Regime Stability in Sustainable Regional Integration: A Case Study of Kenya in the East African Community (EAC)

Regional integration is a renowned global phenomenon through which states and countries come together in cooperation with the aim of actualizing specified goals and objectives. Integration in Africa and East Africa is inseparable from the colonial history. In East Africa it dates back to the colonial times as the European colonialists sought to bring together Kenya Uganda and Tanzania in socio-economic and political cooperation. The process has undergone different phases to its present state, realizing milestones both in membership increment and agency. This study explores the relatedness between regime stability and sustainable regional integration based on the hypothesis that sustainable regional integration is dependent on regime stability of the partner states. Domestic stability further informs a state’s formulation of foreign policy and its involvement in the process of regional integration. It is worth noting that a state’s foreign policy formulation may be informed by its domestic environment as well as the psychological and operational milieu of the individual in leadership. This study however limited itself to the examination of the domestic milieu. Through the secondary sources and semi-structured interviews, this study noted interconnectedness between regime stability and economic development. Regime and domestic stability were used interchangeably in this research. The hypothesis in this study was explored with Kenya as the case study. Kenya was chosen owing to its strategic political and economic position in the East African region.