South Africa & Southern Africa: Regional integration and emerging markets

The impact of global forces compels governments to recognise the incentives and constraints of inter-dependence and fashion appropriate institutional means for achieving the long term goal of closer union. If the building blocks of a future 'new world order' are to be regional groupings, in varying degrees of economic and political integration, the Southern African states will have to co-operate effectively if their peoples are to prosper. Thus the more we understand the dynamics of transnational change, the better placed our political masters will be to carry the enterprise to a successful conclusion - acknowledging, of course, that as institutional structures follow the substance of co-operation, the process remains open ended. The hope must be that an emerging pattern of co-operation will be firmly based on local experience and skills drawing on overseas counterparts whenever and wherever relevant. This volume, inter alia, makes a superb contribution in that regard.