The formation of African Union: Analysis of the role of ideas and supranational entrepreneurs in interstate cooperation

The study seeks to explain why post colonial governments agreed to commit themselves to institutional mechanisms that set limits on core sovereign prerogatives of their states and undermine the international norm of territorial integrity of states. It is ironic that African governments would establish and commit to institutional mechanisms that undercut the international norm that has protected the existence of post-colonial states. I argue that the Pan-African solidarity norm provided structural and regulative framework for Africrats---i.e., Organization of African Unity (OAU) bureaucrats---to influence African governments to commit their states to the institutional mechanisms. Africrats put together the institutional mechanisms which is now called the African Union. They then used the OAU's rules, norms, decision-making procedures, and resources to engineer the interests of a majority of African political leaders in the institutional mechanisms and also influenced representatives of African states to adopt them to guide interstate cooperation in continental Africa.