Assessing Regional Diffusion from Brussels to Addis Ababa: The Limits of Modelling and Mentoring

A scholar of regional integration recently asked ‘why do regional organizations (sic) share a number of key institutions and policies’ (Jetschke, 2010). This paper asks a similar question. Specifically, it is attempting to solve the puzzle of why the European Union is a model for the African Union despite the divergences in their histories. Evidently, Africa is no stranger to regional integration as evidenced by the existence of many such organisations on the continent. Nevertheless, the new continental organisation, the African Union (AU) very much resembles its European counterpart.