Integration in the Southern African Development Community Region: Peoples' Agency, Popular Participation, and Democratization

Integration in the Southern African Development Community Region: Peoples' Agency, Popular Participation, and Democratization, edited by Korwa Gombe Adar, Dorothy Mpabanga, Kebapetse Lotshwao, Thekiso Molokwane, and Norbert Musekiwa, engages in the debate associated with "the people of Southern Africa" (people of the Region)―democratization and integration nexus envisaged in the 1980 treaty which established the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Using political and public administration perspectives, the editors argue that for democratization and integration to be tangibly consolidated and institutionalized, direct involvement of the people of Southern Africa, the peoples' agency, is paramount and would lead to what is dubbed in this book as sadcness and sadcnization. More specifically, democratization and integration are about people (citizens), the sovereigns, and not merely the abstract actors called nation states. Using the case studies of Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the contributors have, from political and public administration dimensions, engaged in this epistemology assessing, among other things, the peoples' of Southern Africa-the Southern Africa Development Community integration nexus.

Elvin Shava is Senior Lecturer of Governance at the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

Siphamandla Zondi is Professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Johannesburg, South Africa