Chapter 1 starts by looking at West Africa’s future, where rapid population growth is expected to continue over the next two generations. Settlement basins will continue to densify and expand, reaching across borders, and there will be more and larger cities. As a result, cross-border interaction will increase naturally regardless of the level of support from national and regional policy. The chapter will then look briefly at the cross-border dynamics developed by local actors which share a number of common factors, namely: bypassing institutional initiatives and dealing with the abuse of power, absence or shortcomings of those in charge of applying regulatory controls. It lastly addresses the potential of the paper’s research and the advantage of actively narrowing the gap between bottom-up regionalisation dynamics and top-down regionalism, while considering the time-lags frequently experienced in improving public policy.

Chapter 2 – a relational approach to cross-border co-operation in West Africa – demonstrates the importance of cross-border co-operation and public policy for regional integration in West Africa and the different forms each of the aforementioned concepts can take. It examines equally the three dimensions of cross-border co-operation and public policy, identifying current developments, potential areas for increased activity and political visions for its future progression. Gaps are then identified between these dimensions, suggesting the need for more relational approaches to cross-border co-operation that offer more tailored policies. The chapter then concludes with a brief description of institutional models that have shown to be effective in aiding closer regional integration.

Chapter 3 reviews the implications of the enlargement of ideas of regionalism since the 1990s and calls for more systematic monitoring of the diversity of region-building institutions and cross-border interactions in West Africa. It highlights that specific attention needs to be paid to the historical development of West Africa’s regional institutions and their distinctive architectures and cultures. The dynamics of cross-border interactions that provide diverse contributions to integration are then analysed, along with the implications of “defragmentation” policies and processes that should enhance the regional and global integration of African economies. Against this backdrop, the conclusion draws attention to the importance of deepening understanding of the policy-networks that operate both within regional institutions and across borders.

Chapter 4 explores the theory of social network analysis and its applicability for cross-border co-operation in West Africa. The objective of this chapter is to show how a formal approach to the study of networks can be applied in West Africa to better understand how policy makers co-operate across borders in the region. The chapter starts by discussing some of the fundamental concepts developed by social network analysis over the last decades, including centrality, embeddedness, and brokerage. It then examines the methodological challenges of network analysis and how it differs from other approaches, before highlighting some of the policy implications of social network analysis for West Africa.