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Since the mid-15thcentury, the space economy in Africa has assumed an imperial outlook under the influence of European mercantilism. It was the era that unfettered capitalism prevailed as economic orthodoxy for control of regional economies. At the inception of fettered capitalism in the mid-20thcentury, an imperial structure that served western interests under colonial rule was further entrenched in many African countries. At the turn of the 21stcentury, neoliberalism emerged as global economic orthodoxy, and free-trade relations implemented to manage Euro-American and Chinese mercantilism worldwide. This unleashed epistemological ideologies that ushered in urban productivity decline in the African space economy. As an entry point to address this urban development challenge in new regionalism, this article makes a case for neo-mercantilism as an alternative development ideology for Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the role of organized business in regional economic integration is well documented, extant scholarship portrays them as mere legitimizers and partners of regional policy. This neat categorization fails to capture the complicated, ‘multiscalarity’ of business and overall civil society's role in regional governance. Drawing insights from social constructivism and empirical evidence from fieldwork conducted in 2012 and 2013 on the interactions between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and region-wide business associations and advocacy networks since the early 1990s, this article shows that although African business groups are relatively new actors at the regional stage, their impact on regional governance is substantial. This is not only in terms of getting governments to adopt particular policies or the ability to hold the state accountable, as functional institutionalists might argue, but also in terms of the regional socialization effects, namely the willingness and ability to frame issues that influence the choices of political decision-makers. Business regional governance roles also straddle competing conventional roles, and sometimes counter the neoliberal vision of regional integration, even among those that owe their emergence to regional organizations. The study also challenges the pervasive view of business actors (especially in Africa) as simply profit-seekers by highlighting the ways business actors have deployed and acted on principled beliefs about regional identity collectively or individually to forge denser and relatively effective policy coalitions that signal unfolding changes in the direction of regional policy in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a sub-Saharan country, Mauritius has been branded a success story in terms of its sustained economic growth performance, with major improvements in the living standards of its population at large over the past few decades. This paper has the objectives of revisiting this success story, essentially by analyzing the numerous policies that have been adopted, to provide insights into Africa's policy options. The Mauritian case study demonstrates that no single dose of economic reforms may generate growth dividends to perpetuity, especially when the current economic environment differs from initial conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]