Fund Steering Committee
comprising both Secretariat officials and donor representatives. The PF has proven popular with
donors, growing from an two initial donors in 2006 to nine in 2010 and thirteen by 2014 (EAC
2014b: 6).
Unfortunately, the Secretariat has had a mixed record when it comes to actually
administering donated funds. In 2008, the Secretariat “failed” two separate assessments of its
ability to manage public funds in accordance with international standards: the European
Commission’s Institutional Diagnostic Survey and the U.K. DfID’s Fiduciary Assessment.
Accordingly, many European donors were obliged to maintain an arm’s length financial
relationship with the EAC, frustrating their goal of having a local partner on the ground they
could entrust significant sums to. Perhaps not surprisingly, a significant portion of the EU’s
attention and money shifted from regional integration per se to upgrading the Secretariat’s public
financial management capacity. The German development agency GIZ took the lead, offering
money to the Secretariat in order to help it achieve an international certification for its “Quality
Management System,” the ISO standard 9001:2008. GIZ explains the rationale behind the
project thusly:
In order to effectively execute its expanding scope of work, the Secretariat realises the need for
strengthening its internal processes as well as its monitoring and evaluation capacity of the
integration process. […] GIZ, in close cooperation with the EAC Secretariat, focusses mainly on
improving the steering and monitoring capacities of the EAC Secretariat. Together with the
Planning Directorate of the Secretariat, [a] major long-term intervention was agreed upon: To
implement a Quality Management System based on ISO standards with the ultimate goal to
receive ISO certification for the EAC Secretariat by 2016. […] This ISO standard is based on a
strong stakeholder focus and applies a process approach, including continual improvement. An
organisation must regularly perform internal quality audits to check if and how its quality
management system is working. […] To date, the East African Community is the only Regional
Economic Community (REC) world-wide to strive for a Quality Management System and ISO
9001:2008 certification. It will join the growing number of certified public institutions in East
Africa and serve as a best-practice for other RECs in Africa.
78

But just in case the carrot of free money was not enough to ensure that the EAC take its
financial management reforms seriously, the EU has also issued veiled threats over the years to
cut off further funding to the EAC unless fiduciary standards increase. Consider the Corleone-
esque opening statement made by the lead donors’ representative at the 2009 PF Steering

78
http://eacgermany.org/planning-monitoring-evaluation/ [Last accessed April 10, 2016.]
107

Committee Meeting: “She reminded the members that the EAC Partnership Fund was a
‘Partnership of EAC and [development partners, or DPs]’ and hence its members worked as a
partnership. However, its tremendous progress had led to more expectations on the part of both
parties. She cited the Capacity Development Action Plan [an EU-pushed internal reform of the
EAC Secretariat] which had strong commitment from the DPs and was a must for the DPs to be
able to continue support” (EAC 2009c: 2, emphasis added). A year later, donors were still
quietly threatening the EAC: “A number of development partners emphasized that their
disbursements will depend on the successful implementation of the Capacity Development
Action Plan” (EAC 2010c: 9).
Despite all the EU-backed reform efforts, the Secretariat’s track record of managing its
funds has remained mixed in recent years. In 2014, the European Commission seemed finally
ready to bite the bullet and integrate the bulk of its spending on East African regional integration
into Secretariat-managed PF structures (although another major EU donor, the U.K., continued to
hold back – EAC 2014a: 3-4). But in early 2015, an internal audit of the EAC’s coffers
undertaken by a subcommittee of the East African Legislative Assembly found at least $10
million in misused or mismanaged funds, with overly generous per diems, airfares, and salaries,
renewing concerns about the financial probity of some Secretariat employees.
79
The
Commission and other members of the Partnership Fund have since halted their plans of directly
entrusting their development funds to the Secretariat, and the original hope of being able to
streamline the oversight of joint EAC-donor development projects remains unfulfilled, leading to
significant time and attention costs for both donors and recipients alike.

4.5 EU Tools for Supporting the Second EAC
The amount of money the EU provides to the EAC is important, but equally important are
the forms the EU’s money takes. The EU deploys a variety of different tools in its relationship
with the EAC, ranging from informal day-to-day contacts all the way through formal treaties. In

79
Zephania Ubwani, “Report exposes wanton expenditure at EAC,” The East African (Nairobi), January 26, 2015;
Christabel Ligami, “Audit unearths widespread wastage amid budgetary strain, low funding,” The East African
(Nairobi), February 7, 2015; James Karuhanga, “EAC Secretariat refutes report of financial abuse,” The New Times
(Kigali), February 11, 2015.
108

this section, I take a close look at some of the instruments the EU frequently employs in its
dealings with the EAC. These include:
 Informal day-to-day contacts;
 Training of EAC staff, including study tours;
 Secondments (both of European and East African staffers);
 Issuing high-status reports (and their associated press conferences); and
 Conducting formal region-to-region negotiations.
This list is not exhaustive, but rather is intended to be representative of the many practices that
characterize contemporary EU-EAC relations. Indeed, it is important to note how relatively
recent most of these tools are—most were never employed during the EEC-EAC negotiations of
the 1960s, when both parties contented themselves with simply having occasional formal region-
to-region meetings. Accordingly, I consider the first four tools in turn, and then assess how their
spread in recent decades impacted the most recent set of formal EU-EAC negotiations in Section
4.6.

4.5.1 Day-to-Day Contacts
One can get a clear sense of how incredibly deep EU-EAC ties are today by comparing
them to the frequency of contacts during the 1960s. The EU’s archival record suggests about a
dozen specific instances of senior EEC and EAC officials directly interacting between 1963 and
1972. In recent years, because of the much lower costs of communication technologies and
changes in bureaucratic practices, the direct interactions between the two institutions are several
orders of magnitude greater. Since about 2006, EAC Secretariat officials have had the
possibility of being in daily contact with either their Commission counterparts in Brussels or EU
Embassy staff in Dar es Salaam, be it by phone, by email, or even by text messages. This is true
from the level of the Secretary-General down to individual program officers. Face-to-face
meetings have also gone up as transportation costs have decreased.
To a certain extent, this reflects a general increase in the density of government-to-
government ties that has been observed all around the world in recent years (Slaughter 2004;
Sassen 2006; Forman & Segaar 2006; Damro 2006). But it also stems from a genuine desire on
the part of EAC staff to get the EU’s opinion of matters of mutual interest, as well as an
109

acknowledgement that the EU is the EAC’s most significant external donor. The frequency of
these contacts affords the EU an opportunity to informally lobby the EAC, privately and directly.
But while the Commission can certainly make its voice heard in East African
governmental deliberations, its advice is of course not always followed. Consider, for instance,
the case of EAC enlargement. The re-emergence of the EAC in 2000 caught the eye of the
leaders of neighboring states, several of whom applied to join the fledgling DWRO. Approving
applications entails both risks and benefits from the EAC’s perspective. On the con side, new
member states may bring their own problems into the EAC fold, and may complicate the EAC’s
decision-making process. On the pro side, however, approving new members can improve
relations with neighboring countries, expand the size and effectiveness of the EAC’s common
market, and raise the EAC’s clout in global affairs. Rwanda and Burundi were among the first to
apply to join the second EAC, in 1996 and 1999, respectively. Their applications were
championed by Museveni, since Uganda had close ties with both countries (Kasaija 2004: 22);
Kenya and Tanzania were cautiously willing to go along (Matambalya 2012: 200).
However, in private discussions the European Commission strongly counseled the EAC
against the proposal.
80
It argued on the basis of the EU’s own history that a trade-off exists
between “deepening” a regional organization by moving more policy areas to the supranational
level, and “widening” it by welcoming new members.
81
Indeed, as the number of participants
increases, the task of finding a region-wide consensus becomes more difficult. The Commission
also argued that it would take a significant amount of time for both Rwanda and Burundi to
incorporate the existing EAC acquis into their laws and procedures, forcing the rest of the EAC
to wait until they caught up. Additionally, the Commission pointed out that Burundi (and, to a
lesser extent, Rwanda) had significantly weaker state capacity than the three ex-British colonies.
And lastly the Europeans claimed that the EAC’s limited number of participants was precisely
one of its main attractions to external actors—dealing with it was much more preferable than
negotiating with huge DWROs like COMESA (21 members in 2005) or CARICOM (20
members in 2005). For all these reasons, the EU suggested that the wisest course of action for

80
Interviews with European diplomats in Dar es Salaam, May-April 2008.
81
The phrase “widening vs. deepening” originally developed as a commentary on the EU, but has subsequently
rubbed-off and entered East African parlance, suggesting some degree of EU influence in East Africa—see Section
4.7 for a further discussion.
110

the EAC as a whole was to table Rwanda and Burundi’s applications until they had incorporated
most of the acquis and improved their administrative capacity.
(There was an important exception to this common EU position. France saw the potential
inclusion of two partially French-speaking countries into the EAC as a golden opportunity to
increase its influence in mostly English-speaking East Africa, where it had long been jealous of
British preeminence. As a French diplomat put it in 2008, “The expansion of the EAC [in 2007]
changed things for us—we now have much more to offer the EAC and accordingly a much
closer partnership, as compared to a few years ago.”
82
After Rwanda and Burundi’s accession,
France immediately changed its development spending in East Africa, redirecting resources into
a program to train EAC officials to speak French—a double whammy from the French
perspective, as it gave them access to regional-level officials and advanced France’s always-
cherished goal of maintaining French as la langue de la diplomatie.
83
)
Despite the EU’s warnings, however, the presidents of the three EAC members ultimately
decided to push ahead with Rwandan and Burundian accession (cf. Booth et al. 2007: 3).
Burundi and Rwanda were formally accepted as members on July 1, 2007. As the EU had
predicted, severe bureaucratic problems were soon encountered attempting to integrate Rwanda
and Burundi into the EAC. A Kenyan official sourly commented about his Burundian
counterparts, “Burundians work very slowly, and sometimes do not care on the real situation
they will face once the EAC Common Market Protocol will be fully fledged” (Action
Développement et Intégration Régionale 2012: 4). Indeed, Kenya found itself in the unusual
position of offering free technical assistance and capacity building support to Burundi, despite
itself receiving the same from international actors (Action Développement et Intégration
Régionale 2012: 4).
When I discussed the situation with an EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam a year
after accession, he seemed resigned to now making the best of a difficult situation:
Well, we told them that adding Rwanda and especially Burundi would not be a good idea, but
once they went ahead and did it anyways we now have to support them and help them figure out
how to make it work. Ultimately it was a political decision by the [East African] leaders, not an
economic one, and we have to accept that.
84

82
Interview with French Embassy official in Dar es Salaam, February 14, 2008.
83
See “La France, la Tanzanie, l’EAC (East African Community) et l’Océan Indien,” remarks delivered by Patrick
Thomas at a conference on regional cooperation in Mayotte, 5/15/2008.
84
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008.
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Interestingly, another respondent at the Norwegian Embassy I spoke to at around the same time
did not seem aware that the EU had expressed its views to the EAC before it increased its
membership, but nevertheless expressed similar feelings:
There are times when we wish the EAC would have come and asked us about something before
they went along and did it, just so we could give them our opinion. For instance, on the decision
to integrate Rwanda and Burundi into the EAC. After all, knowledge of how to handle
enlargement issues is one of our [the EU’s] most clear-cut comparative advantages. Had they
approached us, we might have talked to them about the example of Spanish integration, and how it
took nearly a decade before Spain was really ready to integrate, or we could have talked to them
about how it paid off to make Eastern Europe wait a bit. But they didn’t come to us.
85

In this case, then, the EU did not get its wishes and had to abide by the EAC leadership’s
decision. However, it is also true that in this case the EU did not overly bestir itself, and limited
its pressure to just behind-closed-doors advice. In the case of the EPA negotiations I discuss
below, the EU did not play so nice, and brought the full force of its power to bear on East
Africa’s leaders.

4.5.2 Trainings and Study Tours
Discussing HIV prevention programs in Malawi, Watkins and Swidler (2013: 207) make
a much broader point: “Trainings have become the ubiquitous social practice through which
development aspirations are enacted jointly by donors, brokers and villagers fortunate enough to
be included in a programme.” Indeed, “training” of African individuals by Westerners in so-
called “best practices” is arguably the cornerstone of international development efforts today. As
the large-scale infrastructure projects of yesteryear have increasingly become discredited as
ineffective, corrupt, and ecologically and socially harmful (J. Scott 1998; T. Mitchell 2002;
Staples 2006; Isaacman & Isaacman 2013; but see also Dye 2016), the focus has turned towards
improving “human capital.” Trainings (as well as their close cousins, study tours) are seen as
efficient ways to increase capacity precisely where it is most needed, without engendering too
many negative effects (Moyar 2016; see also Ilcan & Philips 2008 on “networking”).
Trainings can relate to regionalism either directly or indirectly. Directly, training can
either be of a DWRO’s staff, or can touch upon issues of immediate regional significance, such
as cross-border regulatory regimes. For instance, the EU directly funds the training of EAC
staff, and also hosts meetings on topics like the necessity for harmonizing regional taxation

85
Interview with Norwegian Embassy official in Dar es Salaam, April 10, 2008.
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regimes. Indirectly, even when trainings address purely national or sub-national concerns, there
can still be knock-on effects at the regional level if they facilitate the diffusion of a same set of
ideas and practices across the region. For example, almost all the trainings the International
Monetary Fund conducts in East Africa occur via regional workshops which bring civil servants
from several countries together at the same time, which ideally can keep costs down, lead to
synergistic benefits, increase regulatory harmonization, and even lead the civil servants to begin
to identify as East Africans.
As mentioned above, trainings are ubiquitous in the contemporary practices of East
African regionalism. Consider the work undertaken in 2011 by just a single European
development actor—GIZ—as part of its ongoing support to the EAC Secretariat. GIZ’s annual
report lists 15 trainings they provided to 178 EAC staff,
86
including:
- a “training on the EAC Double Taxation Agreement;”
- “media trainings for journalists” (a point to which I return below);
- “training on proposal writing;”
- “executive secretary training;”
- and “leadership training.”
These trainings were supplemented by three regional conferences and 20 regional workshops
sub-divided into four categories: “validation workshops,” “consultative workshops,” “inception
workshops,” and “stakeholder meetings.”
87

Study tours stem from the same general principles as trainings, but involve sending East
African participants outside of the region to observe first-hand some facet of political life
elsewhere. The origins of study tours in the context of EU-EAC relations date back to the early
1970s, when a number of oversight committees jointly composed of East African and European
representatives took turns holding meetings in Brussels and Arusha,
88
but they have since

86
All data is from GIZ (2011: 5). These 178 staff members may include some double-counting. Still, this probably
indicates that over half of the EAC Secretariat’s staff received at least one training from just a single EU donor in a
single year period.
87
These additional meetings involved 920 people in total (again, with the likelihood of some double-counting) –
GIZ (2011: 5).
88
For examples of these meetings, see: Press Release CEE-ESTAF/20/71, 5/13/1971, Brussels; Press Release CEE-
ESTAF 32/72, op. cit.; European Parliament (1969a); and European Parliament (1973). All located in Folder
441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection, University Library System of the University of
Pittsburgh.
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expanded dramatically. Recent examples include: three study tours between 2001 and 2009 of
the European Parliament and the Belgium Parliament, of the German Parliament, and of the
Indian Parliament, respectively, for groups of parliamentarians from the East African Legislative
Assembly;
89
a joint SADC-EAC study tour of European standards agencies by African
specialists in 2005;
90
a study tour in 2008 by EAC Secretariat staff of the CARICOM
headquarters in Guyana;
91
visits by East African tax authorities to observe taxation systems in
Germany and Belgium in 2009, as well as in Mauritius in 2014;
92
and the “EAC High-Level
Task Force on the East African Monetary Union” which went on two separate study tours in
2012, one to European monetary institutions in Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and one to
West Africa to observe the West African Economic and Monetary Union (GIZ 2012: 32). It is
worth noting that practically all of these study tours were directly funded by the European Union
in one way or another.
Overall, it is difficult to know if all these training programs are successful in achieving
their goals of transferring knowledge and skills to their East African participants. On the one
hand, there is a well-established literature in IR that focuses on how government officials can be
socialized (Checkel 2001; Johnston 2001; Checkel 2007; Johnston 2008; Freyburg 2015; Meyer-
Sahling et al. 2015), often in much sociologically “thinner” environments than that of quasi-
permanent regional workshops and study tours, and without the strong financial incentives that
would lead a participant to simply go along with the flow. So one would presume that the EU’s
trainings are most-likely environments for both skills-transfers and broader socialization to occur
in. But, interestingly, when trainings undergo monitoring and evaluation (M&E) assessments—
the standard practice by which donors measure the effectiveness of their development aid—they
do not yield clear pictures of success. To be sure, M&E remains very much an art, not a science,
and usually limits itself to assessing easier-to-measure things than training programs, both in
terms of types of projects evaluated as well as outcomes studied. But one recent World Bank
meta-analysis of studies of the effectiveness of training programs in the private sectors of
developing countries found that:

89
http://www.eala.org/new/index.php/the-assembly/achievements [last accessed April 13, 2016].
90
http://www.sadcstan.co.za/news/Sadcstan_EU_Study.html [last accessed April 13, 2016].
91
http://www.caricom.org/jsp/pressreleases/pres296_08.jsp?null&prnf=1 [last accessed April 13, 2016].
92
EAC (2009b: 8); http://www.slideshare.net/ICTDTax/tax-harmonisation-in-the-east-african-community [last
accessed April 13, 2016].
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Most studies find that existing firm owners implement some of the practices taught in training, but
the magnitudes of the improvement to practices is often modest. Few studies find significant
impacts on profits or sales, although some studies with greater statistical power have done so.
There is little evidence to guide policymakers regarding whether any identified effects are due to
trained firms drawing sales from competing businesses rather than through productivity
improvements or to guide the development of the provision of training at market prices.
(McKenzie & Woodruff 2014: 1)
Similarly, the few M&E studies of EU efforts to promote regional integration that have been
conducted have been rather scathing. In 2009 the EU’s internal watchdog, the European Court
of Auditors, released a damning evaluation of how European Development Funds were being
spent on regional integration in both West and East Africa. The European Court of Auditors
(2009: 7) concluded that:
Overall, EDF support for regional economic integration has so far been only partially effective,
being undermined by several factors. […] The Commission’s approach to supporting regional
economic integration in East Africa and West Africa is relevant to the regions’ and the countries’
needs to achieve higher economic growth as a means to fight poverty. However, the strategies and
interventions at the regional and national levels have largely been designed and implemented
independently of each other, with insufficient attention paid to the possibility of creating
complementarity between them… The Commission’s Delegations have neither adequate
guidelines nor sufficient capacity to deal with the preparation, implementation, reporting and
coordination of regional activities. At the level of the Regional Organisations, coordination is also
inadequate and there is no monitoring system to track the overall progress of the regional
economic integration process in the individual countries. It was difficult to assess the results
achieved or likely to be achieved by individual projects, due to poorly defined objectives, the lack
of adequate reporting and monitoring and the fact that several major projects are ongoing and their
final results are not yet known. Overall, these projects are likely to have, at best, only partially
satisfactory results.
So all in all, it is unclear if training programs are an effective form of EU support to the EAC.
Even if the amounts being spent were yielding beneficial effects, however, there would still be
no assurance that trainings would represent the best way of spending that amount of money (for
instance, instead of investing heavily in handful of elites, would the same amount have a larger
impact distributed among needier East Africans, perhaps through things like child nutrition
programs which have been shown to be quite cost-effective?).
Thus far we have been focusing on the unclear benefits and general cost-ineffectiveness
of EU training programs in present-day East Africa. There is, however, an even more troubling
dark side to these initiatives. I mentioned above that a large part of the appeal of trainings for the
EU and other development actors in East Africa is their seeming fulfillment of the Hippocratic
injunction, “First, do no harm.” And after all, who could object to workers getting the skills they
need to do their jobs better? But as various post-colonial theorists have pointed out, this entails
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overlooking some definite downsides. An overemphasis on trainings as a key form of
intervention into East African regionalism can be actively detrimental in at least three ways.
First, constantly emphasizing training can prevent actual work from taking place,
particularly when there is an explicit or implicit financial incentive to participate in as many
trainings as possible. In order to motivate civil servants to travel to and actively participate in
trainings, it is customary to provide them with a per diem, which can be quite significant in
comparison to local salaries (and the higher the rank of the officials in question, the higher the
per diems tend to be). Even in cases where there is no direct financial compensation for
attendees, there are several indirect benefits of attending training workshops: paid-for travel
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(which in turn can provide opportunities for shopping), good food, a higher professional status,
networking opportunities, etc. Anecdotal evidence suggests that EU officials have at times
weighed the various pros and cons of 5-star hotels as conference locations in order to draw as
many high-level attendees as possible.
94
Given these types of incentives, it is not too difficult to
imagine many or even most East African civil servants putting trainings ahead of their actual
work, and indeed there have been observable consequences for their productivity. As noted
previously, the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam has ascribed some the EAC’s ineffectiveness to
its perpetually absent staff: “The combined absence of the staff (in some cases up to 80% of their
time is spent away from the office), in addition to overlapping periods of absence within the
[Secretary General’s] office, creates performance challenges across the organization in terms of
its ability to share information, make timely decisions to address daily routine matters.”
95
An
audit of the EAC’s financial records found at least one employee who claimed to be on the road a

93
Media reports have suggested that EAC Secretariat staff spent over $3.4 million on airfare alone in FY 2012/2013,
which if true would work out to about $14,000 a year per staff member: Zephania Ubwani, “Report exposes wanton
expenditure at EAC,” The East African (Nairobi), January 26, 2015. While not directly comparable, the situation
across the continent in Nigeria is far worse: according to the Nigerian ministry of finance, between 2012 and 2014
the Nigerian government spent about $1.25 billion on government travel, “equivalent to an extraordinary 18 per cent
of total government spending”: Adrienne Klasa, “Nigeria’s Government: Living the High Life,” Financial Times
(London), March 22, 2016.
94
See the report from the trenches provided by: http://developmentintern.com/2015/06/03/development-hotelology/
[last accessed April 13, 2016].
95
10 DARESSALAAM 100. To be fair, this is a frequent feature of government work: as early as 1973 the
European Commission was complaining about “certain ministerial absenteeism which has been noted on both the
European and the African sides” which was delaying the EEC-EAC trade negotiations (European Commission 1973:
36).
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whopping 200 nights a year (for the record, there are around 260 working days a year, depending
on holidays), which would almost certain impact their productivity.
96
Accordingly, there has
been a belated push by donors to get the EAC to make more use of video-conferencing
technologies instead of attending trainings in person (ACBF 2008: 221-222; EAC 2010c: 10),
but the fundamental problem of misaligned incentives persists.
Second, the emphasis on trainings as a mode of knowledge transfer tends to favor
technocratic decision-making styles over more explicitly political ones. There is, of course, a
long-standing debate in political science about the merits of technocratic decision-making. My
point is not to wade into that debate, but rather to suggest that trainings—particularly the types of
trainings the EU facilitates, which mostly involve mid-level bureaucrats and are focused on
transferring technical skills—can potentially bias participants, specifically by de-politicizing
things which should probably stay political and contestable. For instance, Whitfield (2005)
argues that donor pressure on Ghana to participate in the formulation of a rather technical, IMF-
and WB-driven Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) led to less participation from
Parliament and civil society actors than had been the case for previous modes of articulating the
country’s national development goals.
Third, the trainings provided to officials in East Africa may not always be the most
appropriate ones. There is always the possibility of a disconnect between the donor’s and the
recipient’s priorities. I do not want to overstate this argument, since while in Tanzania I
observed many genuine efforts by donors to meet the stated needs of recipients. Still, in issue
areas where recipient countries have little starting knowledge, the EU must necessarily at times
make decisions about what kinds of training would be most appropriate, decisions which the
trainees must take on faith.

4.5.3 Secondments
The EU’s relationship with the EAC Secretariat is so close that the EU pays for
Europeans to be directly attached to the EAC’s headquarters. These secondments involve having
expatriate experts spend several months to a few years in East Africa, with the EU paying their

96
Christabel Ligami, “Audit unearths widespread wastage amid budgetary strain, low funding,” The East African
(Nairobi), February 7, 2015.
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salaries as they advise the EAC on specific topics. To be clear, these experts, who are usually
not diplomats, are not assigned to a European embassy but rather directly to the EAC or to an
East African national ministry.
The German development agency, GIZ, has been the keenest utilizer of secondments. In
2011, Germany provided funding for five European experts to be in residence in Arusha (GIZ
2011: 5), with France seconding its own staffer as well. Since 2012, a German office has been
located within the grounds of the EAC headquarters complex (GIZ 2012: 5). Indeed, the EU’s
breezy acceptance of the profound imbrication of the European and East African regional
integration projects is visually depicted in Figure 4.9 (reproduced from GIZ 2012: 10). The
figure notes that the GIZ’s seconded staff can directly participate in EAC internal meetings at the
Working Group and even Sectoral Council levels, which would likely surprise the many theorists
of DWROs who emphasize how member states tend to jealously guard their sovereign privileges.
Alternatively, a secondment can also involve an East African civil servant spending time
working in a relevant government office either elsewhere in East Africa or even abroad, at the
EU’s cost (this is sometimes called “twinning”). For instance, in 2010 the United Kingdom’s
Department for International Development (DfID) paid for an official in the Kenyan Department
of Immigration to be seconded full-time to an EAC-led project on regional immigration policies
in association with the International Organization for Migration (EAC Secretariat 2010b). As
with participants in regional workshops, East African officials on secondment are likely sensitive
to the interests of those who are paying their salaries. Donors are cognizant of this, as in a
USAID report about a proposed EAC food security program which notes that the “secondment of
staff from Partner States has […] implications on the overall incentives (financial and non-
financial) to the officer being seconded” (Africa Lead 2013: 15). Beyond the incentives offered
by twinning, however, research has shown that staff seconded to foreign institutions often tend to
pick up a distinctly neoliberal mode of governance, often centering around things like
benchmarks, market-based solutions, and competition while deemphasizing social welfare
considerations and structural issues (İşleyen 2015).

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4.5.4 High-Status Reports
The EU and its constituent parts frequently either produce or finance high-status reports
about various aspects of East African politics and economics. Table 4.13 provides a sample
summary of 14 such reports I have collected since 2007 that directly address regional integration.
At face value, these reports are significant because they represent a body of legitimized,
authoritative, collective knowledge about East Africa. They are produced by experts and serve
as a sort of intellectual currency, being acquired and traded by a range of both domestic and
external actors, circulating amongst embassies, government ministries, private sector
organizations, media actors, and the headquarters of international organizations. Neophytes to
East African issues are told to read them, and they represent an important epistemic pathway to
“understanding” the region. But on a deeper level, these reports and the media coverage they get
are important because they reveal how external donors, local elites, and local media join together
to frame the politics surrounding East African regional integration in specific ways,
foregrounding things like technocratic solutions while deemphasizing both the democratic
aspirations of ordinary East Africans as well as European complicity in many of East Africa’s
contemporary problems.
My reading of these high-status reports draws heavily from Kamola’s (2012) insightful
analysis of how the globalization literature treats Africa, which is usually to completely ignore it.
But Kamola, channeling Louis Althusser, argues that absences in documents are actually highly
significant, since they are not merely unintentional oversights but rather symptomatic about how
knowledge in a given sphere is being created. Thus, for Kamola (2012: 198), “the absence of
Africa within the Anglophone globalization literature is not merely an effect of coincidence or
oversight. Africa can be rendered absent because of the incredible asymmetries that undergird
the production of academic knowledge.”
Given this starting point, what can an Althusserian reading of these high-status reports
produced by the EU yield us? Beginning at the surface level, these reports typically present
themselves as having a technical, problem-solving aim. And to be sure, they invariably do
propose various technical solutions, but I would argue that is often secondary to their primary,
political function, which is to raise the profile of a contested issue and force East African
governments to overcome foot-dragging and implement policy changes. In other words, we
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should not be fooled by the generic formats or the routine list of acronyms on the inside cover—
these reports are interventions into the political economy of East Africa. Furthermore, these
external interventions usually advance a specifically neoliberal political program, as in the
crystal clear example of a 2012 IMF press release titled “Truly Integrated Market Would Bring
Benefits to East Africa.”
97
In the space of just a dozen short paragraphs, the press release
manages to include quotes from the IMF Deputy Director; the IMF’s Africa Department Head;
Paul Collier, the noted developmental economist; and the EU Ambassador to the EAC, all calling
for the removal of restrictions on the free movement of capital within the EAC.
In other cases the most interesting political aspect of the reports is a bit more hidden.
Consider what happened when the EAC in 2008 sought to get a handle on what the long-
proposed East African Monetary Union might look like in practice. The EAC approached the
EU, which agreed to finance a technical study on the topic. Because of its power of the purse,
the EU was able to influence the study’s terms of reference, which ended up stating that “the
preferred option [for the recruitment of consultants] is to recruit on [sic] lead consultant with
wide knowledge and experience about the Euro Monetary Area” (EAC 2008b: 3-4).
Unsurprisingly but perhaps troublingly, this led the consultancy being given to a team of active
and retired European Central Bank (ECB) staffers. Their final report was both comprehensive
and detailed (ECB 2010). However, the ECB staffers relied so heavily on the EU’s own, specific
experience creating the Euro that their report ended up reprinting entire EU legal frameworks
with “East African shilling” simply substituted in the place of “euro” throughout the document.
There was no substantive effort to imagine different possibilities for a future East African single
currency, nor was much attention paid to whether or not European precedents might usefully
translate to an East African context. Indeed, without denying the EU’s considerable experience
with monetary union, would it truly be wise for the EAC to emulate the euro model that closely,
particularly as the foundation of European monetary integration have increasingly come into
question in recent years? The IMF, for instance, publicly warned the EAC about the dangers that
EU-style regional economic integration might pose for it shortly thereafter.
98

97
Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2012/CAR031512A.htm [last accessed April 13,
2016].
98
George Omondi, “Monetary Union May Not Work for EAC, Say Experts,” Business Daily (Nairobi), February 27,
2012; George Omondi, “IMF Boss Cautions East Africa on Monetary Union,” The East African (Nairobi), January
7, 2014.
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This discussion of high-status reports has thus far focused on what is in the documents; a
symptomatic reading of a text, however, necessitates asking what is not in the documents. One
possible answer to that question is any sense of genuine and democratic political participation by
the people of East Africa. The technocratic, apolitical nature of the EU’s high-status reports
causes the people who will be most affected by the proposed policies to either drop out entirely
(to be replaced by statistics about tons of cargo shipped or kilometers of railroad tracks laid) or
to be reduced to passive subjects with no actual agency to affect regional integration (see
Ferguson 1990).
In addition, the EU-funded reports, intentionally or not, almost always absolve Europe of
any complicity in creating East Africa’s current woes. As is the case with foreign diplomats’
writing about East Africa more generally, there is no acknowledgement in the reports that the
legacies of colonialism might still be affecting the region (cf. de Zamaróczy forthcoming). But it
is not just colonialism that is ignored, there is also no acknowledgment of the persisting core-
periphery dynamic that many scholars think is the main driver of East Africa’s difficulties.
Rather than discuss the systemic inequalities East Africa is confronted with, instead in the
reports “structural problems are reduced to management issues” (Kamola 2012: 196, quoting
James Mittleman). The reports start from the premise that East Africa’s current situation is
wholly due to internal dynamics, which helps whitewash any previous Western involvement.
The crucial transmission belt for the implicit political messages of these high-status
reports is the local East African media. Disseminating EU messages through the media
(particularly in English and French, but also in Swahili) not only makes them more popularly
accessible, but also helps to legitimize them while downplaying their origins. Meanwhile, East
African journalists receive newsworthy, pre-packaged content. This symbiotic relationship
between external donors and local media is not new. Sandholtz & Gray (2003: 770) report that
when the World Bank became serious about tackling corruption after 1995, it was able to get
70% of the journalists and editors in Tanzania and Uganda to attend their anti-corruption
workshops (presumably by issuing per diems or other benefits). During my own fieldwork in
Tanzania, I also witnessed East African journalists serving as a critical conduit for European
embassies. The publication of a new EU-funded report would usually be accompanied by a press
conference-cum-meal organized by the public affairs office of a given EU embassy, who would
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also make sure to distribute press releases (sometimes already translated from English to
Swahili). In contrast to journalistic ethics in the US, most East African journalists and EU
embassies considered it fine if the press release was reproduced nearly verbatim in the next day’s
paper. Needless to say, this combination of high status reports, free food, and easy-to-report-
upon press releases proved irresistible to most journalists in Dar es Salaam. Following the initial
coverage of these publications, East African journalists would continue to play an important role
by repeating the reports’ findings in subsequent articles, directly querying ministers and
bureaucrats as to how they intended to address the problems identified in the reports, and
periodically assessing whether any improvements had been made. Given this type of very close
working relationship between most East African journalists and EU embassies in Dar es Salaam,
I had to wonder whether East Africa’s media were independently exercising their oversight and
accountability functions. Indeed, media studies scholars like Ngare (2008) have found that
newspapers across East Africa are actively contributing to a dissemination of the World Bank’s
vision of global neoliberalism across the region, in part by rendering it more palatable for
domestic audiences.

4.6 Formal Region-to-Region Negotiations Today: The Rich Compel the Divided
The introduction of a range of novel tools and forms of cooperation since the refounding
of the EAC in 2000 gives EU-EAC relations today a very different flavor than they had back in
the 1960s. We have seen how since at least 2002 the EU has been very keen to partner with the
EAC on a range of development issues, forging an extraordinarily close working relationship
with the EAC in general and the EAC Secretariat in particular. But to what an extent does this
new, closer partnership actually impact relations between the two regions on issues where they
do not see eye-to-eye? We have already considered the episode of the EAC enlargement in
2007, where EAC leaders ignored the EU’s advice, but because that affair did not infringe upon
any core EU interests the EU simply accepted the final decision by the EAC Summit and
subsequently worked to facilitate Rwanda and Burundi’s entry into the EAC. A much more
dramatic disagreement between the two sides emerged beginning in 2002 with the region-to-
region negotiation of a free trade deal known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). In
this case the EU, extremely anxious to overcome foot-dragging by the very reluctant East
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African side, brought a great deal of pressure to bear on its East African partners, ultimately
leading to the signing of an agreement in 2014 but also to a great deal of bad blood between the
two parties. Why were the EU’s new forms of cooperation not more successful in avoiding this
negative outcome?
My particular focus in this section is on the process of the EPA negotiations, which even
more than their outcome gives us a good sense of how the EU and the EAC relate to one another
when the chips are down. I am also interested in drawing a direct comparison between the EPA
negotiations and the EEC-EAC negotiations that preceded the signing of the Arusha Agreements.
In both cases, the negotiations took many years and centered on a formal, region-to-region treaty
that primarily focused on trade issues, but as we shall see, the two periods diverge sharply in
terms of the negotiating tactics employed, the internal cohesion of the negotiating parties, and the
relative power of both sides.
The core issue at stake in the EPA negotiations was the same one that had bedeviled
EEC-EAC trade discussions in the 1960s: reciprocity. Recall from earlier that in those
negotiations the EU had insisted that any trade deal between the two regions be reciprocal, i.e.
that both sides would give preferential concessions to the other on certain trade matters. The
EAC at the time, drawing upon the newly emerging discourses surrounding the “developing
world” and inspired by the ideas coming out of the first UNCTAD meetings, had argued instead
that any potential trade deal be non-reciprocal, i.e. that Europe would open its market to East
African goods but without European exporters receiving any preferential access to East Africa.
In the case of the Arusha Agreements, the EEC had won the battle but lost the broader war,
obtaining minor trade concessions from the East Africans in 1968 but subsequently agreeing—as
part of the 1975 Lomé Convention—to offer all then-71 countries in the so-called African,
Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) grouping free, non-reciprocal access to the European market. Thus,
developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific enjoyed near-total duty-free and
quota-free (DFQF) access to the European market from 1975 until the 2000s, without having to
open up their markets in exchange.
99

99
These so-called Lomé preferences did not cover a small set of commodities, which were instead subject to
separate, periodically-revised protocols. While the Lomé Convention expired in 1999, the same trading regime
formed the basis of the subsequent EU-ACP pact known as the Cotonou Convention, signed in 2000.
123

In the mid-1990s, however, this decades-old arrangement was challenged at the WTO by
the United States, acting on behalf of banana giant Chiquita Brands International, as well as by a
number of Latin American fruit-exporting countries who argued that the Lomé preferences for
Caribbean countries discriminated against their own exports to Europe. Initially the EU tried to
scale back some of the preferences it afforded Caribbean producers, while arguing that its overall
system should be maintained on poverty-reduction grounds. But over the course of the “banana
wars” of the 1990s, WTO arbitrators regularly found against the EU-ACP trading regime,
arguing that under WTO rules a trading regime could either be discriminatory but reciprocal (as
bilateral free-trade agreements are) or non-reciprocal but applied equally to all developing
countries (as in the case of the WTO’s Generalized System of Preferences, GSP). Weighing its
options, the EU asked for and received in 1996 a five-year waiver in 1996 that kept the Lomé
preferences in place until 2000; a second request for a waiver extending until 2007 was only
barely obtained in 2001, and it was clear that the WTO’s patience was running thin.
Under considerable pressure from the WTO, and unwilling to expose itself to costly
trade-violation sanctions from third countries, the EU regretfully concluded in the early 2000s
that the old trading regime would have to go. Confusingly, however, the EU decided to
simultaneously pursue both of the WTO-compliant strategies laid out above. Beginning in 2001,
a non-reciprocal, non-discriminatory trading scheme called Everything But Arms (EBA) was
offered to all Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the world.
100
This meant that the world’s 48
poorest countries could export any goods except armaments to the EU DFQF without having to
open their own markets in exchange, which actually represented an improvement over the Lomé
preferences for African LDCs.
At the same time, however, the EU proposed to establish Economic Partnership
Agreements with ACP countries, which would be reciprocal, asymmetric, region-to-region free-
trade agreements (Bilal & Stevens 2009). Breaking that down, it meant that signatories of an
EPA could discriminate against third parties, but only if within the EPA both sides reciprocally
lowered their trade barriers. Specifically, per WTO rules the parties to an EPA would have to
liberalize “substantially all trade,” generally understood to mean at least 80% of tariff lines.

100
LDC is a UN designation for countries with a GNI per capita of less than US $1,035 in 2015. Of the 48 currently
designated LDCs, 34 are in Africa, 4 are in the Pacific, 1 is in the Caribbean, and the remaining 9 are in Asia.
124

While having to be broadly reciprocal, however, an EPA could still be “asymmetric” and in
compliance with the WTO. In practice, this meant that both the scope and the timing of an
EPA’s trade liberalization could be more generous on the EU’s side than on the developing
region’s side. Thus, for most of the EPAs the EU sought to negotiate, the EU promised
developing countries instant and complete DFQF access to its market, while ACP partners would
have to gradually phase out their import tariffs on most EU goods over a 15-25 year period.
101

ACP countries could still continue to shield up to about 20% of their tariff lines from EU
competition even after the 15-25 year transition period.
The last key feature of the proposed EPAs was that they would be negotiated on a
regional basis. Whereas the Lomé and Cotonou Conventions had been signed between the EU
and all ACP countries as a single bloc, the EU had since come to reconsider this bloc-to-bloc
approach (Elgström 2009: 454-455). Specifically, the EU argued that the much more advanced
trade liberalization agenda the EPAs would represent necessitated a more individually tailored
approach as compared to Lomé. At the same time, however, the EU had little interest in
negotiating with all then-77 ACP countries individually, deeming that highly impractical and
inefficient. So the EU proposed to negotiate the EPAs on a regional basis, with several
neighboring countries in similar circumstances collectively signing an EPA with the EU. In
principle, this had the further happy synergy of nicely dovetailing with the EU’s growing
emphasis throughout the 2000s on promoting regional integration in developing countries.
Unfortunately, ACP countries were not in favor of the EU’s proposed negotiating model,
deeming that it would diminish their collective voice and hence weaken their negotiating
position. Only “after strong pressure from the Commission” did ACP countries agree to divide
themselves into six regional groupings in 2002 (Elgström 2009: 455). Even then, the new
groupings did not align with existing DWROs around the world, significantly undermining the
EU’s argument that the EPA negotiations would strengthen regional integration.
102
Critics of the

101
Under the Cotonou regime ACP countries on average levied a 12 percent ad valorem tariff on imports (Rudloff &
Weinhardt 2011: 2).
102
The six originally proposed regions were: the Caribbean region, comprising the 14 countries of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) as well as the Dominican Republic; the Pacific region, comprising the 14 countries of the
Pacific Islands Forum; the West African region, comprising the 15 Economic Community Of West African States
(ECOWAS) countries as well as Mauritania; the Central African region, comprising the 6 members of the Economic
and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) as well as São Tomé e Príncipe and the Democratic
125

EU concluded that its actions had allowed it to dispense with the ACP solidarity of previous
trade regimes while still holding on to a “one size fits all” mentality (cf. Bicchi 2006).
The EU’s two-pronged strategy for replacing the Lomé preferences generated a
fundamental tension that plagued the EPA negotiations from the very beginning. Put simply,
LDCs usually had zero incentive to sign an EPA since they already enjoyed better terms under
the EBA scheme (which gave them all of the benefits of an EPA without having to open up their
own economies in exchange). ACP countries that were not LDCs, however, may or may not
have had a strong interest in signing an EPA depending on whether or not their main exports to
Europe were covered by the next-best trading scheme available to them, the GSP. Nigeria, for
instance, was not an LDC and so could not make use of the EBA scheme, but its main exports to
the EU—petroleum products—could enter duty-free under the terms of the GSP. To be sure, not
all Nigerian exports to the EU had advantageous terms under the GSP, but the Nigerian
government decided that the benefits these export sectors would obtain from signing an EPA
would be outweighed by the losses other domestic manufacturers would suffer due to increased
competition from European imports. Other African non-LDCs, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana,
faced a different calculus. For these countries, losing DFQF access to the European market on
their biggest exports (processed cocoa products, bananas, and cut flowers) would have entailed
significant economic and social costs. Since these exports lines were not covered by the GSP,
they considered signing an EPA as vital to their national economic interests.
In retrospect, it is clear that the EU profoundly underestimated the resistance it would
face from ACP countries in attempting to negotiate the EPAs. The EU seems to have believed
that it could interest even LDC ACP countries into signing EPAs because of how comprehensive
the agreements would be: whereas both the EBA and GSP schemes cover only trade in goods,
the EPAs were envisioned as covering a much broader set of issues, including not only trade in
services but also regulatory issues like mutually agreed-upon rules for investment, public
procurement, and intellectual property rights (for instance, these were the “hook” that an EU

Republic of Congo; the Southern African region, which initially included 7 Southern African Development
Community (SADC) members but not, crucially, South Africa; and the Eastern and Southern African (ESA) region,
which at different points in time included some but not all of the members of the Common Market for Eastern and
Southern Africa (COMESA).
126

Delegation official used in a presentation on the EPAs at the University of Dar es Salaam in
2009
103
). In addition, the EU hinted that signing an EPA with a given region would put its
development assistance to those countries on stronger legal footing, allowing the EU to
ultimately give more aid. In practice, however, very few ACP countries evinced any interest in
these “comprehensive” provisions. Many African governments considered that strengthening the
aforementioned regulatory areas would only provide European firms with competitive
advantages while tying their hands and preventing them for intervening in their own economies.
Only in the Caribbean—not coincidentally the only grouping where most members were not
LDCs—did any significant progress on these issues take place during the negotiations.
As the WTO’s December 2007 deadline approached, the EU sought by hook or crook to
get ACP states to sign interim EPAs with it, to little avail. Indeed, years would pass with little
progress on the EPA negotiations front. In August 2009, the EU happily announced that the
ESA regional group was finally prepared to sign their EPA, only for Zambia and the Comoros to
balk at signing at the absolute last minute.
104
Given that the Zambian commerce minister had
been the ESA grouping’s lead negotiator during the weeks leading up to the ceremony, this
public repudiation smarted a great deal. In January 2011, only 31 of the 78 ACP states
participating in EPA negotiations had finalized agreements with the EU. Many regions were
split between countries that held their noses while they signed lest they lose access to the EU
market and countries who continued to hold out for better terms (Rudloff & Weinhardt 2011: 3).
Only by 2014 was the EU able to overcome entrenched resistance in most of the negotiating
regions, getting interim deals passed in West Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa (partial
participation of the Caribbean and Pacific regions had occurred earlier; negotiations are ongoing
in Central Africa and for the Eastern and Southern Africa grouping at the time of this writing).
105

With that background in place, we can now turn specifically to the EU-EAC EPA
negotiations. In the beginning, it all looked like it would prove so easy. At a “Great Lakes

103
Powerpoint presentation shown to the Business School of the University of Dar es Salaam by Marcos Sampablo,
titled “The EU and the EAC: An Overview of the Economic Partnership Agreement,” July 27th, 2009.
104
Leigh Phillips, “Zambia, Comoros refuse to sign EU trade accord at last minute,” EUObserver (Brussels), August
31, 2009. The Comorian representative’s stated reason for not signing was a perplexing remark that the Comoros
were coming “under the control of the International Monetary Fund.”
105
“Overview of EPA Negotiations - Updated February 2016,” available at:
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2009/september/tradoc_144912.pdf [last accessed April 13, 2016].
127

Region” summit of heads of state held in Kampala in April 2002, the Tanzanian, Kenyan, and
Ugandan presidents agreed that they would collectively negotiate an EPA with the EU. They
also invited Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC—all of whom had representatives at the summit—to
join in their negotiating group if they so pleased. Negotiating as a single region would be a boon
for the fledgling EAC, allowing it to develop institutional competences and solidify its
international presence. Nothing could be simpler.
But then, for reasons that remain murky, that is not at all what happened. Instead, Kenya,
Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi decided to conduct their negotiations as part of the much larger
Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) bloc, which loosely mapped onto the COMESA DWRO.
And an embittered Tanzania looked south, aligning itself with SADC countries for their EPA
negotiations. Over time, however, Tanzania came to regret its alignment with SADC,
particularly once South Africa, which had initially sought to manage its trade relations with
Europe bilaterally, reasserted itself within the region-to-region SADC negotiations. By 2007,
pressure was mounting within Tanzanian business circles to find some alternate arrangement
(Mabele 2007: 33).
106
Tanzania could have simply joined the ongoing COMESA negotiations,
but arriving so late to the party would necessarily have limited the influence it could exert over
the proceedings. So instead, Tanzania’s leadership decided in the summer of 2007 to attempt to
resurrect the initial EAC configuration. This was ironic for several reasons, not least of which
was that traditionally Tanzania was the least enthusiastic of the EAC’s member states. Uganda’s
Museveni, per usual, was quite keen on the EAC-strengthening proposal, and Rwanda and
Burundi were willing to switch to the new grouping as well. Kenya, however, held the rotating
chair of COMESA (and thus wielded a fair degree of influence in that process) and initially
demurred about switching horses mid-race. Only after considerable diplomatic and private
sector pressure was applied did the Kenyan government accept the new configuration.
107

106
Bester Gabotlale, “East Africa: COMESA Wants Tanzania Out of SADC,” The Reporter (Gaborone), August 25,
2006.
107
Wilfred Edwin, “EAC states in row over EU trade deals,” The East African (Nairobi), August 13, 2007; “East
Africa: EAC States Avert Major Dispute Over Trade Agreements With EU,” The East African (Nairobi), August 21,
2007; Jaindi Kisero, “Kenya: EA Trade Pact - Country Should Now Seize the Moment,” The Nation (Nairobi),
August 22, 2007. On public pressure from the IMF in favor of the EAC option, see IMF (2008: 61); Benson
Kathuri, “EAC States Should Agree to One Trading Bloc, Says IMF,” The Standard (Nairobi), November 2, 2008.
128

Despite the looming deadline of the expiration of the WTO waiver in December 2007,
the EU proved willing to accept the creation of this new seventh EPA negotiating group.
Informants at the European Union Delegation in Dar es Salaam who were present in 2007
claimed that the EU was largely agnostic about which specific groupings East African countries
adopted, and asserted that the EU did not exert any pressure either way:
The European Commission, for its part, noted that the EAC configuration made a lot of sense, but
did not pressure the five countries in any way. Proof of that is that while the Delegation here
preferred the EAC configuration, the people in DG Trade [in Brussels] preferred the ESA
configuration. However, the EC did support the [EAC] Secretariat in its efforts during the
negotiation process.
108

Accordingly, the new negotiating configuration was formally inaugurated on November 14,
2007. Just two short weeks later, a limited “Framework EPA” was signed on November 27; the
Framework EPA signaled the intent of all parties to sign a more detailed and comprehensive
EPA down the line, and as such allowed the East African signatories to maintain their DFQF
access to the EU market as the negotiations progressed.
Getting the EAC to initial the Framework EPA was a coup for the EU. Only the
Caribbean region had also gotten all of its members to sign an EPA, leading the EU to regard the
interim EPA with the EAC as “the second jewel in its crown.”
109
Based on their successes in
East Africa thus far, the EU expected the final EPA to be wrapped up by the end of 2009 (EAC
2008a: 3).
That proved not to be the case. Even though the East African partners had finally settled
upon a workable negotiating configuration, they remained profoundly divided as negotiations
resumed in 2008, this time for structural reasons. While Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and
Tanzania were all LDCs, Kenya was not. This meant that while the four LDCs could always fall
back on the EBA trading regime if the EPA negotiations fell through, Kenya would instead have
to resort to the far-less generous GSP scheme, which would likely lead to dramatic losses for its
export industries, particularly cut flowers. Accordingly, the LDCs were happy to employ foot-
dragging as a key negotiating tactic, whereas Kenya could not afford to. Other issues divided the
East African countries and prevented them from adopting a common front in the negotiations.
For instance, they argued over which specific tariff lines they would choose to keep permanently

108
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008
109
Internal EU email distributed in Dar es Salaam, March 11, 2008, subject line: “Trade and Regional Integration E-
Report to Member States: no 1/2008.”
129

protected from EU competition, with each member advocating for its national champions. And
the different levels of state capacity in the region further complicated matters: the Kenyan
negotiators, for instance, sought far more sophisticated assurances from the EU than did their
Burundian counterparts (cf. Action Développement et Intégration Régionale 2012: 5). Even the
East African private sector bitterly divided over the EPA negotiations, splitting not just along
national lines but also between exporters and domestic producers. The meetings of the main East
African business lobby, the East African Business Council, increasingly “generated a lot of
heated debate” as the 2000s wore on (EABC 2009: 2).
Why were most East African countries so reluctant to sign a full EPA? Four major fears
are worth noting. The biggest reason, of course, had to do with concerns about the impacts of
opening up their economies to European competition. Most East Africans were not at all
persuaded by the EU’s argument that over the long run trade liberalization leads to inclusive and
sustainable growth—after all, over the preceding 30 years they had witnessed how their trade
with the EU, their largest trading partner, had declined dramatically in both absolute and relative
terms while at the same time not leading to any observable increases in East African standards of
living.
110
Furthermore, there was a keen sense in East Africa that trade liberalization was not just
an economic issue, but a far-reaching social one as well: “These commodities [cereals, livestock,
and livestock products] are produced mostly by poor peasant producers using poor technology.
If they are exposed to open competition with EU producers, these products will simply be
replaced by EU products. This will worsen poverty” (Mabele 2007: 34). (Somewhat
surprisingly, however, arguably the main reason why countries sign free-trade agreements—to
lower prices for consumers on both sides—was almost never mentioned by either the EU or EAC
sides throughout the EPA negotiations.)
Even if their domestic industries survived, the EPA would almost certainly have an
enormous impact on the public finances of East African governments, who received around 9-
10% of their total revenue from various taxes on trade. Would their budgets get slashed
overnight as a result of signing? Anticipating this possible complication, the EU had agreed as
early as the 9
th
EDF (2000-2007) to compensate East African states for revenue losses due to

110
In the 1980s, the EU was the destination for 50% of the EAC’s exports. By 2005, it was only 30% (IMF 2008:
51).
130

trade liberalization, but fears persisted. While the EU’s cash might be available for a few years,
after that were East African governments prepared to permanently give up the money their tariffs
represented?
The East Africans also worried that the EPA would further lock them into a deeply
unequal situation.
111
Not only was the full EPA set to be permanent (unlike previous trade deals
with the EU, which always had built-in expiration dates), there was a fear that its terms might
supersede the EBA scheme that the LDCs considered their back-up plan, leading to an actual loss
in market access for exporters from the poorest East African countries. As an East African
analyst noted in 2007, this concern was not entirely academic: “this actually happened in the case
of the LDCs in SACU [the Southern African Customs Union] where the EU reached a
partnership arrangement separately with South Africa whose provisions became binding to all
SACU members including the LDCs” (Mabele 2007: 8). Another problem was the “most
favored nation” (MFN) clause; WTO-compliant trade agreements typically include a clause
saying that if the signatories make any future deals with third parties that are more advantageous
than the terms in the signed agreement, those better provisions automatically apply to the
original signatories (Kanyangoga 2014). For the EAC, given that the EU’s offer was already the
best possible since it was fully DFQF, their MFN offer was effectively worthless, but it meant
that if the EAC ever wanted to sign another trade deal with an outside partner the EU would
automatically benefit from its provisions, limiting the EAC’s future freedom of action (Rudloff
& Weinhardt 2011: 2-3).
As the EPA negotiations wore on, some EAC members grew frustrated with the fact that,
to their mind, the EU was not placing anything of real value on the negotiating table. The core
of the EU’s offer was DFQF access to its market as well as substantial development assistance,
but countries like Tanzania figured they would be able to obtain these from the EU regardless of
the outcome of the negotiations. The EU could have placed some things East Africans were
genuinely interested in on the table, such as looser visa and immigration requirements for East
Africans travelling to Europe or a promise to curtail the EU’s internal agricultural subsidies. But
these were both non-starters in Europe. Even when an interesting provision was dangled in front

111
Stephen Hurt, “EU Trade Deal Limits EAC’s Options for Future Trade Policy,” World Politics Review,
November 17, 2014.
131

of the EAC, East Africans sometimes doubted they would be able to benefit from it. After all,
for many years East African businesses had struggled to actually get the trade preferences they
were legally entitled to: “As it is traders in Tanzania find the [EU’s] rules so cumbersome that
they give up on their entitlement to apply for a reduction in tariff” (Mabele 2007: 6, 32; see also
Manger & Shadlen 2014). Similarly, the EU’s existing regulations surrounding “rules of origin”
were so convoluted that they could sometimes amount to a de facto non-tariff barrier to trade, as
in the case where fish caught off the coast of East Africa had to be transported to the EU in either
an EU- or East African-flagged ships to qualify for reduced import duties. As Mabele (2007: 32)
puts it, according to the EU “the fish magically becomes Japanese just because it was carried
from Tanzanian waters in a Japanese ship!” Other areas where the EAC accused the EU of
deliberately setting up impossible-to-meet rules as a form of protectionism were its Sanitary and
Phytosanitary (SPS) measures (ICTSD 2010). In the mid-2000s, for instance, the EU began
insisting on costly inspections of agricultural products at the EU point of entry, as opposed to
cheaper inspections to be conducted in East Africa prior to transport. This move was justified on
the grounds of helping to prevent agricultural pests from entering the EU market, but East
African producers were dubious, since evidence proved that the pests already existed in
Europe.
112
So EAC countries had numerous reasons to doubt that any EU carrots would actually
exist in practice.
All in all, the EAC increasingly came to feel that the EU’s rhetoric about development
was mere cheap talk, and that its principal interest in the EPA negotiations was simply to pry
open East Africa’s markets. As one observer put it, “The eradication of poverty as part of the
strategy to integrate developing ACP countries under EPA is mentioned in some documents and
pronouncements by EU participants in the negotiations. However, greater emphasis seems to be
put on the reciprocal elimination of ACP-EU trade barriers” (Mabele 2007: 29). Similarly, a
lead Ugandan negotiator concluded: “Is the framework development friendly? I don’t think this
EPA is helping regional integration. They are just about getting market for their products and get
us out of business.”
113
Accordingly, foot-dragging came to be seen as a fully justified strategy

112
Kimathi Njoka, “Kenya: Flower Exporters Seek State Help Over EU Barriers,” The Standard (Nairobi), July 21,
2006; Richard North, “The EU Strikes Again,” EUReferendum.com, July 22, 2006.
113
Patrick Jaramogi, “EU Sets EPA Deadline Signing for October,” New Vision (Kampala), March 3, 2014.
132

by the East African LDCs in the face of strong pressure from a much more powerful EU
(Ramdoo & Bilal 2013: 2).
114
In 2011, the foot-dragging even turned into backtracking, as the
four LDCs suddenly refused to begin ratification procedures for the previously agreed-upon
Framework EPA, even as negotiations painstakingly continued on the comprehensive EPA
(Rudloff & Weinhardt 2011: 4). Someone had stolen the EU’s crown jewels!
Faced with continued foot-dragging as deadlines expired in 2008, 2010, 2012, and early
2014,
115
the European Commission’s Directorate-General Trade, which was the point agency on
the EU’s side, chose to call in its big guns. It repeatedly issued public warnings to Kenya about
the consequences of not signing the EPA,
116
and both publicly and privately asked Kenya to put
pressure on its fellow EAC members to sign.
117
The EU also pushed for other important East
African actors to serve as its surrogates. For instance, the EU urged the East African Business
Council, which receives substantial EU funding, to more forcefully weigh in on the benefits of
the EPA for all East Africans.
118
Even more significantly, the EU also insisted after 2008 that
the EAC Secretariat serve as the lead negotiator on the East African side. Given that, as we have
seen, the Secretariat has received over half of its funding from the EU, this represented a rather
substantial conflict of interest for the EAC Secretariat. Undeterred, however, the EU went even
further and gave extra funding to the Secretariat beginning in 2009 on the condition that it be
used to “facilitate” the EU-EAC EPA negotiations (EAC 2009c; EAC 2010c).
119
Official

114
Scholars have argued that weaker countries faced with external pressure from stronger countries also frequently
engage in “cosmetic compliance,” where “governments manipulate [a regulatory regime] in order to formally
comply with its explicit provisions, while still allowing them, in practice, to defect from its objectives” (Chey 2006;
Chey 2014). While this would seem apt in the case of the East African EPA negotiations, I am not aware of any
instances that clearly fit that bill.
115
Kenneth Agutamba, “East Africa: Is EAC At Gunpoint Over EU Trade Agreement?”, The New Times (Kigali),
February 9, 2014.
116
E.g. James Waithaka, “Kenya to lose export edge if new EPA delays, says EU,” The Star (Nairobi), February 18,
2014.
117
Field research in Dar es Salaam, May 2010.
118
Finnigan Wa Simbeye, “East Africa: EABC Advised to Join EPA Trade Talks,” Tanzania Daily News (Dar es
Salaam), December 7, 2009; “EAC partnership to improve private sector role in EPA negotiations,” The New Times
(Kigali), July 13, 2009.
119
An earlier report had laid the groundwork for this funding increase, noting that “Prior to October 2007, the
Secretariat hardly had visible roles to play in the EPA negotiations. However, signing of the FEPA has exposed
challenges that the Secretariat has to confront urgently to enable it play [sic] its role in the EPA negotiations.
Capacity has to be enhanced in the International Trade Department while concerted efforts are also being made to
manage, facilitate and backstop EPA negotiations both at the regional and the bilateral levels. The Secretariat’s
immediate needs are therefore capacity enhancements and mobilization of resources to facilitate the EPA
negotiations. At the moment both the capacity and the requisite resources are deficient” (EAC 2008b: 3).
133

documents from this period also routinely carried unambiguous reminders from the EU to the
Secretariat that the EPA should be its number one priority, such as these minutes from a joint
EU-EAC meeting: “The importance and urgency of some core [Secretariat] priorities was
underscored i.e. EPA negotiations” (EAC 2010c: 7, 10). The Secretariat’s conflict of interest did
not go unremarked upon in the East African press: “The EAC cannot have an independent and
open-minded decision during the negotiations because they are bound by the Swedish
sponsorship,” claimed one critic in a 2012 newspaper article, referring to Sweden’s direct
subsidies to EAC negotiators attending the EPA talks.
120

For those East African actors that were less enthusiastic about the EPA, there was a risk
that their development aid could be delayed or perhaps even cut off entirely. With the
negotiations at a standstill in 2007, the EU’s main vehicle for disbursing development funds to
East Africa, the 10
th
EDF, was substantially delayed for what EU Delegation officials claimed
were purely bureaucratic reasons.
121
While probably true, at the very least such a delay in the
disbursement of EU funding constituted an implicit threat for East African recipients.
Finally, in late 2014, the EU wielded its most potent cudgel. On October 1, 2014, in a
move some observers called “pure blackmail,”
122
the EU ended Kenya’s DFQF access to its
market, causing tariffs on Kenyan exports like cut flowers to spike overnight, rendering them
suddenly uncompetitive against rival Israeli and Colombian products. With Kenya threatening to
unilaterally sign its own EPA with the EU if necessary to restore its market access, East Africa’s
collective resistance crumbled. Two weeks later, the EU and the EAC finalized a comprehensive
EPA on October 16, 2014, some 12 years after negotiations had first begun. The final terms
allowed all EAC exports DFQF access to the EU market in exchange for East Africa gradually
removing tariffs and restrictions on incoming EU goods for 82.6% of its tariff lines (most tariff
reduction to take place within 15 years, a few reductions to take up to 25 years to be finalized).
Discussion of liberalizing trade in services as well as intellectual property rights was ultimately
postponed for subsequent discussion (“within five years”), but the EAC largely accepted the

120
Christabel Ligami, “”Which state will call the tune in EAC? The funding question,” The EastAfrican (Nairobi),
October 6, 2012.
121
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008.
122
Richard North, “Immigration: Kenya Gets an EU Shove,” EUReferendum.com, June 29, 2014.
134

EU’s terms in sensitive areas such as rules of origins, fisheries management, and most-favored
nation clauses.
Weary and disillusioned, even advocates of the deal sounded like they just wanted it all to
go away. Peter Kiguta, the Director General for Customs and Trade at the EAC Secretariat,
tepidly argued that “A bad agreement is better than no agreement.”
123
Even the EU’s
congratulatory press release sounded rather defensive in parts: “The deal is balanced and fully in
line with the EAC Common External Tariff. It supports the EAC’s ambitious regional
integration project and has what it takes to foster development.”
124

What overall conclusions can we draw from the processes that shaped the EU-EAC EPA
negotiations during the 2000s? Four points seem noteworthy. First, the rhetoric and practice of
the EU’s actions towards East Africa sometimes diverge, as seen most clearly through the
negotiating tactics the EU employed. This is not surprising per se, but the EU’s adoption of a
“divide and conquer” mentality that pitted Kenya (backed by the Secretariat and the EABC)
against the four LDCs provided a lot of fodder for critics of the EU’s foreign policy. If, as we
saw in Section 1.3, there is an ongoing scholarly debate between those who believe in
“normative power Europe,” where the EU is depicted as unilaterally rejecting power politics and
instead using normative suasion to advance its agenda, versus the adherents of “market power
Europe,” where the EU throws around its considerable economic muscle in order to secure
foreign policy victories, the East African EPA negotiations definitely seem to align with the
latter view.
The second point, though, is that even independent of the tactics the EU employed, it
would almost certainly have “won” the negotiations in any case because of the profound change
in the relative strength of the two regions in recent decades. We saw above how the EAC was
able to eke out a strategic victory in its trade negotiations with the EU during the 1960s. But
since then the EU has grown both more unified (at least when it comes to trade negotiations) and
far more powerful than the EAC.
Researchers have long known that presenting a unified front matters immensely in
region-to-region negotiations (Zartman 1971). And the Europeans were simply more united than

123
Joseph Olanyo, “EPA trade talks finalised amid civil society worries,” The Observer (Kampala), October 23,
2014.
124
See http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2009/january/tradoc_142194.pdf [last accessed June 22, 2016].
135

the East Africans throughout their discussions. The lead actor on the EU side for all the EPAs
was the Directorate-General for Trade (DG Trade) within the European Commission, and for the
most part all other European actors deferred to it throughout the EPA negotiations (Elgström
2009; Elgström & Larsén 2010). Occasionally the Directorate-General for Development, which
is usually responsible for Europe’s relations with ACP countries, sought to reinsert itself in the
process, and sporadically some EU member states prodded DG Trade to give more consideration
to development outcomes in the negotiations, but on the whole DG Trade “was given rather free
reins in its conduct of the negotiations” (Elgström 2009: 459, 464). By contrast, East Africa
remained as profoundly divided in the 2000s negotiations as it had been during the 1970s
(although this time more for structural reasons than ideological ones).
It is true that some portions of European civil society aligned themselves against the EU’s
conduct in the EPA negotiations. A number of European think tanks and other civil society
organizations intervened on behalf of the ACP countries, providing them with technical advice,
rhetorical solidarity, and moral support. Examples include the European Centre for
Development Policy Management, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the Stiftung Wissenscaft und
Politik, the South Centre, and others. Even more notably, British charity Oxfam led a wide-
reaching public information campaign called STOP EPAs that, inter alia, ran advertisements in
the United Kingdom decrying the EU’s negotiating posture (cf. Del Felice 2014). During my
fieldwork, I observed several European officials based in Tanzania paying attention to these
critiques emanating from European civil society, and sometimes even sympathizing with them
(see also Del Felice 2014: 159-160). Overall, however, while they may have slightly constrained
the European Commission at the margins, and certainly affected how the Commission
communicated its position on the EPAs, they did not decisively impact the overall negotiations,
at least in the case of East Africa.
The EU’s internal unity throughout the negotiations helped it, but the EU has also grown
dramatically more powerful than the EAC in recent decades (or, more precisely, the EAC has
been stagnating economically). To gauge the relative power of the two regions, I employ a very
crude proxy indicator: the EU’s GDP in a given year / the EAC’s GDP in a given year.
According to this rough measure, and based on the best historical data I was able to find, the total
size of Europe’s economy was about 37 times larger than East Africa’s in 1968, but over 126
136

times larger in 2014, an incredible increase (see Table 4.1 for details). Therefore, regardless of
the specifics of this or any other proxy indicator, it seems undeniable that the EU’s economic
power in comparison to the EAC’s increased by orders of magnitude between the 1960s and the
2000s.
If there is a partial silver lining for the EAC here, it is that the informational asymmetry
between it and the EU that was such a stark feature of their negotiations in the 1960s has
subsided, in no small part due to the efforts of the sympathetic European NGOs mentioned
above. For instance, a Nigerian official commented about European NGOs critical of the EPAs
that: “Their analysis and researches provided handy/ready insights to backstop the dearth of
studies, needed to guide African negotiators” (cited in Del Felice 2014: 160). Still, the
information asymmetry has not yet entirely dissipated: in 2008, the EABC bemoaned how little
knowledge the East African private sector had about the EPA negotiations and what its likely
impacts might be (2008c: 16-17).
Two other major takeaways from the EU-EAC EPA negotiations have to do with how
they overturn widely-held theoretical expectations about how regional integration should work.
The first common expectation that may be wrong is that the process of regional integration helps
member states achieve greater internal cohesion, which translates into an improved bargaining
position for the region when negotiating with the outside world.
125
The second putative
assumption that may be erroneous is that the process of conducting region-to-region negotiations
necessarily strengthens integration in a given region.
126

These are widely held assumptions. The common-sense idea that regional integration
schemes allow poorer, smaller countries to band together to provide a unified front when
negotiating with more powerful actors appears time and time again in the academic literature
(e.g. Prah 2001: 29; Mansfield & Solingen 2010: 151; Patterson 2013; Kiggundu & DeGhetto

125
In this implicit theoretical chain, regional integration is the independent variable and international negotiations
are the dependent variable: regional integration  greater internal cohesion  stronger bargaining position  better
negotiating outcomes.
126
Here, region-to-region negotiations are the independent variable and regional integration is the dependent
variable: region-to-region negotiations  greater discussion and coordination among a DWRO’s member countries
 strengthened regional integration.
137

2015: 306) and is also frequently cited by practitioners in East Africa, Europe, and elsewhere.
127

In practice, however, regional integration arguably weakened the internal cohesion of East
Africa, because it politically tied together states that had quite different structural economic
positions. The four East African LDCs, for instance, would likely have been able to obtain a
better outcome from the EU if they had not been in a political association with Kenya. For its
part, Kenya would likely not have experienced a few costly months of withdrawn access to the
EU market if it had been simply negotiating on its own. While I am not saying that regional
integration should not be pursued by developing countries, I am making the point that regional
integration’s impact on international negotiations will very much depend on a case-by-case basis,
and cannot be assumed ex ante. Contrary to theoretical expectations, regional integration does
not necessarily lead to a more unified, stronger bargaining position.
As for the putative linkage between participating in international negotiations as a region
and its expected positive impact on overall levels of regional integration, it did not pan out in the
years following the signing of the Arusha Accords (as we saw in Section 4.2), and it does not
seem to have panned out in the case of the EU-EAC EPA either. The conventional thinking is
usually that the very process of having to come up with joint positions and coordinated actions
within the negotiations will necessarily “spill over” to other aspects of regional integration. For
instance, increased communication among East Africa’s trade ministries as part of the EPA
process might set the groundwork for improved coordination on other outstanding problems.
Moreover, the negotiations might themselves bring up previously unconsidered opportunities for
joint state action, leading to a virtuous cycle. This unacknowledged functionalist logic, while
intuitively appealing, does not necessarily do a good job of explaining the actual dynamics of
regional organizations, be they in Europe or the developing world. Rather, the actual outcome of
the negotiations matters a great deal in helping to strengthen a given regional organization. If the
EPA negotiations had resulted in a stunning victory for the EAC, then it does seem possible that

127
An example of an East African politician making this claim can be found in a 2011 speech by Ugandan President
Museveni: “Although we are now members of EAC, most of the time [the East African countries] do not negotiate
together for African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA), or while negotiating with IMF, World Bank, Paris Club,
etc. Uganda negotiating alone is much weaker than would be the situation if we were negotiating as East Africa.”
See bullet point 3 in the speech written by President Yoweri Museveni, delivered by Prime Minister Amama
Mbabazi at the East African Legislative Assembly, June 29, 2011, and published in The New Vision (Kampala,
Uganda) and The African Executive.
138

regional integration would have been strengthened and that new areas for increased cooperation
would have opened up. But because the negotiations were a mostly a defeat for the EAC side,
and in particular because the EAC was both structurally divided as well as the subject of “divide-
and-conquer” tactics by the EU, the EPA negotiations almost certainly undermined East African
regionalism, at least in the short run.
All in all, then, the EPAs represent the limits of the EU’s commitment to regional
integration. When the EAC’s inaction impinged upon a core interest of the EU (staying WTO
compliant), the EU knowingly employed negotiating tactics that served to drive a wedge between
the members of the EAC, thereby retarding the region’s quest for political and economic
cohesiveness.

4.7 The EU as a Development Actor in East Africa: Angel, Demon… or Patron?
In a thoughtful discussion of the EPA saga, Elgström (2008) notes how most accounts of
the EU’s behavior during the negotiations depicted it as either an angel or a demon:
The Union is either portrayed as an angel, an actor with altruistic objectives, concerned primarily
with the economic and social development of ACP countries, or as a demon, an actor driven by
self-interest with an [sic] hidden agenda and using confrontational tactics. The first image is
mainly held by Commission officials, the second by NGO representatives.
Elgström concludes that in reality the EU’s true motivations lie somewhere in between these
extreme positions.
I agree with Elgström’s analysis, but I think that the debate surrounding the EPAs misses
the point in yet another way. A great deal of attention thus far has focused on the EU as a trade
actor in East Africa, but the EU’s principal role in contemporary East Africa is as a development
actor. What I mean by this is that the EU, and particularly the European Commission, nowadays
provides development assistance to East African states as well as to the EAC for the sake of
giving development assistance. The EU of course certainly hopes that its largesse will further a
number of additional goals it has for the region (improving growth and livelihoods, contributing
to peace and stability, ensuring its continued political influence, generating soft power, etc.), but
its core interest has become ensuring the continual, orderly flow of development funds.
I observed a number of incidents during my on-again, off-again fieldwork in Tanzania
between 2007 and 2010 that confirmed this belief. For instance, in field notes dated May 17,
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2010, I wrote about one instance where the EU Delegation in Tanzania tacitly admitted that
development had become its raison d’être:
The focus of the Delegation, as opposed to many other Western actors in Tanzania (private firms,
other embassies), is development. It is the Delegation’s bread and butter, its main area of
expertise, and the lens through which it views most issues it faces. Sometimes the focus can be a
bit myopic. In April 2010, when the Tanzanian government was revealing its Poverty Reduction
Strategy Paper (Mkukuta – a central policy document domestically but, equally important, a
document required by several major donors as a precondition for giving GBS [general budget
support]), it soon became clear to donors that the document was unrealistic and insufficient.
(Among other things, the document assumed a 9% average growth rate for the 2010-2015 period,
stated that Tanzania would double its electricity production over the same period—having only
added 10% to its capacity over the previous two years—and claimed that Tanzania would swiftly
upgrade all of its railroads to regional standards. All of these were hopelessly optimistic or
completely divorced from reality, depending on who you spoke to). The World Bank office in
Tanzania realized this, and knowing that the document would have to be presented to its Board in
Washington (who would not take kindly to such an inadequate document), bucked the traditional
intra-donor consultation process by unilaterally drafting a twenty-page note laying out in detail the
document’s numerous flaws. At an internal meeting, the EU Delegation considered how to
respond to the WB’s critique. Almost all the EU staff acknowledged the flaws in the Mkukuta
document, but most staff quickly moved towards taking a conciliatory tone with the Tanzanian
government and seeking gradual modifications, because were they to legally deem the document
“not credible” then they would have to suspend their GBS payments to Tanzania, which amount to
millions of euros per year, and are arguably the Delegation’s chief reason for existing.
In contrast, then, to conventional post-colonial accounts of how powerful Western donors
employ conditionality to force neoliberalism on reluctant African states, this incident forces us to
consider the possibility that sometimes the tail may be wagging the dog: in other words, the EU-
EAC donor-recipient relationship may actually constrain the EU in some ways (cf. Girod &
Tobin 2016).
Other types of evidence support this developmentalist understanding of contemporary
EU-EAC relations. For starters, the EU Delegation in Dar es Salaam is unusual among Western
embassies in the city in having a Contracts section (which handles the disbursement of aid) that
is significantly bigger than its Politics-Economics section.
128
As we have seen, incredibly large
amounts of development assistance flow through the EU Delegation in Tanzania—indeed,
sometimes more than officials there would like! The need to spend money effectively in a low-

128
This may partially be a reflection of Tanzania’s unique status as an internationally-recognized “donor darling”—
i.e. a developing country that Western countries feel justified in sending particularly high amounts of aid to because
of its demonstrated need, political stability, and decent macro-economic conditions. Neighboring Burundi, in
contrast, arguably needs development assistance even more than Tanzania, but has not received as much (in both
absolute and per capita terms) because of continued political instability. While Tanzania’s bounty during the 2000s
may be an exceptional case, its “donor darling” status nevertheless had broader knock-on effects for the EAC
because Tanzania hosted the EAC’s Headquarters, probably causing the DWRO to receive more money than it
would otherwise have.
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capacity, high-risk environment while under intense pressure and scrutiny from HQ and while
minimizing waste and corruption was probably the biggest preoccupation I heard mentioned by
European officials in Tanzania who worked on development issues. Occasionally, the
circumstances would call for “creative thinking” on the part of European Union Delegation
officials. For instance, in 2008 Delegation officials were keen to spend an envelope of money
called the Regional Information and Communication Technologies Support Programme
(RICTSP), which was intended to strengthen intraregional infrastructural linkages, particularly in
the IT domain. Facing a lack of suitable projects, however, they instead used part of the money
to finance a redevelopment of the EAC’s website, which probably fell outside the intended
spending parameters.
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At other times, the need to find additional ways to spend all of the development funds in
its possession has made it so that the EU in effect pays East African organizations to ask it for
more money. For instance, in 2011 the GIZ provided training to EAC staffers on “proposal
writing,” with the unspoken expectation that many grant proposals would subsequently be sent to
Europe. GIZ also proudly noted in 2012 that “as a result of support [from GIZ’s gender program
team in Arusha], the EAC was able to secure additional funds from other donors to start
implementation on the [Gender and Community] strategic plan” (GIZ 2012: 36). These are not
atypical cases; rather, it is clear that a self-perpetuating system of EU aid begetting more EU aid
is today considered normal and desireable by all parties involved. As a European Delegation
official in Dar es Salaam put it in a discussion of a new pool of EU money becoming available to
DWROs: “No figures for the EAC[’s allotment] are available yet, and indeed the EAC is
currently only at the stage where they’ve hired consultants to do an analysis of the situation to
help them figure out how they should go about securing funding from us.”
130
I should be clear
here that I am not necessarily objecting to the EAC receiving (ever more) donor funds here. But
I do find the process by which this occurs problematic, however—it seems both inefficient and
arguably demeaning for East Africans to have to engage in a perpetual cycle of grant requests
begetting further grant requests.
131
Furthermore, such a system may stymie actually meaningful

129
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008.
130
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008.
131
University researchers may be especially likely to share my concerns with such a system, since it can also be
found it considerable swathes of academia.
141

reforms, since the ability to write convincing grant proposals itself becomes the main measure of
success.
If I have been correct in arguing that the EU’s bond with East Africa today is best
conceived of as a patron-advisee relationship (which ascribes somewhat less power and agency
to the EU than the usual “donor-recipient” description), what does this imply for the specific
connection between the EU Commission and the EAC Secretariat? While the European
Commission does have a long-standing commitment to regional integration, the Commission is
arguably first and foremost interested in transforming the Secretariat into a safe, reliable, on-
the-ground partner to help it disburse development funds (cf. Bachmann & Sidaway 2010: 2).
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We already discussed above the heavy emphasis the EU has laid on having the Secretariat
improve its public financial management capabilities. But the Commission’s interest in the EAC
Secretariat goes well beyond that. On the basis of the overall Commission-Secretariat
partnership, it would not be unfair to conclude that the Commission has decided that reshaping
the Secretariat in its own image would make it an even more ideal local counterpart.
Accordingly, the EU has repeatedly encouraged the Secretariat to adopt its institutional forms
and practices, and the Secretariat seems to be emulating the Commission ever more in terms of
its: internal organization; priorities; ideology; daily practices; and discourses.
Organizationally, consider a recent report that the EU has encouraged to the Secretariat to
become a “commission”: “It has been proposed that in order to revamp its structure and expand
its competences, the Secretariat should be turned into a commission constituted by
commissioners from each member state, to be headed by a president appointed by the
commissioners” (Ogola et al. 2015: 338). While a cosmetic name change would be suggestive
but not necessarily revolutionary, upgrading the EAC Secretariat’s existing nationally-selected
vice-presidents to full-blown commissioners would clearly constitute an attempt to strengthen

132
The Secretariat receives the bulk of the EU’s funding and attention, but the EU has also sought to partner with
other EAC organs, most notably the EABC, but also to a lesser extent the EALA, the EACJ, and the Lake Victoria
Basin Commission. The EAC’s actual member states are sometimes an afterthought, however… literally in the case
of a recent German official’s end-of-the-year acknowledgments: “I note with satisfaction from last year’s
programme review that GIZ’s support has been highly appreciated by our partners. In particular, the technical
competence of staff and experts, the commitment and complementarities of regional and international staff, the
flexibility of the approach, the long-term support and the trustworthy and frank working relationships were
commended. I would like to express my highest appreciation to the EAC Secretariat, to the representatives of the
Partner States as well to the programme team of GIZ for the excellent results which we find documented in this
report over the past three years” (GIZ 2012: 4).
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the Secretariat at the expense of the Summit, bringing the intra-EAC power balance more in line
with the EU model.
In terms of priorities, the EU has occasionally used its power of the purse to foist its own
agenda on a reluctant Secretariat. Perhaps the clearest case is the EAC’s begrudging recent
move to prioritize strengthening intellectual property rights regimes in East Africa. Given that
there seems to be few constituencies in East Africa lobbying for action in this area, it seems
likely the impetus is arising from external donors. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the Secretariat’s
funding for work on intellectual property rights seems to be coming from GIZ and other Western
donors (GIZ 2012: 22-23). This is a case where the EU’s high-level talk of local ownership of
development projects may be honored more in the breach (Bachmann & Sidaway 2010: 3).
Ideologically, the strengthening of the Secretariat’s working relationship with the
Commission has arguably correlated with a shift towards more technocratic and neo-liberal
principles. The EAC Secretariat seems to be imbibing the technocratic attitudes the European
Commission is (in)famous for. For instance, senior EAC civil servants seem to have changed
their minds about how problematic the unequal distribution of gains may be for the EAC’s
member states. When the EAC was relaunched in 2000, this was a topic of considerable
discussion among policy-makers, since unequal benefits were seen as a contributing factor to the
breakup of the first EAC (see Section 5.4). But in 2004 a senior official in the Secretariat
suggested that perhaps well-written reports could assuage popular fears about potential unequal
gains: “The response to the concern [of unequal benefits] depends to a greater extent on whether
or not the EAC Partner States [sic] decision makers and other stakeholders are convinced in
coherent manner based on analytical research and are ready to triumph over the past experiences
that feed in to [sic] fears for the present and future” (Musonda 2004: 79, emphasis added).
I discuss the Secretariat’s sympathy for the export-oriented coalition in greater detail in
Chapter 7, but for now let us note that the Secretariat usually places trade-related items at the top
of its agenda (as opposed to political, cultural, and social reforms), and that the EU claims partial
credit for this: “The GIZ programmes contributions to the EAC Secretariat were not only
facilitating, but pro-actively promoting certain controversial policies and topics (e.g. trade in
services and worker mobility, Non-Tariff Barriers removal enforcement, Business Climate
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Index), thus strengthening the capacity and reputation of the Secretariat in handling integration
processes competently” (GIZ 2012: 4).
The EU has also taken a keen interest in the Secretariat’s daily practices and standard
operating procedures, above and beyond its public financial management routines. The
Partnership Fund group regularly writes statements like “EAC practices should be updated, with
reflection to practices in other regional communities like the EU” (EAC 2010c: 10). And the
amount of handholding donors perform for the Secretariat is startling when viewed from the
outside. The minutes of the Partnership Fund meetings routinely record discussions of how
columns should best be represented in official reports for clear and concise dissemination of
information (EAC 2010c: 6; EAC 2014a: 6). It is not so much that the requested changes are
unreasonable, so much as that they demonstrate an almost tutelage of the Secretariat by the
Commission.
Lastly, the change in the EAC’s discourses are perhaps one of the clearest indicators that
the EU’s money is having an impact in East Africa. The adoption of a number of originally EU-
specific terms by EAC staff is evidence of the discursive socialization of East Africans by the
EU. Consider the below list, which features six technical terms that originated in a specifically
EU context and have since been applied to the EAC:
- “variable geometry” – This term appears twice in the 1999 EAC Treaty. In the
original EU context, it refers to the idea that not all member states of a regional
organization need to implement policies at the same pace; some may advance more
quickly in an agreed-upon direction than others.
- “common foreign and security policy/ies” – This term appears four times in the 1999
EAC Treaty (cf. Kasaija 2004: 24). One of the three so-called “pillars of the EU”
created in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty, CFSP refers to efforts to harmonize the
foreign policy policies and decision-making of EU member states.
- “principle of subsidiarity” – This phrase appears twice in the 1999 EAC Treaty.
While the general idea of subsidiarity—the idea that political matters are best dealt
with at the lowest level possible—is a long-standing one, with several expressions in
19
th
-century Catholic social teaching, the formal “principle of subsidiarity” is most
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associated with EU governance and was enshrined in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. For
an application of the concept to the EAC, see Musonda 2004: 234-239.
- “acquis communautaire” – This term appears several times in the 2007 EAC
(English-language) accession treaties for Rwanda and Burundi. In the EU, the term
refers to the body of existing EU legislation that prospective members must agree to
before being able to join, and was used in the same manner in the EAC treaties.
- “democratic deficit” – This term refers to the need for the EAC to overcome a
perceived illegitimacy owing to its undemocratic procedures and has been used in
scholarly commentary on the organization (e.g. Musonda 2004: 238; Jonyo 2012).
Perhaps more tellingly, “democratic deficit” has appeared in EAC reports (EAC
2010d: 3, 22), and even been used by several of its Secretaries General, as when
Sezibera argued against holding region-wide parliamentary elections.
133
One of the
first uses of the term was in 1979, when David Marquand initially applied it to the
European Union, but it has gained widespread currency since—a rare but welcome
example of a scholarly innovation having significant policy consequences.
- “guardian of the treaty” – This term arose early on in European Community
jurisprudence to describe the important role envisioned for the European Commission
as one of the ultimate guarantors of European integration efforts, and has since been
applied in a similar manner to the EAC Secretariat by a number of scholars (e.g.
Ogola et al. 2015: 338).
- “widening vs. deepening” – While broadly used nowadays to refer to the tradeoff a
regional organization faces between either expanding its membership (widening) or
seeking more profound policy integration among the existing members (deepening),
this term was first applied to the EU. It has now been employed by analysts writing
about the EAC (e.g. Kamanyi 2006: 2; GIZ 2011: 4), and has even reached the
general East African public, as evinced by a robust online debate.
134

133
“Richard Sezibera: Not by halves, says EAC boss,” The Financial Times (London), by Katrina Manson,
November 29, 2011. For a separate usage by Sezibera’s predecessor, see Mwapachu (2007: 3).
134
See “This House would widen the East African Community,” available at:
http://dni.idebate.org/debatabase/debates/international/africa/house-would-widen-east-african-community [last
accessed April 13, 2016].
145

While ideally this discursive spillover from the EU to the EAC would be studied more
systematically (see Section 8.8 for precisely such a research proposal), I nevertheless think the
re-circulation of these quite specific and technical EU terms constitutes prima facie evidence that
EU’s discourses—and probably practices and policy ideas as well—are either rubbing off onto
the EAC or being tactically taken up by it to ensure continued funding. Either way, the EU’s
money is having a definite impact on the region.
But is this impact normatively good? Is the EU’s clientilistic embrace of the Secretariat
good for the organization, or for the cause of East African regionalism more generally? In the
only other empirical examination of contemporary EU-EAC relations besides mine, Bachmann
& Sidaway (2010: 2-5) argue that the very close relationship between the Commission and the
Secretariat is “problematic at best.” Discussing an EU-funded and EU-led energy project in the
region, they note that “key individuals involved in the process… remarked how the key reason
for the [EAC’s] approval of the project arose from the prospect of attracting significant donor
funding; a thorough review of the details and full implications did not take place on the part of
decision makers. These expectations arose from the early donor engagement in the process. One
informant claimed that ‘the ministers had no idea what they adopted.’” In other words, they
reveal how large sums of external money are altering the incentives of East African actors—the
classic centerpiece of post-colonial theorizing. Bachmann & Sidaway (2010: 3) go on to cite
Mark Hobart as writing that “development [is] a big business. [It] is very profitable not just to
the western industries involved, but to those parts of governments which receive aid, let alone to
development agencies.” Given that we saw in Section 5.4 above that East Africa receives
billions of dollars in development assistance every year, the very close partnership between the
EU and the Secretariat, ostensibly aimed at preventing corruption, may instead perpetuate a
“business as usual” relationship that is profitable to all involved.
A different critical way of thinking about the contemporary EU-EAC relationship is to
acknowledge that DWROs face a trade-off between capabilities and legitimacy. It is undeniable
that the EU’s capacity-building efforts have—however inefficient or off-target they might
appear—led to a profound upgrading of the EAC’s capabilities compared to both its previous
iteration as well as other DWROs around the world. The EAC’s comfortable headquarters,
sophisticated equipment, and higher salaries do make it more capable of achieving its goals. But
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since over half of these things come directly from the European Union, they gradually erode the
EAC’s legitimacy and independence. East African civil society has been voicing its displeasure
with this state of affairs for years: Tanzanian think tanks bitterly complain about the degree of
control donors have in shaping East Africa’s priorities (ESRF 2013: 3; see also Nurse & Wight
2011), while East African newspapers rail against the EAC’s dependency on external donors.
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In partially reshaping the Secretariat in its own image, the Commission has ignored the political
and symbolic consequences of its actions, potentially jeopardizing the future course of regional
integration in East Africa. And yet, not a single EU document that I read while researching this
dissertation acknowledged that this trade-off between capabilities and legitimacy might exist, or
expressed any reservations about the Commission’s crushing bear-hug of the Secretariat.

4.8 Post-Colonialism in 2015: Tracing Changes in the EU-EAC Relationship over the Decades
The overall goal of this chapter has been to assess the validity of post-colonial theories of
DWRO formation and maintenance by comparing two different moments in EU-EAC relations:
1960-1970 and 2005-2015. Part of the difficulty in making that assessment is the generally
underspecified nature of post-colonial theories. Scholars do not always clearly state the
observable implications of their post-colonial theories, and the situation is even more inchoate in
popular deployments of post-colonial theory. There is therefore a pretty wide range of theories
that fall under the broad umbrella of “post-colonial,” running the gamut from the very crude to
the very sophisticated.
On the cruder end of the spectrum, some critics of the EU contend that its interest in East
Africa is driven by profit considerations, and that the formal end of colonialism in the 1960s
simply ushered in an era of neo-colonialism, wherein the EU’s influence over East African
politics is more veiled than before but just as potent. These cruder versions of the neo-colonial
argument stress the EU’s greed, the EU’s power, the EAC’s helplessness, and constancy in the
Europe-East Africa relationship.
More sophisticated versions of the post-colonial argument deployed by scholars tend to
have much more limited claims. Rather than focusing on trade, they tend to consider the on-the-

135
“East Africa: EAC Budget Dependent on Donors,” Arusha Times, June 2, 2012; Isaac Mwangi, “East Africa:
Donor Funds – Why Can’t the EAC Fund Its Own Regional Agenda?”, The EastAfrican (Nairobi), April 9, 2016.
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ground impacts of the EU’s development assistance, which can at times distort local incentives.
They also examine the tradeoff between capability and legitimacy—when the EU swoops in and
provides substantial funding to “build capacity” in an East African organization, the increased
capabilities may come at the expense of the organization’s independence and, ultimately,
legitimacy in the eyes of the wider community. And they note that the EU’s actions are usually
not taken with a Benthamite eye towards the “greatest good for the greatest number of people”—
more typically, particularistic interests trump utilitarian ones.
All in all, my research has found little evidence to support the cruder versions of the post-
colonial argument, but a great deal to corroborate more sophisticated post-colonial theories.
Pace crude post-colonial arguments, it is simply not true that one can draw a straight line from
British imperialism in the 1950s to alleged EU/IMF/WB neo-colonialism today. There have
been significant changes in Europe-East Africa relations over the decades that cannot be
imagined away. Most notably, both sides seem to have considered the trade negotiations in the
1970s as a meeting of rough equals, which does not tidily fit into narrative of a powerful EU
systematically taking advantage of a weak East Africa. Similarly, alleging that Europe has
always sought to financially benefit from East Africa is far too reductionist. While it is true that
the EEC primarily considered East Africa through a trade lens during the 1960s and 70s,
136
I
have argued that there has since been a profound shift, and that today the EU’s primary way of
approaching East Africa qua region is from a developmentalist perspective, fundamentally
driven by a need to disburse development funds. Indeed, for the EU trade with East Africa has
become insignificant: only 0.2% of the EU’s trade in 2015 was with the EAC-5 (DG-Trade 2016:
2). In this light, the EPA negotiations are the exception, not the rule: a time where DG Trade
wrested the relationship out of the hands of DG Development and, under intense pressure from
the WTO, rammed a trade deal down the throats of reluctant East African countries. At the end
of the day, however, whatever the negative final impact of the EPA may be on East African
companies, governments, and consumers, it is unlikely to outweigh the $2.5 billion the EAC-5
receive in official development assistance every year from the EU (see Figure 4.7).

136
Over 90% of European Commission documents from the 1960s preserved in the Barbara Sloan archive at the
University of Pittsburgh explicitly focus on trade matters, especially the EU-EAC trade negotiations.
148

My research did corroborate more sophisticated versions of the post-colonial argument. I
think it is undeniable that the hundreds of millions of dollars the EU has spent on regional
integration has distorted the incentives of local actors: for East African bureaucrats, national
officials, business lobbies, and civil society organizations alike, the EU’s commitment to the
EAC is “big business,” and is treated as such. The EAC is ever more clearly adopting an EU-
style vision of regional integration, to the point where today it now out-EU’s the EU in some
policy areas, most notably monetary integration. As a result of EU money, the Secretariat is
looking and sounding more like the European Commission with every passing year, which
further separates it from the realities ordinary East Africans—who have never heard of the
EAC—face day-to-day.
137

Ultimately, probably the biggest shift in EU-EAC relations over the decades is how
taken-for-granted they are today by all sides. It is easy to forget, but in the 1960s the EEC’s
trade negotiations with East Africa were a pretty low priority, especially for the EEC. Indeed,
the EEC came pretty close to passing on the whole thing between 1962 and 1966, preferring to
walk away from East African negotiators who kept changing their minds and going back on
previously established points. And it would have been unthinkable in both regions for the EEC
to literally construct the EAC’s headquarters, or to contribute the bulk of the EAC’s budget.
But today it is impossible to imagine the EU not having a formal region-to-region
relationship with East Africa (or any other part of the developing world, for that matter).
Throughout the 2000s, East African officials objected vociferously to specific terms in the
proposed EPA, and even to the need for an EPA in general, but at no point did they call into
question the very concept of there being a formal EU-EAC relationship. Despite the turbulence
of the EPA negotiations, all the parties agreed on the baseline: that there should be a regular,
institutionalized high-level dialogue between the EU and the EAC; that there should be a day-to-
day working relationship between the EAC Secretariat and the European Commission; that East
African exporters should continue to receive DFQF access to the EU market indefinitely; and
that the EU should continue to provide significant amounts of development assistance to East
Africa. Viewed in this light, all the huss and fuss was simply quibbling over the details!

137
Specifically, the joint EU-EAC obsession with trade is arguably short-sighted, given that only a small fraction of
East African livelihoods come from trade-related sectors. Concentrating instead on policy areas like agriculture and
urban development would have a more tangible impact on the life of the median East African.
149

In 1962, Tanganyika’s Prime Minister was able to walk into a major international
conference and boldly spurn what was seen as an unfair trade deal from the EU, instead proudly
declaring that “East Africa has something to offer. We are not just bare-handed. We produce
goods which people want.” In 2015, that tragically no longer seems to be the case, and it is
difficult to envision the East African Community openly rebuffing Europe like it did at that long-
ago conference in London.
150

Table 4.1: Major Features of Negotiations Between East Africa and Europe, Then and Now

Feature EAC-EEC Relations in the 1960s EAC-EU Relations in the 2000s

Main Forms of
Interaction
Formal region-to-region talks.
Formal region-to-region talks, alongside extensive day-
to-day interactions.
Principal Goal of Each
Side
For EAC, gain improved access to
European market while maintaining
diplomatic freedom of action; for EEC, gain
improved access to East African market and
not upset other African associates.
For EAC, maintain DFQF access to European market
without having to make any trade or policy concessions;
for EU, gain improved access to East African market and
bring EU-EAC trading relationship into compliance with
WTO rules.
Key Negotiating Tactics
For EAC, appeals to emerging international
norms; for EEC, “take it or leave it.”
For EAC, foot-dragging and normative appeals; for EU,
“divide and conquer,” pushing for greater EAC
Secretariat and EABC involvement.
Main Actor on Each Side
For EAC, Ministers of Trade;
138
for EEC,
Council of Ministers.
139

For the EAC, the respective heads of state; for EU,
Directorate-General Trade of the European Commission
Role of Civil Society
Minimal for both sides, except for some
consultation with private sector.
In East Africa, business groups heavily lobbied national
governments and the EAC. In Europe, several European
civil society organizations campaigned on behalf of ACP
countries to “STOP EPAs”.
Most Commonly Cited
Parallels
For EEC, Lagos Convention and Yaoundé
Convention; for EAC, none—negotiations
were deemed sui generis.
For EAC, Lomé and Cotonou Agreements; for EU, EPAs
signed with other ACP regions.
Internal Political
Cohesion of Each Side
Both EAC and EEC struggled to advance
common positions.
EAC structurally divided, which was exacerbated by EU
actions; EU had high internal cohesion.

138
Interestingly, there is no record of the East African heads of state ever directly intervening in the EAC-EEC negotiations; everything seems to have been
handled at the ministerial level.
139
While the European Commission was ostensibly the EEC’s lead negotiator, it proved unable to actually drive the negotiations, which were characterized
instead by a fair amount of member state initiatives and bickering.
151

Degree of Technical
Capacity of Each Side
For EAC, low (particularly with regards to
information about the outside world); for
EEC, high.
For EAC, low-to-medium; for EU, very high.
Proxy Measure of
European Power Relative
to East African Power
140

In 1968:
141

37:1
In 2014:
142

126:1
Monetary Amounts at
Stake in Negotiations
For the EAC, anticipated trade preferences
were valued at about $25 million (in 2014
USD);
143
the EAC did not request any
foreign aid. For the EEC, anticipated trade
preferences were not expected to exceed $1
million (in 2014 USD).
144

Once full liberalization is in place, it is expected that the
EPA could lead to an increase in EU exports to the EAC-
5 on the order of $647.7 million every year (in 2014
USD).
145
The initial fiscal impact of losing substantial
tariff revenues for the governments of the EAC-5 was

140
Historically, the key source of power in EU-EAC relations has never been military, but rather economic. Accordingly, I propose using EU GDP / EAC GDP
as a very simple proxy measure for the EU’s power relative to East Africa’s power. It has the advantages of both being clear and being easily comparable over
time.
141
Arowolo (1970: 48) cites a 1968 IMF estimate of the regional GDP of the EAC-3 as 2.74 billion (in 1968 USD). Separately, World Bank data shows the
EEC’s GDP in 1968 was about 687 billion (in 2014 USD). Assuming that inflation in the US has been such that 1 USD in 1968 is worth approximately 6.80
USD in 2014, the World Bank data suggests a regional GDP for the EEC-6 of about 101 billion in 1968 USD.
142
World Bank data for 2014 had the EU-28’s regional GDP at $18.51 trillion, and the EAC-5’s regional GDP at $146 billion (all in 2014 USD).
143
Relatively few analyses of the economic impact of the trade agreement seem to have been conducted (either prospective or retrospective). A back-of-the-
envelope calculation by Helleiner (1968: 38-39) yielded an estimated annual increase in East Africa’s trade with the EEC of £1,188,500 on the basis of data from
1965. Assuming an exchange rate of 1 GBP = 2.8 USD prior to the 1967 British devaluation, and inflation in the US such that 1 USD in 1965 is worth
approximately 7.52 USD in 2014, you arrive at about 25 million USD.
144
Helleiner (1968: 40) claimed that it was “highly unlikely” that East Africa’s trade concessions to the EEC would exceed those offered by Nigeria as part of the
Lagos Convention of 1966, which he estimated to be worth approximately £50,000 in 1965. Assuming the same exchange and inflation rates as in the previous
footnote, this generates an upper bound for the EEC’s annual expected trade benefits of about $1 million (in 2014 USD).
145
Given the potentially large economic impact and political salience of the EAC-EU EPA, there have been shockingly few publicly available estimates of the
likely economic consequences of the agreement (cf. Bilal 2002: 6-8). This is probably partially due to the late formation of the EAC grouping, causing the EAC
EPA to not be considered in the initial waves of impact assessment reports. Here I report a calculation based on estimates originally produced by the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa and reported in Fontagné et al. (2008: 103-104). This calculation represents a baseline scenario (the authors’ H1) and
assumes trade liberalization has fully been implemented (i.e. in 2039, 25 years after the signature of the EPA). It reports how much the value of annual EU
imports into the EAC-5 would increase over the 2008 baseline. There are dozens of other ways in which the economic impact of an EPA could be calculated—
impact on EAC exports, trade creation vs. trade diversion, impact on consumer prices, overall welfare gains/losses—and Fontagné et al. (2008) provide some
data for those, but the most significant impacts are likely to be on EU imports and on the finances of EAC governments owing to lost tariff incomes, so I focus on
152

estimated to be around $109.5 million (in 2014 USD).
146

As liberalization proceeded, the annual lost tariff revenue
for the EAC-5 could reach approximately $244.9 million
(in 2014 USD). The EU’s total ODA to the EAC-5 in
2014 was approximately $2.58 billion per year.
147

Expected Duration of
Agreement
5 years Permanent
Duration of Formal Trade
Negotiations
4 years (Feb. 1964 – July 1968) 12 years (April 2002 - Oct. 2014)
148

Outcome of Negotiations
Compromise favorable to EAC;
“particularly friendly” relations between
EEC and EAC in 1971
149

EAC forced to sign EPA; a “souring” atmosphere where
the EPA negotiations have a “wider negative impact on
the overall Africa-Europe relationship” in 2013
150

Degree of
Institutionalization
Specified in Final
Agreement
Thin (at EAC’s request) Thick (at EU’s request)

those two categories here. Summing up individual 2008 figures for Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, I get €372.9 million per year, which taking
into account historical exchange rates and inflation works out to roughly $647 million.
146
Fontagné et al. (2008: 111-112, converted into 2014 USD). A number of estimates by other authors, created with different data, assumptions, and
methodologies, nevertheless yield roughly comparable orders of magnitude. Bilal & Rampa (2006: 129) report the likely annual fiscal impact to be about $190.9
million for the EAC-5 (converted into 2014 USD). Bilal & Roza (2007: 10) provide an annual estimate of $37.1 million for Tanzania and $10.9 million for
Uganda (both converted into 2014 USD), which would amount to about 2% of each government’s total revenue in 2007. See, however, the discussion of the
considerable uncertainty surrounding these numbers provided on pages 11-12, and the authors’ note that using different assumptions they find that Tanzania’s
fiscal loss could be as high as $166.7 million (converted into 2014 USD). This is in line with one of the authors’ previous efforts to estimate the likely fiscal
impact of the EAC-EU EPA, which had yielded a guess that Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania could lose on the order of 12, 16, and 20% of their total governmental
revenue, respectively (Bilal 2002: 37). For further discussions of this topic, see also: McKay et al. (2000); Mkenda & Hangi (2009).
147
Source: OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database.
148
The East African states began negotiating EPAs with the EU in 2002, but the EU-EAC negotiating configuration did not begin until November 2007. If one
uses that as the start date, the negotiations lasted 7 years.
149
Note BIO (71) 70 aux Bureaux nationaux, 5/14/1971, Brussels; located in Folder 441.2(251), Barbara Sloan European Union Document Collection,
University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh. Author’s translation from the French
150
Ramdoo & Bilal (2013: 2).
153

0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.2: Net ODA to Burundi by Donor,
1999-2014 (in millions of constant US dollars)
EU
Other
UN
WB
Global Fund
AfDB
US
154

0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.3: Net ODA to Kenya by Donor,
1999-2014 (in millions of constant US dollars)
EU
Other
UN
WB
Global Fund
AfDB
US
155

0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.4: Net ODA to Rwanda by Donor,
1999-2014 (in millions of constant US dollars)
EU
Other
UN
WB
Global Fund
AfDB
US
156

0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.5: Net ODA to Tanzania by Donor,
1999-2014 (in millions of constant US dollars)
EU
Other
UN
WB
Global Fund
AfDB
US
157

0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.6: Net ODA in Uganda by Donor,
1999-2014 (in millions of constant US dollars)
EU
Other
UN
WB
Global Fund
AfDB
US
158

0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.7: Net ODA to EAC-5 by Donor,
1999-2014 (in millions of constant US dollars)
EU
Other
UN
WB
Global Fund
AfDB
US
159

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.8: The EU as a Donor in East Africa, 1999-2014
EU ODA as % of Total ODA to EAC-5
EU ODA as % of Gross Regional Income
160

16.4%
5.1%
3.6%
16.4%
3.9%
14.4%
31.7%
8.6%
Figure 4.9: Percentage of Total ODA Given by Donor
over 1999-2014 Period
US
AfDB
Global Fund
WB
UN
Other
EU Member States
EU Institutions
161

Figure 4.10: EU Spending on Regional Integration Around the World, 1996-2013

Source: European Court of Auditors (2009: 10)
N.B. The row referred to as “East Africa” actually lumps together financial support provided to the EAC, COMESA, IGAD, and the IOC. I estimate that the
EAC received about 30% of the envelope’s funding. Additionally, all EAC member states except Tanzania receive additional support via their membership
in COMESA. The distinction between the “REI” and “Total” columns indicate what amount of total spending on regional integration went directly towards
financing economic integration (as opposed to purely political or cultural integration).
162

Table 4.11: Sources of Financing for the EAC Budget, 2005-2015 (in millions USD)

Sources: EAC (2014b:8); EAC (2014?: 87-89)
* Figures for FY 14/15 are estimates.
N.B. Chart underestimates financial assistance from external donors to East African integration by not including projects that do not go through official
EAC channels. Rows do not necessarily sum to the annual total because the EAC may also receive other types of income.
06/07 21.6 14.4 6.6 31%
07/08 32.0 22.2 6.1 19%
08/09 49.0 24.4 16.1 33%
09/10 63.1 28.0 26.2 42%
10/11 78.6 30.8 47.7 61%
11/12 124.3 34.0 90.3 73%
12/13 125.0 37.5 80.0 64%
13/14 133.3 43.1 90.2 68%
14/15* 124.1 47.0 73.2 59%
2006-2015: Total 751.0 281.4 436.4 58% (Average of Yearly Percentages: 50%)
2006-2015: % Increase 475% 226% 1009%
Contributions from
Member States
Contributions from
External Donors
% Total Budget from External Donors Financial Year Total EAC Budget
163

Figure 4.12: A Visual Depiction of EU-EAC Cooperation

Source: GIZ (2012): 10
164

Table 4.13: Selected High Profile EU-Sponsored Policy Reports in East Africa, 2007-2014

Date
Primary Institutional
Author
Primary
Source of
Funding
Report Title Key Policy Recommendation
September
2007
World Bank Netherlands
“Options for Strengthening East African
Community’s Trade Integration”
Conclude EPA Negotiations, p.
vii
September
2008
World Bank World Bank
“Non-Tariff Measures on Goods Trade in
the East African Community”
Prevent new NTMs, p. 12
2009?
Trade and Investment
Consortium
GTZ
“Monitoring Mechanism for Elimination
of Non-Tariff Barriers in EAC”
Set up a monitoring mechanism
for NTBs, p. 3
January
2009
CPCS Transcom
Limited
EAC
Partnership
Fund
“East African Railways Master Plan
Study”
Expand rail networks to meet the
growing needs of East African
economy, p. v
July 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers ?
“Aid for Trade: Making Trade Effective
for Development - Case Studies for
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda”
Establish a trade policy council,
which would analyze and
monitor the risks of ongoing
trade integration, p. 75
July 2009 Ernst & Young
EAC
Partnership
Fund
“Study on the Promotion of Small and
Medium Enterprises in the East African
Region”
Tax administration should be
simplified and made more
transparent to encourage SMEs
to comply, p. 8
October
2009
Economic Commission
for Africa
Economic
Commission
for Africa
“Gender Dimensions of Cross Border
Trade in the East African Community -
Kenya/Uganda and Rwanda/Burundi
Border”
Create a regional mechanism to
address mistreatment of female
cross-border small traders, p. 51
165

October
2009
GTZ GTZ
“Tax Systems and Tax Harmonisation in
the East African Community (EAC)”
Develop a VAT model for use
across the EAC, p. 4
January
2010
GTZ GTZ
“Regional Agricultural Trade in East
Africa: A focus on Kenya, Tanzania and
Uganda”
EAC members should remove
export bans on agricultural
products, pp. 9-10
February
2010
European Central Bank
EAC
Partnership
Fund
Donors
“Study on the establishment of a
monetary union among the Partner States
of the East African Community”
Create an East African Central
Bank to provide centralized
decision-making on monetary
and exchange rate policies, p. 23
June 2010
CUTS Geneva Resource
Centre
GTZ
“The Non ‐Tariff Barriers in Trading
Within the East African Community”
Improve infrastructure to lower
costs of business, p. 23
May 2014 EAC Secretariat GTZ
“Regional Scoping Study to Identify
Potential Areas for Intervention by the
EAC Secretariat on Renewable Energy
and Energy Efficiency”
Create a regional market for
renewable energy/energy
efficiency, p. 5
July 2014 EAC Secretariat GTZ
“Assessment Study on the Need for a
Centre for the Development of Regional
Industries in the EAC Region”
Map major industrial sectors in
East Africa to identify supply
and demand gaps, bottlenecks,
and constraints facing the value
chains, p. 11
August
2014
EAC Secretariat GTZ
“Situational Analysis and Feasibility
Study of Options for Harmonization of
Social Health Protection Systems
Towards Universal Health Coverage in
the East African Community Partner
States”
Harmonize welfare programs
across EAC region, p. 5
166

Sources: Author’s knowledge and the EAC Secretariat’s regularly updated document, “Status of Studies Supported by Partnership Fund,” available at
http://www.eac.int/rmo/index.php?option=com_docman&Itemid=231 [last accessed June 22, 2016]
167

Chapter 5: Policy Coordination Theories: The Bizarre Resurrection of the EAC

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory
with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

5.1 Introduction
We saw in the previous chapter that a historical examination of East African Community-
European Union relations provides considerable support for post-colonial interpretations of
DWROs. This chapter assesses the applicability of a second approach to DWROs: policy
coordination theories. The central question this chapter asks is whether policy coordination
theories can adequately explain the relaunch of the East African Community in the 1990s.
Recall from Section 2.5 that policy coordination theories argue that member states carefully
negotiate the mandate and structure of DWROs in order to help them achieve collective goals
they cannot accomplish on their own. The emphasis is on rationally setting up the DWRO so
that the principals can get the most effective usage out of the agent (to review the variety of
mechanisms member states can employ to either curtail or enable DWROs, see Table 2.3).
Indeed, the “Rational Design of Institutions” branch of policy coordination theories (e.g.
Koremenos, Lipson & Snidal 2001) explicitly claims to be good at explaining the origins of
DWROs, which should make the case of relaunching the second EAC a fair test.
Contrary to the expectations of policy coordination theorists, however, the relaunch of the
EAC in the late 1990s does not appear to have been a particularly well-thought-out affair. The
central document in the relaunch, the 1999 Treaty for the Establishment of the East African
Community (hereafter, EAC Treaty; listed in the bibliography as EAC 1999), contains glaring
internal inconsistencies and is best considered a lowest-common denominator document, with
everything thrown in but no clear delegation in most issue-areas. Furthermore, the process
surrounding the revival of the EAC also seems to have been hasty and rushed, with little
consultation of major stakeholders, culminating in what has been termed a “blitz summit” held in
Arusha on January 22, 1999 (Olympio 2013: 616, emphasis in original). Overall then, it seems
168

that the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda rather breezily put into motion a complicated
institutional tapestry whose unintended consequences are still reverberating in East Africa today.

5.2 Irrationally Designed? The Relaunch of the EAC
In assessing the applicability of policy coordination theories to the relaunching of the
EAC, there are two main types of evidence available to us. The first is information about the
relaunch process, by which I mean the actual negotiations between the three founding member
states. The second is to turn to the text and undertake a close reading of the 1999 EAC Treaty.
Taken together, we should be able to use both forms of evidence to adjudge whether decision-
makers in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya were mindful of the considerations that matter in policy
coordination theories.
Unfortunately for researchers, however, information about how the EAC Treaty
negotiations proceeded is very scant. The foreign ministries of the three countries have not made
their records publicly available, and none of the major participants have addressed the topic in
their memoirs.
151
(In the future, I believe that archival research on this topic could prove quite
valuable.) Still, we do know that the embryonic idea of resuming regional cooperation in East
Africa seems to have been sparked by the surprisingly smooth negotiation of a “mediation
agreement” by Kenya, Tanzania, and (post-Amin) Uganda in 1984. The agreement was intended
to clear up the outstanding legal and financial issues caused by the disintegration of the first
EAC, and also made mention of the states perhaps collaborating in the future on issues of mutual
interest. Throughout the remainder of the 1980s inter-state meetings occurred sporadically at the
ministerial level and below, but it was not until a summit of the three heads of state in 1993 that
the ball really began rolling. A small but permanent administrative body was established in 1994
to provide regular oversight of the incipient regional cooperation, with the unwieldly name of

151
A systematic search was undertaken for English-language memoirs or biographies of senior government officials
in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda during the late 1990s. However, the results were disappointing. The major
biographies of Moi and Kikwete contain only desultory mentions of the EAC (Morton 1998: 17, 143; Nyang’oro
2010: 122). Museveni’s autobiography addresses regional integration for a page and a half, but despite being
written in the midst of negotiations for the relaunch of the EAC only focuses on the general need for increased
regional cooperation (Museveni 1997: 185-186). Kikwete (2002) gave a generic speech as Tanzania’s foreign
minister in 2001 to a high-level summit hosted by the OECD. The memoirs of senior East African civil servants
involved either do not mention the EAC negotiations (Suruma 2014) or have yet to been written (e.g. Francis
Muthaura).
169

“the Permanent Tripartite Commission for East African Co-operation.” This organization, based
in Arusha, was upgraded to a Secretariat in 1996, the antecedent to the EAC Secretariat of today.
In 1997, with the region’s economic and political outlook increasing steadily, the three heads of
state jointly decided to plunge forward and requested that the Secretariat oversee negotiations
that would upgrade the various existing agreements and policy memoranda into a full-fledged
Treaty.
Accordingly, the treaty was negotiated between 1997 and 1999 by Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanzania. (Again, it is not clear what, if any, archival material is available from this period.) A
draft of the treaty was produced in early 1999, and following minor modifications, was signed by
the three presidents on November 30, 1999. Following ratification by the parliaments of the
three countries, it officially entered into force on July 7, 2000. And yet a third large ceremony
was held on January 15, 2001 to celebrate the EAC’s relaunch, with all three presidents in
attendance among “much pomp and ululation” (Kikwete 2001).
So much for the process. What can we learn about the relaunch of the EAC by
considering the text of the Treaty itself? While performing my close reading of the 117-page
document, I had the following questions in mind:
- What are the EAC’s stated goals?
- What issues did the treaty’s writers foresee as its likely biggest challenges?
- What types of discourses frequently appear in the document?
- What issue areas is the EAC intended to focus on the most, and who is responsible for
each?
- Who has the most control and agency in EAC decision-making?
I believe that a fair reading of the EAC Treaty will reveal a profund contradiction at the
heart of the entire endeavor. The treaty’s writers were clearly animated by the failure of the first
EAC, and explicitly sought to address the causes that led to its collapse. But the ways on which
they designed the institution are so internally contradictory that they completely failed in their
stated objective. Let us unpack this a bit further.

170

5.3 (Mis)learning the Lessons of History
Early on, the Treaty begins by acknowledging the failure of the first EAC (1967-1977).
Indeed, almost at the very outset the Treaty states: “The main reasons [for] the collapse of the
East African Community [were] lack of strong political will, lack of strong participation of the
private sector and civil society in the co-operation activities, the continued disproportionate
sharing of benefits of the Community among the Partner States due to their differences in their
levels of development and lack of adequate policies to address this situation” (Preamble).
Reading the Treaty, it soon becomes clear that two particular solutions were settled upon in order
to avoid a repeat of the demise of the first EAC: ensuring a fairer distribution of the benefits of
regional integration and seeking broader participation from the private sector and civil society in
the Community’s activities (cf. Kikwete 2002: 153-154; Musonda 2004: 89-90).
Article 6 of the Treaty states the “Fundamental Principle of Equitable Distribution of
Benefits.” Referred to several other times in the Treaty, it holds that all EAC policies should be
considered in light of whether all MS would benefit from them or not. Now, this could be
considered very much in keeping with policy coordination theories. However, if interpreted
strictly, insisting that all parties benefit equally from regional integration would vastly limit the
number of actions that could be undertaken by the EAC, since almost no real-world policy
reforms would meet such a criterion. Rather, it is more typical that proposed policies would
benefit the group as a whole but would leave at least one party worse off (in either absolute or
relative terms).
Generally speaking, other regional groupings around the world have dealt with the
problem of anticipated unequal benefits via one of three routes: a) compensation is offered to the
disadvantaged party; b) a broader deal is struck involving issue linkages, whereby multiple
policies are adopted together, such that on the whole each member benefits even if one of the
policies individually would be bad for the member; or c) the disadvantaged party “opts-out” of
the proposed policy, standing aside so that the others can nevertheless have their gains.
Unfortunately, the EAC Treaty does not envisage any of these possibilities. No word
beginning with “compensat” appears anywhere in the Treaty. (As a reference point, various
forms of “compensate” pop up dozens of times in the admittedly much longer Single European
Act, the 1987 EU treaty that is most comparable to the EAC Treaty in scope and level of detail.)
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Indeed, analysts are routinely struck by the EAC’s need for compensatory mechanisms,
particularly in light of the EAC’s trade liberalization agenda (SID 2011: 34-37). Perplexingly,
the original EAC did have some compensatory mechanisms, including both a transfer tax on
some kinds of industrial activity as well as a formal mandate for the East African Development
Bank to undertake the lion’s share of its spending in Tanzania and Uganda (Rothchild 1968: 46;
Musonda 2004: 74). However, the current EAC ruled out the possibility of a compensation
mechanism in August 2005 (SID 2011: 36). In a sense, then, the current EAC can be seen as
taking a step backwards in terms of directly addressing the problem of unequal benefits.
Issue linkage also seems to not be a frequent feature of EAC negotiations. The so-called
“grand bargains” that many scholars have argued were so important in shaping the trajectory of
the European Union (Moravcsik 1998) have not occurred in East Africa. The reasons for this are
unclear, but may include a lack of political leadership, the inability of the Secretariat to take up
an honest broker role (at least until recently), and the relatively small number of negotiating
parties.
Nor has opting-out been a standard practice in the EAC thus far. While the history of the
EU is littered with opt-outs (see Adler-Nissen 2014), the EAC Treaty does not have a formal
provision whereby a member state can opt-out of participation in a given policy area. That being
said, confusingly the Treaty does twice mention the “principle of variable geometry.” This term,
directly borrowed from the EU context,
152
is defined in the Treaty as “a principle of flexibility
which allows for progression in co-operation among a sub-group of members in a larger
integration scheme in a variety of areas and at different speeds” (Art. 1). But given that all EAC
decisions must be made by consensus (see below), and given the lack of an explicit opt-out
provision, how can there also simultaneously exist a principle of variable geometry?
This internal contradiction apparently did not unduly trouble the Treaty’s drafters.
However, it was sufficiently clear by 2008 for the EAC Council of Ministers to request an
advisory opinion from the East African Court of Justice on how to reconcile the two conflicting
principles. Legal briefs filed by the member states and the EAC Secretariat provide a quick
snapshot of their basic attitudes towards regional integration (EACJ 2009). Rwanda, Kenya,
Uganda, and the EAC Secretariat all argued that the principle of various geometry needed to be

152
The genealogy of the term is nicely documented in Peters (2010: 147-148).
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upheld, and that if this required occasional limits to consensual decision-making in the EAC, so
be it.
153
Burundi and Tanzania, however, argued that the principle of consensus decision-making
ranked above variable geometry and had to be maintained no matter what. The Court’s decision
(which inter alia cites Wikipedia twice) sided with the former group, going so far as to state that
consensus decision-making need not imply unanimity.
As we shall see in Section 6.6, the Court’s decision may have helped embolden Rwanda,
Kenya, and Uganda to forge ahead on a number of policy projects as a self-described “coalition
of the willing.” Still for our purposes the bottom line is that while the Treaty emphasizes the
equitable distribution of benefits as important for ensuring the future stability and longevity of
the EAC, the document offers no practical guidance on how this can be achieved. All in all,
strict adherence to the principle of equitable distribution of benefits is actually more likely to
retard regional policymaking rather than facilitate it. This tension is but one of many important
internal contradictions in the EAC Treaty (see below).
The second main way in which the writers of the EAC Treaty sought to prevent a repeat
of the first EAC is via enhanced participation of the private sector and civil society in many
aspects of the regional integration project. The EAC’s first Secretary General, Francis Muthaura,
made this connection clear in a 2001 interview:
[The member states] drew lessons from the failures or successes of past [regional] arrangements
and ensured to put in place a new arrangement that would avoid the pitfalls of the past. […] The
increasing number of… voluntary regional bodies and professional associations is an extremely
important development and a strong indication of the civil society and private sector
responsiveness to the challenge of regional integration. This, indeed, augurs well for the bright
future of the East African Community. In contrast to the first EAC, preoccupation this time round
is with the sustainability, to be achieved through the integration of civil society and the private
sector in decision- making as well as implementation of projects and programmes as a major
sustaining factor.
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Indeed, the EAC Treaty envisages a very special role for the East African private sector.
Chapter 25 of the Treaty focuses on “The Private Sector and Civil Society” and has the following
provisions: “The Partner States undertake to… promote a continuous dialogue with the private
sector and civil society… to help create an improved business environment for the
implementation of agreed decisions in all economic sectors; and to provide opportunities for

153
Interestingly, the briefs make repeated and detailed references to the experience of the EU, proving yet again that
EAC officials themselves routinely draw comparisons between the EU and the EAC.
154
“New East African Community Gathers Clout,” PANA, March 2, 2001; available at:
http://www.panapress.com/New-East-African-Community-Gathers-Clout--13-446582-18-lang1-index.html
173

entrepreneurs to participate actively in improving the policies and activities of the institutions of
the Community that affect them so as to increase their confidence in policy reforms and raise the
productivity and lower the costs of the entrepreneurs” (Art. 127.1). This privileged invitation for
the business community to directly comment upon EAC activities is not offered to any other East
African interest group mentioned in the Treaty, and practically elevates the private sector to the
level of a junior partner in the EAC’s activities. Crucially, the Treaty even explicitly appoints a
lead organ to coordinate with the private section, namely the Secretariat (Art. 127.4)—as we
shall see shortly, this is rarely the case in the Treaty, signaling the issue’s importance to the
Treaty’s writers. Overall then, it is fair to conclude that the text of the EAC Treaty reflects a
business-friendly outlook (cf. Art. 83), as I discuss in greater detail in Chapter 7. A quick point
to note here, however, is that the two main efforts to avoid repeating the mistakes of the first
EAC clash with one another—since the private sector is not distributed equally throughout East
Africa (see Section 7.4), it is unlikely that granting it increased influence will lead to an
“equitable distribution of benefits.” Indeed, most economic analyses conclude that Kenya has
and will continue to benefit the most from EAC-led liberalization efforts. So we now have a
second unaddressed internal contradiction in the EAC Treaty.
In contrast with the focus on the private sector, civil society is treated as an afterthought
in the Treaty—indeed, quite literally so since it is usually listed second after the private sector.
“Civil society” is mentioned far less often than “private sector” (12 and 21 appearances,
respectively), and when it is mentioned it is in a less detailed manner. No explicit channel is
given whereby civil society can make its will known to the EAC. Finally, and perhaps most
significantly, despite all its talk of being “people-centered,” absolutely no formal efforts were
made to gauge public opinion about the 1999 Treaty, let alone have it be approved by
referendums.
Overall, if the EAC’s goal in focusing on the private sector and civil society was to help
build up popular support region-wide so that a sudden collapse of the organization would be
unthinkable, it is unclear why the EAC gives such pride of place to the business sector. Would
the numerically far superior civil society not be a much more logical target for outreach? In
short, it is unclear if the new EAC is actually founded on more durable foundations than was its
predecessor.
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5.4 Conclusion
Contrary to the claims of the rational design people, there is little available evidence that
a great deal of thought went into the 2000 treaty or that there were particularly fraught
negotiations in 1998-1999 over the second EAC’s precise institutional form. Overall,the 1999
EAC Treaty is a relatively short, contradictory document lacking in details. Very few specific
provisions are laid out, no implementation dates are given whatsoever, and despite a claim that
the treaty recognized the “differentiated status” of the member states, the member states are
never individually distinguished from one another in a significant way. The nature of the
document is no accident, however—while all three presidents at the time wanted to have a
document to sign, Uganda and especially Tanzania were worried about tying their hands and
eschewed firm commitments. As we shall see, these inter-member politics have not gone away
in the years since. Still, despite the likely intentions of some of its drafters, the Treaty did have
unintended institutional consequences that would heavily influence the future development of the
organization. Most significantly, the clause making it clear that the Secretariat would take the
lead on coordinating with outside donors opened the door for its close working relationship with
European donors, and its subsequent growth in power, as we shall see in the next chapter.
I used the word “bizarre” in the title of this chapter because so many things about the
EAC’s relaunch are surprising: the timing, the contrast between form and function, the willful
misreading of history, the inconsistencies that should have been clear from the outset, the
unexpected successes and failures of some policy areas. Policy coordination theories do a poor
job of explaining these oddities, so we move on to consider another major set of theories in the
next section: regional hegemonic theories.

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Chapter 6: Regional Hegemonic Theories: Politics in a Region of Peers

“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t.” ―
Hyman G. Rickover

6.1 Is the EAC an Instrument of a Regional Hegemon?
This chapter seeks to see if a major theory about DWROs—regional hegemonic theory—
can adequately explain the rebirth of the EAC in 2000 and its subsequent evolution. Whereas the
previous chapter asked if the second EAC is the outcome of careful coordination between all
three East African member states, this chapter asks whether the EAC’s relaunch can be traced to
a single East African country. In other words, is the EAC reducible to the interests of an East
African regional hegemon?
There are both good theoretical and empirical reasons for asking this question. Recall
from Section 2.4 that we defined a regional hegemon as a state that is powerful enough to
establish and maintain the essential rules governing interstate relations in a given region. In
seeking to establish this degree of primacy, aspiring hegemons typically rely on hard power,
which manifests itself primarily through: i) military might; ii) a large, wealthy, advanced, and
rapidly growing economy; and iii) a large population that can be mobilized towards state ends.
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In addition, possessing favorable soft power attributes can lessen the amount of hard power
required to impose one’s will on one’s neighbors. Keeping in mind the elite-driven nature of
East African politics, soft power in this context refers less to cultural commodities and more to
whether a given state espouses a regionally attractive ideology (typically a form of pan-
Africanism or pan-East Africanism) or has a proven track record of international leadership. The
advantages for a regional hegemon of establishing a DWRO are that it can provide legitimacy
and cover for actions that serve the regional hegemon’s interests. Empirically, we noted in
Section 2.4 that many DWROs around the world are helmed by a regional hegemon. Is this the
case for the EAC as well? Does the EAC simply reflect a single state’s goals? Any do any East
African states have the necessary combination of hard and soft power to be considered a regional
hegemon?

155
Having a large, healthy, and sympathetic population is a particularly important source of power in East Africa,
where most economic sectors and military outfits are unmechanized.
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To answer these questions I examine in turn the likeliest candidates for East African
regional hegemon. Of all the states in eastern Africa, only four are powerful enough to possibly
lay claim to the title of hegemon: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya.
156
Table 6.1 provides
relevant hard power indicators for the various East African states. I discuss each of the four
countries in Sections 6.2-6.5, concluding that none of them wields enough power to be
considered a regional hegemon. I then turn in Section 6.6 to the question of whether the EAC
can be considered an extension of the interests of any single East African state. I argue that it
cannot. Rather, the recent history of the EAC since the accession of Rwanda and Burundi has
been marked by a brewing political divide between Tanzania and Burundi on the one hand, and
the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” (comprising Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya) on the other.
Amidst this tumult, the EAC Secretariat has sought to play the role of impartial mediator
wherever possible.

6.2 The Case for Ethiopia
Ethiopia is a militarily powerful and demographically robust state with an increasingly
active foreign policy since the end of the Eritrean-Ethiopian War in 2000. While Ethiopia is
probably the most significant power in the Horn of Africa, it is doubtful that it exerts substantial
influence further afield into East Africa proper. Its weak economy and lack of membership in
the EAC make it clear that it does not dominate the EAC. In due time, Ethiopia could eventually
become a major player in East African politics if it continues its recent “look south” diplomatic
policies and joins the EAC, as its leaders have been increasingly mentioning (although its
participation in rival regional bloc COMESA calls into question the depth of its commitment to
the EAC).
157
For now, however, Ethiopia is not a significant factor in the EAC.

156
Neither Burundi nor Tanzania have the military power to claim to be a regional hegemon.
157
On the “look south” policy, see: “Ethiopia: new East African hegemon?”, by Josh Maiyo, April 20, 2012,
available at: http://africanarguments.org/2012/04/20/ethiopia-and-somalia-joining-eac-will-transform-regions-
security-architecture-%E2%80%93-by-josh-maiyo/ [last accessed April 13, 2016]. On Ethiopia’s interest in joining
the EAC, see “East Africa: Ethiopia Eyes Stakes in EAC Integration Projects,” by Eric Kabeera, The New Times
(Kigali), June 24, 2014.
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6.3 The Case for Rwanda
Rwanda’s influence in East Africa stems first from its potent military and second from its
booming economy. Pound for pound, the Rwandan military is among the best in the world, and
is certainly one of the most active. Since 2000, the Rwandan Defense Force has intervened in
the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Uganda dozens of times, and has also
contributed significant numbers of troops to UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti, South Sudan,
Mali, Darfur, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Central African Republic. The Rwandan military is battle-
tested and surprisingly capable of projecting force for such a small country. And while the EAC
is not a forum in which military power is directly fungible, Rwanda has a long track record of
being able to use its military to accrue advantages for itself.
Rwanda’s other major strength since 2000 has been the able handling of the economy by
the Kagame administration. Under Rwanda’s post-genocide technocratic administration, the
economy has grown at an impressive average rate of 7.7% since 2000. The government, looking
to reduce the role of the agricultural sector and without the substantial natural resource
endowments many of its neighbors enjoy, has invested heavily in making Rwanda the services
hub of Central and East Africa. There has been significant support for the tourism and
information technology sectors in particular, with the government luring in foreign capital with
tax incentives and the promise of political stability.
Rwanda’s decision to apply (along with Burundi) for membership in the EAC in 2007
was seen by some observers as surprising, since Rwanda had previously been positioning itself
as a Central African powerhouse, not a player in East African politics. However, the continued
turmoil in the Great Lakes region throughout the early 2000s, combined with the usual strategy
of joining as many DWROs as possible, caused Kagame to look east, and Rwanda has been an
active participant in the EAC ever since. Indeed, in most policy areas Rwanda is in the
vanguard, pushing for the EAC to take on a larger, more active, and above all more precipitous
role (Crisafulli & Redmond 2012: 22). For instance, Rwanda has prodded the EAC to take on a
bigger role in regional security affairs, something that was very much an afterthought in the
original 1999 Treaty. Despite this, Rwanda is still perceived as a bit of latecomer by the original
three participants, limiting its influence in the organization. And, as we shall see in more detail
in the next section, Rwanda is frequently opposed within the EAC by Tanzania, which has a
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generally status quo vision for the organization. Unfortunately for Rwanda, it is quite limited in
how much it can pressure Tanzania, because as a landlocked country it depends entirely on
Tanzanian roads and railways for all of its imports and exports.
Overall then, while Rwanda’s military and economic heft have helped its international
presence grow significantly over the past two decades, it still remains far from being a regional
hegemon. Within the EAC, Rwanda’s continued active presence will eventually allow it to shed
the “Johnny-come-lately” image (particularly if more countries join in the near future), but it
needs to figure out how to transition itself from a military power to a diplomatic one capable of
persuading its partners.

6.4 The Case for Uganda
Uganda’s claim of regional leadership depends largely on the elder statesman status of its
leader, Yoweri Museveni. In power since 1986, Museveni has long publicly supported an East
Africanist vision, and is the only current East African leader to have signed the 2000 treaty re-
launching the East African Community.
158
Museveni’s personal ties to other elites in East
Africa, particularly in Rwanda and (what is now) South Sudan, ensure that he is at least listened
to when he speaks. However, Uganda cannot be considered a credible regional hegemon for
several reasons. First, its economy has struggled in recent years, with neither the fast growth
rates of neighboring Rwanda nor the higher level of development found in Kenya. Second, its
military is weak in comparison to other East African states. Uganda routinely lost border
skirmishes with Rwanda, Kenya, and the DRC during the early 2000s. Furthermore, even in a
region where many states lack effective control over their territory, Uganda stands out. As a
result of the perennially ongoing rebellion by the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Ugandan central
government has only a scant presence in the northern quarter of the country. Third, Museveni’s
longevity and increasing recourse to authoritarianism as he pursued his third and then fourth
presidential terms have come to mar Uganda’s international reputation over the years. Museveni

158
As early as his 1986 swearing-in speech, Museveni was already preoccupied with the problem of East African
regional integration (Museveni 2009: 29-30). Current Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete was also involved in the
negotiations surrounding the relaunch of the EAC, but as Tanzania’s foreign minister, not president (cf. Kikwete
2002).
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was widely praised by the international community during the 1990s, when he was heralded as a
political leader who would end Africa’s tradition of strong-man rule,
159
but those hopes have
unfortunately not been borne out, affecting his ability to exert significant influence abroad. (Paul
Kagame, another reformer-turned-autocrat, should take note.)
Ultimately, it is precisely because Museveni’s Uganda does not have sufficient strength
to credibly influence its neighbors that it has committed so much to the EAC project, in the
hopes of achieving some modicum of influence through the backdoor, as it were. But it is clear
that in doing so it aligns much more with rhetorical theories of DWROs than regional hegemonic
ones. Museveni’s commitment to the EAC stems from a position of weakness, not strength.

6.5 The Case for Kenya
By far the country with the most credible claim of being an East African hegemon is
Kenya. Kenya’s position of preeminence within East Africa is long standing. Although the
major center of East African power during the 19
th
century was located further south, in the
Omani Sultanate island capital of Zanzibar, the consolidation of British power in East Africa
throughout the 19
th
century made Kenya preeminent. The British invested heavily in turning the
Kenya colony into an agricultural powerhouse, developing infrastructure and attracting over
30,000 British colonists by 1930. (In contrast, when World War I broke out only 3,579 Germans
were present in German East Africa—which included present-day Tanzania, Rwanda, and
Burundi – Haupt 1984: 155.)
The British legacy combined with the openly capitalist (albeit corrupt) policies of post-
independence Kenyan governments have led Kenya to have an economy that stands head and
shoulders above its neighbors. In 2013 Kenya accounted for 35% of the EAC-5’s total GDP
(Ogola et al. 2015: 347), and indeed Kenya is the only country in East Africa to not be classified
as a Least Developed Country by the United Nations (with a GDP per capita in 2014 of $1,461

159
This 1997 New York Times profile is typical of Museveni’s Western coverage during the period: “To hear some
of the diplomats and African experts tell it, President Yoweri K. Museveni started an ideological movement that is
reshaping much of Africa, spelling the end of the corrupt, strong-man governments that characterized the cold-war
era. These days, political pundits across the continent are calling Mr. Museveni an African Bismarck. Some people
now refer to him as Africa's ‘other statesman,’ second only to the venerated South African President, Nelson
Mandela.” From: “Uganda Leader Stands Tall in New African Order,” by James C. McKinley, New York Times,
June 15, 1997. See also “Uganda, Nearly a Miracle,” by Gérard Prunier, Le Monde Diplomatique (English Edition),
Febraury 1998.
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vs. an EAC-5 weighted average of about $800). Kenya’s active capitalist class invests
throughout the region, and Kenyan banks have taken advantage of the financial liberalization the
EAC has mandated to extend their reach to all major cities in the region. Kenya’s stronger
infrastructure also gives it a leg up over its neighbors. For instance, Kenya’s horticultural
industry outperforms Tanzania’s largely because of the quality of the country’s airports (which
have abundant refrigerated storage). Kenya’s stronger ICT infrastructure has also allowed it to
pursue business process outsourcing à la India, with mixed success (Mann & Graham 2016).
In addition to infrastructure, Kenya also derives advantages from the higher human
capital of its citizens. Kenya’s policy of using English as the country’s main language of
instruction gives it a more global outlook than Tanzania, Rwanda, or Burundi and makes it a
more attractive destination for foreign investment. Kenya’s universities habitually outperform
regional peers: the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index for 2014-2015
ranked Kenya 95th in the world for the quality of its higher education, versus Rwanda at 122
nd
,
Uganda at 129
th
, Tanzania at 134
th
, and Burundi at 142
nd
(out of 144).
Does Kenya’s economic preponderance make it a regional hegemon, however? And if
so, does it use the EAC as an extension of its foreign policy? Some scholars believe so. For
instance, Wu’s (2001: 31-32) idiosyncratic reading of the EAC as the result of a Kenyan private
sector seeking to defend itself against hyper-competitive South African businesses largely casts
Kenya in the role of a regional hegemon.
However, several factors complicate such a depiction of Kenyan power. The first is the
relative weakness of the Kenyan military. Used primarily as a tool of government repression
during the Kenyatta and Moi regimes, Kenya’s military has had great difficulty securing its
borders, let alone militarily pressuring its neighbors. The weaknesses of Kenya’s security forces
have only become more apparent in recent years, with very mixed successes in its intervention in
the Somali civil war and an apparent inability to prevent subsequent Al-Shabaab terrorist attacks
throughout the country.
If Kenya’s military strength does not qualify it for hegemonic status, neither does its
economy. While Kenya is indeed richer and more economically dynamic than its neighbors, it is
not orders of magnitude ahead. The gaps between, say, Kenya and Tanzania, or Kenya and
Uganda, are not insurmountable. And the future of Kenya’s economy is somewhat cloudy: the
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serious ethnic violence following the 2007 elections spooked Kenya’s international partners, as
did the Westgate Mall terrorist attack in 2013. Both events reminded Kenya watchers that
country has very large issues it needs to address that cannot be papered over with government
spending.
If Kenya is not a regional hegemon, how does it relate to the EAC? In short, as a senior
partner, but not one able to unilaterally impose its will over its partners. Kenya has pushed the
organization to pursue economic liberalization and to sign trade deals with foreign partners.
However, not all of the EAC’s decisions have gone Kenya’s way. Uganda and Tanzania were
initially reluctant to accept the need for a customs union and common market, forcing Kenya to
accept that full liberalization along all internal tariff lines would not be finished until 2010, 13
years after negotiations began in 1997. Furthermore, Tanzania has obdurately refused since the
EAC’s relaunch in 2000 to permit the free movement of people across borders, fearing an influx
of workers from its more densely-populated neighbors.
160
Finally, the other four EAC member
states dragged their feet for over a decade on signing an Economic Partnership Agreement with
the EU, much to Kenya’s chagrin and tangible economic losses (see Section 4.6 for details),
before finally capitulating to immense Kenyan and European pressure in October 2014.
Nor has Kenya been able to dominate the process of appointing top officials in the EAC’s
Secretariat, as would be predicted by regional hegemonic theories. The EAC’s three Secretary-
Generals thus far have been Uganda, Tanzanian, and Rwandan. Data on the nationality of
officials below the highest levels is not systematically available, but internal EAC reports
confirm that emphasis is placed on maintaining a roughly equal proportion of staff from the
member states, in keeping with the EAC Treaty’s “principle of equitable distribution of
benefits.”
161
When Rwanda and Burundi joined the EAC in 2007, both senior and lower-level
posts were immediately set aside for nationals from those countries to apply for (EAC 2008c: 11-
12).
162

160
Cf. “Uhuru, Kagame challenge EAC to allow free movement of people,” by Edwin Mutai, Business Daily
(Nairobi), October 16, 2014.
161
Whether or not some member states have been able to develop effective control over specific issue areas they
care about—as has been recently asserted is the case in the EU (Kleine 2013)—remains a possibility that needs to be
further examined.
162
“Top EAC Secretariat officials reshuffled,” Business Times (Dar es Salaam), May 22-28, 2009.
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6.6 The Rise of the “Coalition of the Willing” and the EAC Secretariat’s Role as an Honest
Broker
We have seen that no state in East Africa is powerful enough to set the rules for the
region, nor to dominate the EAC. Ethiopia is too distant and poor. Rwanda is too new to the
region and its foreign policy is too militarized to work comfortably with its partners. The
Ugandan military and state are too impotent. And Kenya, while the richest and most developed
country in the region, is not powerful enough that it can simply call the shots, particularly given
its unresolved internal problems. Others scholarly analyses agree with me that there is no East
African regional hegemon (Pinkney 2001: 194; Buzan & Wæver 2003: 243-247). The EAC is
therefore a pretty rare example of a DWRO without a regional hegemon, perhaps owing to the
fact that external donors play such a forceful role in the region as we saw in Chapter 4.
The EAC’s lack of a regional hegemon does not mean that its politics are sedate or
particularly calm, however—indeed, it is perhaps because East Africa is a region of mostly
equals that contentious politics seem to be a recurring facet of the EAC (in both its incarnations).
Since Rwanda and Burundi joined the EAC in 2007, a rather major political divide has emerged
within the organization, between the members that are content with the status quo and leery/wary
of ceding further sovereignty versus the members that advocate quickly deepening regional
integration. This cleavage typically pits Tanzania and Burundi on the one hand against Uganda,
Kenya, and Rwanda on the other; in a puzzling appropriation of a George W. Bush-era phrase,
the leaders of the latter three countries have taken to calling themselves the “Coalition of the
Willing” (CoW) and routinely meet in addition to regularly-scheduled EAC summits to attempt
to push the regional integration agenda forward.
163
Minor policy successes reached by the CoW
include mutually recognizing one another’s national identity cards as official travel documents
for cross-border visitors and working together to issue a single tourist visa for foreigners.
164

Burundi’s inertia is easily blamed on a combination of low state capacity combined with
the country’s long-running political crisis, but Tanzania’s reservations about enhanced regional
integration are more interesting, given its early enthusiasm for relaunching the EAC in the late
1990s. Tanzania’s principal fear about letting regional integration pick up too much momentum

163
“Tanzania officially renounces ‘coalition of the willing,’” The Citizen (Dar es Salaam), October 21, 2013.
164
“Coalition of the willing emerges again in EAC,” The Citizen (Dar es Salaam), January 13, 2014.
183

is usually framed in terms of fears that its partners might either go for a land-grab or flood its
borders with migrants.
165
It is clear that many Tanzanian officials feel defensive about the recent
characterization of the country as a laggard on regional integration; many Tanzanians, after all,
continue to esteem Nyerere, who famously proposed outright East African federation in 1963.
The Tanzanian government widely disseminated a press release when it was the first EAC
member to ratify the EAC Monetary Union Protocol in June 2014, hoping to counter the
impression that it was turning its back on the EAC.
166
Similarly, Tanzanian President Kikwete
delivered a speech to the Kenyan Parliament in October 2015 forcefully defending Tanzania’s
role in the region: “We have always remained believers in Africa unity and East African
economic and political integration. We hold strong belief [sic] that a divided East Africa will not
be able to claim its rightful place and compete effectively in the regional and global market
place, therefore Tanzania’s commitment to EAC integration is unwavering.”
167

Equally surprising in all of this is the swiftness with which Rwanda has risen to the
forefront of East African regionalism. Rwanda traditionally has looked more to its west than
east, but Paul Kagame seems to view the EAC as a vehicle for anchoring reforms he has
orchestrated at home. As Booth et al. (2007: 7) wrote in a prescient analysis,
Rwanda’s entry to the EAC poses an interesting additional set of questions. Rwanda does not just
have a distinct political culture. It has a political leadership that some political scientists see as a
rare case of an African political elite committed to building a developmental state. That is, there is
a drive to construct a state dedicated to producing development results, partly because this is seen
as the best way of guaranteeing the Tutsi group against a return to ethnic violence. If Rwanda
could infect the other countries with its sense of urgency about nation-building, the gains would be
large.
Infecting Uganda and Kenya with a sense of urgency about region-building seems to be exactly
what Rwanda has managed to accomplish in the last few years.
This growing political divide leaves the EAC Secretariat in a difficult position: while its
natural inclination is to favor deepening regional integration, the past two Secretaries General
have wisely realized that doing so at the expense of two of their member states is not the answer.
Accordingly, the Secretariat has sought to play the role of impartial mediator in the disputes, and
has used its official communications to downplay the divide and emphasize East African unity:

165
For a sophisticated discussion, see http://www.globalexchange.org/news/tanzania-slowing-down-eac-integration-
over-land-concerns [last accessed June 23, 2016].
166
See Adam Ihucha, “Dar ratifies protocol on Monetary Union,” The EastAfrican (Nairobi), June 28, 2014.
167
Sarah Kimani, “Kikwete defends stance on the East African integration,” SABC News, October 7, 2015.
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“All five partners are a coalition of the willing as per the Treaty and there is no difference
between the partners because they all have one agenda, to fast track integration.”
168
The
Secretariat has also officially re-disseminated conciliatory messages by the member states, such
as the aforementioned Tanzanian press release regarding the monetary union protocol.
169
But
skeptics argue that the Secretariat’s efforts to play nice with all parties are not so much the result
of sage leadership as they are an acknowledgement that, both legally and practically, there is
very little the Secretariat can do to bring a recalcitrant member state in line. Unlike in the EU,
where in theory the Commission has the power to discipline wayward members (although almost
never used in practice), the Secretariat “is unable to reprimand any partner state over any
misconduct.”
170
This may be overstating things: as we shall see further in Section 7.7, the
Secretariat does routinely use praising and shaming to nudge member states in certain directions.
East Africa’s donors have also hinted that the CoW rift is complicating their development
work and plans for the region. GIZ noted in 2011 that implementation of some of its programs
has stalled due in part to “non-consensus among Partner States about certain policies &
strategies” (GIZ 2011: 4). An African Development Bank expert writing on the AfDB’s official
blog warned that the CoW could be leading to the “fragmentation of regional integration in East
Africa”: “today’s political leaders in the EAC seem bent on making mistakes that might lead to
similar consequences of 1977.”
171
He also called on the EAC Secretariat to “put the record
straight” regarding the CoW’s legal justification for acting independently (the doctrine of
“variable geometry, discussed above in Section 5.4). In an interview I conducted in May 2008,
an EU Delegation official in Tanzania applauded the Secretariat for its emerging “honest broker”
role.
172
Whether the Secretariat, with the EU backing it up, will be able to continue to keep
encouraging the EAC member states to cooperate in the years to come despite strong centripetal
forces is one of the most important questions facing the EAC today. In the next chapter, I

168
Christabel Ligami, “Let ‘coalition of the willing’ be, it’s not going to hurt EAC integration,” [Interview with
Secretary General Richard Sezibera], The EastAfrican (Nairobi), November 2, 2013.
169
http://www.eac.int/news/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1257:-tanzania-becomes-first-
partner-state-to-ratify-eac-monetary-union-protocol&catid=48:eac-latest&Itemid=69 [Last accessed June 23, 2016]
170
Adam Ihucha, “Does EAC Secretariat need greater powers?”, The EastAfrican (Nairobi), November 2, 2013.
171
http://www.afdb.org/en/blogs/integrating-africa/post/is-variable-geometry-leading-to-the-fragmentation-of-
regional-integration-in-east-africa-12524/ [Last accessed June 23, 2016]
172
Interview with EU Delegation official in Dar es Salaam, May 28, 2008.
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analyze how the Secretariat and the EU have partnered together in a particularly significant issue
area: trade.
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Table 6.1: Economic, Demographic, and Military Indicators for Selected East African States

GDP GDP per capita GDP Growth Exports Corruption Perceptions Ranking Pop. Growth Armed Forces UN Peacekeeping
(current US$) (current US$) (annual %) (% of GDP) (0 - 100, 0 = very corrupt) (annual %) Personnel Personnel
Burundi 2,472,384,864 251 4.0 9.0 19 9,849,569 3.2 51,000 120
Ethiopia 43,310,721,414 472 8.6 13.8 33 91,728,849 2.6 138,000 5,857
Kenya 50,334,699,324 1,166 4.5 19.8 27 43,178,141 2.7 29,100 852
Rwanda 7,219,656,634 630 8.8 12.9 53 11,457,801 2.8 35,000 4,697
Tanzania 38,733,981,070 835 5.1 21.3 35 47,783,107 3.0 28,400 1,340
Uganda 23,724,746,169 653 4.4 19.9 29 36,345,860 3.4 46,800 41
All other data comes from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, for the year 2012, the most recent year in which all data were available.
Population
Sources: Data on peacekeepers comes from the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and provides figures for December 2012.
Corruption perceptions data come from the Corruption Perceptions Index produced by Transparency International, which relies on country-by-country expert assessments. Data are from 2012.
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Chapter 7: Trade Promotion Theories: Elite Coalitions Competing for the Money

“But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I'm not the one being
arrested.” ― Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon's Mines

7.1 Introduction
Chapters 5 and 6 concluded that neither policy coordination nor regional hegemonic
theories do a particularly good job of explaining the rebirth of the EAC, nor its evolution since
then. However, there is something undeniably true about the fundamentally agonistic
understanding of regional politics both sets of theories espouse. Trade promotion theories accept
that the East African regional level is indeed a site of contestation… but between competing
coalitions of regional elites, not states. In other words, the classic definition of politics as “who
gets what, when, and how” (Lasswell 1936) very much applies to East African regionalism, but
the primary referent points are not states, ethno-national groups, or classes, but rather between
two sets of competing elites: export-oriented elites who profit from trade and rent-oriented elites
who seek wealth via abuse of office and economic distortion. These coalitions are present across
the region and seek to establish irreconcilably different politico-economic models for East
Africa.
This chapter seeks to assess how well trade promotion theories can explain the case of the
EAC. Most often used to explain developments in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East, how
well does this class of theories translate to an East African context? Ultimately, I will conclude
in this chapter that the regional integration process started up again in the late 1990s as part of a
deliberate strategy by East African export-oriented elites to move policy-making to the regional
level. Whereas the rent-oriented elites who dominated East African politics in the 1980s and
early 90s preferred to keep decision-making at the lowest possible levels, the formal rebirth of
the EAC in 2000 allowed it to form a close partnership with powerful international actors like the
European Union, thereby allowing exporters in both East Africa and Europe to benefit. Based on
this, I argue at the theoretical level that trade promotion theories, once slightly adapted to the
East African context, do a rather good job of explaining the EAC’s recent history. Indeed, in
conjunction with the post-colonial theories discussed in Chapter 4, they offer the most
compelling account of the recent history and likely future trajectory of this particular DWRO.
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My starting point in this chapter, and the main example of a specific trade promotion
theory that I analyze, is Solingen (1998), who argues that contemporary politics is primarily a
clash between how two ideal-type coalitions respond to the changes and challenges brought
about by globalization.
173
“Internationalist coalitions” are broadly supportive of globalization
and economic liberalization, whereas “statist-nationalist-confessional coalitions” focus their
energies on the local/state level and are largely resistant to opening up their economies and
societies to the outside world. Each coalition attempts to persuade important actors within
society (business leaders, labor unions, the military, the clergy, intellectuals, skilled
professionals, bureaucrats, the public at large) to adopt its point of view through a combination
of two main tactics: first, the development and deployment of important discourses which have
powerful ideological framing effects, and, second, logrolling, i.e. actors trading support on the
issues that matter the most to them with one another.
I update Solingen’s idea of regional politics as a clash between differing politico-
economic coalitions in three ways. First, I propose that in the East African context, the two
coalitions are almost entirely comprised of elites, with limited input from the broader citizenry.
While Solingen accords a role for the general public in her theory (usually as an actor that can be
galvanized by the adoption of populist economic policies by the statist-nationalist coalition), East
African publics play relatively little role in shaping their countries’ policies, particularly at the
regional level. As mentioned before, political observers often note East Africa’s tendency
towards autocratic government and the anemia of its civil society (Taylor 2003; Herbst 2007).
174

Therefore, while the limited polling data that exists suggests that informed East African citizens
are broadly supportive of both free trade and regional integration, their views have little
discernible impact on regional politics.

173
In addition to Solingen, other academic analyses that have significantly shaped my thinking on the political
economy of the East Africa region include Shaw (2000), Fischer (2006), Söderbaum (2007), and Mawuko-Yevugah
(2014).
174
Academics are increasingly paying attention to the strategies of resistance that “the weak” in Africa and
elsewhere deploy: de Certeau (1984); Scott, J. (1985); Sivini (2007); Thomson (2013); Ryan (2015). While quite
interesting and a useful corrective to political scientists’ tendency to focus on elite politics, these marginalized
groups unfortunately continue to have little impact on the policy decisions at the national, regional, and international
levels that nevertheless impact their lives. They may be able to partially “resist” the decisions made in the capital,
but they rarely exert influence beyond their immediate environs.
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(Still, it is worth quickly noting for the record what the available data show. A 2014 Pew
survey of adults in 44 countries around the world found very high levels of enthusiasm for trade
in East Africa. 90%, 88%, and 87% of respondents in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya,
respectively, thought increased trade with the outside world was either “very good” or
“somewhat good,” versus only 79% of respondents in Europe and 68% of American respondents
(Pew Research Center 2014). On the topic of regional integration, Afrobarometer (2008, 2010)
polls found that 67% of Tanzanians and 65% of Kenyans supported having free movement of
goods, services, and people throughout the region. At the same time, however, those same
surveys found that 34% of Tanzanians and 41% of Kenyans have never heard of the EAC, let
alone any specific policy proposals relating to it, so that main takeaway may be how little
information ordinary East Africans have about the EAC.)
Second, I alter the names of Solingen’s two coalitions to better reflect the specific goals
they have within the East African context. I rename the internationalist coalition the export-
oriented coalition to stress that its primary goal is the acquisition of wealth via exports to the
outside world, which requires deeper integration into the global economy. I also shift from the
multifaceted “statist-nationalist-confessional” designation in favor of the rent-oriented coalition
to emphasize that this coalition is primarily motivated by preserving their existing routes to
wealth, which typically involve rents occurring from localized distortions in the East African
political economy.
Third, I go into considerable more detail about the specific strategies that each coalition
attempts to employ to gain the upper hand over the other. Framing their conflict as essentially
zero sum, I note how the rent-oriented coalition seeks to devolve decision-making to local levels
whenever possible, whereas the export-oriented coalition prefers to “internationalize” politics by
making appeals for assistance to powerful external actors like the European Union. Other
strategies I analyze include: foot-dragging; buying off interest groups; intimidation; naming and
shaming; and strengthening regional organizations.
In Sections 7.2 and 7.3, I respectively map out the broad contours of the rent-oriented and
export-oriented coalitions in East Africa. Section 7.4 provides a brief “state of play” of how the
two coalitions were situated vis-à-vis one another as of late 2015. In Section 7.5, I stress the
strategic nature of the completion between the two coalitions, and describe some common
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strategies practiced by both coalitions as part of their conflict. Strategies specific to the rent-
oriented and export-oriented coalitions are discussed in Sections 7.6 and 7.7, respectively. Have
the export-oriented coalition’s international appeals enabled it to “win” its campaigns against the
rent-oriented coalition? Section 7.8 provides statistical evidence that the export-oriented
coalition is making gains, noting improvements in East Africa’s trade infrastructure and a
concurrent increase in East Africa’s trade with the rest of the world. Finally, the chapter
concludes in Section 7.9 by reiterating why clashing economic coalitions are a better way of
explaining present-day East African politics than a number of common alternative explanations.

7.2 The Rent-Oriented Coalition
A great deal of research exists on how certain African states seem to be organized in
order to benefit a small set of elites: these elites utilize their positional power combined with a
lack of oversight to seek to obtain rents from their economies (Boone 1994; Fischer 2006;
Mbaku 2007; Bayart 2009; D’Aoust & Sterck 2016). Broadly speaking, rent extraction can be
defined as successful attempts to obtain profit by manipulating the social or political
environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth (Krueger
1974; Gallagher 1991; Fischer 2006: Chapter 2). In East Africa, most of these rents are extracted
via official government channels, such as large public tenders, the operation of parastatals, or in
association with the provision of routine government services.
While trade is not the most significant economic sector in present-day East African
countries, it nevertheless offers at least three avenues for rent extraction: official tariffs on
imported goods; government-imposed import/export monopolies; and so-called non-tariff
barriers (NTBs). NTBs are defined by the EAC as “quantitative restrictions and specific
limitations that act as obstacles to trade, and which appear in the form of rules, regulations and
laws that have a negative impact on trade.” Classic examples include difficulties or delays in
obtaining import licenses, cumbersome or redundant inspection regimes, and forcing importers
to comply with arbitrary product standards. NTBs can be the result of simple inefficiencies in
the system or of deliberate efforts to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. In
Africa, however, economists have noted that many NTBs may be maintained because of the
opportunities they provide for rent-extraction (Krueger 1974), especially when high disparities
191

exist across borders, as is the case between Kenya and its neighbors (Jessop 2003; Söderbaum
2007: 195). The amounts in question are not inconsequential: it is estimated that in 2008
trucking companies paid about $10 million in bribes to officials at weighbridges, police
roadblocks, and customs departments (EABC 2008b: 3).
In order to maintain their existing avenues to wealth, rent-oriented elites seek at all times
to maintain a coalition of like-minded partners.
175
At the core of this coalition are entrenched
political elites, who can be either within or without government (Fischer 2006: Chapter 2.2).
They are usually supported at lower levels by a phalanx of bureaucrats in national ministries.
For example, Mbaku (2007: 162) notes that—regardless of degree focus or skill level—the most
coveted job for university graduates in Nigeria and Cameroon is the customs and excise
department of the national revenue authorities, because of the opportunities for rent-extraction
that it provides. So desirable are these positions that when public examinations are held, they
can cause stampedes resulting in deaths.
176
Supplementing political elites and government
officials in the rent-oriented coalition are a small number of well-connected business elites who
stand to lose from economic liberalization, such as directors of state-owned enterprises or the
managers of companies that operate in protected sectors (Fischer 2006: Chapter 8). Even
smugglers and some other elements of organized crime tend to align themselves with the rent-
oriented coalition, since their business-model would evaporate if trade restrictions were lifted
(Booth et al. 2007: 4).
Other important components of the rent-oriented coalition are the cultural and
educational figures who provide it with ideological justifications, typically via appeals to
tradition, anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, nationalism, and religious or ethnic identity. The
status quo orientation of the rent-oriented coalition is appealing to many within society, even
those who lose out directly because of rent-seeking behavior.
177
Interestingly, unlike in many

175
Contrary to visions of corrupt officials acting alone in dark back offices, empirical studies of rent-seeking
behavior in East Africa confirm that “most rent-creating and rent-protecting strategies require some degree of group
mobilization” (Fischer 2006: 13; see also Sardan 1999). Indeed, rent-seeking can be analyzed as an interest group
problem, where small groups of rent-seekers are highly motivated to protect their revenue sources, whereas the
diffuse nature of the costs of rent-seeking make it difficult for society at large to mobilize against it.
176
“16 killed in stampedes for jobs in Nigeria,” by Bashir Adigun, Washington Post, March 16, 2014.
177
Fischer (2006: 251, 255) identifies a number of psychological variables that can lead people to adopt a status quo
bias, such as the difficulty in calculating net winners and losers from proposed policy reforms ex ante. The general
findings of prospect theory could also be added to his list (Tversky & Kahneman 1992).
192

parts of the world, on the whole university professors in East Africa have tended to align more
with the rent-oriented coalition than the export-oriented coalition. This can be traced to several
factors: the first generation of post-independence professors overwhelmingly espoused anti-
colonialism and Marxism, and have only recently begun to retire and yield their professorships to
younger cohorts; the best universities in East Africa are public institutions, with traditionally
close ties to the state; and there is little tradition of the private sector and academics directly
cooperating in East Africa, as there has been in the West in recent decades. Fischer (2006: 54-
55) provides an additional reason why universities in East Africa are far more status quo-oriented
than in other parts of the world: “in most developing countries university places are often only
available for children of privileged families. […] Obviously, the allocation of benefits mostly to
wealthy families is unlikely to reflect the preferences of society in a poor country. […] In
Tanzania, for instance, the cost of a university education is equivalent to that of 238 primary
school students.”
This claim that university professors and students have tended to side with the rent-
oriented coalition is of course subject to various disclaimers (it may be becoming less true; it
applies more to some countries, such as Tanzania,
178
than to others; etc.), but it has been long-
standing. In the late 1990s, noted Kenyan professor of political science Ali Mazrui started a
kerfuffle by arguing that East African universities were too close to their respective states, and
that professors had basically become agents of the government instead of its critics (e.g. Mazrui
2003). While Mazrui would probably not have embraced all the goals of the export-oriented
coalition, his point that many East African intellectuals remain blindly committed to certain
ideologies and are not sufficiently interested in empowering East African civil society echoed
widely (Bemath 2005: 348-350).
If I have been insisting so much on the cultural elites who participate in the rent-oriented
coalition, it is because it is precisely the discourses that these elites disseminate are what unify
rent-oriented elites sufficiently across national borders that it makes sense to think of them as a
collective, instead of simply isolated individuals acting locally. These discourses are typically

178
See, for instance, the discussion of the University of Dar es Salaam in Kamola (2014), as well as Yoweri
Museveni’s intriguing recollections of his time there during the late 1960s (Museveni 1997: 23-28).
193

issued in Swahili, Rundi, Rwanda, or other African vernacular languages, making them
particularly difficult objects for researchers without deep language skills to study.

7.3 The Export-Oriented Coalition
Like the rent-oriented coalition, the export-oriented coalition is primarily defined by the
way in which it generates its wealth: trade. Hence, the primary goal of the export-oriented
coalition is to enact reforms which will deepen East African integration into the global economy,
thereby generating increased returns for elite exporters.
179
The export-oriented coalition is not
solely concerned with exports abroad: it is generally supportive of increasing both intra-regional
trade as well as imports from the outside world. The coalition realizes, however, that given East
Africa’s structural position in the world economy, the most significant route to wealth for East
African traders comes from exporting goods East Africa has a comparative advantage in to the
developed world, primarily the EU and the US markets (Booth et al. 2007: 6). Accordingly, the
main concerns of the export-oriented coalition are: i) maintaining and improving preferential
access to the EU and US markets (primarily through the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreement
and the US’ African Growth and Opportunity Act); ii) improving East Africa’s physical
infrastructural links with its foreign markets to lower transportation costs; iii) removing NTBs in
East Africa that hamper trade with the outside world; iv) ensuring regional stability, so that the
flow of goods across the region is not disrupted; and v) harmonizing governmental policies at the
regional level to lower firms’ transaction costs.
Stated more simply, the main thrust of the export-oriented coalition’s efforts over the past
15 years has been upgrading the physical and administrative infrastructure of the region.
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Projects seeking to improve East Africa’s physical infrastructure include improving regional
highways, increasing the capacity of the ports of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa (as well as
dredging two new commercial ports at Lamu (Kenya) and Tanga (Tanzania)), resurrecting

179
By exports, I am principally referring to legal, physical goods that openly enter foreign markets. This definition
excludes looted resources such as timber or minerals illegally obtained in conflict zones in Central Africa, as well as
the informal cross-border trade done by small traders across East Africa. It also downplays the importance of
services relative to physical goods. I believe the export-oriented coalition should also be interested in exporting
services abroad, but there is very little data on services in East Africa. Accordingly, I do not consider the role of the
tourism sector in this chapter, although it is an important component of GDP in some East African countries.
180
This physical and administrative infrastructures dichotomy is also sometimes referred to as upgrading both the
region’s “hardware” and “software.”
194

railways dormant since colonial times, and many other projects. It is worth noting two points
about East Africa’s physical infrastructure. First, given the land-locked status of Uganda,
Rwanda, and Burundi, even projects that seem purely national in scope (such as upgrades at the
port of Dar es Salaam) can have profound regional implications. Second, the potential payoff of
these projects could be very significant. Economists have consistently found that East African
trade is particularly sensitive to changes in transportation costs, and have emphasized that one of
the main factors limiting East African growth is poor transportation infrastructure (for an early
take, see Massell 1963: 19-23; for more recent discussions, see Arvis et al. 2010; Dasgupta 2011;
Sattayanuwat 2011; Berg et al. forthcoming). For instance, one study of Sub-Saharan African
trade concluded that a one-day reduction in inland travel times leads to a 7 percent increase in
exports (Freund & Rocha 2010). Empirical studies of expanding road networks have also
consistently found high internal rates of return, perhaps as high as 12%-35% (Stifel et al. 2016),
with positive knock-on effects on the number of local firms (Shiferaw et al. 2015) and local
wages (Yamauchi 2016).
Unfortunately, while significant investments in improving East Africa’s transportation
infrastructure have been made by both East African countries and major international donors
such as the World Bank and African Development Bank,
181
such projects take long periods of
time and very large sums of capital to come to fruition. Therefore, the export-oriented coalition
has looked to East Africa’s administrative infrastructure as a possible source of “quick fixes” that
could improve the region’s trade potential. By administrative infrastructure I mean the various
government processes and bureaucracies that must be dealt with in order to run a trade-oriented
business in East Africa: the customs authorities, the (air)port authorities, the tax authorities, the
trade ministries, the standards bureaus, the border police, and others. Each department has in
place formal, informal, and (sometimes) illicit procedures that trade-oriented firms must comply
with, which often lead to high direct and indirect costs.
Improving administrative infrastructure can therefore refer to at least three distinct types
of actions. First, it can entail identifying and removing specific NTBs that hamper trade, such as
the 19 police roadblocks cargo trucks encounter on an average trip—each one necessarily

181
In 2008, academic-turned-entrepreneur-turned-finance-minister-of-Uganda Ezra Suruma made road improvement
the single largest expenditure of the Ugandan government, with nearly 20% of the total budget, a dramatic victory
for the export-oriented coalition (Suruma 2014: 149).
195

causing a delay and usually requiring a bribe to get through (Hangi 2010: 17). A second way of
improving administrative capacity can be to harmonize governmental policies either within an
EAC member state or across EAC member states. For instance, transit times at the Kabanga
border crossing between Tanzania and Burundi decreased dramatically when the customs
officials from both countries agreed to synchronize their working hours, resulting in fewer
instances of trucks passing through one post only to have to wait a day until the other post re-
opened (World Bank 2013: 52). A separate ongoing project has involved harmonizing tax
policies across the EAC member states so that regional firms only have to deal with one set of
rules regardless of where they operate (GTZ 2009; GIZ 2011). Simplifying and standardizing
governmental procedures across the EAC member states directly lowers costs for trading firms,
improving their bottom lines and increasing their competitiveness. Third, improving
administrative infrastructure can also simply refer to increasing the capacity, performance, and
transparency of the afore-mentioned governmental agencies so that they can operate more
effectively and efficiently (this is usually referred to by development agencies as “capacity-
building”).
Unsurprisingly, the core pillar of the export-oriented coalition consists of East African
business elites. These business elites can be further subdivided into four distinct categories.
Perhaps the most ardent supporters of the export-oriented coalition are large, multinational firms
located in East Africa (with both their expatriate and local staff). Global in perspective, highly
adept at negotiating different national contexts, and typically without particularly deep local
roots, large foreign firms are quick to see the upsides of lowering all types of barriers to cross-
border trade. Interestingly, foreign firms in East Africa tend to be concentrated by country and
by sector (for instance, almost the entirety of mining in Tanzania is done by multinational
corporations, but both Tanzania agriculture and Ugandan mining are almost wholly domestically
owned), making their influence on the political economy of East Africa strong in some sectors
but absent in others.
182

A second group of East African business elites who typically support the export-
oriented coalition are large locally-owned East African firms. These firms, which have long

182
In sectors where Western firms are strong, they often make use of Western embassies in East Africa to lobby
directly on their behalf, as in the case of consistent pushback by some embassies in Dar es Salaam against efforts by
the Tanzanian government to reform its mining laws.
196

existed in private hands in Kenya and Uganda, but have emerged more recently in Rwanda and
Tanzania, have their eyes on foreign markets abroad and derive much of their revenue from
shipping commodities to Western markets. Accordingly, they are a key bastion of the export-
oriented coalition.
A third class of East African business elites who have generally been supportive of the
export-oriented coalition are the merchant class of Asian descent based in East Africa. While
ethnically Asian merchants have long considered themselves (and been considered) distinct from
other East African large business owners for cultural and historical reasons, they share a similar
structural position in the economy and has perhaps an even more international outlook (Himbara
1994b; Oonk 2013). Accordingly, “the growth of a business culture that is more oriented to
making profits on the basis of scale of production and less dependent on political protection…
may be particularly relevant to [East African Asian family businesses] because for a long time
they have had the networks needed to invest and work effectively across the region’s national
borders but have not been encouraged to do so by the prevailing political economy” (Booth et al.
2007: 4).
The fourth class of East African business elites to consider are the heads of small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) across the region. By definition these businesses employ less than a
hundred people, and typically operate in just a single market. Overall, SMEs account for about
87 percent of all East African companies and typically are domestically owned, particularly in
the services sector (Ramdoo & Walker 2010: 22-23). Economists are divided about whether in
theory SMEs should support regional integration or not. On the one hand, researchers have
found that SMEs are more likely to suffer in a highly corrupt environment than larger firms, who
can afford the increased costs of doing business, and who are partially sheltered from
competition by the higher barriers to market entry (Fischer 2006: 55). If this is true, then SMEs
should be natural proponents of the increased transparency and openness the export-oriented
coalition typically endorses. On the other hand, however, lower barriers to cross-border trade
can mean increased competition for small firms that may not be very competitive to begin with.
Furthermore, the biggest upsides promised by the export-oriented coalition—increased access to
foreign markets and increased FDI—may not be particularly relevant for SMEs, who may not be
able to scale up and who may already benefit from informal cross-border trade (for a review, see
197

Kiggundu & DeGhetto 2015). Furthermore, export-oriented sectors of the economy tend to be
dominated by a handful of large firms, who have the capacity to meet the regulatory thresholds
markets like the EU insist upon.
183

Fortunately, in the case of East African SMEs we do not need to rely just on theory but
instead can turn to a series of opinion surveys of regional business managers taken over the
years.
184
These surveys show that a large majority of East African businesses, including SMEs,
support further regional integration as a way of accessing regional and international markets. A
2008 poll of business owners in the original three EAC member states found high levels of
support for the EAC Customs Union: “Free movement of goods within the EAC has been a
major boost to businesses, a position supported by 77%, 73% and 46% of companies in Uganda,
Kenya and Tanzania respectively” (EABC 2008a: vi). A separate survey of regional CEOs by
PricewaterhouseCoopers that same year found over 90 percent support for regional integration,
although again support was lower in Tanzania.
185
More recently, Sutton et al. (2015) performed
a content analysis of short reflections penned by 13 business leaders in East Africa.
186
They
found very strong demand among the managers of both East African SMEs and larger firms for
increased regulatory harmonization by the EAC member governments, especially in the areas of
currency convertibility, product standards, registration requirements, and tax codes. Indeed, the
managers considered the cultural, social, and linguistic differences between the five East African
countries to be much less of an impediment for expanding their businesses than the differences in
the formal regulations of the EAC-5. All of this suggests that East African SMEs are
sympathetic to the goals of the export-oriented coalition.
East African business elites who support the export-oriented coalition engage in politics
first and foremost by organizing themselves into lobbying organizations. In 1997, East African

183
In part because of the burdensome requirements imposed by an EU regulation, it was expected in 2005 that the
Kenyan cut flowers export sector would contract from 200 registered firms to only 6: “A Sledgehammer to Miss the
Nut,” EUReferendum.com, August 25, 2005.
184
Methodologically speaking, the most significant problem with the surveys I discuss here is their use of
convenience and purposive samples instead of random samples, which could be significantly biasing results. In
addition, while Sutton et al. (2015) are to be commended for their evenhandedness in dealing with their data and
their explicit attention to negative/null findings, the EABC is far from a neutral party in administering surveys about
the desirability of regional integration, undermining the credibility of their surveys.
185
“Majority businesses in East Africa favour regional integration,” This Day (Dar es Salaam), July 17, 2008.
186
The written statements that provide the basis for the content analysis are also provided in the 2015 special issue
of the Africa Journal of Management.
198

business owners founded the East African Business Council (EABC) to lobby for their collective
interests across the region. The EABC’s stated goal is “to be an effective change agent for
fostering an enabling business environment for a diversified, competitive, export-led, integrated
and sustainable economy,” which it seeks to accomplish via a mix of private sector coordination,
policy research, educational workshops, naming and shaming, and extensive lobbying.
187
Its
emergence as a significant player in East African politics is notable, in part because the EABC
polices itself and is genuinely committed to an above-board East African political economy: “it
believes that defending a stable business environment for its members involves actively resisting
the pattern in which particular firms from within or outside the region approach governments for
special treatment—for example, tax breaks or concessions on the importation of raw materials,
presented as an investment incentive” (Booth et al. 2007: 6). In addition to the EABC, the three
national Chambers of Commerce came together to form the East African Chamber of Commerce,
Industry and Agriculture in 2005.
In addition to business elites, the other major component of the export-oriented coalition
in East Africa is the nascent professional classes that stand to benefit from increased economic
activity, such as journalists, lawyers, accountants, engineers, and consultants. Like business
elites, these professions are also increasingly organizing themselves at the regional level in
addition to at the national level, forming vocal professional organizations such as the East Africa
Law Society or the East African Community Institutes of Accountants. An examination of
skilled professions in East Africa by the World Bank concluded that “the heterogeneity of
professional endowments and the sectoral earnings differentials across countries suggest that
there is a great potential for… cross-border movements of professionals to provide services [in
neighboring countries], and important gains to be derived from creating an integrated regional
market for professional services in East Africa” (World Bank 2010: 46). Recalling Solingen’s
(1998: 18) argument that ideology matters greatly in coalitional clashes and her focus on the
“mobilizing capacity of prevailing norms, powerful identity concepts, and historical myths,” the
onus of developing legitimizing justifications for the export-oriented coalition with broad
popular appeal largely falls on these professional organizations. Their arguments typically rely

187
Revisiting the theme of post-colonialism discussed in Chapter 4, it should be noted that the EABC, whose tagline
is “The Voice of the Private Sector in East Africa,” has received substantial funding from the German, Norwegian,
and other European development agencies over the years.
199

on appeals to modernization, economic and national progress, and the need to address the
challenges of globalization. Sahle (2008) and Söderbaum (2007: 189-190) both argue that the
New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), an African Union-affiliated international
organization-cum-think tank, serves as an important locus for developing ideological
justifications for the export-oriented coalition. An important rhetorical touchstone for export-
oriented East African leaders is the example of the East Asian tigers, who it is argued used their
exporting prowess in the 1980s and 1990s to obtain significant growth.
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Finally, there is one significant set of actors in the East African political economy that is
not easy to place in either coalition, namely East African militaries. Solingen (1998: 33-35) and
Fischer (2006: 56-57) both argue that national militaries will usually align themselves with rent-
oriented coalitions. However, it is unclear to what an extent this prediction holds for East Africa.
On the one hand, human rights NGOs have consistently accused the militaries of the Great Lakes
region of extorting local economic actors, particularly in the mining sector (e.g. Garrett &
Mitchell 2009). Furthermore, the secrecy which typically surrounds defense spending provides
easy opportunities for rent-extraction (Abbas et al. 2016), as occurred during Tanzania’s 1999
totally unneeded and kickback-laden acquisition of a military radar from BAE to the tune of £28
million, or Kenya’s equally dubious attempt to acquire a spy satellite in 2003. On the other
hand, some East African militaries have a strong tradition of avoiding political and economic
entanglements—most notably the Tanzanian People’s Defense Forces (Omari 2001; Lupogo
2001), but also to a lesser degree the Kenyan Defense Forces, which, for example, were
commended for their actions in the aftermath of Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence by the
independent Waki Commision report (Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence 2008:
380).
189
Additionally, as discussed in Section 5.5, there has been an uptick in peaceful
cooperation among East African militaries, leading to the holding of a number of joint military
exercises since 2005, which runs counter to predictions that East African militaries are primarily

188
Since the publication of a 2010 McKinsey Global Institute Report, this parallel is invariably framed as one
between Asian “tigers” and African “lions” (Roxburgh et al. 2010).
189
One should be careful not to read too much into the depoliticization of East African militaries. Had the British
not happened to have a small flotilla off the Tanganyikan coast when the 1964 army mutiny broke out, or had the
coup plotters of the 1982 abortive coup in Kenya not been hyper-incompetent, East Africa’s political trajectory
could appear quite different today.
200

interested in pursuing nationalist goals. The emergence of peacekeeping as a crucial source of
revenue for all the East African militaries (both institutionally and at the level of individual
soldiers) may have mitigated the desire of East African militaries to engage in rent-seeking
within their countries.
190
All in all, then, it is difficult to consistently place East African
militaries in either coalition.
I want to clarify two further points about the export-oriented coalition before moving on.
First, I want to reiterate that while the export-oriented coalition is generally supportive of
increasing intra-regional trade, it is more interested in extra-regional trade. Indeed, the export-
oriented coalition’s main regional goal is simply ensuring stability. For instance, it is estimated
that the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007-2008 cost Tanzanian exporters hundreds of
thousands of dollars, primarily because international airlines stopped servicing the Nairobi
airport through which 65% of Tanzanian flower exports typically go through.
191
Even more
pronounced disruptions were experienced in landlocked Uganda, where the suspension of normal
trucking routes through Kenya caused fuel prices in Uganda to surge, with knock-on effects
throughout the economy. Avoiding similar disruptions in business is an ongoing concern for the
export-oriented coalition.
Second, note that in my description of the export-oriented coalition I have avoided
suggesting that either its ideology or practices are neoliberal. There is a growing scholarly
literature on the emergence of neoliberalism in Africa (Söderbaum 2004; Ferguson 2006;
Mensah 2008; Harrison 2010; Mawuko-Yevugah 2014), strongly linked to the growing influence
of multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank (Harrison 2004). To a certain
extent, the emergence of the export-oriented coalition in East Africa overlaps with the increasing

190
Data on East African participation in UN peacekeeping missions are provided in Table 6.1. At least one EAC
member state has been a Top Ten contributor of UN peacekeepers for each of the past five years. On the ways in
which contributing significantly to peacekeeping operations solves a number of problems for East African
governments, see: Beswick (2010); Fisher (2012); Cunliffe (2014); Wilén et al. (2015). The significance of
peacekeeping as a source of funds for East African governments was underscored by the fact that the EU
specifically targeted Burundi’s peacekeeping revenue in March 2016 as a way of putting pressure on the Nkurunziza
administration: Edmund Blair, “Exclusive: EU takes aim where it hurts Burundi: peacekeeper funding,”
Reuters.com, March 29, 2016. Relatedly, since 2009 Uganda’s single largest export has been private military
contractors, overtaking coffee exports (David Gauvey Herbert, “Mercenary Nation: How Uganda Became the
World’s Leading Source of Soldiers,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 16, 2016.
191
“Kenya's deadlock puts Tanzanians horticultural under siege,” by Adam Ihucha, eTurboNews.com, February 6,
2008.
201

neoliberalization of Africa. For instance, the export-oriented coalition typically supports three
planks of the typical neoliberal agenda: lessening business regulations, devaluing the national
currency to favor exports, and embracing trade and financial liberalization. However, in other
instances the export-oriented coalition wants more government, not less. This is clearly the case
in the continual demand for better public infrastructure, for instance. Accordingly, it would be
too simplistic to reduce the desires of the rent-oriented coalition to simple neoliberalism.
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In closing this section, I hope it will already be apparent to the reader how the
fundamental economic interests of the rent-oriented and export-oriented coalitions are usually in
direct opposition. The rent-oriented coalition wants to preserve high tariffs and export taxes,
which provide a significant percentage of East African governments’ revenue.
193
The export-
oriented coalition wants to remove them in order to lower their costs. Similarly, the rent-
oriented coalition wants to maintain the NTBs that provides it with opportunities for rent-
extraction, whereas the export-oriented coalition wants to do away with them. The export-
oriented coalition wants to increase the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of
government bureaucracies, whereas the rent-oriented coalition wants none of those things. In
general the rent-oriented coalition has a status quo bias, whereas the export-oriented coalition
seeks economic and political reforms.
In short, I am arguing that the competition between the two coalitions approximates a
zero-sum game. To be sure, there are some murky areas. For instance, while the export-oriented
coalition supports large-scale infrastructure projects that will improve the region’s transportation
links, large infrastructure contracts paid out by East African governments also provide a
tempting opportunity for rent extraction. Or again, a recent grand corruption scandal in
Tanzania—the so-called EPA scandal at the Bank of Tanzania uncovered in 2007—featured

192
For a contrasting view that equates “market-integration regionalism” with neoliberalism, see Söderbaum (2007:
189-192). Our differences may be linked to two factors: first, he focuses on Southern Africa, which may differ from
East Africa. Second, the word “public” can be confusing. The export-oriented coalition has little to no interest in
actually involving the public, i.e. the bulk of East Africa’s citizenry, in political or economic decision-making,
preferring to keep politics at the level of elite coalitions. However, the export-oriented coalition does want public
institutions, i.e. the government, to play select roles in the economy, if only to absorb certain economic costs and
risks.
193
Taxes on international trade amounted to 9.2% of total government fiscal revenue in 2012 (unweighted average
for the EAC-5), according to data from the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics database.
202

illegal payouts that went out precisely to private firms heavily involved in importing goods into
the country. But in general the gains of one coalition come at the expense of the other.
So, who is winning in East African politics? Before we can tackle that question,
however, we need to sketch out where the coalitions are strongest in East Africa.

7.4 The Distribution of the Two Coalitions across East Africa
The relative strength of the two coalitions shifts both over time and from country to
country. Historically, the rent-oriented coalition was far more powerful than the export-oriented
coalition during the 1980s, when many of the most corrupt leaders in recent East African history
ruled (the second presidency of Obote in Uganda, Moi in Kenya, Mwinyi in Tanzania).
Important differences also exist from country to country. The export-oriented coalition is most
strongly present in Uganda and Rwanda. Burundi, on the other hand, is a bastion of the rent-
oriented coalition. Kenya and Tanzania, East Africa’s two largest economies, sit somewhere in
the middle, with long traditions of entrenched corruption but also recent moves that favor the
export-oriented coalition. This section provides a contemporary snapshot of the status of the two
coalitions across East Africa.
As noted earlier, the story of Uganda’s political evolution over the last 30 years is really
the story of Museveni. When Museveni’s National Resistance Army ousted Tito Okello in early
1986, he accomplished an African first: “It was the first time that power had been captured and
retained successfully by an insurgent army, as opposed to a small group of officers organizing a
palace coup. The NRA’s victory was achieved with very little material or moral support from
outside Uganda, mainly through winning the confidence of the population and capturing the
weapons of the disintegrating national army” (Pinkney 2001: 162-163). As a result of his
popular legitimacy, Museveni had relatively free reign to structure the country’s economy as he
pleased. He surprised many of his contemporaries by leaving aside the socialist policies he had
espoused during his younger years and instead quickly embraced Western recommendations
about economic liberalization. He wrote in his autobiography that “What is crucial is the
market—the rules that govern that market and the ease with which people can do business”
(Museveni 1997: 185). A program of privatization and decentralization has followed ever since,
one that pleased Uganda’s Western donors so much that they overlooked the marked lack of
203

political liberalization (Pinkney 2001: 164). Foreign exchange controls were ended in 1990,
Uganda’s main export sector—coffee—was liberalized in 1991, and financial sector reforms
were undertaken in 1993 (Suruma 2014). With Museveni’s continued blessing and the
appointment of technocrats at the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, the export-oriented
coalition has continued to see its power grow in Uganda over the years (Olympio 2013: 619;
although see Tripp 2010 for a dissenting view).
In Rwanda, the devastation of traditional elites during the 1994 genocide created a tabula
rasa, which Kagame and that Rwandan Patriotic Front have filled ever since. Kagame’s
embrace of donor-supported economic reforms has led to major gains for the export-oriented
coalition in Rwanda (Crisafulli & Redmond 2012). According to Transparency International’s
Perceived Corruption Index (which surveys country experts), Rwanda is the least corrupt East
African country by a fair margin. This finding is borne out by Transparency International’s other
research publication, the Global Corruption Barometer, which directly surveys country nationals
about their experiences with corruption in daily life. In 2014, 89% of Rwandan respondents said
that corruption had decreased either a little or a lot over the past two years. Whether or not that
may change as the Rwandan government becomes increasingly authoritarian is an open question.
Unlike in Rwanda, no decisive victor has ever emerged from Burundi’s seemingly
interminable civil strife. With a so-called “selective genocide” in 1972, military coups in 1976
and 1987, a second genocide in 1993 that led to a civil war that lasted until 2005, and recent
clashes between supporters of President Nkurunziza and opposition groups protesting his
unconstitutional claiming of a third presidential term throughout 2015, at no point since its
independence has Burundi enjoyed sufficient political stability to develop a major export sector.
Indeed, the repeated bouts of violence have led Burundi to be the most ineffective EAC member
state, which coupled with Burundi’s landlocked status and poor transportation infrastructure
make for a very difficult environment for the export-oriented coalition. Instead, the rent-oriented
coalition dominates local and national politics. According to Transparency International’s
Global Corruption Barometer, 49% of Burundian survey respondents felt that public officials
were corrupt, 69% of respondents felt that the judiciary was corrupt, and 82% of respondents felt
that the police were corrupt. 66% of Burundians interviewed claimed that corruption had gotten
worse in the preceding two years.
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Paradoxically, both elite coalitions are well established in Kenya. In absolute terms,
Kenya has both the most rents and exports in the EAC, owing to the size of its economy. On
paper, Kenya is the only East African country to have consistently followed an explicitly
capitalist economic policy since independence. In reality, the interweaving of the two
contradictory coalitions in Kenyan political life began in the immediate post-colonial period,
when President Kenyatta ensured that a large part of government positions (and the rent-seeking
they enabled) went to his ethnic group, the Kikuyu. This forced elites from other ethnic groups
to seek alternative avenues towards wealth, and many turned to exporting, benefitting from
Kenya’s relatively developed British-built infrastructure. Thus from the very get-go an
indigenous Kenyan capitalist class (dominated by Kenyans of Asian origin) existed independent
of the state (Kennedy 1988; Himbara 1994b). When Moi succeeded to the presidency in 1978,
the same two tracks persisted, but the ethnic groups switched, with the Kalenjin receiving the
plurality of high government offices while the now jobless Kikuyu suddenly found themselves
forced to embrace the private sector (Wrong 2009: 52). Corruption became even more
entrenched in Kenyan political life during the 1980s and 1990s (Kibwana et al. 1996), such that a
common joke became rewriting Louis XIV’s famous phrase as “L’état, c’est Moi.” Despite
rampant corruption, however, Kenyan exporters have shouldered on, agreeing to an unspoken
modus vivendi with major elements of the rent-oriented coalition that allowed them leeway over
economic policymaking in exchange for turning a blind eye to top-level corruption.
194
While the
export-oriented coalition made gains throughout the 2000s, they received a rude awakening in
2008 as the Kenyan economy spiraled downwards following post-election violence triggered in
part by widespread anger over elite corruption. It is unclear if the uneasy live-and-let-live
agreement the two coalitions have traditionally shared in Kenya will persist moving forward.
In contrast with Kenya, Tanzania’s economic policy has been avowedly socialist for
much of its history, particularly during Nyerere’s years in office (1960-1985). While Nyerere
was strongly opposed to corruption in government, this anti-corruption drive petered out under
his successors Mwinyi and Mkapa. Tanzania continues to operate as a de facto one-party state,
with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) enjoying power since 1962. Accordingly, the crux of

194
For a discussion of a similar type of relationship between the government, rent-extractors, and entrepreneurs in
neighboring South Sudan, see Twijnstra (2015).
205

the coalitional clash in Tanzanian politics currently plays out within the CCM party itself, where
exporters and rent-extractors co-exist in an uneasy balance (for an excellent study of the CCM’s
various factions, see Gray, H. 2015).
195

This has led to a high degree of policy instability within the Tanzanian government, with
policies that favor one coalition being overturned months later as a result of factional infighting
within the CCM (cf. Pinkey 2001: 196). For instance, when Tanzania faced an acute electricity
shortage in 2005, a call for proposals for emergency electrical generation was issued by the
national electricity utility (Nyang’oro 2010: 230-235). All submitted bids were initially deemed
insufficient, but then the energy minister, in conjunction with the prime minister Edward
Lowassa, overruled the utility and approved the bid from a private firm called Richmond
Development Company LLC. When a year later Richmond had proven incapable of improving
the country’s electrical supply in any meaningful way, a corruption investigation was opened by
the Prevention of Corruption Bureau, only to be quashed soon thereafter. This in turn led to a
full parliamentary investigation of the Richmond contract, and eventually to the resignation of
both ministers. Hazel Gray (2015) argues that these frequent policy reversals are the result of the
anti-corruption faction within the CCM being able to occasionally get the upper hand over
entrenched rent-extractors, although the factions are careful to limit the damage from infighting
lest the party’s domination of Tanzanian politics be threatened. President Kikwete himself,
while not able to exercise perfect control over his party, has generally been viewed as export-
oriented. In a speech to the Tanzania Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he stated that “the hallmark of
[Tanzania’s] foreign policy is Economic Diplomacy; therefore we need our diplomats to change
orientation accordingly. We expect them to be more proactive in securing markets for our
products abroad; they should market our tourism attractions and facilitate acquisition of
appropriate technology for the development of our country” (Nyang’oro 2010: 240, emphasis
added).

195
A good sense of the factional nature of the CCM also comes through in US diplomatic cables leaked by
WikiLeaks, particularly those featuring off-the-record conversations with CCM insiders – see, for example, 05
DARESSALAAM 972.
206

7.5 The Strategic Nature of East African Regional Politics
Having considered the distribution of the two coalitions across East Africa, we can now
focus on the strategies they employ to pursue their economic goals. Despite their diverse internal
make-ups, an assumption of this dissertation is that we can treat each coalition as a single
collective actor. Furthermore, these coalitional actors act strategically, that is to say they use
various strategies and counter-strategies in order to gain advantages over the rival coalition.
Some strategies are unique to one of the coalitions, but others are used by both. For
instance, both coalitions seek to lock-in their gains when possible. The locking in usually
involves erecting significant legal, social, or material barriers in an issue area to prevent
subsequent reforms on the issue, thereby indefinitely maintaining the existing arrangement. For
instance, consider the effort outgoing Kenyan President Moi made in 2001 to prevent the Kenya
Anti-Corruption Authority from being able to investigate any allegations older than four years
old, as well as granting immunity from prosecution to all retired politicians and civil servants.
196

This seems like a rather transparent effort by elements of the rent-oriented coalition to take
advantage of a temporary advantage to pass a constitutional amendment locking-in some of their
advantages ahead of major elections which might reconfigure the status quo. (The proposed
amendment was subsequently rejected by Parliament in a close vote.)
In contrast, others have found evidence of lock-in being used by the export-oriented
coalition:
The possibility that any formal agreements on harmonisation will be neutralised by the persistence
of informality in practice is a real one. However, according to one senior official the EAC process
is showing that it has the power to “lock in” reform policies that might otherwise not be
sustainable against patronage-driven politics at national level. On this view, the perception that
policy regimes are now “determined in Arusha,” and therefore can assumed to be stable, has
already had a positive impact on the investment climate. (Booth et al. 2007: 6)
Another strategy regularly used by both coalitions is to engage in venue-shopping when
they feel events are taking place in a forum that is tilted against them (cf. Busch 2007). The
various fora can be either national (the executive vs. the legislature vs. the judiciary, one ministry
over another), regional (the East African Legislative Assembly, various technical bodies such as
the Lake Victoria Basin Commission), or international (international governmental
organizations, state-led working groups). Typically the export-oriented coalition prefers like-

196
“Corruption in Kenya: Moi at Bay,” The Economist, August 16, 2001.
207

minded, powerful venues it thinks will have the resources to help it pursue its goals, while the
rent-oriented coalition may prefer diverting an issue to a weaker, less capable venue as a form of
foot-dragging. An example of venue-shopping in action could be the export-oriented coalition’s
increasing usage of the legal system in Rwanda and Uganda in recent years to advance its policy
goals, while it shies away from the (less sympathetic) courts in Tanzania and Burundi.

7.6 The Rent-Oriented Coalition’s Strategies
Let us turn now to strategies that are unique to one or the other of the coalitions.
Identifying the strategies of the rent-oriented coalition can prove very challenging for academic
researchers, for several reasons. First, whereas the export-oriented coalition tends to desire
public notice of its actions, rent-extractors tend to avoid public scrutiny for obvious reasons.
Second, the fundamentally local outlook of the rent-oriented coalition makes its actions difficult
to observe from afar, and even more so from abroad. Third, the less internationalized nature of
the rent-oriented coalition means that many of its key actors do not use English in their
communications, creating language difficulties for Western researchers.
Despite these difficulties, some direct empirical research on the strategies of the rent-
oriented coalition in East Africa have emerged in recent years (Ludeki 2003; Fischer 2006;
Macharia 2007). Some of the main strategies of the rent-oriented coalition include: foot-
dragging; expanding patronage networks; devolving politics to the local level; and using
intimidation and violence (see Figure 6.1).
Foot-dragging is a well-observed phenomenon in East African politics. Given the rent-
oriented coalition’s status-quo orientation, they often refuse to implement reforms that they
believe will benefit the export-oriented coalition. Collier (2009: 109) notes that the Kenyan
government promised the World Bank to liberalize its maize sector on five separate occasions
over a 15-year period, only to do nothing time and time again (it turns out that Kenya’s president
was one of the largest players in the profitable maize industry – Toye 1992: 190f). Alternatively,
the rent-oriented coalition may nominally embrace reforms, without actually investing the
necessary resources and political will to implement them (cf. Ludeki 2003; Andrews 2013).
Part of this foot-dragging entails resisting globalization as much as possible. Several
researchers have found that the more a country is integrated into the global economy, the lower
208

its level of corruption tends to be (Ades and Di Tella 1999; Sandholtz and Koetzle 2000;
Sandholtz and Gray 2003). Accordingly, the rent-oriented coalition has a pretty straightforward
interest in resisting international (and regional) economic integration. The discourse of national
sovereignty is frequently deployed by the rent-oriented coalition for this purpose.
A second strategy the rent-oriented coalition can use is to attempt to directly buy off any
segment of society that it considers crucial for its survival (Fischer 2006: 204-208). The logic
here is straightforward: while buying off more people cuts into the profits one accrues via rents,
it is nevertheless preferable than losing access to those rents entirely. In addition, expanding
patronage networks alters the political conversation surrounding rents. Beneficiaries may stop
perceiving them as income obtained despite not contributing anything meaningful to the
economy, and instead view them simply as a form of social redistribution. The OECD ruefully
observed this about the Ghanaian economy during the 1990s: “There are signs that the reduction
of distortions and renewed growth in Ghana over the last ten years have not improved the
population’s sense of well-being. This paradox could stem from the fact that the rents associated
with these distortions were widely distributed among the population to begin with” (cited in
Fischer 2006: 141). The rent-oriented coalition seeking to maintain and expand its patronage
networks is the essence of the neo-patrimonial system that has been found to be prevalent in
many parts of East Africa (Bratton & van de Walle 1994; Bayart 2009).
Devolution is a third strategy pursued by the rent-oriented coalition. The flipside of the
export-oriented coalition’s tactic of “internationalizing” political and economic issues,
devolution seeks to have policy-making occur at as small and local a level as possible. There are
two reasons for this: first, devolution makes scrutiny from higher levels less likely, making it
easier to obtain rents. Second, devolution may actually create rents, because an important type
of rent occurs when there are artificial boundaries to trade between neighboring areas. In other
words, if the rent-oriented coalition is able to turn a country into a patchwork of differing local
rules instead of a uniform national system, elites will be able to exploit those differences for
financial gain.
197
For instance, this is arguably the case of the island of Zanzibar, which has its

197
More specifically, devolution makes it more easy to obtain some kinds of rents (those associated with policy
differences in neighboring areas) while making other kinds of rents less likely (so-called “grand corruption,”
whereby top-level politicians and civil servants expropriate large amounts of public funds), because national
officials should now have less influence.
209

own political and administrative structures separate from that of mainland Tanzania, and which
many have accused allow Zanzibari politicians to line their pockets.
Intriguingly, the call for devolution has also been frequently taken up by some
international actors, who believe it can help increase the quality of democracy and policy-making
in a locale, since the residents will be closer to the decision-makers with influence over their
lives. For instance, the World Bank has had a Decentralization Unit since the early 2000s.
However, the tension between rent-extraction and democracy that devolution sets up frequently
goes unacknowledged in Western donor circle, or is argued away by stating that individuals and
businesses will “vote with their feet” and move to areas with better local governance, despite
much evidence that this actually occurs (Shah 2006: 5).
Finally, entrenched rent-extracting elites faced with pressure from the export-oriented
coalition may turn to intimidation and violence to maintain their rents. When the rent-oriented
coalition controls some or all government offices, official harassment becomes the norm. For
instance, Kenya’s President Moi “encouraged his supporters in the ministries and parastatals to
hamper businessmen… who criticized his administration or declined to pay ‘rents,’ among other
things by refusing to allocate import licenses and foreign exchange, denying land transfers or
bank loans, failing to extend public financial support to troubled banks, not issuing waivers on
custom duties and government taxes, terminating public power, water, and telephone services,
not allocating port facility berths or air cargo space, and using tax departments to aggressively
investigate opponents” (Fischer 2006: 209-210; see also Wrong 2009: 160). Even more
troubling is the recurrence of politically-motivated violence across East Africa. Kenya, Rwanda,
Burundi, and Uganda have long traditions of political assassinations against regime opponents
and whistleblowers. Consider the case of John Githongo, appointed Kenya’s first anti-corruption
czar in 2002. When he realized his bosses and fellow ministers were still engaging in corrupt
business deals, he was blackmailed, received death threats from senior government officials, was
tarred a homosexual and a foreign spy in the Kenyan press, and fled to the United Kingdom, only
for mercenaries to follow him there, although their assassination attempt was unsuccessful (the
story is told in detail in Wrong 2009).

210

7.7 The Export-Oriented Coalition’s Strategies
I turn now to a consideration of the strategies available to the export-oriented coalition in
its effort to reorient East African economic policies. Three primary strategies are discernible:
naming and shaming rent-extractors; strengthening regional levels of governance; and making
appeals to powerful external actors to apply pressure against the rent-oriented coalitions (see
Figure 6.1).
The simplest strategy available to the export-oriented coalition is to attempt to “name and
shame” rent-extractors by publicly disclosing information about them and the techniques they
use to obtain and maintain their rents. The logic is straightforward: since rents, by definition,
consist of costs borne by society to the benefit of particularistic interests, drawing public
attention to rents and rent-seekers should generate a backlash against them. Thus, a great deal of
official energy has been expended in East Africa identifying, collating, and publicizing specific
instances of rent-seeking behavior. The main point of focus has been on NTBs, because they are
the type of rent that most directly adversely affect the export-oriented coalition, but all types of
rents have been garnering increased exposure, particularly with the (still embryonic) introduction
of the Internet into East African politics. The naming and shaming of groups and organizations
responsible for maintaining NTBs takes the form of long, detailed lists of specific NTBs. The
first to adopt this strategy was the East African Business Council, which published the results of
surveys asking business leaders across the region to identify the biggest problems hampering
their businesses (EABC 2007; EABC 2008b; EABC 2011). The strategy was then adopted by
the EAC Secretariat, which since 2011 has published eight status reports on the elimination of
NTBs in East Africa (EAC Secretariat 2011; EAC Secretariat 2012 a - d; EAC Secretariat 2014 a
- c). Foreign entities have also contributed their own lists (Hangi 2010).
198

198
In light of the discussion of post-colonial theories in Chapter 4, it will perhaps not surprise the reader that much
of the impetus for focusing on the identification and elimination of NTBs in this systematic, step-by-step manner
seems to have originated outside of East Africa, specifically taking written form first in a 2008 World Bank report
that called for NTBs to be “the next main area for strengthening the EAC’s trade integration” (World Bank 2008).
That report was presented to the EAC Secretariat in late 2008 and became the foundation for the EAC’s “Time-
Bound Programme for Elimination of Identified Non-Tariff Barriers” (EAC Secretariat 2008), a monitoring program
which has received most of its funding from GIZ, the German development agency (EAC & EACB 2008?; GIZ
2011: 9). The World Bank was still heavily involved in producing an “EAC Scorecard” in 2014: Kennedy
Kangethe, “States’ compliance to EAC integration under scrutiny,” Capital Business (Nairobi), February 18, 2014.
211

Figure 6.2 shows a representative excerpt from the most recent status report on NTBs
issued by the EAC Secretariat. Several points are worth noting. First, individual NTBs are
grouped in three categories: resolved past issues (denoted in a green font), unresolved past issues
(written in blue), and NTBs newly introduced since the last status report (marked in red). For
each existing NTB, the responsible party is identified, and in some cases a reason is imputed for
their ongoing resistance (e.g. “insufficient financial resources to carry out reforms” or
“protecting local manufacturers”). To heighten the “shaming” aspect, business reporters from
newspapers across the region are officially incorporated into the EAC’s NTB Monitoring
Mechanism, with the expectation that they will publicize the reports’ findings. Accordingly,
newspapers and other mass media are an important front for the export-oriented coalition.
Overall, however, it is difficult to assess how successful the naming and shaming strategy
has been from the export-oriented coalition’s perspective. In contrast to other types of naming
and shaming campaigns conducted in international politics (cf. Lebovic & Voeten 2006; Murdie
& Davis 2012), which typically target specific corporations or individual political leaders, the
rent-seekers that are being targeted here are usually part of an official government ministry
which can typically justify its actions on security or sovereignty grounds, however spurious such
a claim may be. In addition, the limited knowledge most East Africans have of economic theory
may mean that pointing out the existence of rents may be insufficient to generate a demand for
policy reforms (Fischer 2006: 251). While the EAC argues that the number of NTBs across East
Africa have been going down over the years, it is hard to know if naming and shaming is having
a direct effect.
Kamanyi (2006) makes a final point about naming and shaming in East Africa by noting
how the EAC has been conspicuously silent about pointing out human rights violations and
undemocratic measures in its member states. This silence is particularly striking given the
gradual efforts other DWROs around the world have made on protecting human rights, such as
the Organization of American States or the Council of Europe. Why, then, does the EAC engage
in explicit naming and shaming with regard to NTBs, and not do the same for egregious human
rights violations? As is hopefully becoming clear, my answer is that the EAC is an organization
of, by, and for business elites, who are much more interested in denouncing inefficiencies at
border crossings than extrajudicial killings or infringements on free speech.
212

The second strategy pursued by the export-oriented coalition is to increase governance at
the regional level. This entails shifting policy areas from local or national control and instead
making them regional concerns, usually handled by the EAC, but occasionally by a technical
body like the Lake Victoria Basin Commission. The idea is to directly counteract the rent-
oriented coalition’s preference for devolving economic and political issues to the local level.
The export-oriented coalition feels that the regional level favors them for at least four reasons.
First, they tend to be more adept than typical rent extractors at managing trans-national relations,
due to their linguistic, social, educational, and professional backgrounds. Second, moving
decision-making up to the regional level has structural advantages, such as allowing national-
level veto players to be bypassed or making it easier for cross-national bargains involving issue
linkages to be struck. Third, interactions at the regional level facilitate policy diffusion and
mimicking, so a successful pro-exports policy innovation that worked in one country can be
more easily replicated in others. Fourth, the EAC specifically is seen as favorable to the goals of
the export-oriented coalition. One of the eight Founding Principles of the EAC as laid out in the
EAC Treaty is to work towards “the establishment of an export oriented economy for the Partner
States in which there shall be free movement of goods, persons, labour, services, capital,
information and technology.” While the EAC evolves over time and has varied in its degree of
willingness to support the export-oriented coalition, on the whole it has tended to favor policy
harmonization, infrastructure improvement, and trade liberalization, all important policy goals
for the export-oriented coalition. The EAC Secretariat in particular is perceived as friendly to
regional exporters, especially since it forged a close partnership with the European Union in the
mid-2000s. In short, the export-oriented coalition considers it a win whenever decisions are
taken at the regional level, almost before it knows the actual content of the decisions, because the
regional level is so tilted in its favor.
Some analysts doubt whether the export-oriented coalition actually prefers working in
close partnership with a formal regional organization like the EAC. For instance, Solingen
(2008: 285) argues on the basis of her East Asian case studies that internationalizing coalitions
prefer “informal institutional design.”
199
A more African-centric reason to doubt whether

199
The evidence from East Asia is not as clear-cut as Solingen suggests. Hameiri & Jones (2015) report the rise of
“regulatory regionalism” in specific economic issue areas across Asia—their description of regulatory regionalism
213

business elites would be eager to work closely with a formal organization is the high degree of
informal African trade. While precise numbers are obviously impossible to come by, analysts
suggest that informal trade that never enters into official channels may account for up to 60% of
intra-regional trade (Musonda 2004: 129; World Bank 2008: 11; Olmpio 2013: 559).
200
Why
would actors invested in the grey-economy pin their hopes on a formal DWRO? However my
research strongly supports the conclusion that the export-oriented coalition views the EAC as
one of its key allies in its struggle with the rent-oriented coalition (see Museveni 1997: 185).
The role of the EABC is central here. The EAC’s moves to explicitly partner with the private
sector are given concrete form in the very close working relationship between the EAC
Secretariat and the EABC, which is also based in Arusha (as opposed to, say, Nairobi). For its
part, the EABC boasts in its internal reports of its direct access to regional and national officials,
from the head-of-state level on down (e.g. Mengi 2009: 3-4). This assessment is borne out by
external evaluations as well: “The EABC is regarded in the EAC as being well positioned. The
association… works with the EAC as a privileged partner in identifying trade barriers….
Interviewees in the EAC Secretariat described the association as an active lobbyist that brings a
broad range of issues to the Secretariat’s attention” (GTZ 2010: 7).
The third strategy employed by the export-oriented coalition is to make appeals to
external actors for material and political support against the rent-oriented coalition. This strategy
is broadly similar to the “boomerang pattern” that Keck & Sikkink (1999) argued activists from
the developing world frequently employ. As they put it,
When the links between state and domestic actors are severed, domestic NGOs may
directly seek international allies to try to bring pressure on their states from outside. This
is the “boomerang” pattern of influence characteristic of transnational networks where
the target of their activity is to change a state’s behaviour…. Where governments are
unresponsive to groups whose claims may none the less resonate elsewhere, international
contacts can “amplify” the demands of domestic groups, pry open space for new issues,
and then echo these demands back into the domestic arena. (Keck & Sikkink 1999: 93)
Keck & Sikkink originally focused mostly on human rights campaigns and environmental
activism in the developing world, but the boomerang pattern has since been extended to other
areas: to human rights campaigns in the developed world (Zippel 2004); to campaigns targeting

very closely mirrors the export-oriented coalition’s turn towards formal regional organizations I observe in East
Africa.
200
Looking not just at trade but instead the overall economies of the EAC-5, Ogola et al. (2015: 348) estimate that
“the informal sector constitutes at least 25% of total GDP and as high as 45%.”
214

international financial institutions (Nelson 2002); to campaigns targeting multi-national
corporations (den Hond & de Bakker 2012); to activism by labor unions (Armbruster-Sandoval
2005); to activism by corporate shareholders (McAteer & Pulver 2009); to activism by epistemic
communities (Kinchy 2010); and to terrorist campaigns (Asal et al. 2007). To the best of my
knowledge, I am extending the boomerang concept by being the first to argue that sometimes
businesses in the developing world are the sources of boomerangs, not just their targets. In other
words, I am arguing here that business actors in the developing world also make boomerang
appeals, not just human rights advocates or environmental lobbyists.
Indeed, appeals by the East African export-oriented coalition have targeted a range of
international actors in recent years, ranging from the African-American business
community
201
to the Geneva-based World Economic Forum.
202
However, the bulk of the
appeals have been directed towards the EU, as well as to a lesser extent towards the WB and
the AfDB. Requests vary in their degree of formality and publicity: some are formal
governmental requests, some are comments issued to the media,
203
and presumably many
occur via private, backchannel communications.
International actors are often sympathetic to these appeals from the export-oriented
coalition, due to a combination of ideological affinity and belief that supporting the export-
oriented coalition is one of the best ways of guaranteeing East Africa’s long-term stability,
peacefulness, and prosperity. Accordingly, the EU and other major international actors intervene
in a variety of ways in East African inter-coalitional politics, including making use of the tools
previously discussed in Chapter 4:
- funding for large infrastructure projects;
- providing technical assistance to governmental ministries;
- subsidizing and assisting specific export-oriented civil society actors (e.g. the EABC);

201
The 2008 Leon Sullivan Summit was held in Arusha, Tanzania, and brought together over 4000 participants,
including six African Heads of State, to promote tourism and investment in East Africa.
202
A special session of the World Economic Forum devoted to Africa was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in May
2010; two of the four “thematic pillars” were strengthening African regional organizations and promoting intra-
African trade and investment.
203
See, for instance, “Common market still not reality, says Waiguru,” The Standard (Nairobi), February 21, 2014.
215

- financing research that directly takes on the rent-oriented coalition by “exposing the
welfare costs of particular clientelistic policy decisions” (Booth et al. 2007: 8; e.g.
Kibwana et al. 1996);
- behind-the-scenes political lobbying;
- and publicly issuing high-status reports advocating the goals of the export-oriented
coalition.
What is worth stressing here is how closely the EU’s interventions hew to the wishes of the
export-oriented coalition. For instance, of the €85 million the EU has earmarked to give to the
EAC over the 2015-2020 period as part of the 11
th
European Development Fund (EDF), €45
million are specifically dedicated towards increasing regional economic integration, including
exporters’ dream items like: “facilitate the online cross-registration of companies across East
African jurisdictions;” “support the liberalization of service sectors, notably for professional
services;” “remove non-tariff barriers in the transport corridor limiting the free movement of
goods;” “support small and medium enterprises, industries, value chains, trade infrastructures
and trade financing;” and “support [the] capacity building needs, advocacy work, networking of
business associations, chambers of commerce, export groups, [and] professional associations”
(EU – EA-SA-IO 2015: 38-40).
204

A brief illustration of how this boomerang process typically plays out can be seen with
the case of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards in East Africa. SPS standards are
governmental requirements that agricultural products must meet in order to be considered safe
for humans and other animal and plant life. While their deployment in Europe is rooted in
genuine health concerns, in East Africa SPS standards are often instrumentally used to create
NTBs that shield local producers and create opportunities for rent extraction. For instance,
Ugandan dairy farmers have long complained that their access to the Kenyan market is hindered
by the capriciousness of Kenya Revenue Authority customs officials and Kenya Bureau of
Standards inspectors, who create lengthy delays, demand bribes, and occasionally insist on

204
The 11
th
European Development Fund also contains a much larger pool of money—€600 million—set aside for
regional infrastructural projects in Eastern and Southern Africa, such as upgrading regional railways, but it is not yet
clear what portion of that money will be spent in East Africa specifically, although it is likely to be substantial. Any
such money spent will clearly also be in alignment with the export-oriented coalition’s goals.
216

standards that are technically impossible to achieve.
205
When complaints to both Nairobi and
Kampala fell on deaf ears, despite clear violations of the East African Common Market protocol,
dairy farmers across East Africa decided to mobilize, taking advantage of a grant program
offered by USAID to support the creation of East African business lobbies and forming the
Eastern and Southern Africa Dairy Association (ESADA) in 2004.
ESADA pursued the problem of SPS standards on two fronts. At home in East Africa,
ESADA (still receiving financial backing and technical assistance from USAID, and in
coordination with the EABC) lobbied the EAC to focus on the problem of inappropriate use of
SPS standards, eventually leading the EAC to reiterate its commitment to a harmonized set of
SPS standards for the entire region in 2010 (EABC 2010?b). But the ultimate prize for the
export-oriented coalition is to be able to increase its ability to meet Europe’s high SPS standards
so that it can increase its agricultural exports to that region. Accordingly, ESADA and other
regional bodies representing East Africa’s agricultural producers lobbied very hard to have SPS
standards be an agenda item in the negotiations surrounding the EU-EAC Economic Partnership
Agreement. In a circa 2010 policy brief, the EABC clearly appealed to the EU for support in
improving East Africa’s ability to meet the SPS standards which are a prerequisite for entry into
the European market:
The EU should provide technical assistance to EAC Partner States in areas relating to
TBT [technical barriers to trade] and SPS measures (especially capacity building in the
fields of standardisation, metrology, accreditation, conformity assessment, upgrading and
setting of laboratories and of other relevant institutions); the EU and EAC Partner States
should encourage the participation of the private sector in international standard setting
bodies; [and] the EU should ensure that EAC Partner States have always the capacity to
meet the international standards put in place by the EU or by other major trading
countries. (EABC 2010?a; see also Alipui 2010)
In a telling incongruity, a footnote mentions the fact that the writing of this appeal was itself
made possible by a grant from the EU’s EDF. In other words, as noted in Section 4.6 above, this
is yet another instance of the EU paying East African exporters to ask the EU for ever more
money. The EABC appeal for European help in meeting high SPS standards did not fall on deaf
ears, and NORAD, the Norwegian development agency, agreed to pay for a project whereby the
United Nations Industrial Development Organization worked with the EAC, its member states,

205
Wambi Micahel, “East Africa: Milk Trade War Spills Over Uganda and Kenya,” Inter Press Service, March 12,
2009; Devapriyo Das, “Milk: Keep the Taps on as EAC Realigns Itself in 2010,” The Observer (Kampala), January
13, 2010.
217

and even directly with individual East African exporters to meet internationally-recognized SPS
standards (UNIDO Evaluation Group 2011). Among the results of this project, which ended in
late 2011, was the establishment of certifying laboratories in East Africa that could test exports,
as well as the holding of “Food Safety Weeks” in all EAC member states to “raise awareness
among stakeholders.” The task of improving East Africa’s SPS standards has since been taken
up by USAID.

7.8 Is the Export-Oriented Coalition Winning? Recent Evidence from East Africa
Has this alliance between the export-oriented coalition and its international supporters led
to any gains on the ground? Is the export-oriented coalition gaining the upper hand against the
rent-oriented coalition in contemporary East Africa? There are serious data difficulties in
answering these question. For one thing, much of the data we are interested in is either not
collected, secret, or unavailable. Even when data are available, it is worth remembering that
many official African economic statistics are plagued by poor quality and/or political
manipulation (Jerven 2013; Carletto et al. 2013; Desiere et al. 2016), and that data availability
likely correlates with many of the factors we are studying, introducing systematic biases in the
results (Hollyer et al. 2011).
206

Still, let us postulate that the export-oriented coalition has been gaining the upper hand
over the rent-oriented coalition since regional integration was relaunched in 2000. Recall that
the EAC has undertaken a number of trade-related initiatives in recent years, including the
launch of a customs union in 2005, the entry into force of the Common Market Protocol in July
2010, and the signing of the Monetary Union Protocol in November 2013. The EAC also
initialed an EPA with EU in 2014. Given these developments, if the export-oriented coalition is
winning then these seven hypotheses should logically follow:
H1) The value of rents extracted in East Africa should be decreasing.
H2) The region’s material infrastructure related to exporting goods from East Africa (i.e.
“hardware”) should be improving.

206
See also two special issues on these topics: Vol. 35, No. 1 of The Canadian Journal of Development Studies and
Vol. 51, No. 2 of The Journal of Development Studies.
218

H3) The region’s administrative infrastructure related to exporting goods from East
Africa (i.e. “software”) should be improving.
H4) The costs of exporting goods from East Africa should be declining.
H5) The value and quantity of exports from East Africa should be increasing.
H6) The value-added (i.e. quality) of exports from East Africa should be increasing.
H7) The size of the export sector relative to the region’s overall economy should be
increasing.
In the rest of this section, I examine the best data publicly available to see whether these
hypotheses hold true or not. Wherever possible I present data for the years 1990-2015 to allow
for a comparison of the periods before and after formal regional cooperation was relaunched in
2000.

H1) Right off the bat we encounter difficulties with this approach, since there is no systematic
data available about the size of rents in East Africa. This is due not just to the inherent secrecy
of many rents, but also because of ongoing measurement problems with rents. Some economists
have attempted to develop proxy measures to get a rough sense of the magnitude of rents (e.g.
Murphy et al.’s 1999 attempt to compare the number of engineering degrees in a country relative
to its law degrees), but these tend to be too flawed or too distant from the actual phenomenon to
be of much use (see Fischer 2009: 125-129).
That leaves researchers with only anecdotal evidence about the size of rents in East
Africa. For instance, it is estimated that corruption by senior Kenyan procurement officers cost
the country $6.4 billion between 1991 and 1997 (Wrong 2009: 65). A separate procurement
scandal in Kenya—the so-called Anglo-Leasing affair—may have cost Kenyans $751 million
between 2001 and 2004 (Wrong 2009: 165), and dozens of other corruption scandals have been
documented in Kenya over the years (see the list in Kibwana et al. 1996: Chapter 4). In
Tanzania, the External Payments Account corruption scandal is estimated to have cost the
country $133 million during the 2005/2006 financial year.
207
Investigations of these scandals
certainly suggest that the absolute size of rent-seeking activity in East Africa is considerable, but

207
“EPA scandal dominated 2008, shook Kikwete,” by Mohamed Issa, The East African, January 3, 2009.
219

are too episodic to allow for a systematic picture of rent-seeking behavior to emerge. Overall, I
can neither confirm nor reject H1.

H2) Data on East Africa’s export-related infrastructure is also not readily available. For
instance, while the World Bank makes an effort to keep track of large public-private
infrastructural investment projects in its Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects Database,
it would be the first to admit that its dataset is far from complete. Nor do East African
governments provide an easily accessible breakdown of their annual spending on infrastructure.
Still, there is one measure that provides an insight into one specific aspect of the region’s export
infrastructure—how long it takes cargo containers to enter and exit from East African countries.
This measure is included in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business survey, which
reports various indicators relating to how easy it is to set up and run a small business in various
countries around the world.
208
Data are available annually for all five EAC members since 2006.
As can be seen from Figure 7.3, import and export times for a container of goods have been in
steady decline in East Africa. It took a minimum of 44 days to export a container in 2006, but
only 26 days in 2015.
209
This is mostly due to physical upgrades of the ports of Mombasa and
Dar es Salaam. While the region’s export infrastructure involves several other aspects, at least
for the ports we have partial confirmation of H2.

208
The World Bank’s annual Doing Business survey reports various indicators relating to how easy it is to set up and
run a small business in various countries around the world. The most pertinent indicators for assessing the success
of the export-oriented coalition are six measures that focus on how easy it is to conduct cross-border trade in a given
country. The six measures are: 1) how many documents a small business must fill out/obtain in order to import a
standard shipping container into the country; 2) how many documents a small business must fill out/obtain in order
to export a standard shipping container out of the country; 3) what is the minimum number of days it takes to import
a standard shipping container into the country; 4) what is the minimum number of days it takes to export a standard
shipping container out of the country; 5) what is the cost (in US dollars, adjusted for inflation) to import a standard
shipping container into the country, including shipping costs, port fees, and applicable government fees (but
excluding tariffs); and 6) what is the cost (in US dollars, adjusted for inflation) to export a standard shipping
container out of the country, including shipping costs, port fees, and applicable government fees (but excluding
tariffs). For further details on the definitions of and methodology underlying these indicators, see:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/trading-across-borders [last accessed April 13, 2016].
209
An April 2015 Brookings briefing note stated that “since 2014, there have been improvements in the turnaround
in the movement of cargo from the port in Mombasa (Kenya) to Kampala (Uganda) from 18 to four days and from
Mombasa to Kigali (Rwanda) from 21 days to six days.” See: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-
focus/posts/2015/04/30-east-african-community-drummond-williams [last accessed April 13, 2016].
220

H3) The Doing Business survey also provides some insights into the region’s export-related
“software.” One of the questions it asks governments is how many forms must be filled out in
order to legally import and export commercial goods into their country. While only a tiny part of
the administrative costs associated with exporting and importing, this measure does very nicely
capture the essence of the “software” approach. Figure 7.4 shows that while the pace has been
slow, EAC countries have reduced the number of forms they require since 2006. (It is worth
noting that the ideal number here is not zero—governments are correct to insist on a certain
number of forms in order to verify that the trade is legal. In 2012, the OECD average for the
number of forms required to export/import a container of goods was 4.4/4.8, while the sub-
Saharan African average was 7.7/8.5.) The available data confirm the validity of H3.

H4) Have the improvements in the region’s export-related hardware and software had knock-on
effects on the costs of exporting from the East African region? Again, the World Bank’s Doing
Business survey comes to our rescue, providing a relatively clear answer to the query. As Figure
7.5 shows, between 2006 and 2015, the average real cost of exporting a standard shipping
container from the EAC region dropped 37%, while the average real cost to import a container
dropped 43%. These are substantial reductions, and open the door for East African goods to
become truly competitive on the international market (recall from above that African goods are
particularly impacted by transportation costs). The available data confirm the validity of H4.

H5) Has the reduction in the costs of exporting correlated with an increase in the region’s
exports (measured both by value and by volume)? Here we have a fair amount of data, since
trade is recorded both by exporting and importing countries and reported to the United Nations,
the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Figure 7.6 reports the growth in the value
of exports by country (again normalized for all countries at 100 in the year 2000). The growth in
the value of East Africa’s exports has been extraordinary, which likely reflects at least three
factors: a) the efforts of the export-oriented coalition in East Africa; b) the commodities boom
that existed during the 2000s; and c) East Africa’s low starting point. Next, Figure 7.7 reports
actual dollar values for exports by country, drawing upon a slightly different dataset. All EAC
members except Burundi registered double digit average annual growth rates over the 1990-2014
221

period.
210
Figure 7.8 shows total exports for the EAC region as a whole. Note that as the export-
oriented coalition begins obtaining significant policy victories in the mid-2000s (launch of the
customs union, formal entry of Rwanda and Burundi into the EAC, launch of the common
market), exports increased dramatically, averaging an 11.6% yearly growth rate between 2000
and 2014.
However, perhaps this increase in the value of East Africa’s collective exports is simply
the result of an increase in prices (for instance, caused by the commodities boom that ran from
2000-2013). Is there actually fire beneath this smoke? Here we can turn to the volume of
exports for further confirmation that East Africa’s exports are indeed increasing. Traffic at the
major East African ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam has increased year-on-year since 2007
(Figure 7.9). Turning our attention to overall exports (i.e. not just those that pass through ports),
the trend over the past two decades is clear: while total exports for the EAC-5 were largely
stagnant during the 1990s, they took off after 2000 (see Figures 7.10-7.13). Figure 7.7 reports
the growth in the volume of exports by country, with the values for all countries normalized at
100 in the year 2000. Of the EAC-5, only Burundi did not significantly increase the volume of
its exports during the 2000s. In summary, we can strongly affirm H5.

H6) Is the value-added (i.e. quality) of East Africa’s exports increasing, or are the imports
simply the same raw primary commodities Africa has long been known for? A careful IMF
analysis of UN Comtrade data confirms that the quality of East African goods has been
increasing. Figure 7.11 is reproduced from Gigineishvili et al. (2014), and shows that the quality
of the goods increased for most products in all 5 EAC members (compare the position of the red
diamonds between the 1980 chart and the 2009 chart). Thus, the available data confirm the
validity of H6.

210
Export data was obtained from the IMF’s Direction of Trade Statistics database, and includes all of a country’s
exports measured in current US dollars. Some discrepancies may exist between Figures 7.9-7.10 and Figures 7.7-
7.8, owing to slight differences between the World Bank and IMF datasets. (Yet a third separate analysis using the
UN’s Comtrade database broadly confirmed the analysis based on the IMF data, but contained missing data and so is
not shown here.) Average annual growth rates were calculated on the basis of averaging yearly growth rates ((later
value – original value)/original value).
222

H7) However, perhaps the dramatic increase in exports is simply a reflection of overall growth
in these African countries since 1990, and not a meaningful measure of the influence of the
export-oriented coalition. To eliminate this potential counter-argument, we must consider
exports as a percent of overall GDP. The World Bank data reported in Figure 7.12 show a slow
increase over the 1990-2014 period, with exports on average moving from 13% to 16% of
overall GDP. Separate IMF analyses of the weighted data conclude more decisively that
“exports are rising as a share of GDP” in East Africa (Gigineishvili et al. 2014: 10-11; IMF
2008: 51). In addition, the IMF analysis notes that East African exports are becoming more
diversified in terms of product categories and number of trading partners (Gigineishvili et al.
2014: 11-13). (Indeed, overall the IMF is quite bullish about the future prospects of EAC
exports.) Overall, we can largely validate H7.

On the whole, the available data seem to indicate notable gains by the export-oriented
coalition over the past decade. Based on the best available information, we were able to confirm
the existence of 6 out of 7 trends that would logically be present if the export-oriented coalition
were gaining ground in East Africa. In presenting this data, I have been emphasizing the
changes over time, since I think they best reflect the outcome of the coalitional clash, but it is
worth noting that in absolute terms East Africa’s level of trade remains quite low by world
standards. This is partially due to the fact that three of the five EAC members are landlocked,
and hence have higher shipping costs and longer shipping times than littoral countries, but it also
suggests that the export-oriented coalition still has a long ways to go in its efforts to make
exports a reliable path to wealth in East Africa.

7.9 Conclusion
This chapter’s opening epigram suggested that, contrary to conventional accounts of
Africa as a continent filled with corrupt governments, African bureaucrats may actually be too
proud to take bribes. While East Africa is not quite there yet, there is a growing body of
empirical evidence to suggest that East African elites are increasingly pinning their economic
hopes not on rents but rather on exports. The EAC plays a central role in facilitating this
emerging trend. Returning briefly to Figure 7.2, we have seen how the export-oriented coalition
223

is essentially outflanking the rent-oriented coalition in important ways. Despite the rent-oriented
coalition’s best efforts to retain the status quo via foot-dragging and buying off or intimidating
opponents, savvy usage of venue-shopping and appeals to like-minded regional and international
allies has allowed the export-oriented coalition to make significant and accelerating headway in
recent years.
The broader theoretical take-away from this chapter is that trade promotion theories are
very helpful in framing East African politics. Models originally developed to describe East
Asian and Middle Eastern regionalism seem, with some adaptations, to capture a great deal of
the contestation surrounding the EAC. There are of course alternative theoretical accounts of
East African politics, however. Why do I find them less persuasive than the trade promotion
theories I have emphasized?
Let us briefly consider the three most common alternative explanations: state-based
theories; ethnic politics theories; and class-based theories. We already considered state-based
theories in Chapters 5 and 6, where I found surprisingly little evidence that: a) East African
states can be meaningfully considered unitary actors (as IR typically assumes); b) that East
African states engage in careful negotiations and bargaining over regional policies (as interstate
bargaining theories and the rational design of institutions school both assume); and c) that more
powerful East African states typically get their way in regional politics. Viewing the region
through a trade promotion theory lens helps explain these discrepancies. States are not unitary
actors, but instead riven by the two coalitions. Rather than carefully negotiating regional policies
on the basis of interests, regional policies are almost always formally written by the export-
oriented coalition, but their ability to implement them and overcome foot-dragging by the rent-
oriented coalition varies from policy area to policy area. And the most powerful East African
state on paper, Kenya, is actually quite internally divided about what its policies should be,
explaining its inability to impose its will on its neighbors.
Another common way of envisioning East African politics is through the perspective of
ethnic or tribal factionalism (e.g. Oucho 2002; Wrong 2009; Eifert et al. 2010). This has of
course been the dominant academic discourse vis-à-vis the 1994 Rwandan genocide,
211
and is

211
There is, however, growing scholarly pushback against ethnicity-based narratives about the Rwandan genocide.
Davenport & Stam (2009) ascribe the majority of the violence to inter-elite jockeying for political power and
224

also quite common in discussions of Burundian and Kenyan politics. However, I reject this
conceptualization of East African politics for two reasons. First, I think this school of thought
tends towards over-essentialization, and ignores the numerous ways in which ethnicity is
perpetually being contested and reformulated in East Africa (Chrétien & Prunier 2003; Lynch
2011). Secondly, I believe that my emphasis on rent-seekers vs. exporters can encapsulate ethnic
tensions while going beyond it to explain other phenomena. Concretely, I mean that when an
ethnic group or tribe claims power in a given East African country, they effectively become the
principal elements of the rent-oriented coalition in that country. This then forces elites from rival
ethnic groups to seek alternative avenues to wealth, which usually involve turning towards
exports. For instance, Fischer (2006: 250) writes about the Moi presidency in Kenya that
“depending on the setting, beneficiaries of certain reform measures also coincide with specific
ethnic groups. In Kenya for instance, Kikuyu and Luo largely supported reforms, while
politicians from Kalenjin and Maasai opposed them, as they feared losing their patronage
opportunities.” (The reverse had been true under the previous Kenyatta presidency.) However, a
strictly ethnic factionalist account cannot explain why some East African actors make appeals to
international actors and others do not, or more generally have much to say about Tanzanian
politics.
A third alternative way of explaining East African politics is via the lens of class
differences (e.g. Lofchie 2014). Typically this entails contrasting the interests of the large rural
majority with the goals of the urban minorities, and noting how government policy in East
African countries favors one or the other. For instance, government subsidies of seed and
fertilizer are crucial for rural communities, whereas investments in secondary education usually
benefit city-dwellers. Importantly, in recent years donors have become very sensitive to rural-
urban differences, and have called for a more equitable distribution of benefits between the two
classes (e.g. World Bank 2007b). Specifically, donors have argued that investments in
agricultural productivity yield better overall growth than equally-sized investments in East
African cities.

emphasize Hutu-on-Hutu violence. Earlier, André & Platteau (1998) had highlighted the role of land scarcity as a
key explanatory factor in the violence.
225

While it is true that rural and urban groups are differentially affected by national and
regional policies, it is incorrect to argue that this is the primary political cleavage in East Africa.
As I have argued several times, ordinary citizens generally have very little influence over East
African politics, and are typically ignored by domestic elites. There is therefore limited utility in
framing regional politics in this way, and typically political mobilization in East Africa does not
follow class lines (Klaus & Mitchell 2015).
At the end of the day, what best explains changes in East African regional politics?
Simply put, changes in the distribution of power between the two elite coalitions… not changes
in the power of states, ethnic groups, or social classes.
226

227

Figure 7.2: The Strategic Interactions of the Export-Oriented and Rent-Oriented Coalitions in East African Regionalism
212

212
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Rosalie Murphy in helping me to design this figure.
228

Figure 7.3: Sample Excerpt from EAC “Naming and Shaming” Report

Source: EAC Secretariat (2014c), “Status of Elimination of Non Tariff Barriers in the East African Community: Volume 8, December 2014,” pp. 7-9.

229

230

231

Source: World Bank Doing Business 2015

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Figure 7.4: Minimum Days Required to Import and Export a Standard Shipping
Container, EAC-5 Unweighted Average
Time to export (days) Time to import (days)
232

Source: World Bank Doing Business 2015

0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Figure 7.5: Documents Required to Import and Export a Standard Shipping Container,
EAC-5 Unweighted Average
Documents to export (number) Documents to import (number)
233

Source: World Bank Doing Business 2015
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Figure 7.6: Real Cost of Importing and Exporting a Standard Shipping Container,
EAC-5 Unweighted Average
Cost to export (deflated US$ per container) Cost to import (deflated US$ per container)
234

Source: World Development Indicators
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
900000
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Figure 7.7: Total Port Traffic, 2007-2013
(in number of TEU containers)
Mombasa
Dar es Salaam
235

Source: World Development Indicators
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Figure 7.8: Growth in V olume of Exports by Country
(2000 = 100)
Burundi
Kenya
Rwanda
Tanzania
Uganda
236

Source: World Development Indicators
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Figure 7.9: Growth in Value of Exports by Country
(2000 = 100)
Burundi
Kenya
Rwanda
Tanzania
Uganda
237

Source: Author’s calculations, based on IMF Direction of Trade Statistics database.

$-
$1,000,000,000
$2,000,000,000
$3,000,000,000
$4,000,000,000
$5,000,000,000
$6,000,000,000
$7,000,000,000
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 7.10: Total Exports by Country, 1990-2014
(in current US dollars)
Burundi
Kenya
Rwanda
Tanzania
Uganda
238

Source: Author’s calculations, based on IMF Direction of Trade Statistics database.

y = 2E+09e
0.0823x
$-
$2,000,000,000
$4,000,000,000
$6,000,000,000
$8,000,000,000
$10,000,000,000
$12,000,000,000
$14,000,000,000
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 7.11: Total Exports for EAC-5, 1990-2014
(in current US dollars)
Customs Union Launch
Rwanda, Burundi Join
Common Market Launch
Monetary Union Protocol Signed
239

Figure 7.12: Quality of EAC Goods, 1980 and 2009

Source: Gigineishvili et al. (2014): 16
240

Source: World Development Indicators
y = 0.1423x + 12.726
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
%
Figure 7.13: Exports as % of GDP, 1990-2014
(Unweighted EAC-5 Average)
241

Chapter 8: Conclusion

“These definitions coincide with the terms which, since Greek antiquity, have been used to define the forms of
government as the rule of man over man—of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy, of the best or the many in
aristocracy and democracy, to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such
dominion, bureaucracy, or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men, neither one nor the best,
neither the few nor the many, can be held responsible, and which could be properly called the rule by Nobody.
Indeed, if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by Nobody is clearly
the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done. It is
this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world-wide rebellious unrest.” ― Hannah
Arendt, On Violence

8.1 Introduction
For many Westerners, “bureaucracy” is a dirty word. Ordinary citizens despise it,
politicians of all stripes denounce it, and political theorists like Hannah Arendt, Max Weber, and
Michel Foucault decry it. Bureaucracy is usually seen as a fundamentally anti-humanist
technology of control: too powerful, too unresponsive, too unaccountable, too indifferent, too
self-contradictory, too inefficient, and too arbitrary.
Outside of the West, however, the discussion is usually about the opposite problem: not
having enough bureaucracy.
213
Indeed, perhaps the most straightforward way of reading the
relaunch of the EAC in 2000 is as an attempt by some East Africans, particularly in the older
generation, to bring back the pan-regional bureaucracy that held sway over the region during the
1950s and 60s. In many parts of East Africa, both civil society and the private sector seek more
rules, more order, and more control.
Furthermore, Arendt is only partially correct when she claims that bureaucracy is rule by
Nobody. On the contrary, this dissertation has shown that, at least in the case of the EAC, there
is a large and messy array of quite human actors involved with the making and remaking of the
EAC’s bureaucracy, from presidents interested in taking photo ops, to journalists looking for a
free breakfast, to international diplomats with problematically large development budgets, to
East African owners of large business frustrated about having to give their truckers bribe money,
to female traders crossing the Uganda-Tanzania border on foot hoping to make a bit more of a
profit on the other side, to villagers across the region eking out a meagre existence via
subsistence farming.

213
I am grateful to Juve Cortes for proposing this framework to me.
242

It is with these differing Western and East African archetypal perspectives on
bureaucracy in mind that this chapter looks to summarize the rest of the dissertation. First, in
Section 8.2 I briefly restate the overall argument of the dissertation chronologically, since it may
have been obscured by the thematic structuring of the individual theory chapters. Next, Section
8.3 looks ahead and makes a few informed guesses about emerging trends that could impact the
EAC in the next decade or two. Section 8.4 recaps the core theoretical contributions made by
this dissertation, reminding the reader which theories did the best job of explaining the EAC’s
emergence and subsequent development. Section 8.5 is more policy-oriented, and offers
separate answers to the “So what?” question for policymakers in both the developing and
developed worlds. Section 8.6 is perhaps a bit unusual—it seeks to forestall some quite
reasonable criticisms that could be made of this dissertation by offering a self-critique, a list of
potential issues that I have been keenly aware of while writing. Lastly, Sections 8.7 and 8.8
propose ideas for valuable future research: 8.7 considers how one might go about extrapolating
my findings to other cases of DWROs, while 8.8 makes detailed recommendations about how
researchers could further shed light on each of the five major theoretical approaches to DWROs
by using additional features of the EAC case.

8.2 The Argument Restated Chronologically
Because the substantive chapters of this dissertation were arranged on theoretical and
thematic lines, the argument was never stated chronologically. Here I restate it briefly.
Contemporary manifestations of East African regionalism draw upon a shared pre-
colonial legacy, including centuries-old trading routes and the spread of Swahili as a regional
lingua franca. This shared legacy developed further under British colonial administration. From
the very beginning of the 20
th
century, the British governed Kenya, Uganda, and (after 1920)
Tanganyika as a unit (although Kenya had pride of place for the British and was much more
developed than either Tanganyika or Uganda). A combination of economic, administrative, and
military logics led to ever more regional integration, such that British East Africa achieved a
possibly historically unprecedented degree of formal regional integration by the late 1940s, with
joint ownership of infrastructure, centralized taxation, a common currency, and a single central
bank.
243

By the time of decolonization in the 1960s, countervailing winds were pushing against
East African regionalism. On the one hand, the shared experiences of the decolonization
movement and the emergence of pan-Africanism as a popular ideology helped bring together the
three main East African countries. On the other hand, differing leadership in the three newly
independent countries, as well as differences in economic policies, began driving the three
countries apart. A proposal by Tanganyika in 1963 to outright form a political federation was
rejected by the other two governments. However, an effort was made to keep most of the gains
in regional integration achieved under the British via the development of the first East African
Community, founded in 1967. Abandoning the lofty rhetoric of earlier proposals, the first EAC
was a workman-like affair that sought to keep all parties invested in regional cooperation.
Specifically, some redistributive mechanisms were put in place to compensate Tanzania and
Uganda for keeping their markets open to Kenya’s far more powerful industrial sector.
An early success of the EAC’s ability to act collectively came in July 1968 when it
signed a free trade agreement with the European Economic Community. The EEC had insisted
on minor trade concessions from the EAC as part of the four-year long negotiations, but
subsequently accepted the principle of giving East African exporters unilateral duty-free and
quota-free access to the European market. While the EAC had insisted throughout the
negotiations on retaining their capability for future independent action, in practice the following
decades of preferential EU market access, combined with a marked deterioration in East Africa’s
material circumstances, ended up locking them into the EU’s sphere of influence. When the
EAC and the EU would meet again at the negotiating table in the 2000s, it would no longer be a
meeting of rough equals.
As the 1970s wore on, the EAC proved increasingly unable to handle its internal
differences. The different trajectories of the three East African states ultimately proved
insurmountable, and the Tanzania-Uganda War of 1978-79 marked the formal collapse of the
first EAC. Formal regional integration completely disappeared from East Africa’s agenda in the
1980s, and instead each country sought on its own to deal as best it could with the debt crisis that
marked that decade.
By the mid-1990s, interest in formal East African regionalism began re-emerging.
Structural changes in the world political-economy (most notably, the end of Cold War and the
244

rise of the Washington Consensus) were favorable, and regional integration came to be seen as a
keystone for growth at major multilateral institutions such as the EU, the WB, the IMF, and the
UN Economic Commission for Africa. In addition, all three East African countries were helmed
by leaders who shared broadly neoliberal economic outlooks and eager for peaceful foreign
policy successes. Accordingly, the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community
was signed in 1999 and the second EAC came into being in 2000.
While difficult to know fully because little public documentation is available, the signing
of the 1999 EAC Treaty seems to have largely been considered a photo op by the principals
involved. Accordingly, most attention at the time was focused on the Treaty’s several ambitious
headline goals, most notably the desire to ultimately form a single political union—a singular
goal that no other regional grouping in the world aspires to. But the document itself was a mess:
riddled with internal contradictions and remarkably ambiguous about details, both in terms of
timing as well as who the winners and losers of renewed regional integration would be. It seems
that the three East African Presidents, in their interest to achieve a PR coup, kicked difficult
decisions down the road, adopted ideas and terminology wholesale from the EU, and set-up a
number of organs that were intended to never be able to challenge the supremacy of the
Presidential Summit, leaving themselves in the position of chief veto players.
Still, what the three Presidents probably failed to anticipate was that the 1999 Treaty
opened the door for collective interests to form around the relaunched EAC. In particular, an
emerging coalition of East African business elites, who had begun uniting under the banner of
the East African Business Council (launched in 1997), saw an opportunity in the Treaty’s
Chapter 25, which spoke of the need for the EAC to conduct active consultations with the East
African private sector. These business elites came to see the EAC, particularly its Secretariat, as
a key ally in their efforts to shift decision-making on key political-economic issues throughout
East Africa away from national capitals and towards the regional level. This would allow the
business-friendly coalition to adopt export-oriented policies over the objection of their rivals, the
entrenched rent-oriented coalition.
Another development that the writers of the 1999 Treaty probably did not expect was
how swiftly the international community, and in particular the EU, would embrace the EAC.
The first EAC had always been a largely indigenous organization—after formal decolonization
245

and the rapid Africanization of the EAC’s civil service in the 1960s, the EAC’s dealings with
outside world had been sporadic and always occurred through diplomatic channels. But the EU
recognized that the nascent regional body, and in particular its Secretariat, represented an
important potential partner for its development agenda for East Africa. It launched a wide range
of ever-deepening relationships with the Arusha-based Secretariat, ranging from day-to-day
contacts to formally seconding EU staff to the organization. By 2006, the EAC was receiving a
third of its total budget from external donors. By 2010, that amount was over a half. And since
2012, about two thirds of the EAC’s budget has been provided by (largely European) external
donors, dwarfing the contributions from the EAC’s own member states.
Therefore the core of East Africa’s political and economic policy developments over the
last decade has been driven by this (presumably unforeseen) three-cornered alliance of export-
oriented business elites, European donors, and the EAC. They have continually pushed for the
removal of trade barriers, improved infrastructure, and the harmonization of national policies.
Consequently, exports as a percentage of the EAC-5’s Gross Regional Product rose from about
11% in 1998 to about 16% in 2014.
These developments have not always been to the liking of the EAC’s member states.
Tanzania, in particular, has long worried that if some of the stated goals of the EAC were put
into place—like achieving “free movement of peoples” across the region—it would be swamped
by hordes of Kenyans and Ugandans looking to take advantage of its relatively unpopulated land.
Accordingly, Tanzania has consistently sought to apply the brakes to regional integration since
the early 2000s, forcing important policies like the Customs Union to advance at a snail’s pace.
In addition, Tanzania retained a crucial trump card throughout the 2000s: the existence of an
“outside option” for it via its membership in rival regional bloc SADC. If the EAC moved
forward too fast, Tanzania threatened to leave the EAC and focus its energies on SADC instead.
Since about 2010, however, the EAC project has begun to accelerate, for at least three
reasons. First, the admission of two new members in 2007, Rwanda and Burundi, considerably
altered the organization’s internal dynamics. It was no longer Tanzania vs. Kenya and Uganda,
but rather Tanzania vs. Kenya, Uganda, and an incredibly forceful Rwanda (Burundi, crippled by
messy internal politics and a severe lack of administrative capacity, has for the most part sat on
the sidelines for the most part). Rwandan President Paul Kagame has emerged as an unlikely
246

champion of the EAC, consistently pushing the organization to move further, faster. Second, the
legal terrain underpinning the EAC has also altered: in 2009, the hitherto mostly quiet East
African Court of Justice delivered an opinion on whether the 1999 Treaty required unanimity in
EAC decision-making (as the Treaty’s signers probably had believed). Instead, the EACJ came
down firmly on the side of the newly-dubbed “Coalition of the Willing” (as Kenya, Rwanda, and
Uganda have begun referring to themselves), opening the door for them to bypass Tanzanian
objections. Third, as part of the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreement—a new free trade deal
the EU signed with the EAC in 2014 in order to comply with WTO regulations after 12 grueling
years of negotiation—Tanzania’s outside option has been severely eroded. Tanzania initially
considered signing an EPA with SADC, but became dissatisfied with South Africa’s
preeminence in the organization and instead begged its EAC partners to instead sign an EPA
with it. This will likely have the effect of locking Tanzania into its present regional
configuration for some time to come.
As frictions have increased between the EAC’s member states, the EAC Secretariat has
increasingly sought to take on an “honest broker” role, refusing for instance to endorse the
emerging “Coalition of the Willing” discourse. However, the Secretariat’s independence has
strongly come into question as part of the EPA fiasco: in 2008, the EU sought to use the
Secretariat as its proxy in its uphill fight to convince East Africa to sign an Economic Partnership
Agreement with it. This seems to have backfired: not only was the Secretariat unprepared to
take on such a high-profile role, the money that the EU channeled to it to help facilitate the
negotiations opened it up to charges of being a neo-colonial outpost. While the EU was
belatedly successful in its goal of obtaining an EPA, the resentment its heavy-handedness
engendered across a broad range of East African actors opened up fissures in the three-cornered
alliance. I suspect that the Secretariat would prefer to reduce its dependency on external donors,
but with financial contributions from its member states growing more precarious every year, it
seems to have no choice but to continue accepting external funds.
Today, then, the export-oriented coalition seems poised to achieve its vision of an
unfettered, free-trading, neoliberal-friendly East Africa. At this point, the main remaining
stumbling blocks are usually related to domestic politics, like the knock-on consequences of the
violence that surrounded the Kenyan elections in 2007 and the Burundian elections in 2015. But
247

hope comes from the peaceful elections in Tanzania in 2015, which reaffirmed the country’s
leadership’s generally export-friendly outlook and commitment to rooting out corruption.
Accordingly, the EAC seems relatively deserving of the praise that international donors have
heaped upon it, but with the reservation that its current policies do not do enough to help
ordinary East Africans, as I discuss further below.

8.3 Wither the EAC?
Looking forward, what can we expect for the EAC and East Africa more generally in the
years to come? Making predictions is always a fraught exercise for the academic, but I shall
nevertheless venture some informed guesses here.
 The EAC’s funding situation will continue to worsen, largely because the EAC member
states are no longer paying their dues and instead free-riding on European largesse. In
December 2015, the EAC’s coffers were completely empty as member states failed yet
again to pony up,
214
and only an emergency cash transfer from the German government
prevented a technical EAC bankruptcy.
215
However, the EU’s grants to the EAC are
themselves not always reliable, and are at risk of disappearing in whole or in part if major
political or accounting scandals take place. Following political violence in Burundi
throughout 2015, the EU suspended all aid to Burundi, which had the potential to
severely impact EAC operations.
216
Accordingly, the medium-term funding outlook for
the EAC is not ideal. Part of the problem getting member states to contribute financially
has been a dispute since 2012 about the formula by which member state contributions
would be assessed. The 2000 EAC Treaty originally prescribed that member states
would all pay an equal amount, but the admission of tiny Burundi (in comparison to, say,
Kenya) re-opened that can of worms. Various formula have been proposed, whereby a
member’s contribution would be based on GDP, on its imports from non-EAC countries,
on its exports to other EAC countries, or on overall tax revenues, without any clear
consensus emerging.
217
Given the impasse, the EAC Secretariat would desperately like

214
“Alarm raised as EAC coffers run dry,” Daily Nation (Nairobi), December 21, 2015.
215
Kiarie Njoroge, “EAC Head Office Gets Sh4bn from Germany,” Business Daily (Nairobi), January 25, 2016.
216
Trevor Analo and Scola Kama, “EAC funding under threat as donors object to Nkurunziza’s third term,” The
EastAfrican (Nairobi), August 22, 2015.
217
“Alarm raised as EAC coffers run dry,” Daily Nation (Nairobi), December 21, 2015.
248

to control its own stable source of revenue, and has recently proposed instituting a 1% tax
on all imports entering the EAC region (EAC 2014a: 2). Unfortunately for the
Secretariat, this is unlikely to garner approval from the EAC Summit anytime soon,
although it is worth nothing that if it did happen it would immediately leapfrog the
Secretariat into the ranks of the most powerful executive branch of a regional
organization anywhere in the world, surpassing the European Commission. In the short
term, the EAC’s dependence on the EU is likely to continue increasing.
 The EAC will continue to keep getting ahead of itself. In some ways, the history of East
African regional integration is a long litany of missed deadlines and unrealistic timelines.
For instance, in March 2015 three East African presidents loudly vowed that federation
would be achieved by 2016,
218
which is not going to happen. Missed mileposts have
rarely led to negative consequences, since East African publics are not capable of
generating audience costs and many elites (particularly in Tanzania) were satisfied with
the status quo. The EAC’s current timeline continues to be unrealistic, with for instance
the unveiling of a single region-wide currency scheduled for 2024 and political federation
due to happen around 2025, pending the writing of a federal constitution.
219
Adding a
sense of urgency to regional developments are a newly aggressive Rwanda and Museveni
hoping to bequeath federation to the region as a legacy, but without equal determination
in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, it is difficult to imagine game-changing events in the near
future.
 Competition between Tanzania and Kenya to become the main transportation corridor in
East Africa could turn ugly, possibly even leading one or the other to exit the EAC.
Given the reliance of a vast landlocked swathe of Eastern and Central Africa on just a
handful of Indian Ocean harbors, ports matter a great deal in East African politics. The
two largest ports currently are Mombasa in Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, but
neither country is satisfied with the status quo. Instead, Kenya and Tanzania have for
some years been locked in a competition over who will emerge as the “gateway to
Eastern Africa,” with plans to construct brand-new mega-ports in Lamu and Tanga,

218
Christabel Ligami, “Three countries renew push for EAC political federation by 2016,” The EastAfrican
(Nairobi), March 14, 2015.
219
Christabel Ligami, “EAC political federation awaits constitution,” The EastAfrican (Nairobi), April 16, 2016.
249

estimated to cost $24 billion and $32 billion respectively. As Ken Opalo rightly notes,
“While competition is usually healthy, this is an area where there is more need for
coordination than there is for competition among Eastern African governments.”
220
The
discovery of oil in land-locked Uganda, and the ensuing need to build a new pipeline to
the coast that will have either a Kenyan or Tanzanian terminus, has further escalated the
maritime arms race. In early 2016, Uganda entertained pipeline offers from both
countries, ultimately seeming to favor the Tanzanian proposal.
221
Perhaps the most
significant danger in the situation is that an embittered loser could feel that the EAC is no
longer delivering sufficient advantages and seek to end their participation in the regional
organization. As such, it will be important to keep an eye on the next most viable
DWRO available to EAC member states (for Kenya, COMESA; for Tanzania, SADC;
and for Rwanda, ECCAS) and the efforts they expend to keep exit options open.
222

Significant political attention to keeping exit options alive could severely undermine the
EAC in the medium-term.
 The increasing threat of Islamic terrorism across all of East Africa will lead to greater
security-sector cooperation and intelligence sharing among EAC member states. The
ever lengthening list of major terrorist attacks in the region—the 1998 US Embassy
bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the 2002 Mombasa airport attack, the 2010
Kampala World Cup bombings, the 2013 Westgate Mall siege, and the 2015 Garissa
University assault—have caused elites across East Africa to accept the need for
coordinated action, a message reinforced by Western donors (Olympio 2013: 626).
While this increased security cooperation will probably not take place primarily under
EAC auspices (instead an American-led framework seems more likely), it could have
positive knock-on effects for East African regional integration. In the same way that
World War II caused the British to greatly increase coordination among their East Africa
territories, so too could the “War on Terror” further the cause of East African

220
See https://kenopalo.com/2016/03/25/an-east-african-geopolitical-dilemma-which-pipeline-route-makes-most-
sense-for-uganda/ [last accessed April 13, 2016.]
221
Christabel Ligami, “As Uganda chooses Tanzania pipeline route, Kenya to go it alone,” The EastAfrican
(Nairobi), April 16, 2016.
222
E.g. Athan Tashobya, “Rwanda: Parliament Backs Rwanda's Readmission to ECCAS,” The New Times (Kigali),
October 9, 2015.
250

regionalism. Conversely, however, should the response of East African governments
prove ineffectual, foreign investors and businesses may flee the region, undermining an
important pillar of support for regional integration.
 Probably the boldest prediction in this list is that I expect East African business elites to
collectively get a bit more serious about dealing with flagrant rule of law violations over
the next several years. I write this as Uganda’s Museveni has been (unconstitutionally)
elected to a fifth five-year term, as Burundi’s Nkurunziza uses state repression to cow
resistance to his (unconstitutional) third term, and as Rwanda’s Kagame prepares for a
(constitutionally dubious) third term bid in 2017, so I well realize the overall thrust of
East Africa’s recent track record when it comes to rule of law, human rights, and good
governance issues. But I believe that the increasing ascendancy of rent-oriented East
African economic elites will change the calculations of national politicians. Whereas the
private sector had previously sought to curry favor with political elites as part of a neo-
patrimonial system, there is an increasing perception that violating the rule of law can
lead to civil society outbursts than can in turn disrupt normal business operations, with
extremely costly results. Accordingly, the priority for many East African business elites
is increasingly to ensure that nothing bad for business takes place, including in
neighboring countries. The real wake-up call may have been the violence surrounding
the 2007-2008 Kenyan elections, which sent economic shock waves throughout East
Africa and led to increased willingness by business leaders to ensure peaceful transitions
in the future.
 Despite the great deal of hand-wringing it has entailed in some circles, I am bullish about
the possible recent discovery of oil and gas in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and
Mozambique. The size of the reserves do not seem substantial enough to cause either
country to become a “rent economy” completely dependent on oil revenue. Indeed, to the
contrary exploiting oil reserves could introduce some welcome export diversification for
the region and, if refined in East Africa, even lead to millions in savings due to decreased
importations of gasoline. A more realistic danger is that easily extractable oil could fuel
low-scale resource conflicts along the Uganda-DRC border. Unfortunately, this is
already the case for other existing commodities found in the area, such as timber, so it is
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more likely that the troubled status quo will continue than major new conflicts will erupt.
Furthermore, it is reassuring to hear Museveni say the right things about oil, and
particularly to say, apparently genuinely, that the oil and gas found in Uganda “are not
just for Uganda but for the entire region” (Eyakuze & Salim 2012: 445). As observers
have astutely noted, handled properly the discovery of oil across East Africa could be an
incredible boon for the EAC.
223

8.4 Scholarly Takeaways: Which Theories Best Explain East African Regionalism?
In this section, I revisit some of the major scholarly contributions of this dissertation.
Ideally, my research would help move the academic conversation forward in the following
specific areas:
 First and foremost, this dissertation will hopefully spark renewed academic interest in the
EAC, which is at present severely understudied in Western academia. As mentioned at
the outset of this dissertation, there has not been a single-authored, book-length scholarly
treatment of regional integration in East Africa in decades. Additionally, the last serious
discussion of the EAC to occur in a top-ten IR journal occurred in 1974! Even the
branches of IR that should care about the EAC tend to overlook it, as in the case of the
comparative regionalism sub-school which tends to fixate on the “usual suspects” of
Mercosur, ASEAN, and SADC. Giving the EAC a little bit more time in the limelight
should help political scientists better understand the politics and economics of regional
integration in the developing world. As Nye (1968: 48) wrote quite some time ago, “the
study of integration efforts in other less-developed areas could be more fruitful for
African integrationists than the usual implicit comparisons with Europe.”
 Properly understood, the history of regional integration in colonial British East Africa
advances the start point for formal regional integration from 1951 to at least 1900; long
before the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, a customs union united
Kenya and Uganda economically.

223
Ken Opalo, “Be thy Neighbour’s Keeper: Avoiding the Resource Curse in Eastern Africa Through Regional
Cooperation,” AfDB “Integrating Africa” blog, July 24, 2013, available at:
http://www.afdb.org/en/blogs/integrating-africa/post/be-thy-neighbours-keeper-avoiding-the-resource-curse-in-
eastern-africa-through-regional-cooperation-12143/ [last accessed April 13, 2016].
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 Post-colonial theories about DWROs do a very good job of explaining the evolution of
the second EAC, and highlight the tricky nature of the EU’s heavy involvement with the
second EAC. However, we must distinguish between crude versions of the neo-colonial
argument (“the Europeans have always been oppressing the Africans”), which is
demonstrably not true, and the sophisticated version (“money from external donors
distorts the incentives of local East African actors in problematic ways”), which I
provide several examples of.
 Similarly, trade promotion theories about DWROs are very good at explaining the
second EAC’s focus on trade. There is an entire political economy underlying East
African regional integration which scholars can miss entirely unless they adopt a
regional perspective (as opposed to state-focused, ethnic/tribal-focused, or class-based
frames of view). In particular, the evolution of the second EAC has been heavily driven
by a three-cornered alliance between East African business elites, the EAC Secretariat,
and external donors like the EU, all of whom favor increasing both intra- and extra-
regional trade.
 Pace the expectations of the rational design of institutions school, policy coordination
theories about DWRO formation fail to explain the rebirth of the EAC in 2000. The
multiple internal contradictions that appear throughout the 1999 EAC Treaty suggest that
very little thought went into the negotiation and drafting of the agreement. East African
states did not carefully seek to delineate the outlines of their agents as principal-agent
theories would predict.
 Regional hegemonic theories cannot really be applied to the EAC because it is a region
of rough equals, which is something of an anomaly among DWROs. As integration has
increased in the region, so too have disagreements among the member states, which has
led the EAC Secretariat (and to a far lesser degree, the East African Court of Justice) to
adopt an “honest broker” role. None of this invalidates the general propositions of
regional hegemonic theories, which do seem to hold in other cases.
 The “new regionalism” literature overstates how novel the regionalist projects that
emerged in Africa during the 1990s are while simultaneously unfairly denigrating formal
regional integration in contemporary Africa (in favor of informal regionalism). While
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bottom-up approaches to regionalism can be extremely informative, top-down
approaches still matter, especially when popular participation in formal politics is
limited.
 I contribute new empirical material to the emerging discussion of “African agency.”
Some of it shows the limitations of African actors’ agency in the face of powerful
external actors, such as the failure of the East African states to resist signing the EPA.
But other aspects demonstrate hitherto unexpected amounts of agency, as when I show
how East African businesses are “playing boomerang” to outmaneuver the rent-oriented
coalition, or when the EU’s need to give money away to the EAC allows the “tail to wag
the dog.”
 Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, I am the first to extend work on the
boomerang pattern by recognizing that sometimes businesses in the developing world are
the sources of boomerangs, not just their targets. In other words, I am arguing here that
purely economic actors in the developing world also make boomerang appeals, not just
human rights activists or environmental advocates.
 Regarding the nature of EU foreign policy, the EU in contemporary East Africa is
fundamentally of a “developmentalist” mindset, where it gives aid to the EAC for the
sake of spending development funds. EU officials on the ground in East Africa
unanimously spoke of having noble idealistic reasons for being involved in the region,
but DG Trade’s actions during the EPA negotiations complicates this story.

8.5 Policy Recommendations
In this section, I propose several policy recommendations for elites in both the
developing and developed worlds. I urge policymakers in East Africa (and other parts of the
developing world) to:
 Continue resisting implementation of the EPAs, and seek to open ground for a
renegotiation by lobbying third-party members of the WTO to allow a return to the status
quo ante of non-reciprocal FTAs for all developing countries.
 Realize that, contrary to popular and theoretical expectations, regional integration does
not necessarily lead to a more unified, stronger bargaining position in international
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negotiations. In particular, given that each side’s internal cohesion is a main determinant
of outcomes in region-to-region negotiations, seek to develop some sort of mechanism
that could truly allow East Africa to speak with a single voice in trade negotiations
(perhaps a compensatory mechanism that would acknowledge Kenya’s different
structural position than the other four LDCs).
 Justify the EAC’s economic policies in terms of their impact on actual poverty reduction
and inequality, and not simply GDP growth (or other governmental figures).
 Even within the remit of improving East Africa’s infrastructure, important policy
divergences emerge. Whereas the EAC’s (and many donors’) current emphasis is on
large, export-oriented projects (like railways, ports, and pipelines), I would argue that a
focus on small local roads is more likely to directly impact livelihoods (see the
conclusions in Shiferaw et al. 2015; Stifel et al. 2016; and Yamauchi 2016).
I urge policymakers in Europe (and other parts of the developed world) to:
 Focus on policies that will benefit average East Africans, not just elites, i.e. improving
subsistence farming as opposed to cash exports, which have limited trickle down benefits
(cf. World Bank 2007b; Meeting of African and European Civil Society Organisation
2010).
 The EU should admit that directing significant resources to independent third parties
eventually produces a tradeoff between their effectiveness and their autonomy.
Accordingly, the EU should voluntarily impose a cap on its spending on the EAC,
limiting its donations to a percentage of the EAC’s total member state contributions.
This ensures that the EAC will be able to remain credibly independent and not
inadvertently suffer “capture,” allowing it to continue to play an impartial, “honest
broker” role among all the actors involved in East African regionalism. Having the cap
be linked to EAC member states’ spending has the additional advantage of rewarding MS
for further investing in the EAC. Institutions in the developing world may often face a
trade-off between capacity and legitimacy. External actors can help with the former, but
often at the cost of the latter. In the case of the EAC, the EU has gone too far and its
support has become counterproductive; it should review the support it provides all
DWROs to see if they also involve cases of over-reach.
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 The EU should reconsider its per diem policy, to ensure that it is not overly distorting the
incentives of East African bureaucrats or otherwise causing them to neglect their primary
tasks. In the short term, the EU should continue its efforts to get the EAC to make wider
use of teleconferencing; over the longer run, the EU (and other donors) should seriously
ask themselves (and ideally objectively measure) if the trainings and study tours they
offer actually provide value to end-users.
 The EU should encourage the East African media to take on a more independent
oversight role over all aspects of regional integration, even if this comes at the expense of
bad press for EU projects and initiatives.

8.6 Self Critiques
Towards the beginning of this dissertation, all the way back in Section 1.5, I discussed
the need for self-reflexivity in good scholarship, and addressed how my own background had
likely influenced my views about the EAC and the EU. As this dissertation comes to a close, I
think it is worth revisiting that idea and briefly mentioning what I consider both the strengths and
weaknesses of this dissertation.
I personally consider the strengths of this dissertation to be the thoroughness of its
treatment of the documentary record as well as its historical perspective. While I cannot claim
exhaustiveness, I have read and re-read a few hundred primary documents about the EAC and
EAC-EU relations, as well as perhaps two dozen differently scholarly accounts of the same.
This has included a systematic reading of both the available EU archival record on the topic as
well as contemporary accounts about the EAC in the East African press. I have left few
documentary stones unturned while writing this dissertation.
Furthermore, I think I bring a genuine historical perspective to an issue that too often is
only considered in a present context. While most accounts about the second EAC acknowledge
the British colonial legacy as well as the collapse of the first EAC, this is usually done is a
cursory fashion. I have sought to go deeper wherever possible—to mention but two examples,
my discussion of the role of transportation disagreements in contributing to the breakup of the
first EAC in the 1970s, as well as my close reading of the text of the 1999 Treaty establishing the
second EAC, significantly advance the state of the existing literature. Even more significantly,
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my direct comparison of EU-EAC ties in the 1960s and the 2000s allows us to avoid the overly-
simple critique that the EU always acts in a neo-colonial manner by carefully specifying exactly
how relations between East Africa and Europe have changed over the decades since
independence.
The weaknesses of this dissertation are myriad. One of the most glaring is the difficulties
of extrapolating from a single case-study, which I address in the next section. But my biggest
concerns are not methodological but rather substantive. To my mind, the largest flaw with this
dissertation is the relative absence of East African voices within it. To have really done the East
African perspective(s) more justice, I would have needed to conduct many more interviews, to
have spent more time in Arusha and the other East African capitals, to have observed EAC
bureaucrats in action more directly. While I have sought to avoid Eurocentrism in the theories I
have invoked, I am still conscious of heavily emphasizing the European side of this story. This
is particularly unfortunate because it is so difficult for East African voices to be heard in the
West. Contemporary Western media know quite little about East Africa (with the possible
exceptions of piracy, terrorism, and genocide), and are completely ignorant about the EAC and
other African DWROs. In the academy, few works by East African scholars make it into leading
journals or are printed by major academic presses (Moyo et al. 2008; Kamola 2012: 198-199).
Wherever possible, I have sought both to give voice to East African officials and to cite East
Africans scholars… but I could have done more. In particular, I am very aware that ordinary
East Africans (including women) rarely make an appearance in this story. My dissertation—like
the institutions it describes—is very much a top-down enterprise, and this is a significant
limitation.
I also worry that in my presentation of East Africa I may have been slightly biased
towards Tanzania. It is the country in East Africa that I know best and where I have spent the
most time, which has likely influenced my overall thinking. To a certain extent giving pride of
place to Tanzania in a dissertation such as this one is understandable, given that the EAC is
located in Tanzania and that the EU embassies in Dar es Salaam take the lead in coordinating EU
relations with the EAC. Still, though, I think steeping myself more in the worldviews and
histories of Kenyans, Ugandans, Rwandans, and Burundians would have been helpful.

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8.7 Directions for Future Research: Extrapolating to Other Cases
While the aims of this study have been relatively general—to consider in more detail the
role that external and structural factors play in the development of regionalism around the
world—its application consisted of a single case study. Single case studies, of course, only
provide us with limited analytical utility, and their conclusions may not be generalizable. This is
particularly the case with non-randomly selected cases like mine, which might be biased as the
result of having selected on the independent variable (in the case of the EAC, a very strong
external EU influence) or the dependent variable (in the case of the EAC, being a DWRO
“success story”).
Accordingly, the single most essential direction for future research is to continue with the
important work started by the comparative regionalism school and thoroughly investigate as
many DWROs as possible, especially those that have hitherto been overlooked by academics.
Careful comparative work is needed to identify the particular constellation of internal, external,
and structural factors that have given rise to (non-)regionalism in specific parts of the world. In
addition, the theories I have outlined in Chapter 2 need to be applied to a wider range of
DWROs, while also allowing for the inductive identification of new theories of DWROs.
The benefits of such a rigorous and exhaustive comparative analysis of DWROs would
be manifold. First, it would empirically increase our knowledge of little-known organizations
like CARICOM, the Pacific Islands Forum, and CEMAC, which are usually ignored because of
their small size and arguably limited success. But it is precisely because of their “failure”
according to conventional Eurocentric stories about regionalism that these deserve to be
studied—what do they reveal to us about the blind spots of mainstream theories of regional
integration, and International Relations more generally? Second, a comparative analysis of
DWROs would help us better understand what the main drivers of regional integration around
the world today are. Are we still broadly in the same situation as the 1990s, when structural
factors drove the emergence of the “new regionalism” wave of DWROs all across the world? Or
are contemporary DWROs much more influenced by endogenous factors, in which case we
should expect a great deal of individual variation in DWROs in the years to come? Third,
applying the theories of DWROs outlined in Chapter 2 to a wider set of cases would help us
better come to terms which their validity? Although regional hegemonic theories do not seem to
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have much utility in explaining the formation of the EAC, do they fare better elsewhere? Do
post-colonial theories explain the evolution of DWROs as well in South Asia and Central
America as they seem to do in East Africa?

8.8 Directions for Future Research: Deepening Our Understanding of the EAC
In addition to applying the general framework employed in this study to other DWROS
around the world, there are several avenues which should be explored to deepen academic’s
understanding of the EAC. In this section I note several ideas I was, for various reasons, not able
to follow up upon in this dissertation, but which I nevertheless consider to be relatively low-
hanging fruit well worth the time of future scholars. I have grouped them according to the broad
category of theories laid out in Chapter 2.
Regional hegemonic theories usefully draw our attention to power, and in particular call
out for a more finely-grained set of measures of relative state power within DWROs. While I
maintain that regional hegemonic theories are not particularly applicable to East Africa, which I
have called a “region of peers,” a more rigorous analysis would go beyond the vignettes laid out
in Chapter 6 to identify the most significant axes along which member states jockey for influence
within the EAC. Potentially useful sources of data could come from either debates in the East
African Legislative Assembly, where East African MPs might be expected to advance positions
favorable to their home countries, or from cases heard by the East African Court of Justice where
the EAC members file briefs on opposite sides of the case.
Because the conditions surrounding the establishment of a DWRO are so central to policy
coordination theories, I also think it would behoove future researchers to revisit the re-founding
of the EAC in 1999 that I discussed in Chapter 5. Specifically, I think interviewing the main
participants in the negotiations leading up to the signing of the 1999 EAC Treaty would have
great analytic utility. What sort of concerns did participants have in mind as they negotiated the
treaty? What was the process by which the negotiations unfolded? What constraints were the
participants operating under? Is today’s EAC similar to what they imagined back then?
Supplemented by an examination of the original archival record, interviews would shine a great
deal of light on the late 1990s period, which at present remains an analytical black box. Not only
would the evidence unearthed help to either further deny or confirm the expectations of the
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“rational design of institutions” school, but we might be able to infer from those discussions
what the future trajectory of the EAC is likely to be.
In terms of trade promotion theories, I think it could be useful to attempt to formalize my
argument about how regional export-oriented coalitions seek to outmaneuver their rent-oriented
counterparts by appealing to powerful external actors. I argued in Section 7.5 that the main
players in East African regional politics can be considered self-interested unitary actors with
different, rank-ordered preferences that engage in strategic behavior, which already meets most
of the minimum criteria necessary for setting up a game theoretic model (cf. Bueno de Mesquita
1988: 629-630). Indeed, one can already distinguish hints in my Figure 7.2 of what a formal
model of DWROs that draws upon trade promotion theories might look like. Even more
particularly, I think the bureaucracies of DWROs could usefully be considered as agents in a
principals-agent model where the bureaucrats have the best information about true local
conditions which they can then choose to reveal or not to competing sets of elites (e.g. Fang &
Stone 2012).
Scholars of post-colonial theories could gain a far deeper and more nuanced
understanding of the EAC if they utilized the methodological tools of practice theory to
empirically explore what really happens day-to-day in Arusha, Brussels, and other significant
East African and European capitals. Specifically, I think it is high time a detailed ethnography of
EAC civil servants in situ was undertaken. Doing so would achieve at least two goals. First,
adopting a quotidian perspective towards the study of the EAC would help us better understand
the informal rules, habitual practices, and cognitive frames that actually shape the EAC’s work.
After all, for decades political scientists have acknowledged that the informal, unwritten rules of
a political system are at least as important as its formal, codified rules, and usually more so (e.g.
Lipsky 1980). And yet the EAC is almost always studied as a formal system, with undue
emphasis placed on its constitutional makeup as laid out in the 1999 Treaty Establishing the East
African Community.
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Second, conducting an in-depth ethnography of the EAC would also help us understand
who EAC bureaucrats actually are. European civil servants are a relatively well-researched
group by now, but African bureaucrats are tantalizingly understudied (Fourchard 2015: 39).

224
This tends to particularly be the case for analyses by East African scholars themselves.
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What are their backgrounds, motivations, and allegiances? Only very recently has rigorous
empirical work on African bureaucrats begun to emerge (cf. Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan
2014). Anders (2010) recounts how Malawian civil servants at all levels experienced,
negotiated, resisted, and adapted to major civil service reforms mandated by the World Bank.
Fourchard (2015) focuses on how crucial identity documents are obtained in Nigeria, noting that
the existence of unofficial paths for obtaining them simultaneously creates a safety valve in the
system while normalizing certain forms of discrimination. Funder & Marani (2015) investigate
the daily practices of environmental officers in rural Kenya and argue that most of their work
takes place at the blurred boundary between the formal and informal sectors. Similarly, Siwale
(forthcoming) examines where the rubber hits the road in terms of micro-finance institutions’
lending in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the daily dilemmas experienced by local loan
officers in Zambia. Having more of such rich empirical studies of East African bureaucrats
would be particularly useful as the political science literature undergoes a profound rethinking of
the concept of “corruption,” as we noted in Section 2.7.
Lastly we must consider rhetorical theories. The reader will have noticed that while I
introduced rhetorical theories of DWROs in Chapter 2, I never engaged in a full exploration of
how they might be applied to the case of the EAC. This was primarily due to time and space
constraints, as opposed to any analytical shortcomings on the part of rhetorical theories. To the
contrary, I remain convinced that a close analysis of the discourses surrounding the EAC is one
of the most important tasks that East Africanists and comparative regionalists should pursue.
Indeed, arguably the central insight of rhetorical theories is that, pace IR rationalists, talk is not
cheap, but rather deeply constitutive of the social world we all inhabit. Accordingly, we need to
take seriously the specific discourses that are used to describe and justify East African
regionalism.
As a first step, this can involve careful tracing of particularly important discourses over
time, as when I noted in Section 4.7 how the close working relationship between the EAC and
the EAC Secretariat was leading to verbal diffusion, with EU terms spilling over into East
African parlance. But to avoid selection bias and be comprehensive, it makes sense to seek to go
further and systemize the analysis with the help of computer tools. In particular, in recent years
a number of software programs have been written that attempt to situate actors in an ideological
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space based on a systematic examination of their public speech (Hopkins & King 2010; Grimmer
& Stewart 2013). For instance, there is a growing literature of computer-assisted content
analyses that attempt to demonstrate empirically whether interest groups have captured certain
national and supra-national forums by comparing the similarity of their discourses (Klüver 2009;
Klüver 2012; Costa el al. 2014). A typical analysis compares different versions of a same
document, such as a draft law, over time to see if changes are dictionally closer to a given actor’s
reference text or not (e.g. Wilkerson et al. 2015).
The same could and should be done for the EAC. While to the best of my knowledge no
computer-assisted discourse analyses have been conducted for any aspects of East African
politics thus far, there are no good theoretical reasons for thinking that these tools could not in
principle be applied to a DWRO like the EAC. The main impediment is instead likely to involve
compiling the corpora, or sets of documents, that are used to set the baseline ideological
positions of the various actors being studied. Still, the increasing digitalization of EAC-related
documents in contemporary East Africa, combined with some skillful usage of archival records,
should make it possible to establish large, reliable corpora.
Let me give you a concrete example of how a computer-assisted discourse analysis might
help our understanding of the EAC. I argued in Chapter 4 that as the EAC Secretariat has
received an ever larger share of its funding from the EU, it has become ideologically more
similar to the EU, internalizing a number of its beliefs and attitudes. If this is correct, we should
expect this to be reflected in the Secretariat’s choice of language and arguments; the Secretariat
should linguistically come to imitate the EU’s speech, if only faintly. In that case, it should be
relatively simple to compile three sets of representative documents concerning East African
regionalism: one from EU actors, one from EAC member states, and one from the EAC
Secretariat. Then, using a software program like Wordscores or Lexicoder, a numerical indicator
of dictional similarity between the three bodies can be calculated for various points over time,
which would either confirm or reject my hypothesis. Ultimately, computer-assisted discourse
analysis potentially represents a fine-grained yet low-cost way for Western-based researchers to
systematically engage in comparative research of some aspects of DWROs.
262

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