Confronting Nationalism in 21st Century Africa for a Borderless Continent

Abstract

Africa has, for a long time, aspired to achieve Continental unity. However, the continent has not made much progress despite the many attempts put forward. This has been attributed to several underlying issues that have not been adequately addressed. One of these has been the different manifestations of nationalism that have tended to derail the process over time. To realize its borderless continent aspirations, Africa must confront the challenge of nationalism and its variants that are prevalent in every states’ effort towards this goal. To achieve this, this study sought to analyze the philosophical and ontological premise of nationalism, its impacts on regional integration in Africa, the border governance question in facilitating cross border movement and investigated how African states and non-state actors could cooperate to confront the challenges posed by the multifaceted nationalism in the 21st Century Africa. Regional integration efforts on the continent have largely been state-centric. However, globalization has allowed for an interplay of state and non-state actors in driving forward the process. States, however, have continued to hold onto nationalistic ideals, characterized by delimited territorial spaces, state authority and claims of sovereign powers. Globalization theory and the New Regionalism Approach offered the framework through which African Continental integration process has been analyzed. The New Regionalism Approach offered new insights on the place of non-state actors in regional integration in the contemporary globalized political economy. Through a mixed method approach, the study collected quantitative data through a survey questionnaire with purposively sampled target population while qualitative data was sourced from data banks of organizations committed to African Regional Integration. The study found out that confronting nationalisms would catalyze the African continent to achieve her borderless aspiration. The study recommends further analysis on the impacts of nationalism on the regional integration process in Africa. It also recommends that policy makers is need to address the many issues that impede free movement of persons, goods and services across national borders and to promote values that bring the continent together like a common language.