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Stephanie Amanda Perstrup

Stephanie Amanda Perstrup
Shaping the Internal Dynamics of Regional Integration: The Role of the ECOWAS Commission
Faculty of Social Sciences
Wednesday 03 January 2018

The Role of the ECOWAS Commission in Regional Integration

There is a research gap around the Regional Economic Communities in Africa, despite these having achieved a range of policy objectives.

One such community is ECOWAS, and this study attempts to address the aforementioned knowledge gap, focusing on this community in particular, exploring the role of its Commission. It does so both with interview data and later on, through survey data as well. How do officials of the ECOWAS Commission perceive their role? How do they view decision-making processes within the Commission and, in particular, its relations to external partners, institutions and member states? These are just some of the questions the interviews set out to map out.

My task in this project was to transcribe semi-structured interviews with Commission officials. This gave me the opportunity to deepen my experience with transcription, particularly with the added challenges of unfamiliar accents and some language shifts. I also gained a lot of knowledge about an institution and organisation that I knew very little about before starting this project, and I appreciated the chance to learn about an interesting topic which I wouldn't have had the chance to explore in the same way in a classroom.

I'd like to thank Stefan Gänzle for inviting me to participate in the project and for giving me this amazing opportunity. I am looking forward to seeing how this project progresses, even after my part has finished.