Crafting regional political authority. Africa and Latin America in comparative perspective – REGPOL-ALA

This research project aims to explore the surge of new forms of political authority beyond states. The main objective will be to identify the types, determinants and effects of the “regional political authority”, understood in this project as the formal or informal capacity to guide decision-making processes and to propose legitimate interpretations of regional problems and actions to be taken. Using a mixed methodological approach and a multi-sited study, we explore how regional organizations and their agents reconfigure their relations with states, build new forms of legitimacy for action and intervene in decision-making processes. This project is resolutely comparative in that it selects four regional organizations belonging to two continental areas: Africa and Latin America (African Union (AU, 2002-2021); East African Community (EAC, 2000-2021); Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR, 1991-2021); Central American Integration System (SICA, 1991-2021)). For each of these cases, the study of three phenomena, namely bureaucratic autonomy, the constitution of status groups (regional professionals), and regional politicization, will contribute to go beyond institutionalist analyses of regional governance and to address the vivid debate on comparative regionalism by promoting a sociological analysis of regional political authority in the making.