The Finances of Regional Security Organizations in the Global South

Abstract

This book addresses a major gap in the longstanding research on regional organisations: how do their finances work and what do they reveal about the region-building process? It brings together an empirically rich collection of chapters written by experts of regional organisations in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Based on the insights on thirteen regional organisations as well as two chapters dedicated to the influence of external funders, the editors develop typologies to cluster regional organisations according to their financial characteristics: the size of budgets, the sources of funding and the criteria to calculate contributions. Through analysing the process of budgeting and resourcing, the book sheds light on the different nature and functioning of these organisations existing outside of the Global North and puts a specific emphasis on regional organisations in the area of security in Africa and the Global South. It provides explanations to why members pay or do not pay and how budgeting works, and it deals with data availability, the role of donors, overlapping regionalism, cultural transfers between regional organisations and the impact on regional actorness.

This volume will be of key interest to scholars and students of African studies and politics, the Global South, the finances of international organisations, comparative regionalism, international political economy and international relations.

Biographical Note

Prof. Dr. Ulf Engel (SFB 1199 & Leipzig University)

Ulf Engel is professor of ‘Politics in Africa’ at the Institute of African Studies at Leipzig University (Germany). He is also a visiting professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia) and a professor extraordinary in the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University (South Africa).

Frank Mattheis (United Nations University- Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies)

Frank Mattheis is Associate Research Fellow at UNU-CRIS, working on financial aspects of regionalism and contributing to the Regional Integration Knowledge System (RIKS 2.0). He is researcher at the Institute for European Studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles, focusing on interregional relations between Europe and Africa.

Previously, he was senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria (South Africa), where he coordinated several research projects on the Atlantic as a regional social space (e.g. Atlantic Future). Prior, Frank Mattheis was senior research fellow at the Centre for Area Studies of the University of Leipzig (Germany), first on a project on “Changing Stateness in Africa”, and then on “New Regionalisms in a Changing Global Order: Mapping Latin America and Africa”.

He is trained in Global Studies and holds a MA from the Universities of Leipzig and Vienna and a Dr. phil. from the University of Leipzig. His doctoral thesis offers a conceptual framework to overcome Eurocentric theorising and Southern idiosyncrasy in the study of regionalisms.

Recent publications include an edited volume on The Finances of Regional Organisations in the Global South, a special issue on Broadening the debate on EU-Africa relations and a monograph on Fringe Regionalism.