by Gbara Awanen (Author)

"Fragile States and the Crisis of Regionalism in West Africa" explores the economic and security dimensions of regionalism in West Africa, one of the world's poorest and most unstable regions. Set in the tumultuous years from the late 1970s onwards, the book delves through West Africa's security and strategic environment, the politics and promise of ECOWAS formation, and the organisation's evolution from being a vehicle for the economic integration of West Africa into a regional security provider. The author sees this transition as a necessary but painful consequence of West Africa's debilitating security environment characterized by conflicts from the late 1970s onwards. Using a five-country case study of legacy conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Cote d'Ivoire, and Nigeria, he notes that whereas these conflicts have not occurred between states, there had been a definite trend towards devastatingly perilous regional spillovers during their active phases. Although much of these conflicts have largely been resolved, or are now frozen, some have mutated into new forms, imperiling regional stability and socio-economic development.