Against the background of recent global crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and generally a resurgence of more aggressive global geopolitics, the Junior Research Group investigates the agency of African regional organizations (ROs) in governing the complexity of contemporary globalization processes across a range of policy fields that have been connected to global security. Africa has not only become a space where elements of potential new global orders are being tested, it is also a space of enormous global socio-economic and geopolitical importance. Consequently, African ROs have become important actors and key fora to discuss, negotiate and coordinate regional and global politics, increasing the need for scientific knowledge on African ROs. Therefore, this project investigates and compares six African regional economic communities (RECs) that the African Union formally recognizes as key partners and building blocks in developing and implementing regional/global policies, focusing on the policy fields of climate change, energy, health and migration, to highlight, differentiate and theorize their agency and practices in defining and confronting global challenges.
Studying the six most active RECs, across four key policy fields (i.e., climate change, migration, health, and energy), the project aims to close a large gap in existing research, which still struggles to highlight, differentiate and theorize the agency of African ROs in defining and confronting global challenges. This helps to establish a broad empirical basis for cooperative political action and to advance key theoretical debates in International Relations (IR) scholarship, specifically in the intersecting academic fields of Comparative Regionalism, Inter-Regionalism, Inter-Organizational Relations, and Global Governance. In this way, the project lays important groundwork for achieving more global comparability and generalizability, overcoming Western/Euro-centric perspectives, and thus advances theory-oriented research towards a more global IR.
African regional organizations: COMESA, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD, SADC, AU …
Policy fields: security, energy, health, migration, climate change …
General topics: African regionalism and global politics, global securitization discourses
- International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference – 1 February-5 March 2025, Chicago: Paper presenter / participant in pre-conference Workshop on “Global South Perspectives on International Organizations”; Organizer, co-chair and panelist of Roundtable on “Making Sense of African Regional Agency: Dis/assembling ECOWAS” (JH)
- Workshop on Research Data Management (led by Eva Ommert) – 27 March 2025, Leipzig University (AL and SM)
- Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaften (DVPW), Arbeitskreis Europa- und Regionalismusforschung (AKER) / German Political Science Association, Standing Group on Europe and Regionalism Research – 15-16 May 2025, Free University Berlin: Project presentation, discussion of conceptual framework and initial observations (JH)
- Research Day, Institute of African Studies – 18 June 2025, Leipzig University: Project presentation and open discussion (project team)
- European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) – 25-28 June 2025, Prag: Co-organizer and chair (JH), as well as paper presenters (AL and SM) at panel on “Re-Centering African Subjects and Subjectivities in Global Regionalism”
- 2nd Workshop of the DFG Scientific Network on “Re-Centering African Subjects and Subjectivities” – 30 June-3 July 2025, University of Marburg: Paper presenter / participant (JH)
- DFG Emmy-Noether Jahrestreffen / Annual Meeting – 10-12 July 2025, Potsdam: Participant (JH)
- International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Virtual Conference – 29 July-1 August 2025: Moderator of panel on “Health Politics in International Perspective”; and chair of panel on “The Middle East and North Africa: Between Colonialism and Conflict” (AL)
- Herpolsheimer, Jens. 2025. “The Sites, Actors and Practices of Inter-Regionalism between African Regional Organizations and the EU: Zooming in on ECOWAS-EU Relations.” In S. Price and M. Langan (eds.) Africa, the EU and the Samoa Agreement: Exploring Agency Amid the ‘New Scramble’. Abingdon / New York: Routledge, 129-146. Link to publication
- De Sousa, Ricardo R.P., Jens Herpolsheimer, and Jara Cuadrado (eds.). 2025. Political Instability in Guinea-Bissau. Abingdon / New York: Routledge. Link to publication
- Engel, Ulf, Jens Herpolsheimer, and Frank Mattheis (eds.). 2025. Globalization Projects of Regional Organizations. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Link to publication
- Herpolsheimer, Jens. 2025 (forthcoming). “Reading and Writing Global Regionalism from Africa.” In A. Acharya et al. (eds.) Essays on Global Regionalism I: The Past, Present and Future of Regionalism Studies. Cham: Springer.
