The "MuDAIMa" research project deals with regional integration processes.

The “MuDAIMa” research project analyses the integration of states into regional communities

Research Section: Affiliations

Much hope has been placed in regional economic communities and political integration processes in recent times. Numerous new regional organisations have emerged and set ambitious goals. Many African states are now part of more than one regional organisation. Eight of these partly overlapping Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been officially recognised by the continent-wide organisation African Union (AU). Tanzania, for example, is simultaneously a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC), but not part of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Other EAC and SADC members, in turn, are simultaneously part of the COMESA community. Multiple, overlapping and potentially competing economic, legal, and political affiliations can strongly influence the state and the dynamics of regional integration.

The research project “MuDAIMa” – “Multiplicity in Decision-Making of Africa’s Interacting Markets: The Functioning of Community Law, the Role of Market Participants and the Power of Regional Judges” – funded by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence aims to subject the integration of states into regional communities, together with the relational determinants relevant to the process, to a transdisciplinary analysis by combining approaches from economics, law, and political science.

The research team investigates whether and why states and other market participants are willing to take advantage of regional communities by delegating some of their processes of interest aggregation and decision-making, as well as conflict management, to certain organisations. It will examine whether and to whom these competences are effectively transferred, and how the interest aggregation processes thus established are integrated into state, intra-societal, regional, and global linkages.

Accordingly, the analysis will produce a general understanding of decision-making processes, delegation, and the associated legal, political, and economic consequences. The study of the intersections between legal frameworks, the general empirical findings on interest aggregation and the specific selection processes for the allocation of political and jurisdictional power opens up new transdisciplinary perspectives on regional integration processes in Africa.

The “MuDAIMa” project contributes to a better understanding of the strongly interwoven economic, legal, and political integration processes in Africa. The team works closely with scholars on the African continent, and uses an innovative combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods from the fields of economics, law, and political science.